Sep 26 2005

Open Letter

Alrighty, I’m finally done with my rough draft of my open letter. The letter addresses my concerns of the Balanced Literacy program being used in gradeschool. While I think it may be an effective methodology for high school, and even middle school, I don’t think it is efficient at the elementary level. This letter was intended to be in the style of Martin Luther King’s “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” in that it used different types of appeals ranging from logical ones, to ethics, and emotional hypothetical stories.

Here ya’ go:
If it Ain’t Broke, Don’t Fix It

–Zach

Sep 25 2005

GREAT article on literacy

If you are going into education, or are currently an educator, I urge you to read this article that I found about literacy. It offers some incredibly powerful tactics to improving literacy in younger children. While some of them seem to be common knowledge, they only are effective IF they are used properly. Check out this article on “The Six Ts of Effective Elementary Literacy Instruction.”

The 6 Ts

–Zach

Sep 25 2005

Farewell to Manzanar

Just finished up my essay on the book Farewell to Manzanar by Jeanne Wakatsuki. It discussed life during the Japanese internment during WWII after the bombing of Pearl Harbor. I always knew about this type of injustice, but had never heard a first-hand story from a primary source. The book is a really easy read and should be required reading for every student at the high school level or above as it sheds light onto one of the largest injustices on American soil.

This essay, like the rest, is in Adobe PDF format, and requires the use of Adobe Acrobat Reader. If you don’t have that program, you can obtain it for FREE directly from Adobe using the link below:

Get Adobe Acrobat Reader

Once you have Acrobat Reader (or another version of Acrobat) installed on your computer, you may read my essay on Farewell to Manzanar. Please right-click and hit “save-as” to save a copy to your computer. I hope that you read the novel first and then my essay to seek clearer understanding of Wakatsuki’s account of injustice.

Shikata Ga Nai

–Zach