Sunday 6 November 2011

Window Writers- Literature 12


Friday's Class (Nov. 4th) The students have a quiz next Tues on the first 2 acts of King Lear. In the past I have put students into groups and made each group responsible for one scene. They have to write down the key events, pick 2 key quotes, draw 2 key images and connect the events in the scene to any of the "big ideas" in the play. In the past the students have done this on paper and I've photocopied a booklet for the students to study from. Today I decided to give each group window writers and complete the assignment on windows. In the past this never would have worked because of lack of window space but this time I used the library which worked very well. I couldn't fit everyone in the library but I had 2 groups in my classroom and 2 groups on hallway windows.

Most groups were engaged for the entire activity (they had about 40 minutes-the first half of class was spent on discussion of one of the themes in the play, review of key ideas and 15 minutes of video). I made up the groups and put a lot of thought into who was working with who. After groups were finished I interviewed at least one member of each group on video to check for understanding.

Post activity reflection: There were 2 groups that had particularly difficult scenes to explain. I should have anticipated this and had some support sheets to scaffold their understanding. As it was I spent longer than I would have liked with these two groups while I personally took them through the text.


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