Entertaining text!

Home

Chat

Blogs

Collection

Directory

Home : 2004 : January : 2

Entertaining text!
By Diana M.

I am a second year sixth grade teacher. I have a new Social Studies textbook which provides me with an excellent reading study guide and organizers to use with it; but, I felt the same as you are--How do I make it more interesting/fun?
I have also assigned pages to pairings of students; they read, record key info, and share with others. That gets boring after a while also. Sooo, I tried a bit of a twist on this above activity.
You know how students sometimes want to be the "teacher"? I assign groups to read and research information related to Indiana's state standards pertaining to the assigned chapter's

section. The students are responsible for teaching all of the content, as well as providing some type(s) of activity(ies) to help reinforce vocab, etc., and review and assessment. They also grade the work they assign to the other students and give them to me to record. Each group is exempt from their group's graded work. The students really loved it! Provide a rubric to assess each group's performance (activities, review assessment--50 points; vocab, objective stated, visuals--25 pts; history, economics, culture--25 pts).

I gave the students at least 3 work days to complete the assignment. While they worked, I kept a work log of each students' behavior during group work time. I then was able to deduct 5 pts each infraction from their group's score to have an individual grade for each student. Ex: Group grade=100 pts, Individual=90 pts for 2x off-task during group work time.

I hope this gives you another escape from the norm.