Some students enjoyed the quiet space afforded under a nearby tree, while Vanessa chose the cool and quiet of the Cultural Center to read the piece.
Most of the students gathered on the nearby benches, reading and discussing.
As the time neared 9:45am, the students began to enter the Cultural Center and took their seats.
When all had entered and the bustle had subsided Anne Flanagan began the proceedings. She spoke a bit about the reading, giving some contextual background.
She then introduced the guest speaker, the author of the piece.
Ralph Cintron, Ph. D.
Associate Professor
English Department, UIC
Upon hearing who the speaker was an enthusiastic student, Juan, gave the "two thumbs up" sign.
Dr. Cintron explained that the reading was a chapter from his book...
 |
Ralph Cintron ANGEL'S TOWN Chero Ways, Gang Life, and Rhetorics of the Everyday An innovative portrait of a Mexican-American town |
He suggested that the reading might have been difficult for the students since the work was intended for an academic audience and scholarly discourse, but that the content was something that might be relevant to their situation.
Ralph asked the students for their thoughts on the piece. When no comments were forthcoming from the students, Ralph asked more questions. One brave student broke the silence and offered an opinion. That one comment was the spark that was need. Soon the Cultural Center was full of energy and an educational tennis match was in full swing. Ralph would serve up a question and a student would return serve with an answer.
Then students served up questions and Ralph replied.
Wednesday
About half of the Summer Bridge students had not yet gone through Orientation, and therefore did not have their I-Cards, the official UIC student id. LARES made arrangements for those students to obtain their I-Cards before the Summer Bridge finished next week. Anne Flanagan escorted that group of students to the ID office in SSB. The rest of the students worked in combined classes.
The math classes of Luissette and Terry were combined and the students were placed into three groups.
The three groups were presented with a difficult math problem and asked to solve it. Each group was to work on the problem, write the answer on sheet of paper and turn in the solution when called. One group was then chosen to put their solution on the blackboard for all to see. The remaining two groups were then asked to either agree with the presented solution or to "challenge" it. If a challenge was issued, the challenging group would write their solution on the board.
Here we see the groups working on the problem.
