Universal Theme Collage

After students come up with a theme (see video of strategy here), I like to hit home the universality
of what a theme should be. What better way to have students realize that theme is true across time and space than to apply the theme to the past and across the world. I have my students use online research  (DE Streaming) to find a historical example of the theme being true and then a current event example (using Gale) to find it true in another place. Using those and text evidence along with a pic collage app, students make a visually stunning study of the theme and learn a little bit more about the world they live in. The instructions for this is in my shop.

Chopped and Cutthroat Kitchen Come to App Smashing

Last year I used the Numbered Heads strategy and it was okay, but not the most engaging strategy.
Two weeks later, I decided to try it again but this time I came up with a completely arbitrary points system, added a stuffed monkey to be a place holder for what group spoke next, and referred to it as a game to m students. It was the EXACT same strategy just with some bells and whistles. Kids in third period walked in with "I heard we are doing something really fun today!" Minus the obvious insinuation that my classroom is not always amazingly fun ;), I found this comment hilarious. Turn something into a game and add a points system and all of a sudden something is "really fun!"

Our rewards system of our brain rewards the brain with little bursts of dopamine every time kids get points. Watching Chopped and Cutthroat Kitchen got be thinking of App Smashing. What is app smashing besides taking a bunch of ingredients (apps) to create a dish (objective of the app smash). 

Principles of cooking competitions:

- throw in surprises that make the task harder (Chopped does this with an odd ingredient that doesn't go with the rest and Cutthroat does this with sabotages)  

- make a challenging time frame

- narrows pool down with each round (apps, entree, dessert)

1. Introduce the concept as App Chopping and build up excitement. Explain briefly for students who are not glued to Food Network (Foolish youth!)

2. Explain there will be courses (if you choose) each with a time limit. Each course could actually feature its own app, which when combined with iMovie or similar app, creates the app smash

3. Give student task  - example: analyze a character's traits - and the apps to be used.

4. Post timer for board 

5. At intervals, add in the twists! You can make each twist offer extra credit to the presentation, that way instead of causing undo stress, it is more of a fun suggestion. Twist ideas:

• put random props - stapler, inflatable shark, a set of plastic cups - in bags and have students randomly select. They can include prop in video.
• give everyone a silly word - "pineapple" or "boomerang" - that they have to integrate in their App Chop and those who do so in a seamless manner get bonus points.
• If using an app with backgrounds like Tellagami, have students pick the most inappropriate background and have it make sense
• Have students use a feature in an app and make it work for their video. For example, giving an iMovie filter like "aged film"

6. Students create videos and can post to edmodo, google folder, or wherever you prefer. 

7. For additional "courses" you can build upon the first course. In my example, course 1 is analyze character traits with evidence, course 2 is analyze how the character's traits contribute to a conflict in the story, course 3 is what lesson should we learn about the way the character's traits influences the creation or resolution of that conflict (aka, theme!)

QR Code Museum Pieces

Turn your classroom - or school library - into a museum.

Student created art

Students create museum pieces and museum placards that indicate the information required. Perfect for history, prereading for historical novels, or post-reading for self-selected texts where each child can share an artifact from a book.


I wish I could show the kids' faces. There were smiles all around!

Students learn about lutes

Here are the directions for it as I applied it to pre-reading for Midsummer Night's Dream in which students examined the Elizabethan Era - so much better than a lecture from the teacher, right?

How I used this:

Shakespeare Centers (set up in ability groups of 3-5 with two of each type of center runnign concurrently)
Center A: Students participated in Shakespeare Museum
Center B: Students explored The Globe with the Shakespeare's Globe 360 App
Center C: Card Sort - advanced groups paired Shakespearean insults to their 21st century prose versions while struggling students worked on literary terms matched to examples from All the World's a Stage

Instant Poetry 2: Beautiful Poetry App

Instant Poetry 2 is a great app for teachers - students can make a poem quickly and it is a very non-threatening app. Teachers not used to iPads will quickly get their students making poetry in thirty minutes or less. The finished products are lovely and the free "stripped down" version does not feel stripped down at all.

Graphite Blog Post: 5 Ways to Flip Shakespeare

Please follow this link to the blog I wrote for Graphite!