easy classroom activities – Blue Cereal Education

What’s In A Name?

In Shakespeare’s Romeo & Juliet, Juliet laments that she cannot be with Romeo largely because of their last names. Their families are enemies and neither would ever accept the other into their homes. Standing on her balcony, unaware that he’s listening, she rejects the idea that names could be so important. Why should it matter what you’re called if you’re as awesome as Romeo – at least in Juliet’s eyes?

Still, sometimes our names do matter. It varies from century to century, family to family, and culture to culture, but sometimes your name means more than others might realize. Maybe it was given to you for a specific reason, or maybe it’s influenced how people react to you or what they assume about you. If nothing else, it usually (but not always) reflects the family into which you were born. Sometimes a major religious conversion prompts a name change. Many women still take the name of their husbands when they marry. Best friends sometimes have nicknames for each other which only they use. Couples often call one another by names that no one outside the couple can use without causing problems.

Or maybe your name is just a name and its meaning is only what you give it by being you. That’s OK, too.

The Importance of Communication

One of the primary goals of any English class is to improve our communication skills. While there are an endless number of ways humans communicate with one another, two of the most important and most universal are (a) speaking and (b) writing. We’re going to work on both this semester.

Please note that it’s never my goal to embarrass you or put you on the spot or push you to share anything you don’t wish to share. If you don’t want to say it or write it, then DON’T. I won’t be fact-checking you on anything unless there’s some specific reason I should. Our goal is to get better at communicating our own thoughts and ideas and understanding the thoughts and ideas of others. What your thoughts and ideas ARE is your business. Share them or not as you choose.

The Name Video Assignment (Due ____________)

You’re going to make a brief video (60 – 90 seconds) talking about your name and share it with me by uploading it to Student ‘Name’ Videos {linklinklink}. Your video can be as simple or as involved as you like, as long as it meets a few basic guidelines.

1) Your video should be at least 60 seconds but no longer than 90 seconds.

2) It should begin with you introducing yourself with your full name.

3) For the rest of your brief introductory video, talk about your name or some part of your name – were you named after someone? Does one or more of your names have a particular meaning? Is your name common? Rare? Often misunderstood? How does your name reflect you and/or how has having this name shaped your life a little bit? (You don’t have to cover all of this. These are just starting places and ideas. Talk about whatever you wish in conjunction with your name.)

Click Here For My Sample ‘Name Video’

The Technical Stuff (How To Make It Work)

Use Chromebooks or phones or whatever you wish.

If you’re unsure how to record video on your Chromebook, there are a few quick ‘How To’ guides posted along with this assignment on Google Classroom.

If you’re not sure how to upload your video, click the link for Student ‘Name’ Videos {linklinklink}. Then choose the ‘+ New’ near the top left of the screen, and ‘File Upload’.

If for some reason you can’t upload your video using these instructions (for example, you don’t have a working Chromebook and you’re doing all of this on another device or something), try sharing it with me some other way – email a link, etc. MAKE SURE YOU LET ME KNOW, however, so I don’t miss it and think you simply didn’t do it.

Email me with questions or problems – {email address}

This, pretty much, is my opening day assignment this year. The links will be different (the only one that actually works here is to the sample ‘name video’ – and even that will look different for students), but otherwise, this is how we’re starting off.

I borrowed this lesson from Barrett Doke, who teaches 8th Grade American History in the Houston area. We taught a series of virtual workshops together this summer, and I loved his approach to technology in the classroom, even when ‘in person’ school was still a thing back in the day. He’s done it successfully for years, although I’ve dressed it up a bit differently (anything you don’t like is probably me).

Why This?

Some of my motivation I covered in the actual directions. I won’t see my kids in person for at least nine weeks, and that’s going to make it difficult to form that there ‘rapport’ we always talk about. And honestly, while my pedagogy is fine, my strength has always been the face-to-face. Obviously, that’s out for a while.

I also believe the part about communication being an essential skill and all that. In fact, the second assignment is a short personal essay which builds on the “let’s talk about YOU” idea. Yes, it’s partly about trying to establish connection, but the ability to talk about ourselves coherently is an essential academic and professional skill. (You won’t get through many college admissions officers or job interviews if you can’t handle “so tell me about yourself a bit” decently.)

On a related front, if much of this year is going to be done long-distance, we’d better start getting comfortable using the technology – both students and teachers. If I’m going to ask them to eventually submit video summaries of what they’ve read or otherwise express themselves using this format, we’d better practice it with something easy first.

Finally, there’s an additional, somewhat awkward motivation as well. I’m an old white guy whose hearing isn’t what it used to be. I genuinely want to learn my students’ names and say them correctly, but there are more each year that I never seem to quite get comfortable with. At the same time, it feels more important than ever that I demonstrate at least that much attention and respect to those whose names are most likely to give me trouble. With this assigment, I’ll have a reference as often as I need it to exactly how they want their name pronounced – because they’re the ones saying it.

These instructions clearly take an ELA approach, but that’s not essential. When I taught American history we’d always discuss the power of names, usually in relation to slaves and slave-owners. I’m not even sure you’d need a justification for it if you’re interested. It’s your class, and you have to start somewhere.

If you want to give it a shot, all I ask is that you NOT use my sample “name video” or Barrett’s. Obviously you’d want to make your own anyway, right? Also, I’d love to hear how it goes – seriously.

Here are my instructions (pretty much the same as the first half of this post) as a Google Doc if you’d rather edit them than start from scratch. You’re also welcome to the follow up personal essay instructions. I should probably note that while I’m definitely using these this year, I haven’t yet. I honestly have no idea how it will go.

But then, that’s often the case – even with things I’ve used for years. We wouldn’t want it to get too easy or boring, would we?

RELATED POST: Those Circle Things

RELATED POST: Is That A Right?

RELATED PAGE: Classroom Resources

Sometimes it’s the simplest ideas that end up being the most useful.

Several years ago I co-presented a workshop with an amazing woman named Ayn Grubb. While I pride myself on getting along with other consultants or trainers or whatever they happen to be called that week, I’m sure it won’t surprise you to learn that there are really only a handful I genuinely admire and for whom I maintain an irrepressible teacher-crush. Ayn is one of that handful. Her style is quite different than mine, but she works a room of educators like Yo-Yo Ma works a bow or a hibachi chef works a seafood combo for eight.

At one point, she went up to the white board at the front of the room and drew the simplest little thing – a circle divided into four quadrants. In each quadrant, she wrote a single word. (I don’t even remember what the topic was; I was too busy having a life-changing experience.) She asked us which one didn’t belong and why, then gave us time to discuss.

I immediately stole the idea and never looked back. I have no idea if she lifted it from somewhere else or came up with it herself. I’m sure it would never occur to her to take credit either way. And, to be fair, the underlying idea does sorta go way back…

I started using variations of what I’ve come to simply think of as “Those Circle Things” in workshops, in class, and sometimes just to annoy friends at parties. They make great bell-ringers, discussion-starters, and I’ve even used them as informal assessments.

They’re also pretty easy to use with Google Slides or Pear Deck or whatever technological platform makes you tingle, and work equally well for synchronous or asynchronous discussion. They’re especially useful when you need ideas for “e-learning” on snow days, or when something else you had planned completely falls apart at the last minute.

Whatever the context, I always begin with something non-threatening and not content-based. Since I’m a sucker for superheroes, here’s one I used for many years:

What do these four things have in common? Which one doesn’t fit, and why?

The first few times I use something like this, whether with students or teachers, we’re establishing norms or procedures or classroom dynamics – whatever you call it in your world. See, we don’t actually CARE about these four characters, at least academically. What we care about is the process and the approach.

At the risk of preaching to the pedagogical choir, I’ll be annoyingly specific about what I mean.

We’re learning a new skill with non-threatening content (and usually learn new content with familiar skills).
The first few slides shouldn’t require much in the way of specialized content knowledge in order to participate. Anyone can come up with a few things even if they’re not particularly deep. This should be encouraged.
As it becomes clear that some of us know more about the topic than others, this should be celebrated. It demonstrates that we all have different backgrounds and bring different insights to the discussion. If I know more about Luke Cage than you do, that’s not because I’m “smart” or you’re “stupid.” One’s depth of knowledge regarding Luke Cage is not actually how we evaluate one’s usefulness or potential as a human being these days (although we’ve all endured worse metrics, I’m sure).
It’s better to be “wrong” than to be afraid. If someone suggests that three of the characters have superpowers and one (Agent Carter) doesn’t, others might disagree and argue that Green Arrow is really just a guy with money and toys who exercises. As a result of this discussion, however, we may end up exploring how we’re using terms like “super” or “hero” or “abilities” in useful, enlightening ways. If the person who was “wrong” about Green Arrow hadn’t floated his or her idea to begin with, we might never have gotten there, and that would be sad.
As with many classroom discussions, it’s important to find ways to be inclusive. The most basic is to encourage students or participants to ponder each slide in small groups for a few minutes before we talk about them as a whole. This allows individuals to bounce ideas off of one another, resolve minor errors, and learn from one another before “speaking up” and taking what often feels like a greater risk before the entire group.
When we’re learning a new skill or procedure, the process is more important than the content. We’re modeling academic courtesy and discussion, learning to take risks with information about which we may be uncertain, and practicing the sort of listening to one another and civil disagreement which is often essential for real learning to occur.

Let’s try another one. Keep in mind we want to discuss ways they’re all the same as well as identify which one doesn’t fit, and why: (And yes, I should update this example before using these again.)

You probably figured out pretty quickly that there’s usually more than one solution to which one doesn’t fit and why. These aren’t multiple choice questions with one objectively “correct” answer. It’s the process of examining each item in comparison with the others that forces us to review what we already know, reinforces the information we use to argue whatever point we choose to make as a result, stretches our understanding of each item a bit, and lays the groundwork for actual analysis and argument should we eventually go there.

It’s a critical thinking thing. It just doesn’t look like it right away because… Twilight.

Once the idea is established, these can be used in endless iterations depending on your needs and goals and the depth of knowledge expected of your students. If you’re using them to introduce a topic, their existing content knowledge may be less important. If you’re using them as an informal assessment, on the other hand…

I’ll leave you with a few of my favorites in recent years. Some are a bit more complex than others based on the classes I had at the time. You’ll notice that sometimes the visuals are related to the text and sometimes they’re not – an inconsistency I should eventually address. I can tell you from experience you’ll want to clarify up front whether you expect students to consider the visuals or just the words in the circle.