How do you "draw the frames"?

Andrea Wong , thanks for sharing your thoughts. I've often found it difficult to introduce frames and to help students see their relevance to making sense of the past. I'm going to give the Draw the Frame activity a go. I think having students draw the frames of their community will help them understand their world and the role frames can play in studying the past.

I very much like the idea of layering the videos and the drawing activity; in the past I've shown the first "overview" video to the whole class before doing the drawing activity (in groups) while leaving the three more focused videos as purely optional for the students to view as they wish. I think your layering concept is much better, though, and will be shamelessly stealing it.

For me the biggest difficulty tends to be in pacing because some students/groups want to create the "perfect" image. I struggle sometimes to nudge them along at a quicker pace. I've always had longer class periods to do this activity, as well, so I've also felt the pressure to keep it confined to a single class period if possible. I'm moving to a new school (heck, a whole new country!) this year and, with that, have been wanting to shift to a more positive mindset overall - so I may try to take some pressure off and let them go to town as artists instead of watching the clock so closely.

Hey Andrea Wong 

Thanks so much for posting this and sharing your challenges with this concept. Quite frankly, I have always struggled to promote the Frames concept to my students. I have tried various ways and introducing the video. Students typically grasp the concept to start but then they gradually lose the connection over time. That said, appreicate you sharing your ideas and will definitely use some of your ideas this year. Will keep you posted. 

I'm in the same boat os Jeffrey Boles  with this one. I come in super stoked about using the frames. I used Erik Christensen 's trick of putting on differeng pairs of shades while talking about each one. (Not sure if I saw that in another post in the community or what, Erik, but it's a lot of fun) . 

But then as the year goes on I lost a bit of steam and found it difficult to keep the frames really living through each lesson. I take  responsibility for this.  As I remember it, I wasn't always doing the "draw the frames" activity in each unit.  There were moments during the last school year when I wondered if even the majority of the students could tell me what a "frame" is or what they are for our course. This year that's where I'm going to try to keep my focus - making sure the frames are incorporated into weekly (if not almost daily) lessons and religiously putting those "Draw the Frames" activitites into my calendar and unit plans. 

I very much agree, students will take the time you give them to complete an activity and this one always feels like it's labor intense or takes a long time. They get oddly perfectionist about certain things when I'm making it very clear that I accept stick figures and the most rudimentary art possible. For this reason I had some of the same struggles that Andrea Wong  was describing. And maybe that's also why I have sometimes not returned to this activity in each unit as religiously as I should have. I do think it's worth the squeeze.

Also - Exciting, Christopher Barber ! I am not moving to a new school this year but definitely also thinking about how I can maintain more positivity and let the kids do their thing. 

Again Adam Esrig appreciate your response. I get so excited to introduce this to learners but it confuses them. And I also have a tendency to "run out of steam," with this as we get deeper in the year. I'll keep reflecting and try to come up with better strategies and perhaps attempt the ones that have been mentioned. 

I have tried introducing this in a few ways and I still have not found the exact right one. Over the summer when I taught the frames, we review each video and stop to discuss after each one. I then did not have them draw the frames, but had them create a digital collage of images to represent one of the frames and how it impacts their lives to be shared out in a group. This at least seems to go quicker because some students want to take a long time to draw frames. I would show them one that I created for Production and Distribution and explain how this frame impacts my life. Most of my students choose Communities, so it is hard to get them to branch out. Maybe the next time I will try to actually have them draw the frames? Regardless, it does what it is supposed to do and introduces them to the frames. I always feel confident we can discuss the frames moving forward, but I haven't found one way I really love to teach them... 

For 80 minute blocks I might try a traditional jigsaw to start. 80 minutes is a long time and it could get them up and moving depending on how you structure it. When we have block scheduling for testing I try to get students to move and transition to different strategies every 30-40 minutes. I feel like introducing the frames could be a great way to start experimenting with how you want to use that block time. Share how it goes! I am curious to see what you do! 

 Jessica Lindenmeier Jeffrey Boles Certainly sounds like we're living parallel "draw the frames" struggles. The school year is a bit of a ways off for me (we start in September - after Labor Day) but let's stay in touch about how it's going! I always need accountability buddies! 

Adam Esrig , I don't always go back to "redraw" the frames either. I am hoping if a have a stronger initial activity this year I will be more motivated to do the other activities later in the year. I am contemplating saving the initial frames drawing until a bit later in the first marking period. It's often one of the first activities I do, but I wonder if getting to know my students a little better first will help me facilitate. 

Christopher Barber , yes! Some students want to show off their perfect art skills. And while I am jealous of their artistic talent, I have to tell them to use stick figures and quick drawings or else we will never finish in time.