Thinking the KimPossible

I've been thinking a lot about my lesson planning.  One of my lesson plans that I turned in this past week is geared toward 9th grade vocabulary based on "Romeo and Juliet."  I am going to use the Frayer Model model worksheet to help them with the vocabulary words.  I will have 10 words from one of the acts in "Romeo and Juliet" which are the following: grudge, civil, thrust, quarrel, brawl, disturb, ancient, canker, depart, and fray.  Each word on my lesson plan had an example of the vocabulary word in a sentence from "Romeo and Juliet."  Ex:  While we were interchanging thrusts and blows.... OBJECTIVE: Students will be able to define the chosen words and use it in a sentence from each act with 100% accuracy.  (Most likely be a 2 day lesson) I will have them use the vocabulary word in their own sentence.  For closure, I will use the 3-2-1 method (3 words they remember, 2 words they will tell their friends, and 1 word they will share ...

Thinking maps!  When teaching, we want our students to think and understand what they are learning.  I haven't done thinking maps in a long time, but are extremely helpful.  Here are the thinking maps that can help change the way you teach and are found here  Thinking Maps Circle Maps-- used to define in context and help brainstorm, list, identify. Bubble Map--As a teacher, you can use this when describing with adjectives or helping identify characteristics, properties, and qualities.  Since I'm getting my certification in English, I could see myself using this for a character in a story or a description of a literary genre I will be using such as a fairy tale, science-fiction, etc.  Double bubble map--This is a great way to use comparing and contrasting!  You can analyze characters, objects, time periods, etc.  Here is an example below. Tree map--This thinking map is great for classifying, categorizing, and grouping things!   ...

WHEW!  There was a lot of information tonight, but so helpful!  I can't wait to try out many of these strategies that we talked about.  The two strategies that I would like to take a shot at on my lesson plans are RAFT and Anticipation Guides. I have never heard of RAFT, but I definitely enjoyed the concept.  It intrigued me, and I feel the students will be engaged and pay attention to the activities.  Since I'm working on my middle school certification in English, I felt it would be a great way to get them to think about what to write and adding some creativity to the mix.   R ole A udience F ormat T opic There are so many ways to set up RAFT which you can see an example below.  I didn't know that it was another way of doing a choice board, but more specific!   Since I'm doing English, let's try one of the activities above.  Let's do Huck Finn!  Pretend you are Huck Finn (that is your role ) and you w...

Puzzles.  Life is full of them.  I'm excited to learn some new content reading strategies to use in my future class.  There were three strategies presented in my EDUC338: jigsaw puzzle, frontloading, and choice board.  I love them all, but I think I would use the jigsaw puzzle strategy the most.  It is simple to use and gets the students to collaborate with one another. How does the jigsaw puzzle reading strategy work, you ask?  This method is a way to organize the classroom into groups.  Let's say we were going to learn about George Washington.  The teacher would find an article or short biography of George Washington and break it up into sections.  Let's pretend there are three sections: his family life (Group 1), life during the American Revolution (Group 2), and life as the president (Group 3).  Each group will be responsible to read the section they are assigned and be able to share the main points with their group.  ...