The (Industrial) Revolution will be Twitterized*

Posted on March 11, 2012 by Michael K. Milton
Edit: I have transitioned this to using todaysmeet.com rather than Twitter. The activity works the same, but we are in a walled garden that is much easier to set up than Twitter is.

In groups, students were assigned a country that became industrialized during the 18th and 19th centuries. The group’s job was to be the mouthpiece of that country with the task of letting the world know of their progress in industrializing using a common hashtag #MrMHWH. This was not the first time my class has used Twitter in class, so there was no need to explain how to use it. While the majority my students have personal Twitter accounts they elected to create new ones with the name of their country and used an image of their flag for the profile picture.

Getting started in this activity was a bit slow at first. With the exception of Britain, countries started tweeting about what was holding them back from industrializing. Then America tweeted about having gotten the plans to build a mill from Samuel Slater (who was from England). At this point, I reminded my class they should feel free to interact with the other countries (and even respond). When Britain angrily responded to the theft of their plans and told them that they pledged to support the South should there ever be a civil war, I knew that this activity was heading in the right direction.

For the next thirty minutes, in groups my students worked together to tweet out announcements of their progress and to respond to their classmates’ posts. My role transitioned from instigator to an observer (who every now and then would ask students to define terms that they used). Students’ roles varied from researcher, editor, and rapid responder.

When we debriefed the activity, students declared that they enjoyed the interaction that this activity encouraged. The activity and the light to moderate “trash talk” between countries organically led to a great discussion on nationalism.

When the bell rang, students asked if we could do this again. Ideally tomorrow. A few of them walked to lunch talking about the funniest historical tweets.

* Twitterized is not a word.

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Macbeth and Agency: Rethinking the Blame Game!

Posted on March 11, 2012 by Michael K. Milton

I love getting advice from my PLN. I like being challenged and pushed to develop as an educator. So when @katrinakennett told me to listen to an iTunesU lecture about agency in Macbeth from Emma Smith, I downloaded and listened to it while preparing dinner. It was actually perfect timing, as I was about to introduce Lady Macbeth to my students (who would have vilified her based upon her speech about infanticide).

We began our class that day with students responding to one of the following scenarios. The goal was for the students to really think through the scenarios to decide the responsible party. Ideally, this would create an environment that Lady Macbeth was not given all of the blame for Duncan’s murder.

The scenarios:

The discussion based upon these questions was very fluid. Students suggested that we create a “blame pie chart” to decide the percentage of responsibility for each scenario. I was impressed with the level of thought that my students put in to all of the scenarios. My students also requested that we do more activities such as this to start the class.

Oh! For the blame game on the scenarios! The individuals were given the brunt of the blame for the negative scenarios; while for the baseball scenario, the responsibility was 50% for the father, 20% for the coach, and 30% for the Tom.

I’m looking forward to continuing reading to see who the students blame for Duncan’s death!

Update! I polled my English class today and this is the results!

We are going to do this after each murder and then compare as the blame shifts from one person to another.

Related Post ~ Macbeth Murder Mystery Party Introduction

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Macbeth Dinner Murder Mystery Party Introduction

Posted on March 11, 2012 by Michael K. Milton

A week or so ago, I read an article about how making predictions leads to a deeper understanding. I decided to take advantage of this idea and my love of Leap Day (must do something epic) to create a Macbeth Dinner Party Murder Mystery with my students! The goal of the lesson was to introduce Macbeth, create a shared experience, and to allow the students to make predictions about the plot of Macbeth. The activity itself was inspired by my enjoyment of the Final Fantasy series and if I had the talent, I would love to make this a mini-internet game.

Prior to the day, some students were assigned to be characters from Macbeth. While they were allowed to use their scripts (below), the goal was they they were familiar with their part. I should say that my students this class are College Prep Level 2 students, meaning that there is a range of English Language Learners and students who need extra time processing information.

When students came into the classroom that day, they were told to mingle with the characters and take notes on what they have to say (as well as eat the snacks that my cooperating teacher and I provided). I should, actually, have created a graphic organizer to keep track of all of the information that students were receiving.

Overall, students seemed to enjoy learning about the different characters and enjoyed the death scene that Duncan put on. When all was done, we discussed what the students had learned from their discussions.

Now, here is where I link back to the article mentioned up top! After debriefing, students made predictions as to what was going to happen in Macbeth. Their predictions were pretty interesting and since they are displayed prominently in my classroom, we will revisit them often.

The scripts:

A few of the predictions:

Related Post ~ Macbeth and Agency: Rethinking the Blame Game

Posted in English | Tagged , , , , , | 7 Comments

A bit about this blog.

Posted on March 11, 2012 by Michael K. Milton

Greetings.

I’ve toyed with the idea of writing a blog here and there. But I’ve found the titles to be too obnoxious to continue (while “Milton’s World” was for my World History class, it made me very uneasy, hence it is abandoned). This made me question the overall purpose of blogging. I am not an expert. Although, I am sure that this blog would be a much better resource for others if I was one. Not to say this this is a worthless blog! I will have to re-edit this paragraph soon in order to keep expectations at a reasonable rate.

Growth is the reason that I am working on this blog. I am creating this in an effort to share what I am doing in the classroom in order to have a conversation about doing better. Please any and all feedback is welcome. Except about my hair. Yes, it is supposed to do that.

My twitter handle is @42thinkdeep. This could seem very pompous; like I was someone who sits around his apartment thinking deeper and forcing others to as well. I chose it as an homage to The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. Also, @MichaelMilton was already taken.

So, thank you for making it this far into this introductory post. While that last paragraph wasn’t particularly exciting, I feel that it was vital to the process.

On this blog, I will be posting lessons and activities that I have done in my classroom. My goal is not to say, “Do this, it is awesome! I am rock star teacher!” My goal is to share in an attempt to better myself and my teaching ability. If anyone ever uses something, let me know how you adapted it. If you have done something better, please let me know!

I will also occasionally be reflecting upon my classroom and teaching style. Again, my goal is not to say that I am the greatest teacher ever. My goal is to develop a conversation.

Sometimes, I will throw in a book review. There is no real reason for me doing this. I just like to read and find the practice of writing exhilarating.

So, thank you for reading this far down the page. It has been a journey, hasn’t it.

I’ve heard it said that it takes a village to develop a great teacher. I appreciate that you are going to be one of the village people.

-Michael

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