Lesson Idea: Situational Writing - Letter Writing

Introduction using Pop songs:
- Hello by Adele
- Dear Future Husband by Meghan Trainor

- SH

Food Network's 'Chopped' and Exams

The Food Network's 'Chopped' show depicts exam conditions very well. 

• Ted Allen's lines 'You must use the following mandatory ingredients' is like how you must meet the requirements of the exam question (not like 'Masterchef' where you can pick and choose what you want to use from the Mystery Box).

If you don't, you will very likely be chopped by the judges, ie not do very well.

• No matter how experienced the contestants are, there is always a shock factor when they open their baskets and see the ingredients. You may feel the same way when you see the exam questions. However, as the chefs think how best they can make a dish and rise to the occasion within the time limit, so you must.

• These are the boundaries. Beyond that, it is up to your creativity. The chefs use 
other ingredients at their disposal from the pantry to create a interesting and new dish. You can draw from your own creativity to do the same. 

- SH

Article: "Tools for Teaching: How to Transform Direct Instruction"

As with the Learning Pyramid: Lecturing vs Demonstrating and Discussion Group. 
Lit device lesson example given here. "Guiding Discovery" (ACoLADE). 

 

Tools for Teaching: How to Transform Direct Instruction

Rebecca Alber , JULY 23, 2013


Photo credit: iStockPhoto

Summer is the time to look over those unit plans. As you reflect and rethink lessons, here's something to consider: How can you turn direct instruction into experiences where students instead discover?

We all know that designing learning activities takes time and brainpower -- both often limited during the mad rush of the school year. (And when we are short on time, we teachers too often turn to direct instruction.) So for those of us who philosophically see ourselves more as "a guide on the side," rather than "a sage on the stage," it's in our pedagogical DNA to sacrifice some of summer and continue to develop such constructivist, student-centered lessons.

For new teachers, I'd like to help you get started:

Let's first take this direct instruction on the topic of imagery: The teacher begins by presenting students with a definition for imagery and gives an example of it. Then the teacher instructs students to read a short story and underline sentences and passages where the author used imagery.

Now, let's transform that scenario into a lesson of student-centered discovery:

First step: The teacher dramatically reads aloud a short story, asking students that whenever they can picture something -- see an image in their minds -- put a star by those words. (***)

Second step: Then, students partner up and draw a picture to go with each star they have in common. After this, pairs of students team up (in groups of four) and share what they've drawn. The teacher asks them to also discuss in their groups how seeing these pictures in their minds made the story more interesting. (~~~ + effect)

Last step: The teacher finally reveals that this is called imagery, and rather than provide a definition, asks the groups to each write a definition for imagery together. Each group then shares the definition with the whole class. (own definition?)

Rationale

I taught high school students and used this very lesson. As they learned more complex literary devices (e.g. allusion, diction, irony), I would always strive to make the learning experience one where they did most of the talking and nearly all of the doing. On a side note, I'm not dismissing the value or importance of direct instruction; it plays a necessary role in the classroom. Just ask yourself this: Is there a balance between these three types of teaching in my instruction: direct, facilitation, and coaching? (See Wiggins' and McTighes' Understanding by Design for more on these types of teaching.)

And in case you need to justify to other faculty or an administrator why you are taking more time than a colleague down the hall to teach an idea/content/concept, there's plenty of research out there to support this constructivist approach in the classroom. You could also remind them of this well worn yet far from worn out quote by Confucius:

I hear and I forget. I see and I remember. I do and I understand.

Article: "The 8 Minutes that Matter Most"

Writing and Lesson Planning. Understanding by Design. Beginnings and Endings. Begin with the End in Mind. Objectives (!)

The 8 Minutes That Matter Most

Brian Sztabnik | January 5, 2015

I am an English teacher, so my ears perk up when writers talk about their process. I've found the advice handy for lesson planning, too. That's because both writing and planning deal with craft.

In writing, you want your audience to be absorbed. You want them to care about your characters. You want them be delighted by the suspense. That's not easy to pull off, and it's just as hard in the classroom. So when writers pull back the curtain on what they do, I pay attention. I look at the ways in which they create drama and tension. I study how their twists and turns pace a story much like the transitions of a lesson. I am also fascinated by rituals.

John Irving, the author of The Cider House Rules, begins with his last sentence:

I write the last line, and then I write the line before that. I find myself writing backwards for a while, until I have a solid sense of how that ending sounds and feels. You have to know what your voice sounds like at the end of the story, because it tells you how to sound when you begin.

That is the crux of lesson planning right there -- endings and beginnings. If we fail to engage students at the start, we may never get them back. If we don't know the end result, we risk moving haphazardly from one activity to the next. Every moment in a lesson plan should tell.

The eight minutes that matter most are the beginning and endings. If a lesson does not start off strong by activating prior knowledge, creating anticipation, or establishing goals, student interest wanes, and you have to do some heavy lifting to get them back. If it fails to check for understanding, you will never know if the lesson's goal was attained.

Here are eight ways to make those eight minutes magical.

Beginnings

1. Trend With YouTube

YouTube reaches more 18- to 34-year-olds than any cable channel. One hundred hours of video are uploaded to it every minute. There's something for every grade, subject, and approach on YouTube. Not only does it make learning HD visible, it also allows teachers to make connections that could never happen before. I had my students draw comparisons between Carl Sandberg's poem "Chicago” and the Chrysler Super Bowl commercial featuring Eminem. Fifteen years ago, I would have had to keep my finger on the record button of my VCR remote and pray for it to air. YouTube makes anticipatory sets a whole lot easier.

2. Start With Good News

If you want to create a safe space for students to take risks, you won't get there with a pry bar. Edutopia blogger Todd Finley starts his classes with two minutes of sharing good news. Classrooms that celebrate success build the comfort necessary for students to ask critical questions, share ideas, and participate in honest and open discussions. Starting with celebrations is a short, easy way to get there.

3. Cross Disciplines

Toss a football around the class before you teach the physics of a Peyton Manning spiral. Play a song that makes a classical allusion for your mythology unit. Measure the angles of a Picasso painting in math class. Integrating other disciplines teaches students that ideas and concepts do not stand alone but rather exist within a wider web of knowledge. Starting with another discipline can open their senses to deeper learning.

4. Write for 5

Kelly Gallagher says that students should write four times as much as a teacher can grade. Students need to write -- a lot -- if they are to improve. One way to achieve that is to start each day with an essential question that students must spend five minutes answering. If done day after day, it becomes ritualistic and builds stamina. Grant Wiggins and Jay McTighe have a diverse list of essential questions.

Endings

1. Exit Tickets

Robert Marzano classifies exit tickets into four different categories: formative assessment data, student self analysis, instructional strategy feedback, and open communication. However they are used, they provide quick and comprehensive bits of data and feedback. Wiggins and McTighe also have a comprehensive list of checks for understanding.

2. Mimic Social Media

The digital world's spirit of collaboration and connection can be replicated in the physical classroom as bulletin boards become mock social media spaces to share ideas. Erin Klein has written about the positive ways to use of Twitter, Pinterest, and Instagram in the classroom. In the final four minutes, you can challenge students to compose a tweet or find an image best capturing the learning that occurred.

3. Post-It Power

Another way to create a positive classroom climate beyond the "good news" start is to end with notes of influence. Have students write one thing that they learned from someone else in class on a Post-it note and stick it to the chalkboard. At the start of the next day, read these notes aloud. This affirms that a classroom is a community of learners and validates participation because it does so much more than answer a question -- it helps others understand more deeply.