My Final Project (#16)

For this project, Matthew Poirier and I created facebook pages of historic figures relating to our current educational choices. He is an English Education major, so his facebook page was on Mark Twain, the author famous for his novel The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, and because I have a minor in music, my facebook page was on George Howard, a professional jazz musician who began his career in the late 1970's.
We thought that an idea for a facebook page being incorporated into teaching would be very fundamental. Think of this scenario: Matthew, after graduation, begin teaching literature at a high school. One of the weeks he is there, the class and Matthew discuss a famous literary author, for example, Mark Twain. Assigning the students to create a facebook page about this particular literary figure is a wonderful idea because (1) it was very fun creating the facebook page on Mark Twain, (2) while doing research he learned many things about Mark Twain he had not known prior, and (3) facebook is a great tool that young students can easily relate to. They wouldn't really see it as "work," but rather a creative way to learn about a historic literary figure.
I, on the other hand, have been following George Howard for as long as he has been around. I too , learned a lot more personal things, about Mr. Howard, than I knew before my project. I discovered how he got into the music business, and where he graduated from college. I learned he was a music Major, and that the great Grover Washington Jr., gave him his first big music break. Sadly, I also discovered the reason for his death. He died of colon cancer, at a very young age,by musician standards. I have purchased all of his releases, as a tribute to his greatness, because one day, I truly believe, they will be worth a ton of money, in the very near future. You know what they say about jazz. Its like fine wine. Its gets better with age. Currently, I am a teacher and I often draw on my musical background, to field questions about the history of Jazz, and how it all got started.


Because Mark Twain was simply his pen name, the facebook account is under his real name:
Samuel Langhorne Clemens