Skip to main content

The Evolution of the American Family

I stole this from my mom, who taught 11th-grade English for Medina City Schools for many years...

This is a multi-media exploration of various short YouTube video clips and a podcast that allows students to see the evolution of the American Dream and how the American family has changed over the decades. This would be a great way to kick off any piece of literature that is tied to the American Dream!

Comments

  1. Mr. SkarlSeptember 26, 2024 at 8:10 AM

    This is cool, and could fit very nicely into a unit on The American Dream. I like how they are being asked to analyze a nontraditional text. When I do advertising, there's a Cheerios commercial that depicts an interracial family, and the subsequent news stories that report online comments were so hateful they turned off the comment feature on YouTube creates some "food for thought." There's also a "kid's react" video on the commercial that students find humorous and poignant. Here are some links -
    Original Commercial
    https://youtu.be/wYxICsj_4YQ?si=sGetV_ZuHq8rh4zn
    Kids React
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VifdBFp5pnw&t=196s
    News (there are a lot, but this is one that's more recent)
    https://www.minnpost.com/business/2023/12/ten-years-after-groundbreaking-cheerios-ad-both-popular-culture-and-views-on-interracial-relationships-have-changed/


    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

NBA Socratic Seminar

I "stole" this idea from Elliot Zetzer, who teaches CCP at an all-boys school and was searching for a way to motivate his students to contribute to his discussions in a Socratic Seminar. Elliot's take was MLB, which I will include here. Currently I have a hoop in the room, so I changed it to NBA. I've found this works well when encouraging discussion of a common classroom text, such as novel, poem, article, story, etc.  Elliot admitted his boys were motivated by their stats, which he would calculate daily. This sounded like a lot of math to me, so I adapted it to the NBA. I have a hoop in my room where we shot our disinfectant-soaked towels during COVID.  At its best, this is what it looks like in my room - split the class into two teams, usually right down the middle. Name a team captain for each team. Flip a coin or have a shoot-off for first possession. Inbound the ball to the captain. From there they can "shoot" (speak), or pass the ball to a teammate. T...
2 comments
Read more

The Fishbowl

  Speaking and listening skills…where does one begin?  We teach this all the time, in every lesson, right? We tend to console ourselves by adopting this mindset to alleviate the need for yet another standard to measure.  Reading and writing abilities are undoubtedly the most important in an ELA classroom…aren’t they?  I would argue that socializing, holding productive conversations, having civil disagreements, and listening purposefully are equally crucial.  Now more than ever, students need direction in these areas.  If we continue to brush it off as skills used daily and in every lesson, we are doing a disservice to future generations.  This leads me to the “fishbowl discussion.”  Like Irving's Old Scratch, it goes by many names. It is known as a  Socratic Seminar, Inquiry-Based Teaching, or Debate.  I prefer the term ‘Fishbowl’ for this student-led discussion, which fosters diverse perspectives and purposeful listening.  Here is ...
2 comments
Read more