April 6, 2008

Assignments and Guests.

Curtis and Teresa Billy
From the Choctaw Nation
Will Visit on April 14.

Advice from Michelle Obama to young people:
"The difference between success and failure in our society is a very slim margin. You almost have to have that perfect storm of good parents, self-esteem, and good teachers.
It's a lot, which is why Barack and I believe so passionately about investing in education and strengthening institutions."
— Rebecca Johnson, "The Natural,"
Vogue, p. 777, September 2007

Greetings, Interns,

We are fast approaching the end of the semester when everyone's schedule is tightening up with due dates and other academic obligations. Now is a good time to remind you of your last two assignments: Exploring Diversity questions, p. 23, due April 13; and the MC Step-Out, due May 2.

I encourage you to read your classmates' responses to several of our assignments. Simply go to Student Pages to find links to these outstanding postings.

Three Objectives.

For the MC Step-Out assignment, you have three objectives: 1) describe the event; 2) connect the information to what your textbook says; 3) tell how this experience helps you as an emerging professional.

I expect you to write in the style of smartly edited academic language. As we discussed two weeks ago, academic language is a complex form of reading and writing that uses a combination of technical vocabulary (jargon), cohesion, and logic.

A Special Presentation
from the
School of Choctaw Language.

I have a great surprise to share with you. On Monday, April 14, our department will host Teresa and Curtis Billy, two Choctaw educators from the School of Choctaw Language and Culture. They will be here all day to meet with the faculty and give presentations to our classes. At 11:30, they will join the Special Methods of Teaching Foreign Languages class to discuss how they teach Choctaw language as a foreign language using Interactive Education Television (IETV). Dr. Goering has graciously offered to let us use his classroom and time slot so that Curtis and Teresa can have a lunch break at 12:30.

For your class at 2, both sections of Multicultural Issues will meet in JB HUNT 147 (the new building behind Kimpel) to hear Curtis and Teresa discuss Choctaw culture and the efforts to preserve the Choctaw language. This presentation is open to the public, so please invite anyone who might be interested in learning about Choctaw culture.

We will finish the semester on April 21 and 28 with a discussion of the secondary text, Exploring Diversity. Since we have guest speakers on the April 14, we will discuss Part I on the 21st and Part II on the 28th.

See you in class!

Dr. Bowles