If I Had My Life to Live Again, I'd Make the Same Mistakes, Only Sooner

If I Had My Life to Live Again, I'd Make the Same Mistakes, Only Sooner

<p> PERSONAL DISCOVERY</p><p>LESSON 9: AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH</p><p>"If I had my life to live again, I'd make the same mistakes, only sooner." Tallulah Bankhead</p><p>I. Literacy Objective: Students will be able to discuss their life experiences and list things they like to do.</p><p>II. Materials for Lesson: "Things I like to Do" handout</p><p>"Risk" by Dr. Earl Reun - handout</p><p>III. Suggested Readings: Unlimited Power by Anthony Robbins Fawcett Columbine</p><p>Champions of Change (1989) Steck-Vaughn Company National Educational Corporation 18400 Von Karman Ave. Irvine, CA 92715</p><p>IV. Additional Activity: "I Walked a Mile With Pleasure" & "When I Was One-and-twenty"- optional handout</p><p>"Bio-Poem"- optional handout</p><p>V. Notes to Instructor: </p><p>The "Perfect Day" activity is designed to help the students realize that they can be active in creating the days and lives that they want rather than just reacting to whatever seems to happen. Hopefully, it will also help them realize that they probably have "perfect days" when they are very happy and lend strength to their resolve to create more of them. Reinforce the idea that results, actions, and realities start from creations in our minds.</p><p>The final "write your eulogy" activity encourages the students to reflect on their life and its meaning and purpose. Try not to make this a depressing topic, but rather an idea that is natural and insightful. If you are uncomfortable with the activity, suggest another home activity, however, students have reported that it helped them reflect on some of the big questions about their life purpose.</p><p>PD p.1 Project FORWARD Curricula / Texas Education Agency & El Paso Community College Journal Entry: What do you like best about your life? What do you like least about your life?</p><p>Review: Ask each student to read their contracts, discuss them, and sign them.</p><p>I. INITIAL INQUIRY</p><p>Change is a part of everyone's life. Some can be expected and others just happen. We all need to accept and understand change.</p><p>What are examples of important changes? What are examples of small changes? What are examples of changes you can control? What are examples of changes you can't control? What can people do to deal more effectively with change? What changes are going on in your lives? Do people learn from change? Give examples. How does learning from change help people grow? What changes have been hard for you? Not so hard?</p><p>II. LEARNING ACTIVITY</p><p>ACTIVITY 1</p><p>This activity is called a Life line. It is a visual representation of the important events in a person's life. Begin by drawing a horizontal line across the board. Put a dot at each end of the line. Over the left dot, write your birthdate, saying, "This dot represents my birth, the day I was born." Place today's date over the dot on the right, saying "This dot represents the present." Demonstrate your life line by putting a dot on the line, indicating the year, and talking about significant events that have happened to you in your life, such as in the following example:</p><p>X______X______X______X 1946 1952 1958 etc.</p><p>Today's date</p><p>1946 I was born. (Talk about where you were born, your family, and any early childhood memories.) 1952 I began school. (Talk about where, what you remember about your teachers and friends, and what you liked and didn't like.) 1958 My family moved to California. (Talk about the experience.)</p><p>PD p.2 Project FORWARD Curricula / Texas Education Agency & El Paso Community College Teacher's note: Reveal what you are comfortable disclosing about yourself. Be aware that the students will follow your example. When possible, relate successes in your life to effort. The purpose of the activity is to show that everyone's life is full of ups and downs and each one of our experiences makes us who we are. This activity usually leads to everyone in the class treating each other with more understanding, tolerance, and compassion. </p><p>Ask students to draw their own life lines. Discuss each student's life line. Discuss what they learned about each other. ACTIVITY 2</p><p>Distribute the "Things I Like To Do" worksheet and ask the students to write down the things that would be fun to do if they had the time. Encourage them not to limit themselves to things they have already done or really could do. Let their imagination go and write down fun things that interest them.</p><p>Discuss their lists, putting key words on the board, asking them to generalize if most of their activities were done indoors? outdoors? alone? with others? with their hands? with their head? quickly? slowly? </p><p>Were they mechanical? artistic? nature-filled? social? </p><p>Did they involve details? ideas? tools or equipment? people? working as a team? learning new things? sticking to a job till it was finished? being on time? taking on new tasks? helping others? maintaining a good appearance? keeping busy?</p><p>Ask the students to summarize what they like to do in paragraph form.</p><p>III. LANGUAGE EXPERIENCE Ask the students to relax and imagine a perfect day for them from the time they get up until the time they go to sleep. There are no limitations. Ask them to let their minds go and design a day of their choosing. How would it begin? What other people would be involved? Where would they be? What would they eat? What would they do all day? Who would they see? How would they feel?</p><p>Ask them to get a clear picture with lots of details and create their perfect day in any way they would like it to be.</p><p>PD p.3 Project FORWARD Curricula / Texas Education Agency & El Paso Community College Having visualized their day, ask them to write about it in detail.</p><p>Discuss each person's perfect day: * Any "common themes" that can be drawn from the activity? * What stands in the way of having this "perfect day"? * Have they had perfect days in the past? * What would they have to do to make sure they have some perfect days in the future? * Can everyday be a perfect day? Why or why not?</p><p>IV. READING IN CONTEXT Pre-reading: 1. What is a risk? 2. Do you hesitate to take risks? Why? 3. What is the risk in loving someone? 4. What is the risk in coming to school? 5. What is the risk in dreaming? 6. What is the risk in showing your feelings? 7. What are other risks?</p><p>Distribute "Risk" by Dr. Earl Reun and read aloud to the class making sure that everyone understands the words and meaning.</p><p>Post-reading: 1. Do you agree with everything Dr. Reun said? Why? Why not? 2. How does the poem make you feel? 3. Dr. Reun says "To try is to risk failure" what does this mean to you? Can you give an example to illustrate his point? 4. He also says that "risks must be taken". Why? What happens if you never risk anything?</p><p>Personal Dictionary</p><p>V. HOME ASSIGNMENT "We have talked about your past today. Now I want you to think about your future - about the time you have remaining. When it's all over for you and you die, what do you want people to say about you? What do you want to accomplish between now and then? How do you want to be remembered? Spend some time tonight writing down what you want someone to say at your funeral."</p><p>PD p.4 Project FORWARD Curricula / Texas Education Agency & El Paso Community College ADDITIONAL ACTIVITY 1. The Pie of Life</p><p>This activity asks us to inventory our lives to see how we actually do spend our time, our money, etc. This information is needed if we hope to move from what we are getting to what we want to get out of life. The Pie of Life can also be used to raise some thought-provoking questions about how we live our lives.</p><p>Draw a large circle on the board and say, "This circle represents a segment of your life. We will do several such pies. First, we will look at how you use your time during a typical day. Divide your circle into four quarters using dotted lines. Each slice represents six hours. Now, estimate how many hours or parts of an hour you spend on each of the following areas during a typical day. Naturally, your answers will differ from one another." How many hours do you spend:</p><p>1) On SLEEP? 2) On SCHOOL? 3) At WORK at a job that earns you money? 4) With FRIENDS -- socializing, playing sports, etc? 5) On HOMEWORK? 6) ALONE -- playing, reading, watching TV? 7) On CHORES around the house? 8) With FAMILY, including meal times? 9) On MISCELLANEOUS other pastimes?</p><p>Your estimates will not be exact, but they should add up to 24, the number of hours in a day. Draw slices in your pie to represent proportionately the part of the day you spend on each category. </p><p>1) Are you satisfied with the relative sizes of your slices? 2) Ideally, how big would you want each slice to be? Draw your ideal pie. 3) Realistically, is there anything you can do to begin to change the size of some of your slices?</p><p>Stress the fact that there is no right way to divide up a pie. Each of us lives a different life. There is no implication that it is necessary to change the time devoted to any specific category. The focus is on taking inventory of our lives and looking at our lives more closely. Any decisions to change are up to the individual.</p><p>PD p.5 Project FORWARD Curricula / Texas Education Agency & El Paso Community College There are many things that can be looked at in terms of slices of the Pie of Life. For example: a pie on where the money goes each week, a pie on the kinds of clothes hanging in your closet, a pie on the music you listen to, or on the books and magazines and newspaper you read, or on the people who visit your home.</p><p>You can also convert the Pie into percentages, fractions, or decimals.</p><p>2. Read and discuss the poems "I Walked a Mile With Pleasure" and "When I was One-and- twenty". Relate the poems to today's theme of learning from all of our experiences.</p><p>3. Either read Bio-Poem aloud or distribute the handout for the students to complete. Have them read their poems aloud to the class.</p><p>Source: Values Clarification by Sidney B. Simon. Leland W. Howe and Howard Kirschenbaum, Hart Publishing Company, Inc., 1972.</p><p>PD p.6 Project FORWARD Curricula / Texas Education Agency & El Paso Community College Things I Like To Do</p><p>Write down what you think would be fun to do:</p><p>1) With your family ______</p><p>2) With arts or crafts ______</p><p>3) For entertainment ______</p><p>4) With other people ______</p><p>5) For your community ______</p><p>6) For yourself ______</p><p>7) For sports or exercise ______</p><p>PD p.7 Project FORWARD Curricula / Texas Education Agency & El Paso Community College ______</p><p>8) Other activities ______</p><p>PD p.8 Project FORWARD Curricula / Texas Education Agency & El Paso Community College RISK</p><p> by Dr. Earl Reun</p><p>To laugh is to risk appearing the fool. To weep is to risk appearing sentimental. To reach out for another is to risk involvement. To expose feelings is to risk exposing your true self. To place your ideas, your dreams, before the crowd, is to risk their loss. To love is to risk not being loved in return. To live is to risk dying. To hope is to risk despair. To try is to risk failure. But risks must be taken, because the greatest hazard in life is to risk nothing. The person who risks nothing does nothing, has nothing, and is nothing. He may avoid suffering and sorrow, But he simply cannot learn, feel, change, grow, lovelive. Chained by his certitudes, he is a slave; he has forfeited freedom. Only a person who risks is free. The greatest risk is to risk nothing at all.</p><p>PD p.9 Project FORWARD Curricula / Texas Education Agency & El Paso Community College I WALKED A MILE WITH PLEASURE</p><p> by Robert Browning Hamilton</p><p>I walked a mile with pleasure, She chatted all the way, But left me none the wiser For all she had to say.</p><p>I walked a mile with Sorrow, And ne'er word said she, But, oh, the things I learned from her When Sorrow walked with me.</p><p>______</p><p>WHEN I WAS ONE-AND-TWENTY</p><p> by A. E. Houseman</p><p>When I was one-and-twenty I heard a wise man say, "Give crowns and pounds and guineas But not your heart away; Give pearls away and rubies But keep your fancy free." But I was one-and-twenty, No use to talk to me. When I was one-and-twenty I heard him say again, "The heart out of the bosom Was never given in vain; 'Tis paid with sighs a plenty And sold for endless rue." And I am two-and-twenty, And oh, 'tis true, 'tis true. </p><p>PD p.10 Project FORWARD Curricula / Texas Education Agency & El Paso Community College BIO-POEM</p><p>LINE 1: YOUR FIRST NAME ONLY</p><p>LINE 2: FOUR TRAITS THAT DESCRIBE YOU</p><p>LINE 3: SIBLING OF...(OR WIFE OF, MOTHER OF, TEACHER OF)</p><p>LINE 4: LOVER OF...(3 PEOPLE OR IDEAS)</p><p>LINE 5: WHO FEELS...(3 RESPONSES)</p><p>LINE 6: WHO NEEDS...(3 RESPONSES)</p><p>LINE 7: WHO GIVES...(3 RESPONSES)</p><p>LINE 8: WHO FEARS...(3 RESPONSES)</p><p>LINE 9: WHO WOULD LIKE TO SEE...(3 RESPONSES)</p><p>LINE 10: RESIDENT OF...(STREET, CITY, STATE, ETC.)</p><p>LINE 11: YOUR LAST NAME ONLY</p><p>WRITE YOUR POEM HERE</p><p>Source: Roots in the Sawdust by Anne Ruggles Gere</p><p>PD p.11</p>

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