Writing Diary Entries and Speeches
This lesson is devised by Rachel Sneyd. Rachel is currently completing an undergraduate degree in History and Politics at Trinity College Dublin. She is a keen writer and has just submitted her first teen-fiction novel for publication. This lesson is one of two parts that Rachel won the recent Homework Club innovative teaching competition with.
You need a video clip of Martin Luther King\'s \"I have a dream\" speech, a video clip of a politician making a speech (I usually use the beginning of Obama\'s election night speech but any clip will work), an extract from "Bridget Jones\' Diary" by Helen Fielding, an extract from "The Diary of a Young Girl" by Anne Frank.
1st classes written on the table
Our new experiment .. whats happens if you let the students write directly on the tables?
This idea steams from coffee time at the Southampton Oceanography Centre while I was studying for my PhD. Physics nerds from the research section would gather around for morning coffee break and invariably talk about the latest scientific dilemmas. One morning someone brought a white board marker and wrote directly on the table.. a brilliant idea had begun.
The great advantage of this practise is that everyone is involved. If left for 5 minutes on their own students will always gravitate towards the white boards and the coloured markers, “we never get to write on them in school”. This shows how little its takes to excite a student!
Speed dating for maths
So we are getting to that time of the year with exam classes. There are only so many times you can do the same type of maths problem - we need to liven it up a bit! This lesson works for any level and any year but is very good for stressed out exam classes.
First you need to find some short questions, part (a)'s of the exam paper are ideal. Pick a topic you want the students to revise. Find enough questions to match the class in pairs - they should be similar questions.
Now pair everyone up - set the tables up so they are long and everyone is facing each other. Give each pair 1 to 2 minutes max. Of the pair one person explains the problem/how to solve it in their own words. The other is the "learner", encourage these to ask questions and even correct the "teacher". We learn best from others mistakes!
Use a stop watch - time is pressure! After the time is up make everyone get up and swap partners. "learners" should become "teachers" and visa-versa. Repeat the exercise at least 4 times.
