My students were not satisfied yet. Though they learned all they could they still needed some sort of closure with the subject. “How come my brother in 5th grade didn’t learn this?” “I was talking to my mom about this and she never knew that Columbus did this stuff.”
I could tell from their questions that what they really wanted was to get the word out to other people. I turned this question back to them. “What can we do?” I asked. Our brainstorming session brought us to 2 possibilities: a bulletin board or handing out pamphlets on the subject to others in the school. Since this was my first year in the school and I wasn’t fully aware of the culture and climate of the school, I opted to have the students make a bulletin board. With this focus I asked the students what we could put on the board. We decided to put up the T-Chart and our opinion papers on the subject. Then one student suggested we leave a space for others to write down their opinions on the subject. I could see some of the students were upset about not getting to hand out flyers. I suggested we create a Facts Sheet about Columbus that people could take. This cheered them up and a separate committee of fact collectors and typists was created. Another student suggested we put up pictures to go along with our writing. I agreed with that idea as I thought it would help a few select students fully participate in the project. I asked students to create 2 pictures. One depicting Taino life before Columbus came and one showing what happened after his visit.
The students ran with the idea and we spent the next few days creating our bulletin board.
In the end this is what we created.
"Rainforest"
"Taino Person and His House"
"Chopping Off Hands"
"Get Me GOLD!"
"Scared"
"Chopping Off Hands"
Tags: 2nd Grade, ASL, Christopher Columbus, Education, Sign Language, Social Justice
