The Story Behind the African American Memorial
After participating in a program called “The Constitution Works” the students developed a greater sense of laws and how the government works. In their Social Studies program, they read To Be A Slave by Julius Lester and studied the injustices of slavery. In English, they read about the Jim Crow laws, segregation and forced integration. All of these units, along with the much publicized case of Abner Louima, raised the question of racial identity for the students and they began thinking about ways to memorialize the suffering that African Americans went through during slavery while creating something that would foster respect, pride, and national recognition for African Americans today. The students decided to work toward creating a monument or memorial to African Americans on the National Mall in Washington, D.C.
The students did not complete the project within the year. But they did decide to continue it into the following school year. They evaluated the work they had done, and discussed possible improvements for the coming year.
The written work produced as part of Applied Learning projects commonly contains some errors. Documentation of these projects includes notes, journal entries and plans that students produced as working documents for their personal use. These kinds of documents were not prepared with the expectation of eventual publication and they have not been revised for inclusion in this book.
It is expected that finished work produced as part of an Applied Learning project will contain virtually error free writing.
| This project illustrates a standard-setting
performance for the following parts of the standards: |
|
 b |
Communication: Conduct formal written correspondence. |
 b |
Information: Use information technology. |
What the work shows
b
Communication Tools and Techniques: The student conducts formal
written correspondence with an organization beyond the school; that is,
the student:
- expresses the information or request clearly for the purpose and audience;
- writes in a style appropriate to the purpose and audience of the correspondence.
In order to raise awareness and money, the students had to advertise their cause, both within the community and with their political representatives.
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 This is one
of the letters produced by the class and sent to politicians and other
public figures. It expresses the information and the request clearly
for the purpose and the audience. The emphatic tone of the letter
has a persuasive quality which is in keeping with canvassing letters
of this kind. |
Although effective, additional paragraphing and more attention to conventions would have greatly improved the quality of this piece.
b
Information Tools and Techniques: The student uses information
technology to assist in gathering, analyzing, organizing, and presenting
information; that is, the student:
- acquires information for specific purposes from on-line
sources, such as the Internet, and other electronic data bases, such
as a scientific data base on CD ROM;
- uses word-processing, graphics, data base, and spreadsheet programs to produce project reports and related materials.
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 The students
created this flyer using word processing and a graphics software program.
They posted this flyer around the school and the neighborhood. |
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Also shown here are some versions of the computer-generated business
cards the students designed for their organization. |
 Click to Enlarge |