[revdoc1947]

HI Jennifer,

Are you lucky or what? My high school students are sub-standard. In other words, this is the high school of last resort. Some of my kids are functionally illiterate in Korean!

Anyway, my fantasy before I got assigned to this school, but knew I would be teaching high school had many components. I had been looking forward to showing my students good American movies with a theme they could relate to. Then I would have a discussion period about the film. I used to teach at the college level.....one of the films I used quite often was "Groundhog Day". It's listed as a comedy, but the message is deeply planted......the only day any of us have is today.

That's one idea.

Another would be to read books with the students....or short stories to stimulate discussions.

Showa powerpoint presentation on some historic place in the U.S......sort of like a guided tour. Encourage students to talk about the places they have visited and what they liked most about it.


Do a "family tree". This could take one day or one month, depending on how far you want to go with it. Kids could draw the tree and place family members accordingly....back as many generations as they could/liked. They could interview family members and ask each person to tell as story about some particular period of their lives. Students could then write and present these stories in class.

All of these kinds of projects encourage an expansion of vocabulary and also work to build the student's comfort with making in-class presentations.

Hope you find some of these helpful.

Victoria