The Sabbatical Project Logs

how I plan on Sharing the Gained Sabbatical Information and Experience with the School and Community

6/1/2016

First and foremost, I will be sharing my information and experience is in the classroom with my students. I will be using my project as example for when my students begin their own Oral History. I will also be using it for lessons on translation and Italian history in general.

Some of the other ways I plan on sharing will be with my colleagues and hope to present the project in part during a divisional meeting. I have added information for my divisional colleagues to use if they were interested in using the website in their own classrooms.

I hope to be adding more to the project and being able to collaborate with other colleagues outside of my division—possibly build a relationship for co-teaching opportunities.

I hope to be collaborating with universities and schools who are interested in discussing the project and present it in some courses and in the community. I also plan to be in contact with Italian organizations and Italian teaching groups such as AATI (Association of American Teachers of Italian). My hope is to collaborate not solely within the OPRFHS community but connect with other teachers in and outside of the area and present the project for their own classroom/community use.

Weekly Logs can be found on the website www.thestoryofsilence.com/sabbatical-logs-2015--2016

Both personally and professionally the sabbatical leave allotted me time. It allowed me to explore a topic that had very personal ties and connect it into my professional world. Taking a story that taught me many life lessons made me reflect upon story-telling in general and its capacity for it to be a tool that can connect, teach, and open our minds to new people, cultures, races, and over-all life lessons. I began thinking about the nature of teaching and what we do as educators and, when within the institutional walls, we sometimes forget in the midst of all our other responsibilities as public educators that we are all telling stories. In general, the students passively sit and listen and apply these stories on tests, essays, etc. What if the students were actively engaged in these stories? What would they learn? How would it be different if they actively listened to stories of their choosing, stories that enlightened them, changed them, affected them in some profound way? What if they took those stories and put them together to then discover their lessons and teach others about their discoveries, what these stories that affected them can teach others, what lessons are hidden in each story?
I had begun interviewing the women in my family years earlier, prior to applying for a sabbatical leave and as I began my sabbatical and engaged in the activities of collecting, listening, recording, and creating, I learned so much about a generation of women, about World War II and the lessons I couldn’t get in textbooks, about the nature of listening, and re-listening, and then listening again. I learned about strength of spirit, character and for some the lack thereof, and more importantly I learned about myself—I reflected often about the differences and similarities of people and how we all connect. It’s that word and the meaning that was highlighted often throughout the sabbatical year—connection. I personally felt more and more disconnected from my professional life and what the sabbatical allowed was the time to not solely create a project but a project that allowed for more connection with my students, colleagues, and community.
I wanted to use technology not as a distraction, or a tool to play rote games, or collect data, or enhance visual stimuli but use technology in a more expressive way, a way to connect on a more human-to-human level. The technology is the backdrop and background for the project, the tools to create the visual engagement but the connection is human-to-human. The connection is what is truly the lesson-two people connecting via story, one telling another listening. As the project continued, many other lessons were apparent—research that taught me more about WWII, a place, an event, how to use technology to create a format for my project and social lessons were taught as well. I had to go out and connect, collect, and organize. By being allowed the experience of doing this myself, gave me the knowledge in how to approach it with my own students and knowing its value in education.
The project itself can be utilized not only as an example to an Oral History but for a number of other lessons within the classroom and the subject of Italian—translation, history of Italy, and the list goes on…also due to its inter-disciplinary nature, the project can be used in many other subject matters.
I am extremely grateful to have had this opportunity and thankful that OPRFHS offers such an amazing opportunity for its faculty-it truly is an invaluable resource we have at the school and I strongly recommend others to apply and pursue such a rewarding opportunity for personal and professional growth. Again, thank you OPRFHS!

The purpose of my sabbatical leave was to create an Oral History of my own in order to have a concrete example for my students as they embark on their own creation of an Oral History project. The focus of my Oral History was the women in my family whom all had experienced a bombing on July 7, 1943 that killed several members of their family. As the project progressed, I was introduced to other women whom all had their own personal stories and experiences of WWII. I decided to add some of these women’s stories and the project shifted slightly without losing its initial focus or its integrity but instead adding a tremendous amount to the overall project. The project became more multi-dimensional, making it accessible to, not only, the Italian program but to other languages and subject matters—the project can be utilized cross-divisionally.

These women’s experiences and stories were collected and designed into videos that were then uploaded to a website I specifically created for the project. Part of my purpose for the sabbatical leave was to interview Professor Alessandro Portelli, who is a well-known Italian Oral Historian. His interview would serve as an ‘expert’ voice and guide in regards to how one would go about in creating their own Oral History. I accomplished this purpose when I met Professor Portelli in Rome, Italy and created a video with his interview under the “Lesson Plan” tab of the website I created: www.thestoryofsilence.com

I then wrote and designed a lesson plan using the questions asked of me when I initially applied for the sabbatical that were given to me by OPRFHS. Using those questions as a template seemed appropriate as I slightly changed the verbiage to fit the nature of the Oral History project and added some questions of my own in order to provide some guided focus for students as they begin their own projects. The lesson plans also have Illinois and National Standards that this project would meet and achieve. A resource page was also created in providing resources to teachers and students that implement this type of project in their own class curriculums. My hope is to continue adding more interviews and lessons to the website and broadening the subject outside of just WWII and making it into a site that all types of stories would be shared and utilized as teaching and learning tools.

Exploring the website can provide further information and example to the overall completion statement.

In Italy and RELAXING! My sabbatical leave has come to an end. The overall project, as stated in my sabbatical request, has been achieved yet the website will continue to be a work in progress. I plan to add more stories and lessons and hope that others who visit and use the site will share some of their own stories and lessons. My hope is that the website grows and can be utilized in school classrooms and outside of the classroom as well. I have provided a completion statement, indicating if my purpose for the sabbatical leave has been achieved, a reflection and how I will be using the project in collaboration with students, colleagues, and the community. Thank you OPRFHS for granting me this opportunity. Grazie mille!!

Anna C.

Instructor of Italian language and culture at OPRFHS

**Throughout the logs, highlighted and underlined in yellow are links that will lead you to resources about Italy, WW2, and many other miscellaneous topics that may help you utilized the site in a more effective way**

how I plan on Sharing the Gained Sabbatical Information and Experience with the School and Community

reflection statement

completion statement

sabbatical logs

Anna C.

Archives

Categories

how I plan on Sharing the Gained Sabbatical Information and Experience with the School and Community

reflection statement

completion statement﻿

sabbatical logs

Anna C.

Archives

Categories

completion statement