UNIVERSITY OF PUERTO RICO AT HUMACAO ENGLISH DEPARTMENT EDPE 4006 Practice Teaching Eliezer Morales Ruiz.

. Reflection: DIVERSITY Throughout the semester I was able to empower students with to accept diversity in many different ways. Since the beginning of the semester I began to notice the differences between every student. Thanks to the group profile, I was able to know their likes and dislikes and the things they were talented. As soon as I began to teach the group, I decided to use at the beginning of the lessons, some motivational quotes to get their reactions and perspectives they had by reflecting on them. It was interesting to see how they had diverse opinions about some topics, while in other times everybody was able to agree on the same things. On the month of February, my students were able to see diversity in different styles of poems. The students were able to know the diversity of cultures by reading poems from different authors of a diverse group of cultures. For example, they were able to see how the Japanese can be focused in the simplicity and instants in life by writing Haiku poems. They were also able to see importance of knights and royal manners in the poem from Beowulf. This poem was an excerpt of the poem Beowulf that is set on Scandinavia, Europe. Also in the poem Casey at the bat, they were able to read and see in a short cartoon video of the poem, how diverse we can be in our attitudes and egos. The main character, Casey, portrait the stereotype of a baseball player that things he knows it all and life teaches him a lesson. I think that also my students were able to experience diversity in the Poetry book assessment. Each one of them was very original and wrote different poetry styles about a diverse arrange of topics. Dr. Anbal Muoz

By reading the play The Diary of Anne Frank the students learned a perfect example about the intolerance of diversity. This play presents the story of a Jewish teenager that that suffered the persecution of the Nazis on Europe, 1933. The Nazis were against the diversity of cultures, to the point of murdering thousands of Jewish people. So, the students reflected on this historic and sad event, remembering that we should have tolerance and respect the diversity of the world. Once again the students were encouraged to diversity, by selecting from a diverse group of types of essays and writing about a topic of their choice. Since they are diverse, they got the opportunity to write about a topic of their choice and then, they had to present their essays orally in front of the classroom. Opportunity was given for the students react about the topics of the essays of their peers and everybody had to respect the diversity of opinions. The choice of topics for writing was very diverse and Im glad they had the opportunity to do so. At the end of the semester, I was glad to hear in our final group activity, the messages they share to each other. There were a lot of students that share that although they had different personalities and preferences, they still loved each other and were glad to be united throughout the semester. I was amazed the see and hear from them, that although they had some differences, they were able to respect and care about each other. Now that they are going to high school, they are going to face diverse challenges and changes in their lives. I believe that they have all what it takes to become professionals in our up growing diverse society.