The Little Animal Activist Who Could: IEP Game on Fleek

Say what you want about the Kardashians, but I think every Special Educator should watch a season or two! I LEARNED TO WORK IT SO HARD JUST LIIKE MY FAVORITE #MOMAGER, KRIS JENNER, AND THIS MONTH ONE OF MY STUDENT'S WORK WILL BE FEATURED IN A SAN FRANCISCO NEWSPAPER, THE INGLESIDE EXCELSIOR LIGHT! 

You can totally do this with your children, friends and students too! It's actually important that we DO do this! We need to show the world that people can make their dreams come true whether they have a disability or not! 

I didn't go into great detail about her disability, but I did write the short description at the end of the article and it was important to me to mention that she had an IEP. Most people might not even know what that means. I didn't use the word disability or say that she was in Special Education. I simply made a discreet reference to the idea and let her work speak to her progress. 

***Just in case you're not down to learn from the best (The Kardashians), I'll describe exactly how I did this so that you might be motivated to do something similar. ***

Alexis is a student of mine who struggles majorly with all school subjects and often shuts down for hours at a time. She is obsessed with animals and dreams of becoming an Animal Activist. I have been using this to motivate her in reading and writing. I tell her that she needs to be able to read to learn more about ways that she can help and she needs to write because writing will spread her message further than speaking it ever could. 

FIRST: I e-mailed every newspaper that I could get my hands on asking for a spot. I finally heard back from Neil Ballard who said that he was excited to work with us and that he would be happy to feature my young activist as long as we let him illustrate the article. 

NEXT: I created a timeline with a series of deadlines. Normally we can play with these a bit, but this time it was imperative that we meet our deadlines as the journalist needed time to illustrate and submit the article for publication. 

THEN: We worked so hard. She read some articles and books about animals with a little bit of help. She also came up with the theme of her article and filled in graphic organizers I created that would later help her to piece it all together. 

LAST: During the final week, Alexis began to regress and it was frustrating because we had both worked so hard to get the spot in the paper. She was feeling the pressure and began to shut down anytime she was asked to focus on any kind of work. I didn't think we would make the deadline, to be honest. Actually, we didn't, but the journalist was nice enough to give us 2 extra days! 

I reminded her of her purpose in life: to help animals in need. I told her that this was her chance and that she was the only one who could decide whether or not she'd take it. 

WE MET THE DEADLINE! 

She hasn't seen it yet, but Neil will send copies to the school AND I also stole a giant stack from the laundromat! :)

She's literally going to die!