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Grade Level: 6-8
Academic Areas: ESL
Duration of service: Year Long
Character Virtues: Caring, Civic Virtue and Citizenship
Service Areas: Human Services
Service Learning Project:
ESL students will be paired with a grand pal from a local assisted
living center. Students will go to the center over the course
of the school year. Students will be briefed with what they might
encounter while visiting the center (oxygen masks, wheel chairs,
etc.). Students will present an autobiography as an introduction
to establish a relationship with their grand pal. Next, the students
will spend a few visits gathering information from their grand
pals in order to create a biography about them. Finally, the students
will collect recipes from their grand pals, share a favorite recipe
unique to their culture, and create a cookbook. The final published
piece will be a cookbook that includes the bios of both student
and grand pal as well as their favorite recipes that will be shared
at an end of the year celebration.
Goals and Objectives
Academic
Learning Goal: To learn and utilize English language skills that
are generally not fulfilled outside the school day or at home.
Standard: Arts 4; ELA 1, 3, 4; ESL 5,: MST 2, 5
Learning Goal: To encourage the student to assimilate to the American
culture while sharing native cultural experiences.
Standard: Arts, 4; ELA 1, 3, 4; ESL 5 ; MST 2, 5
Service
Community need: ESL students are not being fully integrated into
the community.
Possible Community Partners: Local assisted living centers.
Objective: To meet the social needs of lonely or isolated seniors
residing in an assisted living facility.
Objective: To provide all participants (students and grand pals)
with an engaging intergenerational activity.
Character
Virtue: Caring
Objective: Students will develop a meaningful relationship outside
of their families and immediate school community. Grand pals can
share the wisdom of life experiences and provide support to the
adjusting adolescent and life-style changes he or she is undergoing.
Virtue: Civic Virtue and Citizenship
Objective: At the completion of the project, students will have
a sense of accomplishment and belonging as a result of their service
and relationship with their grand pal. Students will become active
citizens in their community.
Key Activities
Key Planning Activities
1. Anticipatory Set: Teacher will provide students with a clear
understanding of what to expect in an assisted living facility.
The teacher will explain what is expected of the students and
how they should respond and communicate with the grand pals.
2. Auto/Bio: Students will learn what an autobiography and biography
entails. Teacher will provided a clear structure of the essential
elements of an auto/bio, as well as examples for students to model
(ex. CLOZE exercises, sentence/conversation starters, essential
questions, published auto/bios).
3. Cookbook: Students will learn about the essential elements
in a recipe (ingredients, materials, directions, etc.) as well
as some generic cooking terms.
Key Service Activities
1. Connection to Grand pals: Students will develop a meaningful
relationship with the grand pals. They will exchange life experiences,
thus providing a mutually beneficial social connection. Students
bring energy and life force to the assisted living center, while
grand pals provide insight for living, caring, and support for
the ESL students.
2. Publishing Cookbook “Meals and Memoirs: Cooking with
Characters.” Students will create a cookbook consisting
of a compilation of recipes from the grand pals and students.
The cookbook will serve as a memoir, as well as an intergenerational
and cross cultural exchange of ideas, talents, stories, and traditional
family meals. Students will use technology to create the final
publication.
3. Students will create and send invitations for the celebration
day events.
Key Reflection Activities
1. (oral) Discussion session, how it connected to character:
After visiting with the grand pals, students will debrief with
their teacher and peers, sharing both positive and negative experiences.
They will be asked specific questions about how their experiences
related to character development. For example, What did today’s
session teach you about the importance of caring? How did you
demonstrate respect for your grand pal? How does your speech with
your grand pal differ from conversations with your friends?
2. (written) Journaling: Students will be provided with a journal
at the beginning of the “It’s A Small World After
All…” project. Before and after each visit, they will
record their feelings, expectations, questions, plans, and summaries
of their experiences. Students will have the opportunity through
journal writing prompts and free writing exercises to select one
of the following virtues and apply it to their personal experience:
caring, civic virtue and citizenship, giving, respect, responsibility,
and trustworthiness. Students can incorporate this into discussion
sessions by comparing the elements of character they found most
greatly influenced their experience.
3. (performance) Celebration Day: As a culminating activity, students
will present Meals and Memoirs: Cooking with Characters to their
grand pals. They will introduce their grand pal to the attendees
in the form of a poem, story, song, dance, etc. To close the ceremony,
students will sing “It’s A Small World After All”
in English and their native language if possible. This presentation
will include an explanation of the values that were learned throughout
the process, emphasizing the importance of both giving and receiving
in a mutually beneficial relationship. This reflection could also
be included as part of the celebration.
Celebration Activity
Students will plan and execute a celebration that will include
a smorgasbord of international cuisines taken from the cookbook.
In addition, this celebration will provide an opportunity for
the extended families from both parties to meet and mingle. Invitees
will include grand pals and their families/friends, assisted living
staff members, school administrators, teachers, community members,
students, and their families. They will send out custom generated
invitations to all of the above.
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