OUTCOME: The groups will be able to discover a pattern and a method of organizing a mixed group of words. The students will be judged on their teamwork and creativity. The students will know that words can fit into categories and they will understand that the categories may be arbitrary.
CONDITIONS: This lesson could take as little as one half hour or as much as a full class, depending on the number of words, numbers, and so on needing sorting.
ACTIVITIES:
| TEACHER | STUDENT |
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¨ Ask students to form groups of 3-4 students (or assign).Use either sheets of paper on which you have written at least 200 words, including nouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs, or write words on individual pieces of paper and then distribute randomly. You might even want the students to draw the words from a hat. ¨Ask the students to first form categories –the group should decide what those would be – and then to use one word from each category to make a piece of a poem. ¨ Finally, ask the students to read these pieces aloud. ¨Be sure to save them. You might want to tape them together or put them on the wall. ¨ Remind the students that they are looking for "keywords". |
¨ Think about a category like meat. Then think of all the kinds of meat that would belong in that same category. Now try protein. This is just to warm up your brain to try to think about categories. |
MATERIALS: Slips of paper and pen to write words.
METHOD OF ASSESSMENT: Use rubric to observe for one or two skills.
MODIFICATIONS/ACCOMMODATIONS: Help the students form groups so that there is a range of abilities in each group. Give a bonus to a group for "best teamwork", et cetera.
STANDARDS. Language Arts, Writing Applications,(2.3, 2.4); : LCCE, all personal-social skills,#10-16, especially #48, 49, 56, 64, 65, 66