It Is Time For A Change!
Throughout my college years I have noticed that, even as an English major, my high school did not prepare me for college or the real world. Coming into college I did not have a resume, or did not know how to construct one, did not know how to properly write a professional email or letter, had never used APA format, could barely use MLA format, and had never written a paper anything different than a standard five paragraph essay. That is a long list of core essentials I missed out on. Other college students and young adults are just as clueless and some have even less instruction than I have been given.
IT IS TIME FOR A CHANGE! Writing skills can be accumulated through a variety of activities. Free-writing at the beginning of class, no matter the age, for five minutes will kick start students thinking about what they will be learning for that day. Projects such as debates, wax museums, news broadcasts, etc. are all creative ideas that will have students learning out to write as well as developing their social skills and public speaking skills. And with the availability of technology, students can learn how to innovate new ideas with film projects, story boards, and blogs (just like this one!)
News Broadcast Assignment
Why should you do it? Not only is it important for teachers to use technology to stay creative and versatile with their teaching, it is important to teach students how to use new mechanisms and incorporate them in assignments. I have come up with a news broadcast assignment for students and have provided a sample of what it should look like. Note that the girls in the video do a “Roll Call” where they call on a random school in the country, this is not necessary. However, the girls reporting real life issues that they have research is the purpose of the project.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yCc34ijycO8
What is it?
The video will be in replacement for a standard research paper. The students will be in groups of three. The students will choose a company to complain to in a sense, they will choose a problem they have with a company or organization and research ways to improve the company. The students will still be required to write the “research paper” however, instead of the standard five paragraph essay, students will write a professional proposal letter to the head of a company of the students choice addressing a problem and possible solution for such as: a product the student has not liked (and why), environmental issues the company faces, (and why) ethical issue the company faces, (and why) and any topic the student is passionate about. The proposal letter will still require the same amount of research to be included as a research paper, but the students will be writing to a different audience, as well as creating a video to work on technology techniques, public speaking, and transforming their writing to speaking.