“the ability to evaluate and judge is not a school skill, it is a life skill.”
– Kelly Gallagher
I’m working through the different real world writing purposes in Write Like This. In the chapter on Evaluate and Judge, Gallagher gives many examples of evaluation in life: print ads, YouTube videos, commercials, websites, and presidential candidates.
Evaluate and Judge – ↓
Take a Stand/Propose a Solution√
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Gallagher states in this book, and repeats, “it is valuable for students to watch their teacher produce a crummy first draft; it gives them an honest look at how writing is produced. In fact, modeling on days when I don’t write very well may actually be more valuable than modeling on a day when my writing is flowing.” Therefore, I will continue to share my writing for each of these purposes, even though these first drafts aren’t spectacular writing.
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With the upcoming election, this year will be a great opportunity to teach students how to evaluate and judge candidates. And then hopefully these skills will transfer to literature as well. So, today I am going to Evaluate and Judge a YouTube video – kids (including my own) do spend a lot of time there.
I found this series by Kid President: Awesome Girls! And I thought it was the perfect thing to write about. Especially after the amazing essay by Jennifer Aniston. Here are the links. You need to watch them!
Kid President Talks to A Girl: Rachel Platten! #AwesomeGirls
The purpose of this campaign is to make sure that girls know how amazing they are and to remind everyone that girls should be cheered on. The audience being twofold: the girls that need to be encouraged and the people who need to encourage them.
The first video linked above is Kid President introducing the idea of Awesome Girls and explaining his (and his brother’s) purpose for this campaign. He also asks for help, for people to share examples of awesome girls using the hashtag #KPAwesomegirls.
In the second video, Kid President shares his struggle being a boy and doing this campaign about girls. There are two videos of Robby (KP) juxtaposed, one being the inner voice supporting girls, and the other being a “typical boy” inner voice. He asks, “What about awesome boys?” And then he explains to himself that supporting girls isn’t saying that he doesn’t support boys, it is just that girls don’t have all of the opportunities that boys have. (Sound familiar to something else that has been all over the news?) The two “voices” side by side is very effective in bringing up counterarguments in order to argue against them. Way to go KP team!
The final video linked above, is Kid President talking to Rachel Platten. She encourages him to not feel awkward against girls and gives great advice to girls across the world. This one is a great message from a successful girl and would be even more focused on a female audience. She tells KP that as a young girl she was very hard on herself and never felt like enough. Which one of us haven’t felt that way? It is so important for kids to hear they are not alone in the way they are feeling.
And the video concludes with Rachel Platten finishing the sentence that KP always asks, “The world would be a better place if…”
“…if we understood how similar we are to each other. […] if we were all a little kinder to each other. […]”
Awesome Girls!
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