Recently a literacy specialist came to my school and met with all of the English Language Arts teachers. One of the main things I took away from our half day meeting ( should have been all day! But alas, sub costs...) was that student-talk should out weigh teacher-talk. When done efficantly and effectivly, having a student lead/run classroom is most beneficial to our students. Who's opinion and words do they value the most? Certainly not the grown woman yaping on and on and on at the front of the room! They listen to their peers.
The hard part about having more student talk is that its hard for us control frea... I mean teachers, to let go and lets the kids take a lesson where they want it to. I really struggle with this. I want to know my kids are always on task, but I've quickly learned a quiet class does not always mean an engaged and learning class.
So I decided to make this year more student driven. Granted, I have freshmen and they need a little more guidance than most, but they are taking to almost all the activities I throw at them.
One really effective student driven activiiy I did is called a walk-a-bout I focused mine on the differnt atributes and aspects of characters in the novel we were studying, but you can adapt this for any topic! I also used this in my student teaching for brainstorming research topics, and I've seen other teachers in my school use it for test review.
Here are the simple steps!
Pick topics you want kids to generate information for. I picked 6 characters from To Kill A Mockingbird: Jem, Scout, Atticus, Calpurnia, Burris Ewell, and Ms. Caroline.
I had 6 pieces of butcher paper. ( giant sticky notes work much better, waaaaa easier to set up, but also expensive)
I hung them around the room.
Divided students into groups.
Gave them all a marker.
Told them to write anything they knew about that character, and the page they found that information on. I also provided students with a list of things they could write about for each character, such as: occupation, personality traits, relationships, likes and dislikes, age, and place of origin.
I gave students about 4 minutes at each paper, rotated them 6 times so everyone got to every paper, andI watched the ideas flow.
After, I went around and we talked about each character, crossed off incorrect information, and added important information that was needed. ( this is where my control freak side got to finally come out!)
In generall, students had a much better understanding of these characters, and knew exacly where to look when I asked them to write three pieces of textual evidence supporting information about each character.
I'd say it was a success, mostly for the fact that no one wrote "boobs" or other ridiculous things on the posters.
Below is a picture of one brainstorm sheet, and the collection of sheets from different periods to keep for reference later on!
The hard part about having more student talk is that its hard for us control frea... I mean teachers, to let go and lets the kids take a lesson where they want it to. I really struggle with this. I want to know my kids are always on task, but I've quickly learned a quiet class does not always mean an engaged and learning class.
So I decided to make this year more student driven. Granted, I have freshmen and they need a little more guidance than most, but they are taking to almost all the activities I throw at them.
One really effective student driven activiiy I did is called a walk-a-bout I focused mine on the differnt atributes and aspects of characters in the novel we were studying, but you can adapt this for any topic! I also used this in my student teaching for brainstorming research topics, and I've seen other teachers in my school use it for test review.
Here are the simple steps!
Pick topics you want kids to generate information for. I picked 6 characters from To Kill A Mockingbird: Jem, Scout, Atticus, Calpurnia, Burris Ewell, and Ms. Caroline.
I had 6 pieces of butcher paper. ( giant sticky notes work much better, waaaaa easier to set up, but also expensive)
I hung them around the room.
Divided students into groups.
Gave them all a marker.
Told them to write anything they knew about that character, and the page they found that information on. I also provided students with a list of things they could write about for each character, such as: occupation, personality traits, relationships, likes and dislikes, age, and place of origin.
I gave students about 4 minutes at each paper, rotated them 6 times so everyone got to every paper, andI watched the ideas flow.
After, I went around and we talked about each character, crossed off incorrect information, and added important information that was needed. ( this is where my control freak side got to finally come out!)
In generall, students had a much better understanding of these characters, and knew exacly where to look when I asked them to write three pieces of textual evidence supporting information about each character.
I'd say it was a success, mostly for the fact that no one wrote "boobs" or other ridiculous things on the posters.
Below is a picture of one brainstorm sheet, and the collection of sheets from different periods to keep for reference later on!