December
12
ELA 20: Dec 13 “The Most Important Day” and poem about “The World is a Beautiful Place”…
- We began today with a bit of a discussion for clarification about yesterday’s assigned photo essay. There is both an essay and a photo essay due. The essay portion should be much more simple for students to approach because they have recently written a more formal (more difficult) essay and spent some time focusing on writing better intros and conclusions. This is more of a practice essay and their topic is of their choice so it is more about going through the process again.
- For the photo essay portion, we talked about details and options. I showed students a few examples through the projector cart to give them some ideas about possibilities. I think they have a fair understanding of what is expected.
- We started talking about the Helen Keller essay titled “The Most Important Day”. We went into some background to her story and the ultimate difference her teacher Anne Sullivan made in her life. We read the essay, which focused on the one particular day when a future was unveiled before her once she was given that first touch of communication. Then we thought about the idea, as a class, of having such potential and possibilities at our personal fingertips, for none of us have physical limitations, but realized that the number of people to actually take advantage of their potential is disappointing. When compared to what Helen Keller has accomplished, you would think we each would do great things in life. Can we hope for that?
- We also read the poem titled “The World is a Beautiful Place” and some were surprised by harsh criticism of the world, war, politics, etc at the beginning, the happy-go-lucky, fun-in-the-sun mood at the end and the final “smiling” mortician. Students discussed its mood and purpose and shared a few thoughts about the message. It was an intriguing poem and worth a few read-throughs.
- Tomorrow, students will have time to work on their essay projects.