One of my goals this year is to take lesson plans that I have done for awhile and give them a second look. Is there a better way to teach this? Is the question I am gong to ask myself especially with lessons that I have repeated over several years. The first lesson I want to look at is Origin Stories. After reflecting on what I do, I feel like my students walk away understanding one origin story really well and then the others fall short. In my lesson I ask each row to become a "mini expert," in one story then I create new groups and jigsaw the stories. My data shows they understand the one origin story they started with but lack any understanding of the other stories that were jigsaw in the group. Has anyone out there tried a better way to teach this important foundation concept of Big History?
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My teaching partner and I use a "thinking routine" (Ritchhart 2011) called Color Symbol Image (CSI), which emphasizes reasoning by analogy. We listen to all of the origin stories as a class, and students document one color, symbol and image that represents each origin story (they do this 8 times). In addition, they need to be able to explain their thinking on why they chose each one. While the activity may not develop a deep understanding of all of the origin stories, it does push them to think about what is essential to each story.
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We follow up on this with having the kids write their own stories, then they draw another student's story. Next, we hang up the drawings and the student have to find their own story in the drawings. Easier said than done.
Here is a link to the CSI page we made.
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I really like the idea of students creating their own origin stories. I try to do as much as I can with character ed. and social-emotional learning so I like the idea of drawing a classmate's origin story even more. Thanks for the idea Bryan.
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I really like the idea of students creating their own origin stories. I try to do as much as I can with character ed. and social-emotional learning so I like the idea of drawing a classmate's origin story even more. Thanks for the idea Bryan.
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There is no prescribed method, you have to budget for what you can get away with, but for us, it's a four day set. I feel it's now one of the absolutes in my BHP class, because it sets up so much I can refer to later. The takeaway is that strong description in writing is going to "paint the picture" the reader needs. Since I want kids to WRITE more, and write what they THINK, I need to hammer home the understanding they need to put details in writing so I can "see" what they are thinking to make fair assessments of what they are learning. It's a worthwhile activity, and it's really fun. Does require a bit of work and planning to pull off.
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I totally get it. I also like that we get to start with some creative writing early in the year. Thanks again.
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I've read a lot about the benefit of starting the year with some activities ALL students can access. The writing isn't heavy, and with the added motivation of drawing someone's story, the buy-in is almost 100%. Sure gets the class off on the right foot. We really need to keep thinking of all the ways to reach kids, especially early in the year or term. If you give this a try, sure would like to know your story! MAYBE, we can do a "story exchange" and draw long distance!