Final Essay

This was a wonderful summer Gender and Generation seminar at USC, It was an awesome week of learning. Originally when I signed up for this summer seminar I was planning to teach 4th grade in Fall. My plans where to go deeper on teaching about East Asia to my students and explore the relationships among East Asian countries and the USA, focusing on California. Due to some unexpected changes in our school staffing, I was moved to 1st grade to teach Spanish in a two way program. I was not thrilled about teaching a new grade that I had never taught nor having to move classrooms, but there was a need in my school and I have the proper skills and credentials.

I will be able to expose my 1st graders to different holidays and celebrations around the world, focusing on East Asia and Mexico, and how these countries are connected to the our community in San Diego, California. But thanks to some of the things that I learned during our summer seminar I will try to approach it from how children experience these holidays and celebration and also how it is different for each gender. As you might already know most 1st graders are not reading independently yet, which means that I will have the oportunity to do a lot of read alouds with my little ones. The challenge that I am facing, is finding finding texts about East Asia in Spanish. 

One of the strategies that I learned this summer with Professor Kerim Yasar, about showing a video in short clips and having a class conversation about it, is working really well with 1st graders due to their short attention span. I am not showing full lenght movies, but rather some short videos about proper behaviors  and information about holidays such as Labor Day, etc. It has worked well enough to engage them in conversations, and practice their target language.