Experience and think critically of their classes when they used movies as a method of teaching. 4.1 Participants The participants in the study were 50 Saudi female intermediate level students studying English in the English. Business and Economics. School of English. Centre for the Humanities and Medicine. Faculty of Arts. Centre of Buddhist Studies. Centre for Applied English Studies. School of Humanities. Get an answer for 'Best Films to Use in a Literature Course/Classroom In teaching literature, there are a few films that I find particularly well suited to 'reading and interpreting' as literature.

Our objective is to cultivate a culture of community activism while developing and strengthening various forms of [academic] literacies. By developing critical literacy within the classroom, and with the aid of outside resources, we believe our students will have the skills, awareness and ability to create art and knowledge that is relevant and meaningful to their lives and identity. As educators, sustaining the development of critical pedagogy, life-long learners, and agents of change is our ultimate goal.

Introduction

Students dialoging at 'Get Empathy: Building Community,' a workshop part of this year's East Side Stories Conference held at Roosevelt High School.

How do we help students develop academic, social and critical literacies all while engaging in meaningful work within the classroom, the school and the community?

Various projects were made possible and/or enhanced through TIIP Grant funding. Here is a list of projects our teachers, students, and community members undertook:

Voices of Change(Interdisciplinary Unit):

Voices of Change is a interdisciplinary unit where students engaged in a problem-posing project that asked students to think about issues in their community that need to be addressed, and to investigate solutions. The unit's essential question was, 'What needs to change to generate more justice and equity in Boyle Heights?' In their English class, students used the essential question to learn to develop counter-arguments, analogies, and persuasive speech.

In their math class, Ms. Perez helped students learn how to interpret, analyze, and create graphs driven by their own data collection in their community.

Mr. Dean supported students to write a persuasive report on their selected community problem. In the writing piece, students included quotes from the community interviewees and government philosophers they studied in history, as well as quotes taken from texts they read in their English class.

In Mr. Lopez' class students wrote narratives of problems they have lived, with the support of 826LA and published student narratives in a book titled 'Like a Shadow.' Students celebrated the culmination of their work in a book release party and reading at Boyle Heights community bookstore Libros Schmibros.

Critical Media Studies Course (Elective course)

Through the help of the grant Mr. Lopez's Critical Media Studies course was able to place media making technology in the hands of students. Students were successful in creating documentary videos on social issues they found most meaningful in their community of Boyle Heights. In the course students engaged in the analysis and production of media, in the process of media production students went out into the community to interview youth, social and cultural activists, artist, and members of Boyle Heights. Students edited their own videos, and presented their work at East Side Stories conference in a workshop titled 'Telling Lies to Your Vision: How Critical Youth Media Production Speaks to Truth and Empowers Young People.' Youth produced videos were shared on YouTube, to amplify the voice and findings of youth and to counter corporate mainstream media.

Art Club(Extracurricular club)

The TIIP grant has enhanced and improved the scope and reach of RHS's Art Club by providing community youth a space of expression and opportunities to engage in empowering art projects. The after school art program is crucial in building youth identity through human artistic expression and community building. Political and socially grounded student clubs, such as the Art Club, create spaces that counter youth marginalization. Young people who participate find a liberating experience and grow empowered as community artists. Students have learned to work with various art mediums, and have painted several murals at Roosevelt High with professional community artists, creating a positive school environment of youth, identity, cultural history, and power. Students from the club, and Mr. Lopez's Urban Ecology came together to paint a mural on 'Food Justice' with the help fromCornerstone Theater Companyand support form TIIP grant. The Art Club has developed critical youth artists become learners and teachers who use the production of public art to educate community members, build unity, and raise consciousness.

Mono Lake Student Leadership Retreat(Student Event)

In early Fall 2012, a group of students was selected to participate in our small school's first youth leadership retreat, which took place in Mono Lake, California. Students were selected based on their involvement in school clubs and organizations, with an emphasis on youth and community activism. During the week-long retreat, students participated in various community building activities: they went on hikes, they learned about environmental activism, and essentially developed their identity as peer leaders. Our objective was to prepare selected students to return to school as leaders, who could encourage their classmates to become involved in the various groups and organizations. The experience far exceeded our expectations.

East Side Stories Conference 2012-13(Annual Event)

The Politics and Pedagogy Collective is a group of educators throughout the east side who meet regularly to discuss and develop ways to help build a platform for students and community members.

East Side Stories: A Grassroots Vision for Education & Community from Producciones Cimarrón on Vimeo.

This conference also received press coverage in the Boyle Heights Beat and on the Good blog (the social network for social good).

TIIP Team Lopez

The Roosevelt High School TIIP team members have been working closely together since Roosevelt’s transition from a complex-wide school to seven small schools. We have all worked together in the writing of our small school narrative. We have participated in numerous Professional Development workshops including LAEP’s Interdisciplinary/Humanitas retreat. Currently, the teachers are teamed in grade level, in interdisciplinary teams in our small school, and work together on regular basis to develop units between history and English teachers. Our teachers do not limit their collaboration to academic/curriculum collaboration. Our teachers also work closely together to support and incorporate individual endeavors of other teachers. Poetry Slam, Journalism, Art Club, and the Dreamers’ (AB540) Club, all guided by the teacher’s in this grant, have collaborated on larger school and community projects. All of these individual clubs depend on the support of other teachers within our small school.

Pictured from left to right: Mr. Dean, Ms. Perez, Mr. Lopez and Ms. Dueñas at T4SJ Conference in San Francisco

Professional Development

Our team attended various conferences, both individually and as a team. We had the opportunity to learn from fellow educators, but it also presented us with the opportunity to network, connect and in some cases even present the work our youth is doing. At the 2012 AERA conference Mr. Lopez presented the community activist work students are doing in his class. The following is a list of conferences we attended:

Additionally, teachers attended workshops to develop tech specific skills, such as Echo Park's Film Center series, where teachers learned how to shoot and edit documentaries using Final Cut Pro.

Youth Resistance Cultures in Boyle Heights from Maestro Lopez on Vimeo.

Students were also able to create and edit their own documentaries in the classroom with the resources from the courses as well as cameras and desktops obtained with TIIP funds.

School Information

Communications, New Media and Technology at Roosevelt High School

The School of Communications, New Media and Technology's mission is to prepare all students for college, career and civic engagement. The small school has a social justice and community approach, with the goal of connecting student learning to college and careers in its thematic emphasis, using an approach known as Linked Learning. CNMT's mission is guided and informed through research, educational theory, and critical pedagogy.

• CNMT Roosevelt High School, 456 South Mathews Street, Los Angeles, CA 90033
• Tel: (323) 780-4557 Fax: (323) 269-5473

In this photo of this year’s Lerner Fellows, Heather Lutz is the sixth from left in the front row, in white jeans and black patterned top. Roman Kent, president of Jewish Foundation for the Righteous, and Stanlee Stahl, executive vice president of JFR, are in the middle.

Jewish Standard – One of many anti-Jewish laws the Nazi regime enacted between 1933 and 1945 prohibited Jews from owning dogs, cats, and birds. So what were German Jewish families to do with their beloved pets?

This question seems to resonate especially strongly among juniors and seniors in Heather Lutz’s Holocaust literature classes at Pascack Hills High School in Montvale.

There’s even a book about this lesser-known racist law and its effect on a family: “My Dog Lala: The Touching True Story of a Young Boy and His Dog During the Holocaust,” by Roman Kent.

This summer, Ms. Lutz, who lives in Ringwood, heard the story firsthand from Mr. Kent during an intensive five-day course sponsored by the Jewish Foundation for the Righteous for 22 select middle- and high-school teachers from 10 states, Croatia, and Poland, as well as three educators from Holocaust centers or museums.

A granddaughter of Polish Holocaust survivors, Ms. Lutz said she would “cherish forever” the opportunity to meet Mr. Kent, as well as other noted survivors and scholars, including Alexandra Zapruder, author of “Salvaged Pages: Young Writers’ Diaries of the Holocaust.”

“I’ve taught ‘Salvaged Pages’ in the past, but meeting Alexandra Zapruder will inspire me to use more of the text and dive deeply into it in different ways,” Ms. Lutz said.

Held at Columbia University from June 25 to 29, the JFR Summer Institute included time for participants to gather in small groups to process what they learned from the lectures, share teaching concepts, and develop approaches to introducing the subject matter to their students.

Another lecturer was Edward Westermann, a history professor at Texas A&M University and a fellow at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum.

“He spoke to us on collaborators and their methods,” Ms. Lutz said. “I teach about that but he had photos and other scholarly material I will certainly introduce in the classroom. Each lecture added a dimension to my knowledge.

“As I redesign my curriculum for next year, I will be thinking of ways in which I can bring it into the classroom.”

Ms. Lutz has been teaching English for 15 years. Four years ago, with the full support of the high school’s administration, she designed and implemented a one-semester Holocaust literature elective for juniors and seniors. Since 1994, Holocaust and genocide education has been mandated in New Jersey for grades K-12. Each school may design its own curriculum.

The Holocaust literature class became so popular that it grew into a full-year course that Pascack Hills students can take as an elective or as their English class for junior or senior year. Ms. Lutz had 100 students last year; about 40 of them were Jewish.

“I find it really interesting to see the ways in which non-Jewish students who have not learned a lot about the Holocaust respond to the class,” Ms. Lutz said. “Some of those students become inspired to major in genocide and Holocaust studies in college, and that’s the greatest gift an educator can get.

“I can’t say enough about our principal, Glenn DeMarrais, and the upper administration who not only supported me when I went on the March of the Living but allow me to bring in Holocaust survivors to speak and to take my classes on field trips. I always try to connect students with the subject matter outside the walls of the classroom. This year we went to the Holocaust Resource Center at Kean University.”

That resource center is one of the partners in the JFR’s Centers of Excellence program, through which Summer Institute participants are nominated.

The New York–based JFR’s mission is twofold: to support aged and needy Holocaust rescuers — “Righteous Gentiles” — in 20 countries and to preserve their legacy by sharing their stories and educating others about the Holocaust. The Summer Institute is one of several programs geared to the second part of the mission.

The foundation’s executive vice president, Stanlee Stahl, said that the Summer Institute provides teachers with graduate-level courses on the Holocaust, pedagogical connections with other teachers and their curriculum so they learn what’s worked and what hasn’t, and resources for the classroom.

“Every year they try to reunite a survivor and rescuer, which is becoming more difficult as the years go by,” Ms. Lutz said. “There are 15-minute clips online that show these reunions, and that is a perfect length for use in the classroom. The reunions are really personal and help students understand that these were people just like us.”

Today, when few survivors and rescuers are still alive to tell their stories, “institutes such as the JFR are so important in helping us make that personal connection,” she continued. “When we approach the Holocaust as a story of people — whether victims, collaborators, bystanders, or perpetrators — it will always be relevant.

“I’ve strived to have students think not only about Auschwitz and corpses but to look at rescuers and find lessons of moral courage. One message that comes up a lot is to encourage our students not to be indifferent when they see moral injustice. That’s something that I try to instill in the classroom, because the moral lessons of the Holocaust are extraordinarily timely.”

Ms. Lutz said she has felt “truly humbled and proud” to see students’ level of interest in learning about the Holocaust and the impact it has on their lives. “I have students who will openly admit they never loved English class and then on their own they go and read multiple memoirs about the Holocaust. I don’t know exactly why or how but they are responding more passionately and genuinely to stories of the Holocaust.”

She exposes her students to a wide variety of source material. “I think an interdisciplinary approach is the most effective way to teach Holocaust studies — so I bring in primary sources including artwork, poetry, nonfiction, fiction, and documentaries. This provides a fuller picture.”

Ms. Lutz said that she and her cohort of colleagues from the Summer Institute will continue to collaborate and meet.

Literature Of Film Class Ms. Schroll's Ela Classes 2017

All 22 participants are called Alfred Lerner Fellows in homage to the late JFR adviser and donor Alfred Lerner, for whom a building on Columbia University’s campus is named. This summer, the American fellows included teachers from Washington State, Florida, Texas, Maryland, Alabama, Alaska, Missouri, South Carolina, Ohio, and New Jersey. Ms. Lutz was the only one from Bergen County.

Literature Of Film Class Ms. Schroll's Ela Classes 2020

“This has really put an exclamation point on my life both professionally and personally,” she said about the Summer Institute.

Literature Of Film Class Ms. Schroll's Ela Classes 2019

Originally Published HERE By Abigail Klein Leichman