KWL Charts

Yesterday, I introduced the unit on World War II. Because we've discussed the importance of activating prior knowledge so often in our Reading class, I planned on spending nearly an entire class period retrieving this knowledge from students. When brainstorming ways to do this, I instantly thought of using a KWL chart. We have discussed KWL charts in every education class I have taken so far, so it seemed like a great option for bringing the students' prior knowledge to the front and center. I even had a student in each class copy the white board down on a piece of paper so we could finish the chart in two weeks. However, the students did not really seem to buy into the chart. I know they know a ton about World War II, but they were not anxious to share. It was really dissapointing. I had to call on people to get any responses. I was expecting students to be shouting out responses faster than I could write them on the board, but this was certainly not the case. At first I thought their limited reaction was due to the fact that my cooperating teacher never uses these charts, but this is such a simple exercise I don't feel the students need background experience to be successful. My hope is that perhaps once we finish the chart in the next few weeks, maybe the will buy into it next time. Perhaps they are used to teachers acting like they will come back to something, but seldom do. Perhaps I just need to earn their trust???

Vocabulary Word Map

Today in class I used the Vocabulary Word Map tactic for teaching about totalitarianism. This is a complex topic and vocabulary word for 7th graders, and I thought a word map might help this capture the big picture. I introduced the word map by doing one on the white board for "depression" which we had just covered with the Great Depression. We did it as a class and it got them used to redefining words, writing sentences, thinking of synonyms and drawing pictures. I then taught on totalitarianism and had them complete individual word maps, similar to that on depression. They came up with the most creative pictures! I could hardly get over how great they were. Also, the kids really focused in on the work, which shows they were engaged and enjoyed it. I am tempted to do these maps with all the words, but am afraid it would use up too much class time. I think for the next unit I may set aside an entire day to do word maps for the new, critical vocabulary.

After the vocabulary map, I adapted the Semantic Feature Map into a plain Feature Map on totalitarianism. I listed features of certain totalitarian governments, and had students select which country's government the feature represented. Of course, some features represented multiple goverments. For homework the students had to use their feature maps to create a paragraph on the topic. This helps them rework the information in their minds. The kids enjoyed this too, but not nearly as much as the word map. I think the drawing aspect of the word map really engaged them.

Reflecting on today's use of some of our Reading Strategies, I come away certainly wanting to use word maps a lot more often. I liked the dynamics they created, and I can see how they mold students into strong thinkers. It really helps them see connections!

Vocabulary and Prior Knowledge

Since we have been talking about vocabulary in Reading, I have been thinking a lot about how the research plays out in my class. In Social Studies, like Science I would imagine, we teach a lot of content vocabulary. Well, we don't always teach it, but we expect the students to know it. Often, an understanding of those words is critically important to comprehension of the text (and thus success on the test). I've realized lately how much more background knowledge some of my students have when compared to others. This background knowledge clearly helps this understand our vocabulary. It does not hardly seem fair to the students who do not have as much prior knowledge. Students with high levels of knowledge quickly and effectively connect with the new vocab, and take ownership of it instantly. Students with low levels of background knowledge must consciously study to understand the vocab. I've been shocked as how true the research is on the topic of background knowledge. However, when I use some of the strategies suggested in the text to access prior knowledge, I tend to have more success in getting vocab into the heads of those who often struggle.