The white girl in the photograph is one of my proficient students. She is on the fringe of scoring advanced on the benchmarks. She just needs more prompting and encouraging in order to do her work. She is very strong in math, but needs a little help in my class. She is very kinesthetic and does well in cooperative learning.
The young man here is an artist and learns well when he can apply his artistry skills to writing. A few weeks ago we studied correcting run-on sentences. After the initial instruction, I made up several run-on sentences about the students and printed them on some paper. I read the sentences to the students one time, then had them all stand up. I re-read the sentences very slowly and students were to stomp their feet when I came to the place where the sentence needed to be corrected. I called it "Stomp Out Run-Ons." After that, I gave them blank paper, markers, and their corrected sentences. They were to draw a shoe with the corrected run-on sentences around it. This young man drew one of the most elaborate shoes of all the 7th grade. He has mastered correcting run-on sentences because he was able to apply his skills to a (fairly) new concept.
The African-American girl in the photragraph is one who needs to be stimulated to perform her best. She needs to be doing something with her hands at all times. She tends to be talkative if her friends are around, but I have found that she retains what I have taught, even if she seems to be disengaed. I have had to learn not to take it personally, but to still monitor her and make sure she is following.
The students pictured were working on reviewing for their target tests. They were reviewing in groups and helping each other with specific concepts that would be on the test. They were to work in a group for a certain amount of time and then rotate when the timer stopped. They enjoyed reviewing in this way much more than getting a worksheet and listening to me get hoarse for an hour.
1 comment:
Simply A-MAZING, my darling! LOVE LOVE LOVE the stomp out run-ons, and the shoe correction! You are one creative english teacher. I think even I might have liked english if you had been the teacher! :)
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