World Savy at Burton

(In-Schools Program)

Mar 2,2011, 10:00 AM - 11:30 AM @ Burton High School
Dear Tutors:
In recent years, through grassroots education and high-profile media campaigns, the green movement has made issues such as global warming and renewable energy ubiquitous, especially among the younger generation. From helping to build schools in other countries to starting community gardens in local neighborhoods and schools, more young people are plugging in to movements to heal the Earth and rebuild communities.

In response to this, I am involving my class of English Language Learners at Phillip & Sala Burton Academic High School in a semester-long exploration of how environmental and sustainability issues are affecting their own communities as a way to improve their oral and written communication, as well as involve them as active and responsible citizens. My students are all second-language learners of English. They come from China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, The Philippines, Japan, Vietnam, Mexico, El Salvador, and Honduras.

Through field trips, lessons and activities, the class will explore how the surroundings of our daily lives affect our physical and mental health. With the help of 826 Valencia, we hope to publish a collection of essays in which students envision their ideal world, one in which brings out everyone’s potential as human beings. Students would need help coming up with ideas, as well as revising and editing their drafts. We would like to incorporate poetry and song as a way to scaffold ideas for their essays, or perhaps serve as products in themselves.

The curriculum for this project is based on collaboration with World Savvy’s Media and Arts Program (MAP). World Savvy, a global education non-profit organization, sponsors the Media and Arts Program in San Francisco and New York City and culminates with a celebration and gallery opening of the student participants’ works. This year would marks the third year I have worked with both the MAP program and 826 Valencia.

If you are interested in working with students who are highly motivated to improve their English and who really need opportunities to engage in real conversation in English, whether it be about their essays or just chatting with someone they trust and enjoy the company of, I would be glad to welcome you to our classroom.

Sincerely,

Eric Chow
English/ELD Teacher

Address:
400 Mansell Avenue San Francisco, CA 94134