Goal Post!

Goal Post!!!! I am looking forward to doing a mock large-scale Citizenship test and a few "character" simulations"; a similar idea was done by the Buzzfeed Try Guys in the video "The Try Guys Try Immigrating to America". The survey will be the 10 questions that are the hardest on the immigration exam (since most of us, if not all of us, have taken American History at some point in our lives); this is done in order to simulate the difficulty that the immigrants face. I may also include questions that ask about the perception of immigrants and a prompt where students can tell me about any immigration stories they might have heard of. If everything works out, the survey will go out to the whole school during next week, giving me the next weekend to analyze the data and come up with results. However, by using this method, there are several key differences. In the real exam, I believe that half of the stress comes from having to articulate the answers one-on-one to an immigration officer; an immigrant has to participate in an interview that determines every aspect of his/her future, and most of the time, it isn't done in the immigrant's strongest language. In my fake examination, students may work together or search the answers, despite what I say at the top of the survey. Additionally, the students will lose the ability to possibly restate their answer in a different way when prompted, thus not being able to try and answer a second time correctly. When I was administering this quiz on a smaller scale, my friends benefited from being able to elaborate on their answer, which is why I'm worried about this new method.

The character simulation will also be another aspect of the SDA; this will be done among my friends and classmates who agree to participate. Each student will get a "fake life" that tells him/her the education level, the number of dependents, and the job of the fake identity. Each will then have to determine what the best method of getting to the USA is (apply for educational visa, work visa, etc.) and how long it would take to get there. The purpose of this SDA is to demonstrate how hard it is to get a green card and later become a citizen; many students don't understand how much time goes into the process. When I was sharing a little bit about my project in English today (it came up due to the Walt Whitman poem analysis), a few of the students nodded as I mentioned the waiting time and the frustration, but a couple of the students had shocked expressions on their faces. By the end, hopefully many of the students in Guilderland will understand the emotional and physical challenges that arise for those hoping to call the USA their home.

This will probably be the last "generic" SDA. I'm still waiting on a response from my guidance counselor about school-level immigration policies and experiences (hopefully she'll answer!!!), and I'm about to submit a volunteer form for after-school tutoring for refugee children in the Capital Region. October was just a wacky, crazy month full of activities. Everything should be getting into gear rather soon, and I'm looking forward to seeing where it takes me.