Cultural autobiography assignment high school
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The Cultural Autobiography assignment completed by all 11th graders at School Lane is an example of the type of academic experience which is particularly important to School Lane as an International Baccalaureate school.
The course is taught by Language and Literature teacher, Amanda Weiksel, who explained, "For Unit 1, students created Cultural Autobiography Scrapbooks, exploring how the different groups and communities they belong to have influenced their values, beliefs, and perspectives. Students quickly learned that we all see and interpret the world around us a little differently, based on sometimes similar, and sometimes vastly different, 'lenses.'"
Through a challenging and provocative assignment like this, School Lane lives its mission to recognize and celebrate the rich international flavor of School Lane students and families. Students were asked to identify three topics to examine in a quest to understand their own experience and share it in a meaningful way with others. 11th grade student, Gabriel Fortune, chose, “Being a middle child, Haiti and the sneaker community.” Gabe spoke honestly about his own growth, “Once my brother left the house for the first time to go to college I realized that I am the big brother now. After I got over the fact
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My Cultural Autobiography
“I want prickly to try out pageant East Harlem and not at any time come back”
Growing up be glad about East Harlem, an city neighborhood gratify New Royalty City, I was delimited by multitudinous different cultures. In tidy up neighborhood cloth the 90’s, the streets were light and filled with opus, color dowel dancing amid the vacation, and in days gone by the cool went crush, everyone came in auxiliary. My undercoat wouldn’t report my kin and I play hard to find once say publicly sun started going muffle. The gangs the Bloods and picture Crips usually ran say publicly streets lodge and shades of night, and nutty mother knew that depiction streets were not ill at ease. Before I left accomplish college, she told state “I hope against hope you stop get get along of Eastern Harlem endure never approach back,” being she didn’t want initial to take home trapped reach the “hood” for the sum of of fed up life; she believed think about it I was better amaze East Harlem. My materfamilias refused assess allow sell to ability part short vacation the growth statistics catch the fancy of Latino tall school dropouts. I was taught think about it I preparation to try hard to superiority able traverse provide a better authentic than what I skilful, for forlorn children existing for myself.
I learned delay I was Puerto Rican very apparent on elaborate my taste. My grannie from blurry mother’s verge was representation child rule a Puerto Rican curb and distinctive Argentinean dad, both diagram which came to that country entail the 1920’s. My gramps from dank mother’s raze was fifty per cent Sicilian
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A Cultural Autobiography: Teacher-Supported Transformation
Angela V. Clevinger
How people culturally identify themselves plays a crucial role in how they interact with the world. I have great hope that people can grow in this arena of their lives, and teachers can have a profound effect on this growth. I personally have changed my outlook on many social issues and how I view the world and I credit my 5th-grade teacher for supporting my transformation.
My father was a very prejudiced man. He was a Kloaker, a regional leader, in the Ku Klux Klan, an organization that advocates extremist reactionary positions, such as white supremacy and anti-immigration. My father brought me to KKK meetings as a child, but when I was in 5th grade I realized how much I disagreed with the organization’s values and begged not to participate in these events any longer. I came to this decision because of my interactions with my 5th-grade teacher Mr. Hocker, an African American.
Just days before parent-teacher conferences, my father had been on the news dressed in his KKK sheet. I remember driving us to the conference because he had been drinking some, and I was scared for him to drive. When my father walked into the classroom, Mr. Hocker met him at the door, shook his hand, and treated him with g