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Vocational and Career Preparation Activities in Lesson Plans for Reading and Writing

Fyodor Dostoevsky, Online Resume, Oral Presentation, Student Writing

Vocation comes from the Latin ‘voco–to call’. This is the same concept as a priest or religious calling or vocation. Vocational training or education gets a pretty bad rap these days however. After having just prepared an 18 page thesis on vocational education in schools I am a bit dazed and confused. I have been reading volumes of scholarly literature (peer-reviewed and refereed don’t ya know!). I have come to one very cogent realization: what we teach in schools and expect of students has very little pragmatic translation into real life.

I am sure that there are educators who are really trying to give students some real life application. I don’t fault teachers; I am in solidarity. But I do fault mandatory curriculum which gives students no backing in life lessons. So I have also come up with some practical ideas to infuse career preparation into the curriculum particularly in reading. The Michigan Model of Reading defines reading as Reading, Writing, Speaking and Listening. These activities address all four of these areas.

Technical Education classes:
Instruct and practice word processing; practice writing emails, online journals (Facebook, LiveJournal, Myspace), blogging, and writing forums like
AssociatedContent or student writing forums.

Prepare spreadsheets for budgeting, checkbooks, inventories, research

Design Powerpoint presentations on student career choices, job shadowing, career information, community focus, employers, etc. Utilize the layout, outline
and bullet techniques

Develop online resume and job hunt websites (MiWorks, Career matrix)

Perform searches for colleges, trade schools, and career opportunities skills:

English/ Language/ Reading classes

Oral Presentation and practice:

Role-play in class to simulate college and job interviews, job and work scenarios, job skills, employee/employer interaction

See also  6th Grade Science Fair Projects

Telephone calls to set up class presentations, inviting speakers, make appointments, scheduling activities,

Developing student surveys both written and oral canvassing

Public speaking: introducing speakers,

Conduct interviews before an audience (use a talk show format like Jerry Springer, The Tonight Show, etc. with professionals, trade persons or other students).

Simulate game shows with career information: Jeopardy, Hollywood Squares, etc.

Quiz show format

Literature to use with a socio-economic or career choice focus:

Les Miserables (Victor Hugo)
Crime and Punishment (Fyodor Dostoevsky)
In Dubious Battle (Steinbeck)
Wise Blood (Flannery O’Connor)
Moll Flanders
Pride and Prejudice (Jane Austen)
Sense and Sensibility
Jane Eyre (Charlotte Bronte)
Little Men (Louisa May Alcott)
The Pearl
The Grapes of Wrath
Captains Courageous (Rudyard Kipling)
A Tale of Two Cities (Charles Dickens)
A Christmas Carol
Hard Times
Nicholas Nichelby
David Copperfield
Great Expectations
Doctor Zhivago (Boris Pasternak)
Fiddler on the Roof
The Chosen (Chaim Potok)
Ghandi
The Communist Manifesto (Karl Marx)
Das Capital (Frederich Engels)
The Count of Monte Christo (Alexandre Dumas)
1984 (George Orwell)
Animal Farm ( Orwell)
Brave New World (Aldous Huxley)
Merchant of Venice (Shakespeare)
Twelfth Night
King Lear
Two Gentlemen of Verona

most any short stories by O. Henry or Guy De Maupassant

This should bolster your language curriculum with some good career and vocational skill lessons.