I read today that it was less than 65 years from the Wright brothers' first flight to landing a man on the moon. It's an amazing achievement, but a little less so, perhaps, when you spend your days with children who were not even alive before iPhones, Facebook, and Barack Obama was in the Senate.
The culminating assignment of the first big unit in sixth grade English at our school is for students to write a letter to themselves in the future. After spending some time exploring the question Who am I? we move on to its twin, Who do I want to be?
The assignment is a chance for them to look over all the writing they've done since September: an introduction of themselves to peers, poems about the sensory details of their favorite season, other poems about an action that reveals something essential about them, the "Where I'm From" assignment where they collect concrete family details, and then publishing a motto and explaining why it is a credo for them. All of these are meant to help them as they compose a letter reminding the future them who they are now, who they hope they are then, and how they can stay true to both.
The kids love it! They really get into choosing how many years the letter must wait, their questions about the future are endless, and sealing all of their work into an envelope with a big DO NOT OPEN 'TIL... is the final thrill.
I read through quite a few drafts today, and, in general, the open-hearted hopefulness of them buoys my vision of the future. They remind me that, truly, anything can happen. Take for example the one little girl who wrote I hope you're in an acapella singing group and I wonder who your girlfriend will be.
Wow. Forty-two years ago, the sixth grade me would have been more waaaay likely to walk on the moon than to write such a thing, and yet here we are.
The culminating assignment of the first big unit in sixth grade English at our school is for students to write a letter to themselves in the future. After spending some time exploring the question Who am I? we move on to its twin, Who do I want to be?
The assignment is a chance for them to look over all the writing they've done since September: an introduction of themselves to peers, poems about the sensory details of their favorite season, other poems about an action that reveals something essential about them, the "Where I'm From" assignment where they collect concrete family details, and then publishing a motto and explaining why it is a credo for them. All of these are meant to help them as they compose a letter reminding the future them who they are now, who they hope they are then, and how they can stay true to both.
The kids love it! They really get into choosing how many years the letter must wait, their questions about the future are endless, and sealing all of their work into an envelope with a big DO NOT OPEN 'TIL... is the final thrill.
I read through quite a few drafts today, and, in general, the open-hearted hopefulness of them buoys my vision of the future. They remind me that, truly, anything can happen. Take for example the one little girl who wrote I hope you're in an acapella singing group and I wonder who your girlfriend will be.
Wow. Forty-two years ago, the sixth grade me would have been more waaaay likely to walk on the moon than to write such a thing, and yet here we are.
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