Hump Day in the Eighth Grade

The students of the eighth grade are wrapping up their Identity Unit Projects--consisting of a ThingLink with photographs, poems, short stories, and other elements to show who they are now and who they want to be.

It was a busy day that depended highly on student participation and individual learning.  The students had to update their notebooks with current information (pulling from their work online as well as paper copies) before diving into their projects.

Each student was at a different place.  Some students were finishing up writing short stories about themselves (they had to pick one event from their life and write it in short story form, adhering to dialogue, grammar, and other short story elements), others were organizing their notebook work, and still others were assembling their work into a visual representation on ThingLink.

My role was the same as it always in the classroom.  I walk around and monitor student work, answering questions and posing questions to help them with wherever they are at.  I mainly had to remind the students to keep moving on to other activities once they were finished with the ones they were at.

When short stories were finished, the students had to trade stories with other students and peer review each other's work.  They had to color code the story elements that Ms. Baldwin was specifically looking for.  For example, elements of dialogue were highlighted in blue while internal dialogue was highlighted in orange.  Students were to have all of the elements in their story, so this served as a good check and balance system.

I generally like the style of Ms. Baldwin's classroom. It revolves around individual work and the class rarely uses a traditional, lecture style.  The only thing I have to remember is to constantly be checking in and keeping students on task (but I would have to do that anyway so it isn't a burden at all!)