Perseverance

Summary

Introducing artist Nancy McGuirr, this lesson’s Big Idea is Perseverance.  Nancy McGirr’s photo book “Out of the Dump” documenting children’s lives among the garbage districts of Guatemala City, accompanied with writings from her subjects.  She brought to light the social and humanitarian problem living in poverty and violence.  In class, students read and discussed “Out  of the Dump,” and recognized the stress the kids are under and discuss strategies to persevere through difficult times.   Students read artical to deepen their knowlage of perseverance.   Students brainstorm a time they persevered and how they persevered through that difficult time.  In art class, students learned the basics of digital photography, focuing on compostion and editing.  Students took cameras home with them to document.  Then in writting, students learned about poetry and parts of speech.  They wrote a diamond poem, with the first half being what they persevered through and second half was about how they persevered. In math, students documented how much trash they collected throughout a day.  They made observations and calculated the volume of trash they contributed to a landfill in one week.