Do your students need motivation or encouragement? It was the end of February in Ohio, and my students need some motivation to get to spring break. I used the mandated district pacing guide for career exploration and the book Rigor is Not a Four-Letter Word by Barbara R. Blackburn to help create a lesson that includes expanding the vision letter. I am a language arts teacher, but since the spring of 2019, I have been teaching three classes of career exploration, and I love it! I enjoy the lessons I teach and the students. The students appear to be more involved in the lessons and open to listen to the mini-lessons I present. The pacing guide stated that students are to learn why it is important to remain in school and the activities included making a graduation promise, reading an article about why staying in school is important, and writing a journal response of the pros and cons of school. Including expanding the vision letter was perfect for this lesson because students had to explain how staying in school would help them in the future.
After students read an article titled, “Poverty and High School,” students completed the “Read, Write, Discuss, Revise” strategy with an elbow partner. This took one class period because students had to read the article, write their responses, discuss the article with their elbow partner, and then write a revised statement of 75 words citing one direct quote from the article. The next day, we discussed the article as a whole group, and students completed the Marzano’s strategy Venn Diagram of the pros and cons of remaining in school. After completing the Venn Diagram, I introduced expanding the vision letters. While reading the book Rigor is Not a Four-Letter Word, I flagged the chapter about “Raising Expectations.” I used one strategy from this chapter when I taught growth mindset. At the beginning of the semester, I showed a video of successful people who have overcome failure, which was a suggestion from the chapter. Below that strategy, the author wrote about a Marzano strategy that demonstrated effort. It was the use of a Marzano strategy that made me a believer in Blackburn’s strategies and return to the chapter “Raising Expectations.”
Blackburn has “Expanding the Vision” in blackened words in the chapter “Raising Expectations”. This section is about Blackburn’s personal experience with encouraging students by having them write a letter to their future selves and designing t-shirts where students illustrate their dream. I thought this would be perfect for my career students to create a letter and t-shirt to write their dreams on t-shirts and encourage their future selves to finish school. I instructed the students to write a letter to themselves.
Steps to Present Expanding the Vision
1. I began by telling the students we were writing a letter to our future selves in May of this year.
2. I showed the students a letter I had written before their class that was honest and that was encouraging to me.
3. I asked if there were any questions and “thumbs up” if they understood what they had to do.
4. My last class asked if I was going to read the letters (yes), if they were allowed to use profanity in the letters (no), and if it could be less than 100 words (no-not without points taking off).
5. I distributed the worksheet I created and read the directions (I underlined and bolded the words to encourage yourself to persevere).
6. While students were writing their letters, I softly played encouraging music, “Be Encouraged.”
7. For one class, when they were finished with their letter, I handed them the graduation promise for them to sign. I noticed that they were not reading the graduation promise, so I read it aloud to this class. I made all the other classes read aloud the graduation promise before signing the promise.
8. After the students signed the graduation promise, they used markers to sign a bulletin paper sign that stated: “Graduation Promise.”
I graded and kept the letters to pass them out in May. Nearly every student took the assignment seriously except for four students out of 72 students. I spoke to those students, and one student wanted to redo the assignment. The letters that I received were so personal and encouraging. Some stated that their freshmen year started rocky, but by May, they were able to get their grades up. One student stated, thank you, Ms. George, for teaching me about Grade Point Average and how to be a better student. See, this is why I like teaching career exploration! The students’ attitudes in the letters were transforming-they had new mindsets!
Would I use this strategy again? Yes. I will use this in all my classes, including my reading lab students. As students, they are used to being told what they did wrong and having a lack of praise. However, this assignment allows students to seek positivity within themselves and encourage them to finish the school year. Is this an end-all to negativity? No, but it is a stepping stone to making students feel they can accomplish something this year.
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