Road to Rwanda.....Names

  This week I tackled getting my students to coordinate the use of Works Cited with intext citations.   They both require listing the last name of the author.   To my confusion, the results were quite a failure.   The students often listed the authors’ first   or even middle names in formatting their essays??? I am used to the confusion from English as a Second Language students who do not recognize what we would say were American “first names”.   My essays from students in China, did not know that “Bruce” as opposed to “Smith” were given names, not family names.   They simply did not have enough English.   But my students here in Rwanda speak excellent English and recognize, use, and are named English names. I have also been confused ever since I got my student list of names from the school office a year and a half ago.   The class lists alphabetized by the student’s FIRST   name.   This just is not done, but I never got a clear an...

Road to Rwanda----Valentine's Day Party...Rwanda style

 My grade 6 students engineered a Valentine's Day Party.  These are 11 and 12 year old kids, but for the second year in a row, they decided that they were going to have a party....Warning: No adults were involved in the set up! The parents of one of the members of the class owns a restaurant, so it was easy to make reservations for the night of Valentine's Day from 4:30 to 7:30.  They then invited 4 adults to come: Rick and I , and their math and science teachers who are a couple.  We happily accepted, but were also not quite sure how this was going to turn out.   We were a little late in getting strated...after all this is Africa, but were all present by 5:30, having traveled by foot, car, taxi, and mototaxi.  The three male students were the ones who conceived of and executed the party and they had a definite plan.  They collected $5 for the food from the 7 students who came (only one of the 6th graders could not attend).  We then ordered o...