| Students will
use the required text, The Miracle Worker, as a springboard to
study disabilities and attitudes toward the disabled as well as a study
of the lives of two great heroes in this struggle: Helen Keller
and Annie Sullivan. A main objective of the collaboration is to
teach students about acceptance of people with differences.
Students will meet three
times. The first meeting was held at Helen Keller Middle School
where students were introduced and did some pre-reading activities on
Wednesday, May 2nd. They were divided into groups and worked
cooperatively on various activities. In order to learn something
about each other, students completed a specially-designed Bingo.
Then, students participated in a simulation
where they took on the
roles of a blind person, a teacher and an observer. The blind
student wore a blindfold to simulate being blind. Each teacher
taught the blind student a task without using any sound to further
simulate the experience of being deaf. An observer monitored and
noted the strategies used by the teacher and the frustration experienced
by both. After five minutes, the blind and deaf student had to
independently perform the task taught by the teacher. All students
had an opportunity to reflect on, and share, this
experience.
Following this activity, the entire group watched the video Tragedy
to Triumph in which a boy makes fun of a blind girl and is
transported back in time where he meets Helen Keller and Annie
Sullivan. He learns firsthand what it is like to be blind.
Upon conclusion of the video, students received their own copies of The Miracle
Worker and will be expected to read it before the next session.
The second meeting was at John Winthrop School located in the north
end of Bridgeport on Wednesday, May 16th. Students
discussed The Miracle
Worker and once again, did icebreaking activities. In
this session, students worked together to complete brainteasers. They
were introduced through video clips on the Internet, to the
incredible inventor, Dean
Kamen. He is responsible for an
innovative wheelchair allowing the disabled to be more mobile.
Following this presentation, each group of students had the
opportunity to design a device that would aid a hearing-impaired and/or
visually-impaired person. As a follow-up activity, students
wrote their own poem in Haiku
or
cinquain format reflecting on one aspect of The Miracle Worker.
The last meeting took place at the Easton Public Library on Wednesday, May 30th.
Students once again participated in an ice-breaking activity.
This time, they used a variety of candy to describe their mood on
the previous day. They then shared their original Haiku poems
based on an aspect of The Miracle Worker. Following this
sharing, Mrs. Marusa taught Sign Language through the use of a
song. Students learned more about the history of Helen
Keller through the eyes of Wiley Mullins, an entrepreneur from Easton
who told them of his life in Tuscumbia, Alabama where Ms. Keller was
born. His connection to Helen Keller is that he lived in the town
where she was born and currently lives in the town where she died.
Ms. Bernadette Baldino, Director of the Easton Public Library and Mrs.
Diane Conroy, Young Adult Librarian distributed Braille books belonging
to Helen Keller for the students to examine. They also enjoyed a
student dramatization of a scene in Act 3 from The Miracle Worker.
On each occasion, students had an opportunity to socialize during a
pizza lunch. Students completed an evaluation during the final
session which summarized their impressions of the collaborative effort. |
