Teacher’s Corner

Writing Prompts and Discussion Topics on the Subject of Personal Power

A.  Think about a person you know well. This person can be your age, older, or younger. This can be a real person or an imaginary person.

1. What are some of the things you believe your person has power over today? In other words, what are some things that your person can control based on his or her own talents, resourcefulness, and stick-to-it approach?

2. What are some of the things you believe your person does not have power over today? What advice would you give your person to help him or her let go of the things that are out of his or her control?

3. Write a note to your person.  Explain what you believe makes a person powerful and why you think he or she is a powerful person. Give your person a suggestion about how he or she can celebrate his or her personal power today or someday soon.

B.  Read Bullying. Write or discuss what you agree with and what you would change about the blog article.

(Additional student activities on the topic of bullying can be found at Bullying – Teacher’s Corner.)

Teachers, you can use this blog in classrooms. Here are two ideas about how.

1. For middle or high school parenting or child development courses:

• Use the blog for discussion topics
• Require students to research the topics and agree or disagree with what the blog is suggesting.

2.  For all courses, especially English Language Arts:

• Use the blog for writing prompts for paragraphs, theme papers, journal entries, class starters, etc. Have students read the blog and respond to:
  • Do you agree with what is being said about kids? Do kids really act, think or feel that way?
  • Do you agree with what is being said about parents, grandparents, teachers and child caregivers? Do or should they act, think or feel that way?
  • What would be your advice on this topic?
  • What was left out of this article?
  • If you were a parent, would you use any of this information? How?

Why can this blog be a useful teaching tool?

• Students that see connections between their coursework and their lives do better in school.
• Most students will either be parents one day or have children in their lives that they care about, so the topical information can help them build their knowledge about children and parenting and develop a positive image of the type of parenting they want to do.
• The new core literacy standards adopted by most states call for frequent writing in all courses.
• Newly developed end-of-course assessments to be used by many states will require that students demonstrate that they can think critically. These prompts help students practice critical thinking.
• Newly developed end-of-course assessments to be used by many states will require that students demonstrate that they can analyze what they read. These prompts help students practice analysis.