Meme Dump Monday

 I have a Google Slides with memes on it relating to what we are reading in class.  It is fun to have it on the screen when students enter the class and by having on Google Slides, I have easy access to it and can repeat it year after year. The majority are memes I found elsewhere and at this point, I don't remember which ones I made, which ones students created, and which ones I found, so let me just say that probably all of these are ones I found. Here are a few for your reading pleasure!

Hope your Monday is a little brighter!

Freebie - Short Analysis Practice: Spotlight Journal

 This is not my idea, but it is my presentation.  I've always loved short ways for students to practice (thus the short daily reading comprehension questions I use for our state test (The Daily Dose of EOC).

When we have a spotlight reading day, the students come in to see this on the screen: 

The idea behind this is that students are given a short passage and then a few minutes to start analyzing it.  This cuts out the long reading process and allows us to get straight to literary analysis.  I'll give my AP Lit class anywhere from 5-7 minutes for them to write this into their Spotlight Reading Journal and then we talk about it.  If I were to use this for honors, I would probably give about the same.  If I wanted to use this for regular level or younger classes, I would probably require two minutes of thinking before I started the writing process.

Most of them have guidance questions to help them if they need a push in their thinking.

The first question is always a "What did you notice first" type question.  I also stress that they do not need to answer the questions nor even read the questions. I am always more interested in their thoughts.  This can be done with art or video as well.

Initially I used these twice a week, but found that it became a chore for the students at that frequency.  Now I do it once every two weeks (the class is a year-long class) and that has been more successful.

If  you want to use mine, please do!  If you create some yourself, I would love to see it.  I am constantly trying to add better ones in to replacement my weaker ones that I started with a few years ago.

https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1hSoUhn8gaW1PkD2HDQMURyhoXW4_Nbk9EMKDMcYenPo/edit?slide=id.p#slide=id.p

Shameless Plug: _The Lord of the Flies_ Interactive Survival Game

 I love this book with a passion!  As far as teaching symbolism, this book really gets reluctant readers to "get it".  The book has great characters, plenty of action, and lots of good, wholesome violence to keep teenagers happy.  The only problem is that it starts so slowly.

Anyone who teaches reluctant readers knows that if you cannot hook them immediately, you've lost them.

So, while sitting in church one day when I should have been listening to the sermon, I had an idea for a game to get my students into the book.  I made it all by hand with maps, cards, the whole nine yards.  As the years went by, I get tired of replacing lost cards or materials that were marked on by various students and started to take it online.  It took a few more years to perfect it, but I think I finally have it down pat.  It has by far been the most popular page on my class web site by other teachers and it is the most mentioned lesson of mine when other teachers contact me.

https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/EET-_Lord-of-the-Flies_-Interactive-Survival-Game-6933163

I break my students into groups and each group represents 20 island-stranded kids.  The students decide how many rescue fires they will have, where they will be sheltered, who goes hunting, who goes fruit gathering, and if they want to go exploring.  Each round is a 'week' in the game.

First thing we do is have each group draw and Act of God card.  These cards sometimes bring good things to the group, have no effect on the group, or (more likely) bring bad karma to the group.  Then we draw cards to see what happens when they go hunting, fruit gathering, and exploring.  At this point we tally up the morale.  The morale goes up and down depending on many factors like having shelter for everybody, getting food, people dying (there are a lot of people dying), etc. 

If the morale goes below 10, then the group leader has to draw a Revolt card to see what happens.  Sometimes something good happens, but most likely something bad will.  Then it's off to see if you get rescued.  

For the teams that are left, they do it all over again for the next week with the remaining people they have left.

Sometime groups have everything perfect and it is more like a Gilligan's Island episode than a Lord fo the Flies scenario.  Many groups get a good Lord of the Flies type experience, and some have so much bad luck that they make the book seem like a pleasant fairy tale.

Students are encouraged to think outside of the box and try things that are not expected. The teacher is the final say-so for what happens, so when students get creative, roll with it.

Whatever the outcome, the students experience situations that prep them for the action in the book.  Whenever I have used this game, I have found that students are more connected to the reading.

I always like it when teachers send me how their students came up with something new.  Sometimes I adjust the game to match it.  when my students started sabotaging the game to try and make their leader draw a Revolt card, I introduced a new element - Mutiny.  With some groups, that is very popular!

The game comes with the choice to either have it all online (in which case they would move objects on a screen), or to have printables for students to physically manipulate.

https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/EET-_Lord-of-the-Flies_-Interactive-Survival-Game-6933163

A Different Type of Reading Quiz - Snowball Fight

I decided to invite mass chaos into my room today.  Why?  Mostly I was bored.

I was bored with normal reading quizzes to check/reward my students reading two difficult chapters of Wuthering Heights. I like 6 questions quizzes, but I do those all the time.  I also like the Spark Notes quiz for something extra, but I had already given that one earlier.   I remember reading something called the Snowball Quiz, but I don't remember the details other than it involved throwing paper balls.  So I decided to just invent my own rules as best as possible.

The first thing I did was to have students create six questions (plus an extra credit question) and write them on a sheet of paper with space between each one.  They were not to answer the questions, just create them and know the answer.  Once everyone had six questions, I gave them each one octopus sticker.  Then they were to stand up and ball up their paper.  The first class I tried this on was small, so I broke the class into two teams.  The second class was large, so I made it every students for him/herself.

When I yelled THROW, the students started throwing the "snowballs" at each other.  After a few seconds of that, I yelled STOP! and they grabbed the closest paper ball, unraveled it, and (as long it was not their own) then they were to put their name under Question 1 and answer the question.  Just the first question.  If they did not want to answer that question or they felt the question was not worded well, they could put the octopus sticker down instead to absolve them of that question.

Once answered, they were to ball up the paper and stand up.  Once all were standing, we threw at each other again.  Rinse. Wash. Repeat.

When we got to the extra credit, I told them to answer the extra credit and then turn the paper face down and draw the person that created the questions.  After some time, they had to return the quizzes to the creator and grade them,  The person who drew the smiley face on the back got three bonus points if the grader felt it was complimentary.

It was lots of fun!  Here are a few take aways:

• Students need to write in pen.  You can see from the picture that pencil does not hold up well.
• This took WAY more time than I expected it to take (about 30-40 minutes)
• Notebook paper vs copy paper - no real difference
• The second class, being bigger, lost one quiz.  I just adapted by saying one person would be given a bye for that round.
• Grading it was easier than I thought it would be.  I printed a roster and and just recorded the wrong answers from each.  

In the end, it was a fun way to review the chapter and something that I think I will do once a year from now on.

Can Your Students Survive the Zombie Apocalypse?

 Originally published 4/7/22, but certainly worth the reprint:

This activity is not mine, but rather came from the big, juicy, delicious braaaiiiinnnnnssssss of Rob Bowman & Molly Fleming Schauer.  To my knowledge, it is an activity they willingly shared.  The person I got it from got it from another person. I could not find it on Teacher-Pay-Teachers either.  If you know these individuals or know that they sell this activity, let me know, please, so I can take it down.

I did modify it slightly to fit my classroom needs.

The idea is to get your students to write a paragraph on how to survive the zombie apocalypse.  The student is able to take one person they know with them, two objects from their house, and declare a destination where they are headed to survive.  The students must explain why that person will help them survive and what is it about those two objects that will help them survive.  The location also needs to be thought out and explained how it will help the student survive longer than their classmates.

At this point, the students should then get into groups of three or so and decide which paragraph has the best chance of survival.  Give that student some prize.  The group will then clean up the paragraph, fix the grammar errors, and fix the holes in the survival plan.  Each group will then either present their paragraph to you, the class, or some crack panel of judges you assembled from asking other teachers or admin staff (it's a good lesson to do while being observed and make the ap a part of the judge crew).

I have two versions of it.  The first is closest to the original and is designed for AP Lang (fun practice in arguing a point).

https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1am4nBKgphcPRANKaMIZMRyDEIluV_IQm2wSDk6KoUQc/edit#slide=id.ge7646c84f0_1_2

The second link is for a regular ed class.  You can use either one for an honors class.  The regular ed one just extends the time allowed to compose the paragraph and gives more guidance to the number of sentences needed for each section.  I know there are differing opinions on guided writing, so if you don't like it, remove that text box.  Personally, my students need the extra guidance.

https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/16pLWKH4M8svcogSUyqZ6FspYs8Kx44SgWVuNmfSo_dY/edit#slide=id.ge7646c84f0_1_2  

This is great to help students understand giving supporting details.  The genius of it is that it will work on almost all age groups.  The original was designed for AP Language and Composition.  However, I mention the idea to my 6th grade daughter (who is not into zombies in the slightest) and she got excited about figuring out who and what she would take.  The she started texting her friends who all got into and tried to be the one who came up with a better solution.  I somehow became the judge when they couldn't decide if something was "doable" or not.  These sixth graders were spending their time thinking out the situation and supporting their assertions like champs.  I may be a bit biased, but I do think my daughter came up with the best location - a high school. Her thought - easy to block off hallways to prevent zombies from getting in, plenty of room, food supplies in the cafeteria, and medical supplies already in the nurse's office.

I can't wait to try it out on my seniors.