Sophomores learned about Ethiopian Jewry this week during The Frisch Africa Encounter
Jewish Heart for Africa is now Innovation: Africa
Preparations for The Frisch Africa Encounter are well underway, with students taking over my office to plan their Green-a-thon fundraiser and the activities for the night of December 18. The students have decided to sell coffee in eco-friendly cups in order to raise money for Innovation: Africa (formerly known as Jewish Heart for Africa), an organization that uses sustainable Israeli technologies to improve life in Africa.
As we're running our interdisciplinary project on Africa, Innovation: Africa was busy at the UN. Founder of the organization Sivan Ya'ari spoke at the UN on December 5:
Integration of Ethiopian Jewry into Israeli Society
Sophomores this past week learned a song in Hebrew class about Ethiopian Jews and their quest to come to Israel. That lesson was to prepare students for a presentation from my sister Smadar Goldstein, an online education provider who runs her company JETS from Israel. She was visiting New Jersey this past week and was able to give her presentation about Ethiopian Jewry in person (last year, she presented the information via a webinar).
Students learned that Ethiopian Jews had been exiled with the Kingdom of Israel and hadn't known about events in Jewish history such as the destruction of the First Temple, Purim, Chanukah and the creation of the Talmud. When the Ethiopian Jews were brought to Israel, many wept when they discovered the temple had been destroyed! Students also heard from an appealing and endearing couple, Asher and Esther Fredman, and the challenges they faced as an interracial couple. The presentation discussed many of the challenges Ethiopian Jews have faced in Israel as well as the successes they have enjoyed. For example, everyone in Israel now celebrates SIGD Day, an Ethiopian holiday.
Here are a few pictures from the Ethiopian presentation:
When students return to Hebrew class this week, they'll discuss the issue of Sudanese refugees in Israel. The sophomores will see the complexity of this very contemporary problem: on the one hand, we want to help the refugees from Sudan because we've been persecuted and driven out of so many lands ourselves and so can identify with their plight. On the other hand, we want to make sure Israel is the haven for Jews it needs to be, since Jews all over the world are safer because Israel exists. In this part of The Frisch Africa Encounter, sophomores will hopefully learn about some of the thorny problems confronting Israel today.
One of my goals this year was to introduce more student-designed learning into my curriculum. I discussed the possibility of doing so with my principal and fellow English teachers at The Frisch School, and we decided the best place for a student-designed learning project was in AP English Literature. That's because the course doesn't demand that a particular body of knowledge be taught, but rather it requires students to learn skills that can be applied to all works of poetry and prose.
I sat down with my fellow AP English Literature teachers, Rabbi Daniel Rosen and Mrs. Ruth Wang-Birnbaum, over the course of the summer and at the beginning of the school year, and we hammered out the requirements of the assignment. We also decided on a name for the project: Frisch LEADs -- Learning. Exploring. Analyzing. Designing:
Rabbi Rosen, Mrs. Wang-Birnbaum and I decided that in order to chart the progress and increase the digital literacy of each student, we would have the students blog about their Frisch LEADs project. We therefore put together a set of blog requirements and deadlines for the students:
Most students had severe allergic reactions ;) to the assignment when we gave it to them, but they have since calmed down and are progressing well with their projects. Here are some really good blogs students have created for the project:
Sample Student Blog #1:
R. Freilich has a fun and meaningful Frisch LEADs project. She's going to take her family's passion for gangster movies and research society’s perception of the mafia/organized crime.The investigation will include an in depth analysis of the psychology of crime and family. What I like about R.'s project is that she took her own family's interest in mob films and made it into an investigation of a dysfunctional and violent family system. Check out R.'s blog and see her thoughtful posts: R. Freilich's Blog Sample Student Blog #2: Eddie is not only doing a great job blogging about his actual project; he is also making use of the blog medium to express his funny, whimsical and sophisticated views of the world. Find Eddie's very amusing blog here: Eddie Maza's Blog
Sample Student Blog #3:
Finally, Penina's blog: I have to warn you that Penina is the type of student who does %200 of the work, so be prepared when you read her blog to be dumbfounded by the amount of information in it.
Another fact you should be aware of is that Penina is working with Eddie on the Frisch LEADs project, and in deference to the policy of full disclosure, I must reveal that I've been working with these two students since last year on their topic of education reform, as they founded RealSchool with me. RealSchool is an academic program that advocates and models education reform by having students engage in self-directed, whole-person learning.
In subsequent blog posts, I'll address some of the issues the Frisch LEADs assignment has raised, but I want to end by stating that when I was figuring out my grades for the quarter, I found that I had a much fuller picture of what each senior in my AP English Literature was like than I had of students in other classes. The Frisch LEADs project has given me a window into the personality, interests and passions of the students, enabling me to see them not as English students but as whole people. It's also fascinating and enlightening to gain a sense of the unique voices that are emerging in the students' blog posts. I'm excited about what the Frisch LEADs project is eliciting in my seniors and look forward to what my students and I will continue to learn!
Yesterday, I launched The Frisch Africa Encounter with the sophomores at The Frisch School. This is the second year I'm running this month-long interdisciplinary program, though I launched it this year with the help of current juniors, who were the first in the school to experience it. Launching with the help of students, I discovered, is fantastic. It not only empowers the students creating the launch, but the sophomores who were first learning about what's going to be a month-long exploration of the African continent were much more excited to hear about the program from their peers as opposed to from their boring and generally useless teachers.
The Satire: Is our Wealth Hurting Africa's Feelings?
The juniors and I started the program with a clip from The Onion, not only because the sophomores begin the year learning about The Canterbury Tales and satire, but also because the clip is hilarious. I've watched it about 137 times already, and I still find it funny.
The sophomores also found it pretty amusing, and after we all stopped laughing, we discussed the problems in Africa that the video raises in its satirical way. I pointed out that this was the second year in a row a hurricane has hit the East Coast and wiped out power immediately before the students have to try and imagine what it's like to live in Africa, where many people live not only without electricity but also without proper plumbing, water and basic medical care. I then showed the sophomores this graphic:
The sophomores immediately understood what was wrong with this picture.
The Need to Help
Frisch students are often immersed in social causes -- in fact, they're now busy gathering supplies for victims of Hurricane Sandy -- but the next important step in presenting the program was explaining the necessity of concerning ourselves with those less fortunate who live so far away. My six student representatives from the junior class were up for this task:
This is their script:
Mrs. Wiener: But out of all the countries in the world, why should we care about Africa?
Simmy: Almost immediately after Israel was formed, its leaders began addressing the needs of those on the African continent.
Golda Meir believed the lessons learned by Israelis could be passed on to Africans.
Ariela: Golda Meir said, "Like them we had shaken off foreign rule; like them, we had to learn for ourselves how to reclaim the land, how to increase the yields of our crops, how to irrigate, how to raise poultry, how to live together, and how to defend ourselves." [Ed. note: this information was taken from the website, Jewish Virtual Library]
Marni: But the need to help the other, the stranger goes back further than that, to the Torah itself, which tells us:
"V'atem ye'datem et nefesh ha-ger ki gerim ha-yitem b'eretz Mitzrayim."
Talia: "And you know the heart of the stranger because you were strangers in the land of Egypt."
That phrase appears 36 times in the Torah, more than love of God or keeping Shabbat.
Mendy: OK, we should help! But how can we help? Lots of places in Africa need our attention. For example, Darfur:
The Darfur genocide began in 2003 and has claimed the lives of hundreds of thousands of people. Millions have been displaced or forced to leave their homes.
Max: Since 2010 there have been peace talks, but the situation in Sudan is still unstable.
Then we showed this video:
The Fundraiser for Jewish Heart for Africa
After agreeing that we didn't want to help Darfur by educating Africans about who Matt Damon is and how much he's doing to help Darfur (watch the video), I let the students know that we would be conducting a Green-A-Thon, a program in which the students will raise money by performing green acts. The money students raise will be donated to Jewish Heart for Africa (JHA), an organization that uses sustainable Israeli technologies to improve life in Africa. Follow the link below to a page on JHA's website and watch the funky video on the left side of the webpage to see what the sophomores watched (the video on the right is pretty cool and informative, too).
[Note: JHA will soon be known as Innovation: Africa.]
Frisch chose to work with Jewish Heart for Africa, which was recently granted consultative status to the UN Economic and Social Council, because the organization accomplishes two very important things:
* it improves life in Africa by using sustainable technologies, that is, technologies that enable Africans to be self-sustaining and that are green
* it improve Israel's economy and Israel's standing in the world
The Month-Long Interdiscplinary Unit
Once the sophomores understood why they should be concerned with Africa, the juniors and I were ready to tell them that over the course of the month, they'll learn about Africa:
* by completing a research paper in history class on some aspect of life in sub-Sahara Africa
* by reading either The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver or Little Bee by Chris Cleave
* by learning about the integration of Ethiopian Jews into Israeli society in a webinar with Israeli educator and my sister Smadar Goldstein of JETS
* by creating an artwork made of recycled materials and that makes a political statement about life in Africa, with Mrs. Ahuva Mantell, Frisch's art teacher
* by studying how Judaism advocates for minority rights
* by putting their work onto a digital media platform for a night when they share what they've learned with their parents and the Frisch community.
The Green-A-Thon will also be a vital part of the month, as Frisch aims to light up a school building in Africa with the money the students raise. Our Green-A-Thon fundraiser has actually been named Lights for Learning.
The Juniors Share The 2011 Frisch Africa Encounter
The juniors wrapped up the program by showing the video they created about what they had gotten out of their Frisch Africa Encounter:
The Month Ahead
I'm now busy gathering a list of students who want to be on an Activities Committee for the evening. Last year the Activities Committee built an African village for the students and parents to visit. I'm also putting together a Green-A-Thon Committee and a list of students who want to create artworks -- from recycled materials, of course -- instead of a digital media project.
Stay tuned for more details as the month unfolds, and feel free to attend The Frisch Africa Encounter on December 18, 2012!
For More Resources:
Contact me at Tikvah.Wiener@Frisch.org for a way to access The Frisch School wiki, where you can find additional resources for this interdisciplinary project.
I thought the following poem, one of my favorites, could be coupled with the following video, introduced to me by my talented colleague, Mrs. Ahuva Mantell. The video was made by Chipotle and is called "Back to the Start":
And though the last lights off the black West went
Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs—
Because the Holy Ghost over the bent
World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings.
I'm also planning to ask my AP English Language students to debate whether food manufacturers have a responsibility to let consumers know if food is genetically modified.
Speaking of the AP English Language exam, here's a link to an AP English Language exam essay question on locavores and sample essays in response to that question:
This integration unit is for my AP English Literature class, which will cover the Western literary tradition. We're beginning with Medea and excerpts from the Odyssey (older posts include assignments the class is already undertaking). Below is the first of a series of comparisons the class will be making between the Torah and works from the Western canon. Many of the ideas in the comparison are taken from Harold Fisch's wonderful book, Poetry with a Purpose: Biblical Poetics and Interpretation, which Professor Simeon Chavel recommended.
After students read the following paper, they'll be asked to look for prayers in any weekday or holiday liturgy that raise consciousness of the fact that God is creator and asks us to participate in creation with him by exhorting us to build a more just and good world. Students can look for that theme in the arrangement of prayers or for the leitmotif words we studied in the unit below and analyze how those words are used to remind one of the covenantal agreement. Greeks, Qohelet and Genesis
I'm going to give my students the following list, as well as the list of common grammar mistakes I posted today, and have them own their own writing errors by choosing the three most common grammar mistakes and three most common writing errors they feel they have. I'll ask them to revise those six mistakes in the latest essay they wrote and look out for them, proofreading for those errors specifically, in the next assignment they have in my class. Using the grammar and writing section on the school's wiki, students will also be able to access PowerPoints on grammar problems that I've found on the internet as well as other helpful grammar websites I've linked to the wiki.
I'm toying with having the students write about their progress in writing. I've had one class this year do some writing about their revision process and am wondering if students improve their writing by writing about writing. I like the skills such an assignment develops: students get another opportunity to write in English class, students have to focus on closely on grammar and grapple with it in a way that's concrete and relevant, and students are engaged in meta-cognitive thinking. The added benefit with this assignment is that it is also personalized; students are writing about their own grammar demons.
As the year progresses, I'll add additional and more complex grammar and writing concepts for those students who are ready for them. Everyone can advance at his/her own pace.
Mrs. Wiener’s Writing
Tips
Topic
sentences and transitional words:
Each paragraph should have a clear topic sentence, and topic sentences in paragraphs
in the essay body should have transitional words. Transitional words should
also be used to move from one idea to the next within paragraphs.
Paragraph
length: Paragraphs should be a
consistent length throughout an essay and should be 5-8 sentences.
Point of
view: Stay in third-person point of
view throughout a formal essay. Don’t use you
in a formal essay.
Punctuation
of citations and quotations: Look
up MLA style for these. Make sure you begin all quotations with a dialogue tag.
Here is one of my favorite sites for writing and for proper MLA citation:
Simplify: Don’t bog yourself down in words. Make sure
your thesis, the arguments you use to back it up and the specific details from
the text you’re using in your arguments are all explained clearly. Worry about
improving vocabulary once you know you’ve made your points clearly and have
enough proof from the text.
Usage of
terms: Are you using terms
correctly? Check with me to make sure.
Identify
characters and establish context:
Make sure you treat your reader with courtesy and introduce characters when you
first mention them, explaining who they are and how they fit into the work.
Also be sure to explain the background of the story, otherwise known as the
context. Treat your reader as if he/she hasn’t read the work you’re discussing
in your essay. Ask yourself what details need to be included to give your
reader an accurate understanding of the point you want to prove.
Top Grammar Mistakes (Or if Mrs. Wiener had a dime for every time she saw one of these doozies, she'd be retired and living in Rome by now)
t – error in tense
shift
For literature, we use simple present tense (Dorian does not
age; Daniel Sempere seeks the identity of Lain Courbet).
For history, we use past tense (The causes of the American
Revolution were . . .).
ref – reference error
The pronoun doesn’t refer to a noun or the correct noun (the
pronoun’s antecedent).
mm/dm – misplaced
modifier/dangling modifier
A group of words describing a noun in the sentence are not
near the noun or are not describing a noun that even appears in the sentence.
Misplaced modifier:
Flying overhead, the audience in the stadium watched the plane.
Dangling modifier:
Walking down the street, my wallet fell out of my pocket.
agr – agreement
Pronoun and antecedent don’t agree in number or subject and
pronoun don’t agree in number (student errors are usually the former).
Example: The writer
shows that a person has to mend their ways.
ss – sentence structure
This one is tricky,
I’ll grant you that, because what ss means is that the sentence is
written poorly, and it could have been done so in many ways. You could have
been writing as you would speak, you could have a run-on with a fragment (I’ve seen
this!), you could simply have no control of the language. You have to begin to notice when your writing sounds awful and when it sounds like something your
teacher, not just the 472 people you text with, would agree is written in
English.
d – diction, which
means word choice
You’re not using a word
correctly.
ww – wrong word
You’re using the wrong
word: loose for lose, or two for too or to
wdy – wordy
More is not better.
Actually, being brief and simple falls under the category of good grammar.
Being brief doesn’t mean you should eschew the use of good vocabulary words
(did you see what I just did there? I put a good vocabulary word into that
sentence). It means you should be speaking in a clear, straightforward manner,
making your points sharply and succinctly, including the details you need and
omitting whatever you don’t.
coll – colloquialism
You should not use colloquialisms,
words or expressions from everyday language. The word kid should never appear in a formal essay, for example.
r-o/frag – run-on
sentence/fragment
Do you still have
problems with these? See a grammar book immediately!
p – punctuation
Italicize (underline in
handwritten works) names of books and plays. Put short story and poem titles in
quotation marks.
Cite page numbers
according to MLA standards (This information is easy to find on the internet).
cap – capitalization
Errors in
capitalization are getting worse each year because of texting. Yes, texting isn’t
only dangerous when you drive. It’s also dangerous to your essay writing. It’s
making you oblivious to the rules of capitalization, for one.
Examples: 1) Capitalize
all important words of a title. Always! Not just the first time you cite the
title.
2) Why am I seeing
random common nouns capitalized? Are you Emily Dickinson? (I don’t expect you to
understand that reference. Maybe Wikipedia can help.) Unless
you are a famous poet, please capitalize proper nouns and don’t capitalize
common nouns. What are proper and common nouns? Dust off those notes from
second grade and review.
