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April 2019
April 2019
Mr. Konraad Kordula, G3 English Language Arts teacher read a story called 'Judy Moody Saves the World' about a girl and her quest to protect the planet in his class during the fourth quarter school year 2018-19. At the same time, they were learning to construct persuasive essays in Language Arts class. A persuasive essay also known as an argumentative essay is a piece of academic writing where you use logic and reason to show that your point of view is more legitimate than any other. You must expose clear arguments and support them by convincing facts and logical reasons.
He decided to put those two lessons together and write letters to President Tsai Ing-wen about doing more to protect the environment in Taiwan. The idea first came to him while reading an article in CommonWealth Magazine: Taiwan’s First Big Data Air Pollution Analysis: Uncovering an Emissions Controversy.
Students’ concern for the environment embodies the SLOs of DIS-Truthful, Organized, Reflective, Courageous, and Helpful. Several drafts were made by the students before coming up with their final draft. The students made sure that their logic and reasoning would convince the President to support them. To support the third graders, Mr. Konraad wrote a letter as well.
When the final drafts were ready, they took a mini field trip to the post office to mail the letters. Although they were not expecting an answer from President Tsai since she is busy with her commitments but at least they made a worthwhile activity.
About a week later, to his surprise, Mr. Konraad received a registered mail from the President’s Office. The president's response was very encouraging and inspiring. The students and their parents loved it! It was a meaningful experience and the students were exposed to the issues that surround the country.
Taiwan Insider, whose host is a good friend of Mr. Konraad, a local online news service (part of Radio Taiwan International) picked up the story and did a piece about the school activity.
Their story was mentioned at 21:20 mark. Click here to view the local online news service.
