One lesson that I think was successful in my junior English classes this year was when I presented information about Afghanistan prior to their reading The Kite Runner. I have a Power Point presentation with background facts about the country today, a little about the history, and the author and the story of the novel. This video from YouTube is included so that the students can learn what kite fighting is. I gave them a worksheet to take notes on as I showed them the information; I need to revise it somewhat to include more information about the time frame of the actual novel as it begins in 1975 and continues to present day (2004 is when the book was written).
A second lesson that I always like to do with my students when they start research is a review of NoodleTools. I give them four screen shots of sources from the databases that they have to enter bibliography information into NoodleBib. Then I check to see if they understand how to print a works cited page using NoodleBib, or, in second semester with my seniors, I had them share it as a GoogleDoc. Yay! Saving paper.
Hi Kathy!
ReplyDeleteGreat post! Thanks for sharing these lessons! I had no idea about the Kite fighting. That is so interesting.
I was so happy to hear about you using Google Docs with the kids for your Noodle Tools lesson! I know you and Ann have worked on incorporating Docs into your lessons. Keep up the great work!
Brent Catlett
Brent,
DeleteI always been in favor of doing things that can save paper (although you'd never guess that if you came into my classroom when I have summer school papers and folders everywhere!), so GoogleDocs is such an effective way to do that. Also, I enjoy the fact that kids can no longer say, truthfully, "My computer crashed and I lost my term paper when I was typing it"! No, you didn't; Google saves all the time!
Kathy