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Thought of the Day

Proper education can produce an entire generation free from man-made tragedies such as poverty. Proper education teaches its scholars to love humanity and learn from the human story called history. But ultimately, a proper education teaches self-reliance while also cultivating a natural human need for cooperation. 
– Lady Camille

merri937 College and Career Ready, Lesson Plan Ideas, Teachers

It’s College Tour Season Part 2

So, our second college tour happened to be the Historically Black College, Bowie State. Before we toured their campus, we went to the National Mall. Now, we didn’t have a lot of time to go each of the museums and tour all of the monuments so I created a scavenger hunt for my students, so they could take in as much as possible.

Unfortunately it rained, so it dampened my students’ spirits a bit, but we still had tons of fun. One of the rules of the scavenger hunt was to post their pictures on Instagram they could not however, post their answers on there because all the other teams would see it.  (yes, we use this a lot because the kids use it a lot why not incorporate it into my lesson?)

the hunt begins
one of the clues
of course I had to make the Capitol one of the clues
After our scavenger hunt, we trekked on to our tour of Bowie State. It’s a little off the beaten path, so we couldn’t tour the neighborhood like we did at Georgetown. Our tour guide were very helpful here. Usually, tour guides have trouble with middle school students…they aska ton of questions and a little on the immature side. They usually prefer high school students, but our tour guide joked around with our students and made them feel right at home. They were also very thorough and we were able to go inside some of the buildings. My students really appreciated the welcome mate being rolled out for them.  
and the tour begins
Our tour guide, joking around with the students and showing them the Performing Arts building.
My students loved this tour!
merri937 College and Career Ready, Lesson Plan Ideas

It’s College Tour Season Part 1

First let me start this off by saying that in addition to teaching a creative writing course, I also teach a college readiness class called AVID (Advancement Via Individual Determination). Last week proved to be pretty productive for my AVID class. We knocked out 2 out of the 3 college tours we had set for this quarter. We’ve been talking about college all year, and I’ve been preparing them for one component of the college admissions process by having them work on electronic portfolios using Google sites. They’ve added their autobiographic sketches, resumes, pictures, and outline for their 5 year plan to their portfolios.

One assignment I added when we got closer to touring the colleges was the college profile. They had to choose 3 colleges they wanted to attend and give me information on admission requirements, costs, scholarships/financial aid, available housing, student organizations on campus, and course requirements for their chosen major. This had a tremendous impact on how they viewed the college tours. One, they knew what to look for and to ask the tour guide, and two, they asked more detailed questions. Last year, when I took my students to Georgetown and Howard, they asked questions like, “What dining selections are available?” This year they asked, “What are the meal plan options and how much does each one cost?”

So the first campus we toured was Georgetown’s campus. We went down to Georgetown and walked through the neighborhood, ate lunch at the restaurants on M and relaxed by the riverfront before we went to campus. This way, students considering this university had a chance to see the neighborhood they probably would be frequenting and the campus.

Walking through the neighborhood.
Playing Frisbee by the riverfront
 By the riverfront..I wanted to take them on a riverboat cruise to see the monuments, but our grant money was way too specific for that 😦 
 touring the campus 
touring the campus