Multilingual Resource Teacher Emily Vosberg helped Sauk Trail fourth graders turn a persuasive essay writing assignment into a service project for the Dane County Humane Society. The inspiration came when students were choosing a social issue to research for their assignment.
“Many of the students that I support come from other countries in which it is common to have lots of homeless animals roaming the streets, and they would tell me about animals that used to live near their houses,” Vossberg said. “I decided to teach them about animal shelters here in our local community and how much they benefit our community and those across the United States.”
To help with the research component of the assignment, Vosberg invited a friend who’s a veterinary technician at the Dane County Humane Society to serve as a guest speaker.
“My students enjoyed learning about the animals at the Humane Society so much that we decided to make posters for some of the available pets at the shelter to convince patrons to buy those pets,” Vosberg said. “We especially focused on the shelter's ‘Lonely Hearts Club,’ which includes animals that have been at the shelter the longest without finding their forever home.”
Vosberg said students hope people will see their posters and be inspired to adopt the animals. Their posters provided the animal shelter with a bonus.
“Because my students are bilingual, we were able to write these posters in both English and Spanish, providing a language resource to the shelter that it does not normally have.”
“My students have been highly engaged in this project and have really liked learning about animals,” Vosberg said. “For many of these students, reading and writing are among their greatest challenges of the day, so it is frequently difficult to get them to willingly engage in these topics.”
She said one of her students told her, "I feel like I am finally learning and succeeding."
“It is a great feeling to know that this project is having a positive impact not only on their writing abilities, but also on their overall self-perception and feelings towards school,” Vosberg said.
Vosberg said it’s important for students to understand that they can make a difference in their community.
“Often students have the will and initiative to make change, but do not feel that they are powerful enough to make a difference. This is especially true for our multilingual students,” Vosberg said. “My hope is that this project allowed them to see that their voice is important, that they can help others, and that they can make a difference in their community.”