Morris

Current Events Ideas []

ENG3051 – Reflection on a current event In my practicum last week, my MT was delighted to give me the scintillating opportunity to teach a grammar lesson to the ENG2P class. The grammar lesson was on Identifying types of sentences. Although I first shrieked at the idea that my first lesson in front of kids I have yet to teach would be grammar, I thought that this would be the perfect opportunity to incorporate a recent even into the classroom. Being in a racialized school in the Markham and Lawrence area of Scarborough, Cedarbrae C.I. has a large demographic of students that have backgrounds in Middle Eastern or predominately Muslim countries. I assumed most students were aware of the developments in Egypt.

As most of the world knows, Egypt has been in a state of revolt for some months at the situations climaxed as Mubarak got thrown out of power. The United States is closely monitoring the situation and hopes that a democracy will follow in one of Africa’s most profitable countries. I recently read an article in the Toronto Star titled “Will Egypt become the next Pakistan?” The writer suggests that Egypt is susceptible to following the same pattern that Pakistan underwent a few years ago when their oppressive government was overthrown and a democratic power was introduced. Now, three years later, Pakistan is on the verge of crumbling again as their democracy seems foundationless and their political system has the potential to fall apart. Pakistan had a better chance of sticking to democratic liberalism; their history of British rule had already acclimatized them to do so. However, over the last three years, this push to democracy is failing tremendously. Egypt has less of a democratic tradition and may potential slip back into a volatile situation. However, maybe the future will lead Egypt down a different path than Pakistan – only time will tell. I used this current event to teach the different type of sentences. The articles consisted of mainly declarative sentences. I modified it to include a few more interrogative, exclamatory, and imperative sentences. I gave the students a graphic organizer to complete based on the article and the different types of sentences they found. I survived my first test of teaching grammar to a class! Thanks to this current event, the students were engaged and we all had a good time taking up the activity and talking about the current revelations as well as the author’s opinion.