I wanted Judy to see a couple of samples of my 6th grade students' work after trying the same strategy we did at the Saturday training. It may not seem like much to some of you, but to be honest, I was thrilled. I've done similar things with students before, but I changed things a bit this time. One thing that I did was give each student an index card to write their 20 words on. That really helped the students participate when their group presented to the class. My student population is about 80% Native Americans, and they tend to shy away from the attention of a class presentation. Sometimes I have a really difficult time getting them to take pride in their work. Every group did their best on this and were pleased with their project. Anyway, it worked great!
Iam also using the strategy of graphic organizers with my 7th grade history students as we learn about the early explorers/mountainment to utah. This provides them with an easy way to organize information that is easily accessible.
ReplyDeleteMy 5th graders and I are currently reading the historical fiction novel "Number the Stars." As we read this I am using the reciprocal teaching strategy from the "strategies" book. I use this method in a double entry journal form. On the left of the journal we write the strategies and on the right we put in our thoughts along with page numbers for aiding with discussion. The journal entries serve to provide a good basis of discussion in literature circles. The read aloud I am doing with the class at the same time is called "Parallel Journeys" the true story of a Jew and a member of Hitler Youth. We use the reciprocal strategy together for this but without the journal. The students make comments or write questions on sticky notes as I read and then we discuss.
ReplyDeleteI have also used graphic organizers in my 5th grade classroom. We are currently studying the Civil War. One organizer we are using is comparing and contrasting African American soldiers from the North and the South during the Civil War.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteLast week I had my 5th grade students use the book in a hour strategy that Judy Jackman used with us and they loved it. We used it with some short informational books on the Earth's changing surface for science. They used a variety of graphic organizers on the posters and the best part was that EVERY STUDENT PARTICIPATED! (Ann Houmand)
ReplyDelete