by Ashley Dumas, Project Hope, Dorchester

Summary

I am a first-year adult education teacher at Project Hope, a homeless shelter for women and children located in Dorchester, Massachusetts. I teach five classes a week: spelling/grammar, essay writing, computers, test-taking strategies, and social studies. The classes meets once a week for an hour and a half each. I decided to use the FannieMae Foundation's ABE home-buying curriculum, How to Buy Your First House, with my social studies class. This class is comprised of eight women who read at a fourth-to-eighth-grade level. The women are Hispanic, African American, Haitian, Ethiopian, and Cape Verdean. For many of them, their first language is not English.

 When I began teaching the curriculum, some of the women had been in the adult education program for 18 months, and others had been in the program for only 6 months.

I was drawn to the homebuying curriculum for four reasons. First, many classes at Project Hope are taught using content-based materials similar to the homebuying curriculum. Unlike most GED programs, Project Hope’s adult education program offers classes in additional subjects, such as health and self-esteem. Through the content of those classes, students learn and practice skills. Before beginning the homebuying curriculum, for instance, we completed a unit on folk tales and proverbs from around the world.

 Secondly, the curriculum appealed to me because homebuying is a topic of interest to the students. They are either currently or formerly homeless women, and have a strong desire to find, create, rent, or buy a home for themselves and their children. Even before beginning the homebuying curriculum, I found that the topic of home often appeared in their writing and came up in discussions. Other frequent topics related in one way or another to home; these topics included family, goals, education, and community. I have found that when students are reading, writing, and talking about topics that they find interesting, they work harder, stay focused, and participate more. I also think that they get more out of the lesson -- personally and academically -- when the topic is of interest to them. Therefore, I jumped at the chance of using materials on the topic of homebuying.

 Thirdly, I was drawn to the homebuying curriculum because the topic lends itself to a broad range of supplementary materials and related activities. When I first looked through the homebuying workbooks, I was impressed with the quality of the materials. However, regardless of their quality, I never would want to teach straight out of a workbook. I was glad to use a theme that lent itself to a wide range of related topics. I had no trouble finding or creating these additional materials (such as short stories, guest speakers, essay topics, brainstorming sheets, newspaper articles, etc.). I think these supplementary materials tailored the curriculum to fit my teaching style and to match my students’ needs.

Finally, the curriculum appealed to me because the topic of homebuying is completely new to me. Often I find myself teaching a lesson on material that I know inside and out. For example, in my spelling/grammar class, I rarely come across a spelling word or grammatical concept that I do not already know. However, as a twenty-three-year-old teacher, I have never gone through any of the steps towards buying a home myself. Therefore, during each class, both the students and I learned something new about homebuying. I am certain that I eventually will take a first-time homebuying course, but the FannieMae curriculum has provided me with quite a bit of knowledge about the subject and process already.

 Below is a brief explanation of the activities that I designed for each of the five homebuying classes I taught.

Lesson 1: Where Do You Live?/What's In Your Neighborhood?

I asked the students to pair up and interview each other about where they currently live. I provided the following ten interview questions and had the students brainstorm ten more.

MY QUESTIONS:

1.What city or town do you live in?

2. Does your neighborhood have a name?

3. Do you live in a house, apartment, shelter, or something else?

4. Do you have to go up stairs to get to the front door?

5. Do you have a lawn or yard?

6. What color is the place where you live?

7. Does it have an elevator inside?

8. How many people live there with you?

9. What is unique or special about the place where you live?

10. Do you think that the place where you live is too big, too small, or just right for you and your family?

STUDENTS' QUESTIONS:

Then the students brainstormed what places are in a neighborhood. I started the list with a few of my own ideas (grocery stores, parks, and churches), and had them finish the list with their own ideas. When we compared ideas, the students were surprised to hear how similar their lists were. I was touched that many students included homeless shelters or Project Hope on their lists. Next, I had them write a paragraph about a neighborhood where they have lived, or about the neighborhood that they currently live in.

For the final activity of the lesson, we read the story "Ordinary People" by Jonathan Kozol found in his book about homelessness, Rachel and Her Children. As a follow-up to the story, students wrote about people that they know who have lost their homes or people that they know who were "down and out," but now are living better.

Lesson 2: Introducing the Homebuying Curriculum

I formally introduced the FannieMae Foundation's curriculum during this class. I explained that as a participating teacher in the Adult Literacy Resource Institute's Homebuying Readiness Curriculum Project, I was being trained to use the FannieMae Foundation's Homebuying Curriculum so that our classes could learn about homebuying. I handed out the workbooks, and introduced Deborah Schwartz, coordinator of the Homebuying Readiness Project who answered questions about the project and about homebuying in general. The students were very interested and receptive to the topic of homebuying. I was relieved and excited to hear their enthusiasm.

Next, I had the students read a short essay entitled "My Goals" by a former Project Hope student that was published in an in-house collection of student writing. They answered questions about the student's goals, and then answered the same questions about their own goals. Many students cited "owning a home" or "finding permanent housing" as one of their goals.

From that point, I adopted an exercise that was created by Cathy Anderson, the coordinator of the 1998 Homebuying Readiness Project at the Adult Literacy Resource Institute. For this exercise, students brainstormed compound nouns that included the words "home" or "house." My students and I came up with lists and lists of words. When we couldn’t think of any more words, I had them look in dictionaries for more words.

Then, I asked students to pick one word from our lists and write an essay using that word as the topic. Students picked very different words-- from "homeland" to "homeboy" to "homework" -- for their essay topics.

We ended the class, with a short reading and the corresponding comprehension questions from How to Buy Your Own Home entitled, "This apartment is too small!"

Lesson Three: Reading About Different Living Situations & An Introduction to House Financing

After each reading, I had the students write an essay on a related topic. The first reading was "Life in a Somali Aquaal" by Lucie Germer. Germer described the nomadic lifestyle of people in Somalia who carry their tent-like homes with them. I had the students write about whether or not they would enjoy being a nomad. The second reading was "Solitary Confinement" by Peggy Lang. Lang’s piece is a powerful poem about an innocent woman who is locked in solitary confinement for months. I had the students write about how long they could stand living under those conditions. The third reading was "Stranger at the Table" by Bob Greene. Greene writes about a man who returns to his house after a vacation, only to find out that a homeless man has taken up residence there while he was gone. I had students write about whether or not they agreed with how the main character handled the situation.

We continued using How to Buy Your Own Home concentrating on lesson two in the first chapter. This section entitled "Getting money to buy a home," defines financing terms such as down payment, mortgage payment and interest, to name a few, as well as explains such key concepts as credit history and closing costs.

Lesson Four: A Guest Speaker

I asked LaWanda, the shelter manager at Project Hope, to come to the class as a guest speaker. Almost ten years ago, LaWanda and her son were guests at Project Hope. Now she was in the process of buying a two-family house in Mattapan. I felt that LaWanda would be a good guest speaker in my class because she saw the students everyday, and her background is similar to that of my students. Further, as someone who is fulfilling her dream of owning a house, she provided a model for the class. Before she came to class, I had the students brainstorm questions to ask her. The following questions were generated by the students:
 

How much money do you have to have saved up in order to buy a house?

Why do you want to buy a house?

Is the process stressful?

What kind of house do you want to buy?

What bank are you using?

How much of a down payment will you have to pay?

How long did it take to find the house?

What are the advantages of a buying a house?

What are the disadvantages?

Are you happy now that you're going to own your own house?

How much are your monthly mortgage payments?

How many people are going to be living with you?

How much is your interest rate?

How big is the house?

Where is it?

How many rooms does it have?

Will you rent out part of the house?

Is there a garage?

How did you find out about the house?

What made you want to buy a house in the first place?
 

After LaWanda left, I had the students review material in How to Buy Your Own Home about the advantages and disadvantages of buying a home. Then, I had them write a letter to LaWanda sharing this information with her. Students also thanked her for coming to our class and told her what points of her presentations they found most interesting.

Lesson Five: Wrapping up with Poetry & Research

To write letter-poetry students take the letters in a word and come up with related words that begins with each letter. For example, if I wrote letter-poetry with my name, Ashley, I could write, "Accepting Smart Healthy Lovable Excited Youthful." I had students read examples of letter-poetry from former students’ writing. Then, I had them write letter poetry using words related to homebuying, including Home, House, Loan, and Goals. I was impressed with the results. When the poetry was completed, we worked on deciphering housing advertisements.

Earlier, I had taken a stack of free real estate magazines from a rack in a grocery store. Now, in class, I handed one to each of my students. We spent a while reading the ads and deciphering the abbreviations together. Then, I gave them certain housing criteria (e.g., style, budget, location, number of rooms) and had them flip through the magazines to find houses that closely fit the requirements. Everyone had great fun with this exercise. They especially liked picking out their dream houses, discussing the inflated cost of housing (as compared to prices in their native countries or to prices in this country just ten years ago), and thinking about truth in advertising.

 For the final homebuying readiness activity, I brought in a number of different books about different countries, and had students use the tables of contents and indices to find information about housing in these countries. I had each student research housing in a different country, and then report back to the class with her findings. Many students chose to talk about their native countries, and had a lot to say about the differences in affordability, style, multigenerational living, etc. between their country and the United States.

Reflections

Overall, students really enjoyed the FannieMae Foundation's ABE homebuying curriculum, as well as the topic of home-buying in general. The students were receptive to all of the activities that I planned, and eagerly did some reading and exercises in the workbook for homework. I will continue teaching this social studies class for another month and a half, and plan on using more of the curriculum with them. I am sure that they will be interested in going beyond the first unit and continuing with the topic of homebuying throughout the coming weeks.

The biggest obstacles that I have encountered while teaching this curriculum have been the numerous disruptions in the school schedule. I have been disappointed that in the past eleven weeks, I only have had the opportunity to teach the social studies class five times. We have had many canceled classes: February 18 for February vacation, February 25 for snow closure, April 2 for Good Friday, April 9 for a stress management workshop, April 15 for a second stress management workshop, and April 22 for Spring Break. Even in the coming weeks, there will be a few more canceled classes on Fridays when I would otherwise teach this class. I know that the students share my frustration with the disjointed class schedule, and wish that we could meet more regularly and move forward with the content of the curriculum. I have given some of my students additional resources and materials to satisfy their questions and their desire to learn more about homebuying. I even have one student who has since registered for a first-time homebuying course at a neighborhood agency. If the first five weeks of using the curriculum are any indicator, I’m sure that the next few weeks will be equally jam-packed, interesting, and engaging for all of us!

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