Welcome

Next Steps

             

                    As my project is coming to close, I have been reflecting on student learning throughout my project.  I have found that students’ motivations to complete the project have been especially high.  Many of my students have come in everyday and asked if they would get to work on their project today. The students have been excited to learn from the elders and to then in turn interview them.  I conferenced with our Yup’ik teacher on their abilities in Yup’ik, and he explained that they are stretching themselves to find the correct Yup’ik words to interview elders.  He also explained that they are greatly interested when an elder uses a word they do not know to negotiate for the meaning.  He has seen that the students are starting to use higher Yup’ik words that they have learned in this project in other aspects of their lives. Not only has their been an increase in their Yup’ik production, but I have also seen improvement in their writing and speaking skills. Through this project, students have been motivated to produce their post-apocalyptic journals to the best of their abilities, because they have a clear audience that want to produce for.   When we complete mini-lessons students are excited to edit their journals, because they want others to learn from what they did.  I also found that the projects have helped the students learn about their own communities and the knowledge they can learn from elders.   

               

                   I have thought long and hard about what my recommended actions will be, and I have a few suggestions.  Next year, I would have the students work on this project for a week, once a month throughout the school year, because then it can actually tie to the season that we are currently in.  It was hard to do all of the work when we are experiencing break-up and contained to the island.  I would like to incorporate more elder interviews, tied to each season, and have more input from the students after the first few lessons on what they would like to see included.  By breaking the game into monthly sections, I can also tie it more closely to the writing skills that we are covering each month.