end-of-semester reports

hi there:

i still need commentaries from some of you on your experiences with the club. if you could please send them to me by the end of the week i would be grateful. they don't have to be complicated, only i would like to see how you saw the internship within your own education and your assessment of the club's success, including what you would like to see the club do next year.

thanks and congratulations to everyone graduating

abrazos,
lisa

MIL GRACIAS

Thanks a million to all of you for creating the Club and for your tremendous work with the children this semester. You all are life-changing, too, you must know -- Ms. Chapuis and I are working on making this a very long-term project. So look forward to seeing Chelsea and anyone else that wants to continue, or stop by, next year. Please keep in touch, all of you, and look to me if you need a stellar recommendation --

Un abrazo muy fuerte,
Lisa

movie for wed.

hi there
can someone take the movie "My American Girls" back to the library at GMU this week? thanks so much.

l.

a request for bios for our website for friday's program

hi there:

i just met with our technology assistant Meghan Brossea, and she is putting together a lovely website for us to show off on friday, complete with space for the children's folktales and ethnographies. Meghan would like to have short bios of the teachers in the Culture Club if you are willing. Can you send them to her at mbrossea@gmu.edu as soon as possible? thanks so much!

lisa

today's session

Since we do not have the computer lab on Mondays, today we just went over the questions that were on the lesson plan and discussed the differences in the cultural aspects of all of our ethnicities. We didnt get to do any of the questions that were for wednesday. But we had a pretty nice discussion and we took the last part of the session to help them with homework. Good luck to the wednesday crew!

Shavon

last reading, for april 28

For your final reading and discussion text from e-reserves please access the chapter "Reading Curricula" from Wendy Morgan's Critical Literacy in the Classroom. Morgan's book contributes a vital piece to critical literacy theory and praxis (putting theory into practice), which is stories from the classroom. In this chapter she talks about a unit on ethnography that you may be interested in in its possible connections with what Katie has planned.

The major question I'd like you to consider here is the question of the pleasure of reading and seeing cultural representations that Morgan addresses. How do you think one's education in literacy (in English or Spanish) does or does not allow for pleasure and for what pleasure might bring to one's growth in literacy? Can you think of moments in which the children in the club had feelings of delight about what you all were doing? How do you think this differed from other moments?

I have an anecdote. The day I was there with Ron to teach on Sandra Cisneros I got as far as the epigraph in the novel: "Cue'ntame algo, aunque sea mentira." At that Alex said, "Oh I said that today." I asked what it meant to them and we talked a bit about storytelling, which led them to turn out the lights on us and tell ghost stories, and you know how much pleasure they got from that. Real "ooooooooh's" tell you something.

Lisa

final logistics and assignments

hey culture club:

it was my understanding that the club would go through the first week of may. if others cannot make it i will be there to do katie's lesson, which looks wonderful.

i would like you all to write a text and post it on the blog about your experience with the Culture Club. please address such issues as how you see the experience within your education, what you feel was accomplished with the children, what you saw as truly significant moments, and what you would suggest for the future club. if you can do this it would be greatly appreciated. i am going to work with ms. chapuis on an ethnographic project on the club and your thoughts are vital!

thanks!

lisa

will post reading for next week on friday

hi:

no reading this week because of Passover and Easter. Sorry to not have let you know!

i'll post a reading for next week this friday.

did you all understand next week as the last (sob)?

we've been asked to present on the c club at gunston's activities night on april 28. i said i would put together a presentation and go. would anyone like to join me between 6-8? also, can we have the children type out or dictate to be typed out their immigration stories? and does anyone have their ghost stories printed out?

lisa