Grade Level: 6-8

Academic Areas: ESL

Duration of service: Year Long

Character Virtues: Caring, Civic Virtue and Citizenship

Service Areas: Human Services

Service Learning Project:

ESL students will be paired with a grand pal from a local assisted living center. Students will go to the center over the course of the school year. Students will be briefed with what they might encounter while visiting the center (oxygen masks, wheel chairs, etc.). Students will present an autobiography as an introduction to establish a relationship with their grand pal. Next, the students will spend a few visits gathering information from their grand pals in order to create a biography about them. Finally, the students will collect recipes from their grand pals, share a favorite recipe unique to their culture, and create a cookbook. The final published piece will be a cookbook that includes the bios of both student and grand pal as well as their favorite recipes that will be shared at an end of the year celebration.

Learning Goal: To learn and utilize English language skills that are generally not fulfilled outside the school day or at home.

Standard: Arts 4; ELA 1, 3, 4; ESL 5,: MST 2, 5

Learning Goal: To encourage the student to assimilate to the American culture while sharing native cultural experiences.

Standard: Arts, 4; ELA 1, 3, 4; ESL 5 ; MST 2, 5

Community need: ESL students are not being fully integrated into the community.

Possible Community Partners: Local assisted living centers.

Objective: To meet the social needs of lonely or isolated seniors residing in an assisted living facility.

Objective: To provide all participants (students and grand pals) with an engaging intergenerational activity.

Virtue: Caring

Objective: Students will develop a meaningful relationship outside of their families and immediate school community. Grand pals can share the wisdom of life experiences and provide support to the adjusting adolescent and life-style changes he or she is undergoing.

Virtue: Civic Virtue and Citizenship

Objective: At the completion of the project, students will have a sense of accomplishment and belonging as a result of their service and relationship with their grand pal. Students will become active citizens in their community.

1. Anticipatory Set: Teacher will provide students with a clear understanding of what to expect in an assisted living facility. The teacher will explain what is expected of the students and how they should respond and communicate with the grand pals.
2. Auto/Bio: Students will learn what an autobiography and biography entails. Teacher will provided a clear structure of the essential elements of an auto/bio, as well as examples for students to model (ex. CLOZE exercises, sentence/conversation starters, essential questions, published auto/bios).
3. Cookbook: Students will learn about the essential elements in a recipe (ingredients, materials, directions, etc.) as well as some generic cooking terms.

 Key Service Activities

1. Connection to Grand pals: Students will develop a meaningful relationship with the grand pals. They will exchange life experiences, thus providing a mutually beneficial social connection. Students bring energy and life force to the assisted living center, while grand pals provide insight for living, caring, and support for the ESL students.
2. Publishing Cookbook "Meals and Memoirs: Cooking with Characters." Students will create a cookbook consisting of a compilation of recipes from the grand pals and students. The cookbook will serve as a memoir, as well as an intergenerational and cross cultural exchange of ideas, talents, stories, and traditional family meals. Students will use technology to create the final publication.
3. Students will create and send invitations for the celebration day events.

1. (oral) Discussion session, how it connected to character: After visiting with the grand pals, students will debrief with their teacher and peers, sharing both positive and negative experiences. They will be asked specific questions about how their experiences related to character development. For example, What did today’s session teach you about the importance of caring? How did you demonstrate respect for your grand pal? How does your speech with your grand pal differ from conversations with your friends?
2. (written) Journaling: Students will be provided with a journal at the beginning of the "It’s A Small World After All…" project. Before and after each visit, they will record their feelings, expectations, questions, plans, and summaries of their experiences. Students will have the opportunity through journal writing prompts and free writing exercises to select one of the following virtues and apply it to their personal experience: caring, civic virtue and citizenship, giving, respect, responsibility, and trustworthiness. Students can incorporate this into discussion sessions by comparing the elements of character they found most greatly influenced their experience.
3. (performance) Celebration Day: As a culminating activity, students will present Meals and Memoirs: Cooking with Characters to their grand pals. They will introduce their grand pal to the attendees in the form of a poem, story, song, dance, etc. To close the ceremony, students will sing "It’s A Small World After All" in English and their native language if possible. This presentation will include an explanation of the values that were learned throughout the process, emphasizing the importance of both giving and receiving in a mutually beneficial relationship. This reflection could also be included as part of the celebration.

Students will plan and execute a celebration that will include a smorgasbord of international cuisines taken from the cookbook. In addition, this celebration will provide an opportunity for the extended families from both parties to meet and mingle. Invitees will include grand pals and their families/friends, assisted living staff members, school administrators, teachers, community members, students, and their families. They will send out custom generated invitations to all of the above.