Last day the students took part in a silent discussion, using an article called "To Be Young and Homeless". They read key parts of the article and responded in writing by walking around the room and writing their comments on chart paper. I asked them to respond to eachother's comments, not just the article - in a bounce catch-bouce fashion. It was quite neat to watch this silent discussion take place. Great thoughts appeared on the chart paper. I participated too.

Today they put feet to their thoughts and feelings from yesterday by becoming an "Advocacy Group" for the homeless. Small groups of students will create a community campaign using three media forms of their choice through which they will inform their peers of issues surrounding homelessness in their community, province or country.

Students were very excited about this assignment. We talked about the various media forms they could use (letters to the public, posters, magazine or newspaper advertisements, billboards, PowerPoint presentations and three-dimensional displays in public areas). In their Blogs they aswered the follow questions:

- Will your campaign focus on issues of homelessness on a community, state or national level?
--On what specific issue or issues related to homelessness do you wish to focus your campaign?
--What statistics are offered in your group's article excerpt that you can incorporate into your campaign? What other statistics should you locate in order to give your campaign factual support?
--This campaign's audience is an audience of your peers. How can your message be reflected in a voice to which your peers can relate?
--Look at the list on the board of possible media for your campaign. Which three methods do you think would be most effective to send your message to this audience, and why?
--What images and words do you want to incorporate into each of these three campaign pieces to best send your message?

I told them they may wish to investigate what some organizations are already doing about homelessness and other social issues before creating their campaigns. Suggested sites include http://www.worldadvocacy.com/human_rights.html, http://www.actupny.org. In addition, students might get ideas from advertisements that are anti-drug, anti-smoking or pro-communication between children and parents.

Students will have this week to work on the Advocacy Campaign and the classes of November 4- 14th. They will present their campaign in class November 19th and 21st. They can't wait to get strated!