Success on a Wednesday

3 classes, 3 successes.

First period was grade 12 world history. The kids started into a 2 day activity in which they had to create a "complex organizer" for one of the absolutist rulers we had examined over the previous days. The organizer is a concept map and some other graphic organizer (e.g. a Venn diagram, fishbone, ranking ladder, or one taken from the Kagan SmartCard for graphic organizers). On Monday we had created a list of possible concepts for Louis XIV on the board and this morning we did the same for Peter the Great. This at least gave the kids a starting point. I should note that I have really altered my questioning techniques. There just wasn't enough participation so I have been reminding myself to use wait time and think pair share or another structure like round robin. I then randomly call on numbers within groups to report. The Kagan spinners work well here too, increasing individual accountablitily. I am much happier with the participation now and the kids are much more ready to answer questions. Anyway, they wrote their concepts on slips of paper that could be moved around on the poster-sized organizer. Most reached this checkpoint. Tomorrow they will complete the organizer and will write a short paragraph that explains what someone with no background knowledge should learn from their organizer. They were able to speak to each other as they created and I think this really helped. I worked the room and saw so much evidence of interaction and thinking. I hope to post pics of the resulting organizers.

Class 2 was grade 10 academic Canadian history. These guys are fantastic. Always open to new strategies. We finished the 20s witha position paper that some took 2+ classes to complete. I wanted to keep things light. We started with KWL chart for the Great Depression. They started the know column on their own, checked with a partner, then we noted some points on chart paper. This paper will be posted throughout the mini-unit. Next I had them skim the chapter on the GD and create open-ended questions for the wonder column of the chart. Before getting them to report, each person or partnership had to pick what they thought was their best question. The resulting list of 8 questions (also on chart paper) were excellent and if we answer them all, we will have at least touched on all expectations associated with the GD. The kids were encouraged to add to the learned column as the class went on. I gave them a fill in the blanks/wordsearch sheet that reviewed key aspects of the 20s and previewed some of the major GD topics. As I said earlier, I wanted to keep things pretty light and this was just what they needed. We then used the Frayer method to begin investigation of the stock market. The class finished with an entry in their journals (what did you learn about Canadian history today?).

I will try to post the 3rd class later.

Thanks for listening.