Our Centers for Ethics:

Weekly writing prompt

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April 5 – 11, 2009 Young People’s Poetry Week is April 5-11 During the third week of April, the Children's Book Council, the American Academy of Poets and the Center for the Book at the Library of Congress sponsor Young People's Poetry Week. Accordingly, we offer maxims from two great American poets this week. Use their words to highlight personal responsibility and to celebrate the onset of spring.

Write or discuss it! Foundations for Life gives teachers an easy way to improve students' critical thinking and composition skills. Each of these weekly prompts comes with a maxim illuminating an ethical issue. Students can analyze it and apply it to current events and their own lives, through discussion or writing. Each prompt also references at least one of the Six Pillars of Character: trustworthiness, respect, responsibility, fairness, caring and citizenship. As a result, students can easily tie the author’s words to community values. Suggestions for using the prompts:

• Read the biographies in the Teacher’s Resource.
• Present the maxim to the students.
• Briefly discuss:
  •   What did the author mean?
  •   Can you think of ways the statement applies to something in your life?
• Point out the Pillar related to the maxim.
• Present the writing prompt to the students and have them answer these questions in their draft book or other format.

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Elementary level

"It takes less time to do a thing right than to explain why you did it wrong."
– Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, American poet (1807-1882)

Focus Pillar: Responsibility
Your class has been working all spring on a garden. Each day a different student is in charge of watering and making sure that the plants are protected from the cold. But some students have been neglecting their duties and the garden is dying. Using the quote listed above as your starting sentence, write a letter to the class persuading them to take their garden duties seriously. Include the following:

• A description of the duties needed to keep the garden alive
• Reasons why students should follow your directions
• Suggestions on how to improve the process of caring for the garden

Secondary level

"If you don’t like something, change it. If you can’t change it, change your attitude. Don’t complain."
– Maya Angelou, American poet and author (b. 1928)

Focus Pillar: Responsibility
Recently, students have been damaging trees on the playground by uprooting them and breaking branches. You have decided to do something about this by getting together a group of students to plant more trees. Now, your biggest challenge is to persuade everyone to take care of them. Write a letter to your student body including the following:

• Reasons why destroying trees is wrong
• Ways they can get involved in the tree-planting project
• Alternative activities to do on the playground

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