Welcome to Mr. Akiyama's portfolio!
I teach a unique class called Integrated World Literature and World Culture. This class is part of a junior/ senior loop where students will spend a year exploring the world through study. This class is integrated which means that a student will get a Social Studies and an English credit. This is also a year where students will develop digital portfolios that chart their goals, their interests, and their direction in their lives.
About Aki:
I love teaching high school students! I especially love the creativity of desiging lessons that will engage students. World Literature and Culture is a great opportunity for me to offer students a really cool perspective of the world. This is my eleventh year of teaching at the high-school level. I started teaching at Grant High School in Portland, and moved several times since then. I now live in the Rogue Valley and I love it. I have two children, Owen and Lela. I love to write and read in my spare time, and I play Ultimate frisbee every week.
My teaching philosophy.
Ideally, students who leave my classroom will have the basics to think critically about their world. I believe that thinking critically is the first step to problem-solving. When students can analyze the words, ideas, images in their world, they are understanding it and themselves.
Students who leave my classroom will be deeply affected by literature. Literature is modern storytelling: it tells us how to be, it tells us who we are. Students see themselves in literature, in far-off places, in the shoes of the character. This enables them to grow and thrive in life.
Students who leave my class will be better people. Through introspective writing, communicating effectively with others, and examining the rich themes of literature, students will simply, be better.