Using “A Long Walk to Water” to teach Personal Financial Planning

Personal Finance Lesson — Using A Long Walk to Water in Business Education

Standards: Montana Standards for Career and Vocational Education — Content Standard 2 — Students demonstrate an understanding and apply principles of Resource Management (i.e. financial, time, personal management)

Objective: Given internet resources and time to read and take notes, students will demonstrate an understanding of how Personal Resource Management will give them the ability to support the causes they believe are important.

Part 1 — oral communication — In teaching a unit about personal financial planning, I teach that one of the greatest influences on our financial goals is personal values. As part of this discussion, we talk about budgeting and resource management. Part of deciding how we want to use our money is deciding if, and how much, charitable giving we plan to do. One way make this portion of the unit authentic, would be to read Personal Finance students the first four chapters of A Long Walk to Water, but only Nya’s story. This uses the instructional routine of “read alouds”. Then, students discuss conditions in South Sudan and other places in the world. The questions could then be posted, “do we have a responsibility to help people in other countries? If so, what is that responsibility? Who decides?” Students should then debate what our responsibility is to the rest of the world. (“Collaborative conversations” techniques could be used here).

Part 2 — As demonstrated in chapter seven of Teaching and Learning with Technology, — “The Web in the Digital Classroom,” the web is a great tool for developing knowledge in students. The Water for South Sudan, Inc. website (https://www.waterforsouthsudan.org/) can be used to further literacy in my content area of Business Education.

Students are instructed to navigate to the blog section and read at least two blogs. One of the blogs must involve education. It may be about a school that participates in the organization as either a donor or as a recipient, or it may be about the effect the project has on the educational opportunities for children in South Sudan. (to extend this idea to include more digital literacy, it would be simple to have the students search for and evaluate an article that relates to what they read). As they read, students should use the “close reading” techniques of reading and re-reading, annotating what they have read by taking notes, being able to summarize and self-explain what they have read, and determining its significance. Once they have read their chosen blogs, students meet again and share what they read, using the summarization and self-explanation skills.

Once all students have shared what they learned, students are asked what having a personal financial plan has to do with what they read. This discussion should lead them to the understanding that, by having a personal financial plan and staying debt free, they are able to give money to causes they want to support instead of to creditors.

Note: The techniques referenced in this lesson (read alouds, collaborative conversations, and close reading) are found in the book, 50 Instructional Routines to Develop Content Literacy — Third Edition by Douglas Fisher, William G. Brozo, Nancy Frey, and Gay Ivey.