Now it’s my turn to teach. I had my 7th graders write letters to the Filipino students. They introduced themselves in the first paragraph, wrote about positive things happening in Chicago, wrote about our education system, and they asked questions for the last paragraphs. I was very worried that the Filipino students would have a hard time understanding the letters with all of the grammatical mistakes! I was also worried with how much the Owls would understand. I figured the STEM students would have an easier time. I was wrong. All of the students jumped right in and loved reading the letters! They shared the letters with their friends or others sitting by them. Each student probably got to read 3 or 4 of the letters. I showed them photos of the authors of the letters. The Darwin group (one of the STEM groups) all ran up to my computer and asked me to point out specific students. Pretty soon, they were enlarging the photos and pointing out certain students to their classmates who perhaps didn’t see who was who the first time around. It was awesome! After they had spent some time with the letters, I asked the students to write back to my students. They were very excited to do so! Some of the students asked if they could write to specific students and answer their questions. Other students wrote general letters. It was great to see the students so engaged in reading and writing! I wish MORMS had more technology, so we could keep the exchanges up. Many of the students asked their Chicago counterparts to friend them on Facebook, so some of them will probably be able to be in touch with each other.
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AuthorJenn Henderson is a Teachers for Global Classrooms fellow. She will be traveling to the Philippines in June 2017. Archives
September 2017
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