Category: Success

Posted in Collaborative learning, Competition, Math, Student engagement, Success

Chapter 68: Road Trip!

Posted on by redforkhippie

Kids sometimes have trouble understanding why they need to learn math, especially if it’s challenging, so I spend a lot of time looking for ways to make it relevant to their interests. To that end, I like to incorporate an imaginary road trip into their study of unit rates. This particular group struggles with motivation, so I planned an imaginary trip to Clayton Lake to see the dinosaur tracks and asked them a series of four questions about gas mileage, expenses, speed, and itinerary. They worked in small groups to answer the questions, and the first team to answer all four questions correctly earned dinosaur plushies.

My kids love dinosaurs, competition, working in groups, and getting stuff for free, so a team competition with free dinosaurs on the line yielded 100% engagement. Better still, the kids saw the practical application for the math they were learning, which means they’ll be more likely to remember it and use it later.

Below are the questions we used. If you do something similar in your classroom, you’ll obviously want to choose a location in your area and use Google to get the distances, prices, etc., but this gives you a rough idea of how I put this together.

You can get more elaborate if you want. Last year, when my sixth-graders were learning ratios, I put together a multi-day unit that involved planning every detail of an imaginary trip from House, New Mexico, to Holbrook, Arizona, to go hiking in the Painted Desert. We figured up mileage, meal costs (including tip and tax), gas prices, lodging, travel time, bottled water usage, and I don’t remember what all else. It was a long unit, but the kids really got into it — especially after the owner of our chosen lodging establishment, the Wigwam Motel, was kind enough to send them some key tags and postcards to keep as souvenirs of their imaginary trip.

I didn’t have as much time available this year, so I kept our trip short and simple, but the kids still had a good time. If you’re looking for a way to make unit rates understandable, I can highly recommend this approach.

Emily

Posted in Differentiated instruction, Special ed, Student engagement, Success, Teachable moments, Winning

Chapter 53: Community Policing

Posted on by redforkhippie

A few weeks ago, a pair of sheriff’s deputies paid a visit to our campus. Visits from LEOs aren’t unheard of, but they’re not super common, either, and the sight of two uniformed officers walking into my classroom startled a student who is still learning some social skills and isn’t comfortable with surprises.

I told him the deputies were just there because they were hoping he’d read them a story. (He’s been working on his fluency a lot lately, so I hoped he’d take the bait.) I asked the deputies to sit down and give him a little space while he processed the situation, which they kindly did. Right about then, his mom arrived to pick him up from school, but the deputies stuck around for a bit, and before they left, I got their names and a mailing address for the sheriff’s office.

The next day, my student wrote a letter inviting them back to hear him read, and when I saw one of the deputies at a school event a few days later, I asked him to give me a heads-up before their next visit so I could be sure my student wasn’t caught off-guard.

I got a text from him yesterday morning, saying they were going to be on campus later. I was out sick but immediately notified my boss, who ensured my student was prepared.

This morning, when I returned to school, my student greeted me with the news that he’d read to his new friends, and they had promised to return with patches for him and his classmates one day soon. He even got out his iPod and proudly showed me a video someone had taken of him reading and joking with them.

I’ve worked for newspapers in three states. I’ve spent a lot of time at crime scenes. I’ve met some pretty great cops. And I think I speak with authority when I say: This is EXACTLY how community policing is supposed to work.

Thanks to the patience of two friendly deputies, my student’s perception of law enforcement has changed from one of fear (which could lead to potentially dangerous misunderstandings when he is older) to one of camaraderie. Bonus: He got to practice reading and socializing a little bit in the process. And he is hella excited about that patch.

I hope he made their day as much as they made his.

Emily

Posted in ELA, English, Literature, Shakespeare, Success

Chapter 29: Come, Ye Spirits

Posted on by redforkhippie

Confession time: Lady Macbeth was one of the reasons I became an English teacher.

My senior year, I was sure I hated Shakespeare. After all, we’d read Romeo and Juliet my freshman year and Julius Caesar my sophomore year, and I’d hated both.

At the time, I was a hopeless Andrew Lloyd Webber fangirl. I had fallen in love with Evita over the summer. And my teacher knew it.

By the time she got done describing Lady Macbeth, I was the ruthless Scottish queen’s biggest fan. I spent hours at the local city library, reading Contemporary Literary Criticism. I cut class to spend afternoons poring over back issues of Shakespeare Quarterly at SIU’s Morris Library. (I swear I am not making that up.) I drew elaborate pen-and-ink illustrations of my favorite scenes from the play. And, of course, I memorized the speech from Act I, Scene 5, in which Lady Macbeth invokes the spirits, reciting it before scholar-bowl tournaments to hype myself up and daydreaming about teaching it to a roomful of bright-eyed seniors.

This morning — 26 years, 900 miles, and an English degree later — a bright-eyed senior taught me something about that speech.

A girl had just read the first lines of Act II, Scene 2 — “That which hath made them drunk hath made me bold./What hath quenched them hath given me fire” — when a boy raised his hand.

“Do you think that could be the spirits she was talking about the other day?” he asked.

My jaw dropped.

Shakespeare LOVED puns. He played with words constantly. We talk about that a lot in class. And yet, somehow, neither my teacher, nor my British lit professors, nor my Shakespeare professor, nor I, nor any of the umpteen critics whose work I read in Shakespeare Quarterly stopped to consider that if you were a mean drunk — as Lady Macbeth implies she is — the “spirits that tend on mortal thoughts” might be more liquid than ethereal.

I don’t know whether that was Shakespeare’s intent. But it makes sense, and it’s certainly given me food for thought as I revisit an old favorite with kids who are seeing it through fresh eyes.

Emily