I’ve posted several times about my two-week series of lessons with students comparing neighborhoods (see A Lesson Highlighting Community Assets — Not Deficits).

GOOD Magazine just published an issue on the topic of “neighborhoods.” Though its not really accessible to English Language Learners, some of their articles gave me some great ideas to use next year.

One piece they wrote highlighted fictional neighborhoods in literature. Accessible examples would be a great addition to the unit plan.

They also wrote about songs that featured neighborhoods. Playing, and singing, some examples, followed by students writing their own song of their neighborhood would be a lot of fun and an excellent language-learning opportunity.

GOOD also shared their criteria for a perfect neighborhood. That would be interesting to compare with what students come-up with when they create their own.

I’ll add these resources to the post sharing the lesson.