Today I participated in day one of a workshop titled Writing to Think & Learn: Writing in the Social Studies 7-12.  I very much enjoyed today and many people have asked me to share what I have learned.  So here is a list of some of the things that we discussed and did:

After introductions we watched the popular “Did You Know” video created by Karl Fisch and Scott McLeod.  I don’t know which version it was, but we were asked to do a double entry journal entry.  Basically, you have a notebook and on the left hand side we were asked to take notes as we watched the video.  On the right hand side we were to write down our thoughts and reflections on the video.  Time was given for us to summarize our thoughts after the video was over.  The discussion that ensued afterward was really interesting for me.  Many of the participants have never seen the video before and they interpreted the message of the video that technology will solve all our problems and they disagreed with that message citing examples of students using the internet to plagiarize work and students not being able to communicate face to face because they are texting all the time.  These were younger teachers making these statements.

Carousel DBQ
Another strategy that we experienced was a Carousel DBQ (Document Based Question) . We were put into teams of three and assigned a document to analyze that was hanging on the wall.  Each team had a different color marker and wrote statements on the poster paper based on the document.  We then rotated to the next document and either commented on the statements of other teams or added our own thoughts.  This process was repeated until we made it around the room visiting all documents until we were back at our own.  At this point each group summarized to the whole class the main ideas and thoughts on the document.  I liked the fact that each team had a different color marker because this promotes accountability.  I also noticed that groups had small discussions about the document before writing down thoughts and ideas on paper.  I think this will be an awesome activity form my students because it engages their thinking in a deep and focused way.

Drum Roll:
In  this activity you watch a movie clip twice.  The first time the movie is played without sound while students record their observations.  The second time you watch the movie you add to your previous notes or make corrections.   We watched one movie clip from Teachertube and just took notes on our own paper any way we wanted.  With another video clip from PBS.org we took notes on post it notes.  Every time we recorded a new fact we put it on a different post it note.  We then worked as a class to organize our sticky notes into topics.  This was an awesome activity to teach students essay organization in a real hands on kinda way.  I wonder what Web 2.0 tools could also be utilized to accomplish the same goal?  Wallwisher maybe?

We also went through the five step writing process:
1.  Prewriting:  This is anything that is done to generate ideas.  examples include brainstorming, talking, interviewing, reading etc.

2.  Drafting:  This is the initial rough draft

3.  Revising:  Adding, deleting or reorganizing content

4.  Editing:  The focus is on fixing the mechanics of the piece

5.  Publishing:  Sharing what you have created with an audience

Write Around:
In this activity we were asked to put an X on every other line.  Next to the x’s we were to write down our thoughts and knowledge gained from the workshop.  After some time we traded papers with others in the group.  We underlined comments that we agreed with and commented on what other group members had written.  I liked this activity because all students would be working and thinking simultaneously – there would be very little down time and it would not just be 1 student doing all the work.  It seems to me that this would be an awesome activity to do at the end of a unit where students reflect on the question “what did you learn from our study of the Progressive Era?”  It would even be useful to use this activity to recall information from a previous lesson

Personal Time-line:
In this exercise students create a time-line of important events in their life, listing them under the line.  Then above the line they record important historical events as well.  The purpose is to get kids to understand why turning points are important and create relevance and understanding by comparing world turing points to personal milestones.

Role Play a Photograph:
A historical photograph of an immigrant family sitting around the dinner table sewing was projected up on the board.  Four volunteers were then asked to role play what they thought was happening in the photograph. It was also suggested that some students could also stand behind the people doing the role playing and be “the voice inside the head”  These students would verbalize what the people in the photo might be thinking but not say out loud.  I thought this was a great activity and could be done in small groups with different photos of the same time period.  Each group could develop a short skit and record it with flip video cameras to be shared with their classmates.

Idea:  Give students 10-15 different facts on a particular topic/subject in random order.  Have the students try to guess the main idea from studying the topics or organize the details into topical groups that make sense to them.  A great way to get kids engaged with the content and think critically.

There was also some discussion about why kids don’t write anything when they are asked to do so.  I experience this quite often with my 8th graders.  It was suggested that you put the students through an experience (like any of the activities we did today) first to give those students something to write about.

I picked up on the phrase “writing is a conversation” and it seemed to me that oscillating between activities that require talking/discussion and activities that require writing  go hand in hand.

At the end of the day we were all given the book, Content-Area Writing by Daniels, Zemelman and Steineke.  I only glanced through it but I can’t wait to spend time reading it.

Click here to see a YouTube video of the authors discussing the book.  All in all it was a great day.  Tomorrow we will work on planning out a unit that implements some of these writing strategies.  My partner and I have already agreed to work on the Progressive Era.

I would love to hear from people who have tried any of the above activities.  Also,  if anyone has any great strategies and activities for teaching the Progressive Era – I’m all ears!