Every Wednesday at HAIS, we go to clubs, and my club this year was International Club. Our two club representatives, Rainey M. and Emma M. and our club sponsor, Mr. Kreuger Miller helped get together one of our major projects of the year, spreading the word about the Invisible Children. The Invisible Children is a group founded in 2004 to bring attention to the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) in Central Africa. We watched videos to acquire more information about this group and spread the word all around the school and to the community by putting signs everywhere. Some of the students at HAIS may have seen the yellow posters around the school with the date October 28th. Invisible Children came to the school and helped educate the students about what was going on and our group helped fund raise almost two-hundred dollars. The group also brought little goods such as jewelry and t-shirts that also went to donations towards the project.The group also bought a special visitor, one of the survivors, and also enriched the learning of the importance of stopping the problem that is spreading in Central Africa.
In all, the audience responded positively, learning about Invisible Children and the point that they were trying to put across and spreading the word about it. All the donations made went towards the funding for many different projects. Reflecting on communication choices, I wish there was more time to put up more posters around the campus about the group and when they were coming but in all, I believe that we,as the international club group, have succeeded in helping to spread the word about Invisible Children.
This semester, our class decided to end the year by reading a book called "Things Fall Apart" by Chinua Achebe. To attain more background information before diving into the novel, our table was involved in a research project about the events that led up to the writing of the novel and what happened afterwards (all in a 10 year time span). This topic displays the idea of communicating ideas because it enforces the information to give the audience in this stance a better idea of what influenced the writing of the famous novel "Things Fall Apart".
Communicating the idea of the meanings behind the writing of the novel "Things Fall Apart" gave us a background and a better insight to the book and the events that played in it. There were a lot of difficult terms in the Igbo Society and events that took part that we had to translate to the class. Many people were shocked thinking they had to read a book that used words in a rare and different language. (Hopefully) our group made sure to interpret the book in a way to let everybody understand. We used verbal and non-verbal strategies such as pictures and pronunciation techniques when in class. In my opinion, I think we did a pretty great job! Our strategic input into the Prezi and into the class presentation was outstanding. Everybody made the reassuring noise (when you understand something) and that alone made me happy that I helped make people understand something.
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LEAD11-12.COMM1. Identify and understand the expectations and perspectives of diverse audiences, and apply that understanding to meet the audience’s needs.
Juniors at HAIS are required to take a class which is equivalent to SAT prep. In order to practice and improve our vocabulary, we are assigned an Independent Reading Assignment at the beginning of every cycle. The novel I read included words in another language. The author beautifully narrated the story about the underlying problem in most countries in the middle East: child brides and violence (war). The setting took place in mid war crisis in Afghanistan and told the story of a girl named Laila who goes through hardships to find who really loves her. Although it was quite difficult to fathom the idea of the government in Afghanistan going against themselves, I understood that my expectations did not fit this third-world country. There are things that are out of our control, and it's been going on for generations. Again, culture is carried on the backs of our newer generation.
Juniors at HAIS are required to take a class which is equivalent to SAT prep. In order to practice and improve our vocabulary, we are assigned an Independent Reading Assignment at the beginning of every cycle. The novel I read included words in another language. The author beautifully narrated the story about the underlying problem in most countries in the middle East: child brides and violence (war). The setting took place in mid war crisis in Afghanistan and told the story of a girl named Laila who goes through hardships to find who really loves her. Although it was quite difficult to fathom the idea of the government in Afghanistan going against themselves, I understood that my expectations did not fit this third-world country. There are things that are out of our control, and it's been going on for generations. Again, culture is carried on the backs of our newer generation.
Student taught lessons: Grammar "Capitalization"
LEAD11-12.COMM2. Select and apply appropriate verbal and non-verbal communication strategies to communicate and collaborate effectively.
My second semester of my Junior year, I was transferred into a new Business English period. With a new group of students, I was to come up with a student taught lesson about a topic (we chose Capitalization). The purpose was to freshen up old elementary schools for the SAT. However, with a 20 minute time limit, we had to squeeze a warm-up, a lesson, an activity, and a quiz to test the skills learned in class from our lesson. My job was to create the warm-up and I used a capitalization video from the Electric Company. Collaborating with the students in my class, my partners and I used verbal and non-verbal communication strategies to communicate and collaborate the rules of capitalization effectively.
My second semester of my Junior year, I was transferred into a new Business English period. With a new group of students, I was to come up with a student taught lesson about a topic (we chose Capitalization). The purpose was to freshen up old elementary schools for the SAT. However, with a 20 minute time limit, we had to squeeze a warm-up, a lesson, an activity, and a quiz to test the skills learned in class from our lesson. My job was to create the warm-up and I used a capitalization video from the Electric Company. Collaborating with the students in my class, my partners and I used verbal and non-verbal communication strategies to communicate and collaborate the rules of capitalization effectively.