A classroom can be two places at the same time: a place to work hard and learn valuable skills and a place to have fun and make meaning from literature. Students learn plenty of facts throughout their school day, but learning becomes meaningful when they see the value of information and see its relation to themselves and their world. It’s not just a dead word, date, or equation on the page, it has a life and an energy that has context and is useful. Our world is bland and ordinary without meaning. A chair is just a chair and a cup is just a cup. Kids will not think or feel if they just see an object or a word. Meaning-making is the key to interpreting literature but also to understanding life.
1. Creative writing
Creative writing doesn’t have to only mean writing a story or poem. We can ask students to imitate the style of an essayist or create a script for a television show. I remember hearing how the writing of The Office often involved a lot of collaboration and personal storytelling. Students can create satirical news vignettes, comics, or short films. Once students learn from a novel or essay, they create meaning when they take their new knowledge and use it to help them think about their own lives, culture, and the news.
2. Nonfiction
Students like to interpret informational sources with their classmates, but they also like to share what they’ve found on their own. They also like to share their opinion and how they’ve made sense of information. They can do this in small groups, in front of the class, or through an online presentation with images, videos and graphics. They are more likely to share their ideas if they are not a live and spontaneous presentation. Many students get nervous in front of a crowd but thrive when they can plan out what they want to say and edit their presentation.
3. Media (music, graphics, speeches, videos, podcasts, images)
It’s much easier for students to comprehend research and statistics when they appear in images or moving graphics. Videos help tell a story about historical trends and provide visuals to help students realize the reality of what they read and learn about. Images of people contain real human emotion; sometimes words in articles and essays don’t convey the intensity of suffering or success. Music in videos or podcasts enhance the feelings experienced by the people in the story or the impact of a policy. When learning about literary techniques, meaning-making can be easy if students identify devices in the lyrics of popular music. The same can be done with political speeches.
These types of activities show students the power of language in the world and the value of the skills you help them learn.
Teacher's Workshop, professional development for secondary ELA teachers
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