Cohort - April

Chapter 6:
What?
Non-linguistic representation is crucial for prewriting exercises in English class. Right now my 10th graders are doing their research papers and we are at a stage where we have gathered a multitude of information, but haven’t done anything with it yet. A lot of kids stare at their stacks of note cards with their heads spinning, wondering how all of their information is going to come together into a paper. There is no better way that I’ve found to help achieve organization of concepts more than using graphic organizers. Yesterday, I had my students choose from a variety of graphic organizers as a precursor to an outline. I could almost say they had fun doing it. One – they had choices, Two – they could manipulate their note cards and sort them almost like a puzzle. I can imagine if I had said, “Turn your cards into an outline,” what kind of response I would have gotten – blank stares, frustrated expressions, and a huge lack of production. Graphic organizers are gold!

So what?
The kids were able to see that the information they found was not balanced and that it was OK as long as they had enough information to develop into a paragraph. They were able to see that different sources were better at providing certain types of information and that organization of information is crucial to the research process.

Now what?
I will always use graphic organizers to support lessons I have about organization of information. Visualizing organization makes the concept more real to the students. It is easy, productive, and a very valuable tool.

Chapter 7:
What?
Cooperative learning is such a useful tool for Language Arts. Once the ice is broken, it’s fun to see the students interact with each other without relying on me to make decisions for them or having me push them every step of the way. Working in groups is not always appropriate, but when it is, students are allowed to teach each other, and since you retain 90% of what you teach, it is a great learning tool.

So what?
I decided to try it this year with our reading of Romeo and Juliet with my Pre-AP students. They were broken into groups of 5 or 6 (I know the book suggested fewer people per group, but because they were reading a play, the needed a larger pool of strong readers to lead the way.), and each group was given a folder of information about how to tackle each act of the play. Each member of the group had a particular job to perform, and it truly is running like clock work. They are self-motivated, they get out of their desks to act out certain scenes, and more people are moving around, talking, and participating than there would be otherwise. I am very pleased with the outcome.

Now what?
I think when it comes to reading a play, this is the only way I’ll do it from now on. Otherwise, so few people are actually involved in the telling of the story. Since one of my biggest struggles is participation and since this fixes a big part of that problem, there would be no reason to abandon such a useful method of learning.