Brandy Sappington is from Watauga County, NC and a graduate of Appalachian State University with a BS in Secondary Education/English and a Master's in Curriculum and Instruction. She taught preschool and served as a preschool director for 16 years before making the leap to the high school English classroom. She has taught 9-12 ELA, AP Lit, AP Seminar, and AP Lang in Wilkes County, NC for 14 years. Brandy is married and the two have three sons, three daughters-in-love, and a delicious granddaughter! In her free time, Brandy enjoys working to create and review test items for the 6-8th grade ELA EOGs and the English II EOC! In her real free time, she enjoys the beach, reading, eating pizza, cheering on the Dallas Cowboys, the UNC Tarheels basketball team, and most importantly, enjoying her family!
What is your “why”? If one more person asks me this, I. WILL. SCREAM! It is not that this question is invalid. The question itself is really a great starting point. But more importantly, the question affords the (victim) interviewee to reflect on why he/she has essentially decided to dedicate every waking moment to a profession that is often less appreciated than it should be.
The question that should be asked to those of us who are really committed to changing lives and to helping students find, or to cultivate their purpose, is How the heck? How in the world will I do everything that I can in order to live up to and to do right by my why? How will I choose literature, experiences, and opportunities that will aid students in their quests to be who they want to be and to evaluate who they do not want to be?
Our mission should be to build within our students empathy and understanding. We do this by simply providing moments to explore perspectives. Their own perspectives. Her perspective. His perspective. Their perspectives. Implementing literature into my classroom and facilitating those opportunities to do so is what makes me sing. It is what makes me happy. It is what makes me feel that I am fulfilling my purpose…to simply help others find theirs!
There are several pieces of literature that stick out for me as not only relatable for high school learners, but impactful for their future approach to challenges. Our kiddos must better understand the struggle that peers undergo by sometimes stepping into the shoes of those that are often seen as others.
Activity #1 “Make it Better” ~This one is one of my favorites and I use it both as an icebreaker and as a segue into a unit on exploring cultural perspectives.
Activity #2 “Letters to a Friend” ~This activity also highlights the concept of exploring perspectives and is one that my learners prepare for throughout a reading of Livia Bitton-Jackson’s I Have Lived a Thousand Years: Growing Up in the Holocaust. This memoir is heartbreaking, yet uplifting and serves as a female’s perspective to the experience of coming of age during the Holocaust. While many of my colleagues read Elie Weisel’s Night, I use the memoir as a supplement to 13 year-old Elli Friedmann’s experience in I Have Lived a Thousand Years. I have found that the writing style of Friedmann speaks more precisely and the memoir allows me to more easily differentiate for my learners.
Students utilize the notes, guided reading questions, and discussions to imagine what the life of a Holocaust survivor or a soldier who liberated a camp might be like after WWII’s end. When planning this opportunity to create a narrative in the form of a letter, I use the GRASP strategy and I share this with my learners. The creativity I have been able to witness is off the charts!
Reading about Elli’s plight, her experience during captivity in several concentration camps, and learning about her resiliency as she becomes the inspiration for her mother to also survive the horrors really hits home with students and allows them to put their own trauma into perspective. You can also read more about Bitton-Jackson here~
https://www.kz-gedenkstaette-dachau.de/en/videos/livia-bitton-jackson/
Activity #3 “Let’s Talk” ~I work hard to make my classroom a safe place. I want every learner to feel safe, but to also afford others that same safety. As we work more closely, my students learn to appreciate the mistakes, for in those mistakes, they do the most learning. This is part of my How the Heck?! I find that it is truly important to take into consideration what others might be experiencing. This is a little opportunity with a big impact!
The above activity is also one that I use most often during a reading of Laurie Halse Anderson’s Speak. Anderson’s Melinda Sordino is worthy of being introduced to every high school student. While we reserve the right to explore the novel during 9th grade year, I revisit Melinda with my AP Literature seniors, believe it or not! If they have not had an opportunity to read about Melinda’s journey after she is sexually assaulted the summer before her freshman year, many will choose the book for our “Banned and Challenged Book Week”. Following Melinda as she struggles to find the strength and confidence to speak up and against her attacker, students also learn about the cliques and stereotypes that permeate the high school experience. Taking into consideration the possible obstacles that those sitting next to them might be traversing provides a moment to acknowledge that everyone has a load to bear and an outlook that may affect their success.
We owe it to our students and to ourselves to provide experiences that allow growth and understanding. Though an ELA classroom rarely finds itself home to hands-on activities like those of a Science classroom, facilitating activities that permit students to be, to experience, to flourish, to grow, to explore, and to view, has the potential to create empathetic, responsible, aware human beings. Like many of you, my fellow educators, I have always known my why, but from here and forever more, let's all focus on reinforcing our how? Dedicating energy to the actionability of the how? will transform our classrooms into havens for the empathy and understanding we all need!
The question that should be asked to those of us who are really committed to changing lives and to helping students find, or to cultivate their purpose, is How the heck? How in the world will I do everything that I can in order to live up to and to do right by my why? How will I choose literature, experiences, and opportunities that will aid students in their quests to be who they want to be and to evaluate who they do not want to be?
Our mission should be to build within our students empathy and understanding. We do this by simply providing moments to explore perspectives. Their own perspectives. Her perspective. His perspective. Their perspectives. Implementing literature into my classroom and facilitating those opportunities to do so is what makes me sing. It is what makes me happy. It is what makes me feel that I am fulfilling my purpose…to simply help others find theirs!
There are several pieces of literature that stick out for me as not only relatable for high school learners, but impactful for their future approach to challenges. Our kiddos must better understand the struggle that peers undergo by sometimes stepping into the shoes of those that are often seen as others.
Activity #1 “Make it Better” ~This one is one of my favorites and I use it both as an icebreaker and as a segue into a unit on exploring cultural perspectives.
- Place learners into small groups of 4.
- Provide each small group with a cup of Play-doh. Give each group only one color!
- Secretly hand each student a piece of paper with the name of a concrete object or an abstract object. Think music, corn on the cob, taco, democracy
- Students will then divide the Play-doh and construct the item written on the paper. After 60 seconds, the students must then rotate and continue working on the sculpture that their peers have started. They will simply work to “Make it Better” although they do not know what the item is supposed to be!
- Once each student has completed a try at a peer’s masterpiece, allow them an opportunity to talk about what the item was supposed to be and what others thought they were creating!
Activity #2 “Letters to a Friend” ~This activity also highlights the concept of exploring perspectives and is one that my learners prepare for throughout a reading of Livia Bitton-Jackson’s I Have Lived a Thousand Years: Growing Up in the Holocaust. This memoir is heartbreaking, yet uplifting and serves as a female’s perspective to the experience of coming of age during the Holocaust. While many of my colleagues read Elie Weisel’s Night, I use the memoir as a supplement to 13 year-old Elli Friedmann’s experience in I Have Lived a Thousand Years. I have found that the writing style of Friedmann speaks more precisely and the memoir allows me to more easily differentiate for my learners.
- G- Goal: Your goal is to create a letter that is historically accurate as it pertains to the Holocaust and WWII.
- R- Role: In the letter, you will be playing the role of a Holocaust survivor or a soldier who was involved in the liberation of a concentration camp in the Holocaust.
- A - Audience: Your audience is a family member in the United States who has not heard from you in a while.
- S - Situation: You have survived the Holocaust and are in need of financial assistance in order to leave the area.
- P - Product Performance and Purpose: You will create a letter in order to convince your family members to send money to relocate.
- S - Standards and Criteria for Success: Your letter will be assessed for formal grammar, letter structure, historically-accurate details, and an understanding of the Holocaust survivor’s ordeal.
Students utilize the notes, guided reading questions, and discussions to imagine what the life of a Holocaust survivor or a soldier who liberated a camp might be like after WWII’s end. When planning this opportunity to create a narrative in the form of a letter, I use the GRASP strategy and I share this with my learners. The creativity I have been able to witness is off the charts!
Reading about Elli’s plight, her experience during captivity in several concentration camps, and learning about her resiliency as she becomes the inspiration for her mother to also survive the horrors really hits home with students and allows them to put their own trauma into perspective. You can also read more about Bitton-Jackson here~
https://www.kz-gedenkstaette-dachau.de/en/videos/livia-bitton-jackson/
Activity #3 “Let’s Talk” ~I work hard to make my classroom a safe place. I want every learner to feel safe, but to also afford others that same safety. As we work more closely, my students learn to appreciate the mistakes, for in those mistakes, they do the most learning. This is part of my How the Heck?! I find that it is truly important to take into consideration what others might be experiencing. This is a little opportunity with a big impact!
- The teacher simply conditions learners to respond to the directive “Let’s Talk” by grabbing a half sheet of paper. They can share a piece of notebook paper with a classmate, if they like.
- Students are then either given a prompt that may be connected to what they are reading or writing about, or the teacher says “What do we need to know today?”.
- Students then write down a sentence or maybe just a word that alerts the rest of the class to a possible issue or concern that they have. Sometimes this is an opportunity for students to release frustrations.
- The teacher collects each piece of folded paper. Students are asked to write in pencil and to submit anonymously. Students should always be given the option to pass on participating!
- The teacher reads each one aloud and then crumples it up and throws it away
The above activity is also one that I use most often during a reading of Laurie Halse Anderson’s Speak. Anderson’s Melinda Sordino is worthy of being introduced to every high school student. While we reserve the right to explore the novel during 9th grade year, I revisit Melinda with my AP Literature seniors, believe it or not! If they have not had an opportunity to read about Melinda’s journey after she is sexually assaulted the summer before her freshman year, many will choose the book for our “Banned and Challenged Book Week”. Following Melinda as she struggles to find the strength and confidence to speak up and against her attacker, students also learn about the cliques and stereotypes that permeate the high school experience. Taking into consideration the possible obstacles that those sitting next to them might be traversing provides a moment to acknowledge that everyone has a load to bear and an outlook that may affect their success.
We owe it to our students and to ourselves to provide experiences that allow growth and understanding. Though an ELA classroom rarely finds itself home to hands-on activities like those of a Science classroom, facilitating activities that permit students to be, to experience, to flourish, to grow, to explore, and to view, has the potential to create empathetic, responsible, aware human beings. Like many of you, my fellow educators, I have always known my why, but from here and forever more, let's all focus on reinforcing our how? Dedicating energy to the actionability of the how? will transform our classrooms into havens for the empathy and understanding we all need!
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