Monday, December 7, 2015

The Birthday of a King


My Grade 6 English as a Second Language (ESL) class works on one big writing project each term; in Term 1 we wrote a book report, and this term we worked on a newspaper article about the birth of Jesus. When I told them what we would be working on this term, their reaction—as usual—was a collective groan and a chorus of, “But we already know how to write a newspaper article!” (They say this every term, but by the time we’re two or three weeks into the project, they’re enjoying it!) This class is one of my favourites because we have some pretty good discussions, as well as some completely random and ridiculous ones!
Apparently Sally and my student have the same problem!

I’ve collected my favourite bits of their articles—things that are worded quite interestingly, as well as a couple funny misspellings.

-(Talking about the wise men) Over the night they had a dream that they should not return to King Harold because he wanted to kill the Messiah.

-Mary travelled with Joseph because Joseph was from Bethlehem. While they were travelling, Mary felt the baby was kicking her.

-Joseph was a carpenter. He liked Mary and they were going to be married but before they got married, Mary got pregnant. Joseph thought that Mary did not like him, but the angle [angel] told Joseph that it was Jesus.

-One hot topic all term long was how to spell Bethlehem. That last syllable gave us heaps of trouble! Is it –hem or –ham? Well, one of the Grade 6 kids had a theory: You spell it with an “e,” because if you use an “a,” it spells “ham,” which, of course, is from a pig, which the Jews couldn’t eat. So if you spell Bethlehem with an “a,” the Jewish people would be offended, because their city would have “ham” in its name. After I explained that I didn’t think anyone would actually be offended if Bethlehem was spelled incorrectly, I told them about mnemonic devices (tricks to remember spellings, orders, and so on), and if that was how they remembered how to spell Bethlehem correctly, then go for it!

I’ll leave you with the full article from my best student in that class. (You’ll have to excuse his introduction; we’re still working on grabbing the reader’s attention…)



Jesus Was Born to Save Everyone
By: A Grade 6 Student

                Have you ever wondered what happened about 2,000 years ago? Well if you read this article you will find out.

                Joseph went back to his home town with Mary and a child was going to be born to them. While they were there it was time for the baby to be born, so Mary gave birth to Jesus in a manger in Bethlehem because there was no space for them in the inn.

                There were shepherds looking after their sheep at night. Then suddenly an angel appeared and the glory of the Lord shone around them. The shepherds were scared. The angel told them not to be afraid because a Saviour was born in Bethlehem to save them. Then a group of angels began to praise God. The shepherds hurried off the Bethlehem and baby Jesus lying in the manger. After they worshipped him they spread the word around.

                After Jesus’ birth the wise men came from the east saying that they saw a star and asked where the King of the Jews was born so they could worship him. When King Herod heard about this he was angry so he called priests and asked where the child would be born. They said “In Bethlehem in Judea.” Herod called the wise men and said, “Go and look for the child and when you have found him report to me so I can also go and worship him.” But an angel appeared to the wise men and told them not to go back to King Herod.

                A few months before the birth of Christ his earthly cousin was born to Elizabeth and Zechariah. Their neighbours were filled with joy because the Lord has shown them mercy. The child was named John and later he was called John the Baptist because he baptized people. People should believe in Jesus to have everlasting life. Everyone should believe because if they read the Bible it tells them that Jesus in the Son of God.



Merry Christmas!

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