Well, we’re on the final stretch of the school year now… We still have a couple of weeks left, but it’s mostly testing, exams, and work days. When do kids get out in your area?!?

Anyway, today, I’m sharing the Roman Election project I’ve done for the last two years as a final assessment for my sophomores after teaching Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar. It has become one of my very favorites, and my students love it too. Plus, it is perfect for evaluating their understanding of the characters in the play AND their ability to use persuasive techniques and appeals. If you teach Caesar, I strongly recommend some variation of this activity!!

To begin, I have my students take a fun quiz (I used this one) to determine which Julius Caesar character they are most like. This is mostly ridiculous, but they had fun with it, and I used it as the basis for their small groups for the project.

Speaking of groups, students were then divided into four large(ish) “campaign teams” based on the four major characters/leaders from the play: Mark Antony, Marcus Brutus, Gaius Cassius, and Julius Caesar (Spoiler Alert: for the purpose of this activity, we have to pretend he wasn’t killed).

The Campaign Teams are given the following assignment and told to complete all four components of the project by “Election Day” —

Imagine you are the campaign team for your assigned character’s race for “President” of the Roman Empire. 😉 It is your job to create an effective campaign that advocates for your candidate (and against his opponents).

You are responsible for brainstorming and producing the following campaign components in small groups:

• One-page Candidate Profile (20 points)

• Campaign Poster (20 points)

• Positive Campaign Commercial + Analysis (40 points)*

• Negative Campaign Commercial + Analysis (40 points)*

*Parts one and two will be done by the larger group as a whole. Parts 3 and 4 will be split between members of each group so that every student works on ONE COMMERCIAL only.

I ask for specific information on the one-page profile like a catchy campaign slogan, a political platform/ the issue most important to him, a list of his strongest leadership qualities, specific evidence (i.e. a quote) from the play showing the character’s leadership abilities, and a quick list of reasons why the other three candidates aren’t good for the job. (I also give them this link to see examples from Clinton & Trump’s campaign in 2016: http://www.businessinsider.com/one-page-trump-clinton-resumes-2016-6)

The Campaign Poster must have a photo of the candidate, the slogan, and a quote from the play that communicate’s the candidate’s political philosophy/goals for Rome. It is also scored based on neatness and creativity. (Again, I provide this link to sample campaign posters for inspiration and review: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/presidential-campaign-posters_us_569e635fe4b0cd99679b6001)

Both the one-page profile and the campaign poster is due a week prior to “Election Day” so that other students (in my case, the freshmen and junior classes) have time to review them. This also kicks off “campaign season” where students are allowed to start distributing buttons, stickers, and other bribes and hanging additional posters and flyers around the classroom. (This is everyone’s favorite part and really hypes up the fun-level and excitement leading up to the election.)

Finally, the major part of the assignment is actually TWO campaign videos – but I ask the larger groups to split in half to complete this. One group makes a Positive Campaign Video highlighting their candidate’s best traits and leadership qualities, and the other group creates a Negative Campaign Video that “throws shade” at the three opposing candidates. (Once again, I include this link for examples of campaign videos from the most recent Presidential election:

See examples of positive and negative campaign videos from the most recent election here: https://newrepublic.com/political-ad-database)

The goal of these videos is, first and foremost, to be persuasive. Students are required to include appeals to logos, ethos, and pathos AND turn in a brief write-up of the persuasive techniques they used in their commercial. This is printed and submitted with their videos on the last day of the unit.

Note: I’m obviously pretty spoiled here because, since my students are all part of the Mass Communications speciality center, they have access to some pretty great cameras and editing equipment. BUT, you’d be surprised how well students do with videos even just using their phones, iMovie, Movie Maker, etc. I’d really recommend trying to include this portion of the project if at all possible – but, beware, it can take some time if you’re allowing them to do it in class.

Election Day itself is really pretty simple. I pull all three of my classes together (again, this is easier for me than it would be for many), we watch all the commercials (eight total), and I pass out little ballots for anonymous voting. The team that “wins” gets bragging rights (very important for high schoolers) and 5 points extra credit on the final grade for the project.

So, there you go.

This project really is so fun, and I’m always surprised how much my students get in to it. It also really does serve as a great review of the play and the elements of persuasion we’ve been learning all year.

Feel free to email me or leave a comment if you have questions about implementing this in your classroom!

Until then,

E

I know there’s lots of debate about “kids these days” and their cell phone usage, but I really fall into the: IF YOU CAN’T BEAT THEM, JOIN THEM camp on this one. Technology and social media is a huge part of our society today, and I don’t think it will be going anywhere any time soon. Also, it’s worth  mentioning that I teach in a Center for Mass Communications so part of my curriculum is preparing students for careers that will very likely involve using social media responsibly and creatively. With that in mind, whenever possible, I allow and even encourage cell phone use in my classroom. (Are you gasping aloud?) Some times it’s as simple as saying “get your phone out and Google _______,” and other times I plan a whole lesson using platforms like Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook. To be honest, I really believe my embracing of these things actually makes students LESS likely to be distracted by their phones during class. Not only are they engaged (because the lessons are fun), but they also don’t have that rebel mentality that can come up when you tell a teenager they can’t do something. We all win.

Anyway, on to the lesson…

Instagram is one of my students’ favorites, and I recently used it to review the novel A Separate Peace when we finished reading it (and before the test.) It ended up working out really well – the kids had so much fun with it, and the review was actually very thorough and effective, so I thought I’d share the details here in case you’d like to try it too…

Basically, I posted a blank Instagram template on our class Blackboard page (it is a PowerPoint, and I bought it for $3 from TPT*), and then I had each student draw a Chapter # from a hat. In the case of ASP, there are 13 chapters and – conveniently – 26 students in my class, so each chapter had two students assigned to it which made pairing students quick and easy. I had each set of partners create two slides for their assigned chapter, but you can play around with the numbers. To keep things consistent, we went over the template as a class (it’s the old version of IG so they were unsure about what went where in a few places) and created Instagram handles for all the main characters in the novel.

Here are two samples from my class of slides for Ch. 9 and Ch. 11 —

 Each slide required students to find an image, write a caption, and then have several additional characters comment on the post. The comments were my favorite part because they required students to really know the characters and plot from the reading. (If you’re familiar with A Separate Peace, you can see what I mean.)

When students finished their slides (it took about 30 minutes for most groups), I had them email them to me, and I organized them all into a PowerPoint and printed them out before the next class. (I printed them in color on a full sheet of cardstock to make the next part easier/more visual; but, you could certainly print 2 or more to a page to save paper/ink.) The next day, I laid out all the slides (remember, there were 26 total) on the floor in the hallway and told the class to work together to put them in chronological order. The end result was a giant row of Instagram posts that stretched halfway down the hall.

As a final review, we (literally) walked through the story and read each post + comments aloud filling in the gaps in the story as they came up. Then, I posted the entire PowerPoint on Blackboard for them to review later if they want.

And that’s it.

I’ve done this with two classes now (9th and 10th grade), and they’ve both loved it. If you try it, I’d love to hear how it goes for you! OR, if you have another idea for using social media in the classroom, please share!!!

Have fun!

E

***Since I did not create the Instagram template, I’m not able to post/share it here. You will need to make your own – which seems hard – or purchase it from BookChick on Teachers Pay Teachers for just $3 – totally worth it to me!)

I’ll spare you the boring details; but, long story short, I accidentally deleted a file from my computer that had everything I’ve ever created in ten years of teaching. Yes, I thought it was backed up in the cloud; but, it wasn’t. And, no, it was not backed up anywhere else (at least most of it wasn’t). I feel incredibly dumb, and even more frustrated/mad/sad/etc. Please let me be your cautionary tale. Go back up your files RIGHT NOW. I’ll wait…

So that stinks a lot. BUT, the one positive thing, I guess, is that I’ve been forced to re-evaluate my “normal” way of doing things since I’m basically starting from scratch again (minus things I’d shared with colleagues and/or posted here over the years)… This actually worked in my favor a few weeks ago when I realized it was time for a Socratic Seminar on A Separate Peace with my tenth graders, but I didn’t have the big list of questions I usually hand out and have them prepare responses to ahead of time. I started Googling, as one does, but just wasn’t satisfied with what I was finding. So, instead, I stepped back and really thought about WHY I do class discussions, and HOW I could make them better. The end result was even more successful than I’d hoped (#ifIdosaysomyself), so I’m excited to share it with you today. Bonus: It’s EASY to implement and can be adapted to any book or topic you’re teaching, and I’ve included an editable file for you to start using today!

A couple of things before I jump in:

What in the world is a Socratic Seminar?

A Socratic Seminar is really just a fancy way of saying class discussion. It’s named after Socrates who believed the best way to get people to learn and understand is to ask them questions so that they come to their conclusions / create their own meaning.

How WAS I doing Socratic Seminars in my classes?

For the last several years, I have conducted Socratic Seminars with all of my classes (Pre-AP English 9, Pre-AP English 10, and AP English 11) after every book we read in class. In general, this is how I usually do it: I provide a list of questions to students ahead of time and ask them to write out/prepare their answers. Then everyone shows up for the discussion, we move all our chairs in to a big circle, I read each question aloud, students take turns (or – let’s be honest – fight to be heard) sharing their thoughts, and I listen with a pen in hand so I can score each student on a rubric that gives up to 5 points per contribution based on the depth of their insight, their reference to the text, etc. At the end of the discussion, students turn in their written responses for approximately 25 points and the other 25 points come from their participation/contribution in class. It was easy enough, we typically had good conversation, and the students enjoyed it.

Of course, I did run into a few problems… Mainly, I was overwhelmed having to keep track of everyone’s contributions and the discussion sometimes felt inorganic because students were too worried about their score (ie. squeezing in a quote just to “get the points”). My other big problem was that some of the quieter students in my class – who often had really wonderful things to say – were overshadowed by their more talkative peers, and didn’t get to share as much / earn as many points. I’d tried a Fishbowl model (which just has a smaller group discuss each question in a center circle) with some success, but it still wasn’t perfect.

Now, let’s get to my new (and improved) method:

We finished reading A Separate Peace in my Pre-AP English 10 class on a Wednesday with about 20 minutes left in the block – which was the perfect amount of time to introduce their homework assignment and get started on it together. (For the record, my classes are 90 minutes long.)

I gave students a handout explaining that they would be writing their own Socratic Seminar questions for our discussion the next class. Here’s what it looked like —

 Get the editable assignment sheet HERE

The handout explains everything pretty thoroughly, but here’s the gist. This time, instead of giving students a bunch of questions to answer, I asked them to write their own questions and answer them thoroughly. I gave them some ideas of types of questions to get them thinking (sentence types and examples came from here), but the only real requirements were that the questions were at least 25 words (I think that made a big difference), the answers were at least 50 words (again, not that hard to do, but required some thought and effort), and that they included a direct quote from the novel in either the question or the answer (spoiler alert: most students found that a quote worked in the question better than in the answer, and I tend to agree).

Students brought their typed questions and answers to class the next block and presented them to a small group where everyone had to contribute something to the discussion before they shared their answer. As their group members discussed their question, each student took some general notes on the back of their printout.

Finally, each small group chose their top one or two questions to present to the class for a more informal (non-graded) whole class discussion at the end of the block.

Why did this work?

The main reason I liked this so much was that EVERY student was actively engaged in our discussion with EVERY question. Since everyone had to contribute at least something to each question asked at their table, no one could zone out or “hide” in the crowd. Moreover, students that are typically shy and nervous in our whole class discussions, reported that they felt more comfortable sharing their opinions in these smaller groups.

The above reason was pretty obvious – I could have made that change to my old method of doing Socratic Seminars long ago if I’d just thought about. What I was surprised to see though, was that the act  of composing solid, thought-provoking questions – was actually an equally good (if not better) method of seeing how much students really learned than having them answer questions. The questions they came up with SO good. Dare I say they were even better than the ones I might have provided them had I written them all myself…  They touched on so many deeper-level thinking questions (Bloom would have been so proud) and covered all the concepts (and then some) that I wanted them to learn. They connected their reading to current events, other novels, etc. And, because they’d written the questions themselves, they were particularly invested in the discussion. I just loved how this part worked out.

Finally, the kids liked it too. They appreciated only having to ask and answer TWO questions instead of the normal ten, and they appreciated the freedom they had to pull out the things they found the most important and meaningful from the novel for the discussion. Several students told me they didn’t even like the book until we did this activity, and about 90% of them said they preferred this method over the old one.

BONUS: The grading was more straight-forward to me, and I could actually move around the room and listen/participate in the discussions instead of having to frantically “keep score” during it.

Ready to try it?  Get the editable assignment sheet HERE

And a few necessary disclaimers…

I really don’t know if this would work with every single group. My students are pretty motivated and, by this point in the year, we’ve read and discussed enough literature with each other that they know what to look for for the most part. Younger, less mature, and/or weaker students might benefit from a big more structure, but you know your classes!

Now tell me… How do you do class discussions? How could I make this activity even better? What have I not thought of yet?

E

Despite the fact that I haven’t been blogging much, summer is a “high traffic” time for my blog because of all the teachers visiting from Pinterest, etc. If you happen to be one of them, WELCOME! Kudos to you for being so productive on your summer break — I’ve been watching Gilmore Girls on Netflix and playing Pokemon Go (just kidding – well, about the Pokemon at least).  Really though, I’m so glad you’re here! I hope you will check out my About page to learn more about me/my job/ this blog and spend some time browsing the Teaching tab for all the resources I’ve got. But, before you do that, I thought I’d share a quick activity today that is a hit with my students every year and could be adapted for an ELA class at just about any grade level…

You may not know this, but Youtube is FULL of movie trailers (previews) for popular films that have been re-cut to have an entirely different feel to them. For example, Mrs. Doubtfire cut as a horror film or Jaws as a Disney movie for kids. The (super talented) creators basically took exact scenes from the real movie and spliced them + added special effects and music to change them. It’s pretty fascinating really. If you have an hour or so to waste ;), search re-cut trailers on Youtube, or Google for lists. (As always, make sure you pre-screen before showing anything to your class!)

I use a lot of trailers in my classes already (almost always before introducing a novel that has been made into a movie), and my students always enjoy them, but this totally catches them off guard. Basically, I show two trailers of movies I’m *hoping* they haven’t ever seen – I use The Shining recut as a “feel good” family movie and Sleepless in Seattle as a horror movie. After we watch each one, I have them write in their journals – or just talk with their table/the class – about what they think the movie will be about, what kind of audience it appeals to, how it made them feel, etc. THEN, I show them the real trailer, and we discuss how and why they felt so different from each other. (Note: It’s important to show both recut trailers – or however many total you want to use – before showing the real ones as it “spoils it” if they already know what’s going on.) Finally, I talk about the fact that while movies and television can rely on things like lighting, music, etc., to create a mood, literature relies on descriptive language and details to do that instead. (I typically have to provide a definition of “mood” and go over how it differs from “tone” etc. as well)

From there, we jump to the book we are reading – in my case, Lord of the Flies – and look at some examples of the author creating different moods with his words. As a culminating activity, I have students re-write one of the passages that we read from the novel to give it a different mood and ask volunteers to share what they wrote with the class. (You can access my handout here: Mood in Lord of the Flies)

As I mentioned, I usually do this lesson towards the middle of my Lord of the Flies unit, but it can easily be adapted for any novel or short story study. You could expand it by watching more trailers, looking at more passages, or having students write a longer more in-depth passage of their own, but I typically do two trailers, two passages, and about a five-minute quick write. The whole lesson takes no more than 45 minutes – perfect for a “mini lesson” – and has been very successful in helping students understand how to look for places the author creates mood in his/her writing and remember the term/concept in later works.

I hope this was helpful and gives you some ideas for implementation in your own classroom!

(You might like this post too!)

E

P.S. If you’re already thinking about how to make next year the BEST year ever, may I suggest Teach 4 the Heart’s FREE Classroom Management Live Training? It will be this coming Monday (7/25) at 8:45PM EST AND/OR  Wednesday (7/27) at 2:30PM EST if you’re busy watching The Bachelorette on Monday ;). Linda has some AWESOME ideas and perspectives on classroom management and her courses are very well done! Whether you are a first year teacher or a veteran looking for a refresher, you don’t want to miss this! (Sign-up HERE, and see her S&S guest post on being a mentor instead of a friend for a little preview here.)

Today is our third snow day and fifth straight day out of school. Listen, I’m not complaining, but my house looks like 12 zoo animals live here, and I’ve had on the same pair of black leggings since Thursday morning. Also, Nora is teething. #awesome

My fellow teachers know the snow day struggle… At this point in the game, you start to live in anxiety that the next day will be the day you have to go back to school. This is a crisis NOT because you don’t like your job, but because it means you probably should take a shower, and clean up your house, and grade a set of papers, but… maybe not. It is very stressful. On that note, I totally think there should be some kind of a rule that if you miss more than two days of school for snow, the first day back MUST be a 2-hour delay. No one can be expected to suddenly start waking up at 5AM again. Amirite?

Ha.

Anyway, joking aside, snow day season can be tricky for planning. In the past, I have taught works like Julius Caesar or Huck Finn in January/February, and it’s been a disaster because everyone forgets everything after three days out of school, and I spend more time reviewing than actually reading and teaching. This year, I’ve wised up a little and created independent reading units for my ninth and tenth graders. I’m including the full assignment(s) as a Word document below, but here’s what I’m doing in a nutshell:

• Students choose any book they want to read within a set list of criteria. (I let my ninth graders choose any work of fiction, and I required tenth grade to choose something multicultural.) Only one student per class can read a book, and it is “claimed” only when the student has the book IN HIS/HER HANDS and has submitted the signed parent permission form. Students are expected to bring their book to class EVERY DAY once the unit starts.
• During the unit, I teach a series of Mini-Lessons on “generic” topics like archetypes, tone, word choice, etc. (see the full list of what I taught on the assignment sheets below – I just made my own quick Power Points, but you can also google for tons of free ones already done). After the lesson, students are required to post on the class discussion board (I set mine up in Blackboard) relating the lesson to their specific book. They are also invited to read each other’s responses and comment back and forth.
• At the end of each week, students submit a “Productivity Log” to record how much they have read etc. (This is also where I take off points for students that don’t bring their book to class, goof off during reading time, etc.)
• In addition, each student also conferences with me at least two times for a grade. They should be prepared to tell me what their book is about, answer questions about it related to topics we are discussing in class, and connect it to larger themes/motifs.
• At the end of the unit, students submit an “index card review”(explained in attachments) and participate in a class Socratic seminar where we introduce our novels to each other and attempt to find similarities across cultures/genres/etc.

You can download the entire assignment as an editable Word document here with lots more details/specifics: Independent Reading Assignment – Multicultural (10)  Independent Reading Assignment – Fiction (9)

In addition, here’s a copy of the “Productivity Log” I give my students: Productivity Log

And, here’s the chart I use to keep track of scores etc. as we go: Reading Workshop Grading Chart

*Bonus* Here’s a fun survey I gave my students about their reading habits before we started: Survey

To answer a few questions…

– I think this unit is ideal for three to four weeks max. Obviously, that may need to be adapted depending on snow days, the pace of your classes, etc.

– I tell my students that if they finish one book, they must immediately start another. I also allowed them to stop a book in the middle if they hated it (remember, this was meant to be enjoyable for them). The only requirement is that they are constantly reading. (This helps with the discrepancies between reading speed, etc. and has worked great for me so far.)

– The mini lessons should be short and sweet. I found that my students generally took a lot of time on their discussion board posts, and I still wanted them to have time to read every day, so I kept my entire lesson to 15 minutes max.

– I did not censor the content of the books, but I did put a disclaimer that it should be “appropriate for a high school reader” meaning not Charlotte’s Web OR Fifty Shades of Grey. I also had parents sign a permission form to cover all the bases.

– I think you could pretty easily adapt this unit for students as young as third or fourth grade and to cover all kinds of topics/genres (memoirs, classics, survival stories, dystopian, etc.).

My ninth grade class finished one of these units right before winter break (also a GREAT time to do this since attention is at an all time low then), and they loved it. They are already asking to do it again!!

What other questions do you have for me? Have you ever done something like this with your classes? How has it worked?

May your snow days be plentiful and your make-up days be few,

E