So here are some things that I have learned about teaching J/I.
1. The Minds-On must be teacher-centred, or you will lose control of your class. Group work is by nature an energy generator, and as a teacher of pubescent kids, you need to focus them and reign them in before you let them lose into activity land.
2. High-level conceptually-based discussion must be teacher-centered. Students will not get it otherwise.
3. Activities are successful when students have very clear criteria and a very narrow objective and scope.
4. I can teach Holocaust history and well, but it burns me out like a mother......
The rewards of my week.
So I did my All-about-me on my grandmother's experience in the Holocaust. This is the feedback that I got.
When I told them our Holocaust unit was over, the students responded awwwwwwwww.
When I gave them a choice of doing poetry or the graphic novel Maus for our second two weeks, citing Holocaust burn-out - the Students voted Maus. They wanted more Holocaust.
When I suggested to the students that we stop reading for the day, they said aaaawww.
When they showed up for history class, they said, can we read Maus during history class.
When I asked the students if they wanted to take turns reading Maus, they said, No, we love it they way you read it.
And when I had the students to RRR's for my All About Me, they were so beautiful they made me cry.
One girl - you know the tough one with all the attitude wrote that she didn't know Ms. Michaels was Jewish and that her family went through so much. She has been a softy ever since. Another student said that he learned about how much a family can care about one another from the all about me.
I have handed them all back except one so I can remember the details, but here is what one student wrote. He's one of the cool kids in the class...
' I can relate to Ms. Michaels's story becayse my parents had a love story like Ms. Michaels's grandparents story. Ms. Michaels's story was amazing. I liked how she made sure she included every detail. I also liked how she explained every thing and made sure we knew it. I thought at the part when she said her grandparents went in the gas chambers, I thought they were gonna die. But when they didn't they were very lucky.' :)
There be a lot of hearts up in this club. :D
My "AH-HA" moment too!!! Grade eight students have the capacity to deal with complex conceppts and assignments as long as you, as teacher, have laid the proper founndation. For me i found this included anchor charts (seriously a lot of them!!!!!); group and teacher led discussions; and activty expectation sheet that I generated to make sure that al the expectations were clear both at school and at home. I realized that kids that age will agree that they know what is expected of them at school (probably because they do know when its fresh and right it front of them) but will come back the next day and say they didnt know what was expected of them. I learned week 1 that it was essential that i sent kids home with a home version of the anchor charts.
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