end of year lesson ideas

Keeping Kids Tuned in at the End of the Year: A Secondary Linky

It’s getting to be that time of year when things get a little crazy – a little sideways. Students – and teachers – are starting to tune out! Join me for a fun recap of some ways to keep students tuned in this time of year. I’m sharing tips for secondary English classrooms, and since that’s where my experience stops, I’ve enlisted the help of other secondary teachers in all subjects to link up great ideas below!

In a middle or high school English classroom, this is an excellent time of year to start that novel you’ve been wanting to teach or to try a new project. So hopefully, these few ideas will make those even more creative for you! Plus, they are all student-centered and standards-based, so the kiddos stay engaged, and your job is easy!

Make It Real – When the CCSS started to roll out and there was so much emphasis placed on nonfiction, I’ll be honest – like many other “old English teachers” – I was nervous about giving up so much class time to that over my beloved classic fiction texts. Now, I’ve changed my tune completely. I love finding nonfiction texts that stand alone and/or that pair with my fiction. And, honestly, the kids LOVE it when they know it’s real. Sometimes I have them go searching on their own for real information – like in my mini research project on banned books in my Fahrenheit unit. Or other times, I’ll pair the info for them and have them dig into the material in class like in my lesson on the LeRoy HS outbreak after we read Act 1 of The Crucible.
Make It Personal – We all know that secondary students can be ah hem… self-centered. So anytime they get to talk about themselves, there’s pretty good buy-in. My seniors just completed my Generational Interview project as part of their reading tasks for the last section of my Fahrenheit unit. They – and their grandparents – really enjoyed the projects and the kids learned so much about their families and themselves. This was an out-of-class assignment, but they did share in class. Now that’s an easy prep! Another way to make it personal and keep kids tuned in is with poetry that speaks to them. In my treating senioritis poetry pack, I’ve selected several poems that draw on students’ personal experiences and the follow up activities ask students to reflect on their past, present, and future.
Make It Interactive – I have to admit that I’d never used puppets in the classroom before with high school students, but now that I have, I can’t stop. I also have to admit that it was partly my students’ idea to conduct the first puppet show. When my seniors read The Canterbury Tales, I had made little cards with the characters on them. I wanted each student to read and research about that character to share with the class. One student was holding up her card and thought she was being funny when she said, “We should do this as a puppet show.” I said, “Actually, that’s a great idea. Yes, we should.” That night I glued Popsicle sticks on the cards and borrowed a puppet curtain my mom had made for my nieces. Voila! The next day we had a puppet show! After that, I let my emoji addiction get a little more out of control, and I made emoji puppets for accountable talk, review, point of view, and more! See my Facebook post about them!
Make It Project-Based – Projects don’t have to be a lot of work for you. Nor should they be a lot of work to prep. One year I wanted something new and fun for Earth Day, so I rummaged through my junk drawers at the house and had student create uses for the various items. The skills we covered? Propaganda, Info-Text Analysis; Speaking and Listening, Presenting. That project is for sale here! This time of year, my yearbook students also work on projects to keep them busy until the books come back. They would be excellent for a yearbook class, business, art, or technology class.
Make It a Movie Day – Let’s be real for a minute. We can’t always show a movie, but if we are talking about getting tuned in, well, we can’t ignore the obvious. If you missed my post about how to incorporate media effectively, click here to go check that out. I will say that my seniors are going to be watching The Hunger Games next week. Why in the world, right? It was their idea – and it wasn’t because they just wanted to watch it randomly. In fact, they’ve been asking me all along our 451 unit if there’s a sequel to Bradbury’s magnum opus. (Can we pause to just say how awesome it is that they want to read MORE 451?!?!?) Then one day, it dawned on a student that there was quite a bit of intertextuality between 451 and THG. I had noticed the parallels before because I love THG! He made a pretty good case for it, and since I don’t show the 451 movie because it’s so old and not even worth the time, I thought this would be a fun way to end the unit. They’ll have to write something showing those parallels, of course!

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Host a Gatsby Party: End of Year Literary-Themed, Text-Based Classroom Parties

It’s that time of year – the end of the year. And that means classroom parties. My students always ask for a party of some sort, so several years ago I decided I would allow them to have a party – on one condition – it must be literature based. We always study The Great Gatsby at the end of the semester, and, of course, it doesn’t get much better than that to inspire a party. If you are thinking about doing the same, here are a couple of ideas for planning your Gatsby party! (These tips can be easily applied to hosting a literature-based party for any text, and I’ve even provided a few more stories at the bottom that might work if Gatsby’s not on your reading list.)

1) Reading/Watching the Full Text: Because the purpose of the party is to make the literature come alive and have students step right into the pages of the book, it is crucial that they understand the mood and time period of the story. I don’t usually have time on a block schedule to have students read Gatsby, but we do watch the film to experience it. I use various resources from my movie guide throughout the film to make watching more rigorous.

The Great Gatsby: Movie Viewing Guide, Questions, Quiz, Su

2) Close Reading the Party Passage: In Gatsby, we read a section of Chapter 3 to the quote “Good night, old sport. . . . good night.” The party scene here is very descriptive, so it’s excellent for having students go through and chart what the characters experience. We make a list of what colors are mentioned, food, music, drink, even décor. I also use this time to discuss figurative language used, other literary elements of the passage, and what purpose the party serves to the text as a whole. You can do the close reading before the end of the text or after you have finished it completely. I especially like doing the close reading from the novel with the movie because it exposes students to the text.

3) Planning: Once have students have noted what the text itself says, we then go back and make a new column for how we can adapt that to our classroom. With Gatsby specifically, we can’t bring any bubbly to school, so we discuss options for what to bring. The same is true for the food. We let the text inspire what we can bring to class, so students must get creative. For example, in Gatsby, it mentions “glistening hors d’oevre, spiced baked hams crowded against salads of harlequin designs and pasty pigs and turkeys bewitched to a dark gold.” So students bring finger foods and turkey sandwiches, for example.

4) Hosting: I bring a tablecloth and other various glamorous decorations to enhance the atmosphere. Of course, I play 20’s jazz music and music from the “new” Gatsby movie soundtrack. I also want students to “dress” the part as closely as we can do a Gatsby party, but with some obvious boundaries. I do teach in a rural school, so I have to keep that in mind when considering what students have access to. They are welcome to “create” some Gatsby inspired outfits to wear, but the text does give some specific examples: yellow dresses, blue and white suits, and bright primary colors. I encourage students to at least wear a nice top that fits into one of those categories.

5) Managing: I do have a rule that you must bring something to go through the food line. Most times we have plenty, but the very few times that I have someone not bring something, I do let them go through at the end. Again, I do teach in a rural area, but during the planning process, we plan things that are doable for everyone. For example, we do need napkins, and sometimes people will even go in together to bring a bigger item. Another thing I do on party day is schedule a project to be due. We are on a block schedule, so 90 minutes is a long time for students to be partying. At the end of Gatsby, my students are required to do an American Dream project, so they present those the first half of the class, and then we eat the second half. See how my American Dream project turned out here!

Get my lesson plan and guide for FREE! Click the thumb below for an instant download.

Other notable parties in literature:

-Bilbo Baggins’s Eleventy First Birthday Party from The Fellowship of the Ring by JRR Tolkien

-The tea party in Pygmalion (When I do this one, I have students make hats that symbolize who they are to wear to the party.)

-The ball in Romeo and Juliet

-The Victor’s Tour Party in The Hunger Games: Catching Fire

-A Jane Austen ball

-The Mad Hatter’s tea party in Alice in the Wonderland

-Ichabod Crane is a hungry fellow in The Legend of Sleepy Hollow

If the novel or story you are studying doesn’t have a full-blown party scene, as an alternative you could have students trace the food mentioned in the book and use that as inspiration. For example, the dauntless cake in Divergent. Another approach would be if the text you are reading has a party scene but details are lacking (as in some mentioned above), have students research the time period and host the party based on those findings.

Eat up!

Effective Activities to Use with Digital Media in Any Class

This week I was evaluated… twice, actually. I’m pretty sure the number of times I’ve shown a full-length movie this year I can count on one hand. I do, however, regularly show video clips as starters or as tutorials or examples to supplement content. So this year, it has been very odd that three of the seven times I was evaluated (they are all unscheduled pop-ins) have been when I was showing some sort of movie/show. No cute hands-on project. No grouping. No discussions. Just. My. Luck. I am only ever showing videos, films, or clips during class time if I am using it as a tool or as a text, so my students always know the purpose and are held accountable for that. But does it look that way to a visiting administrator? A worksheet, list of questions, or quiz would always add more rigor than nothing, of course. If you want to up the ante, though, here are a couple of more engaging and effective strategies that I keep in my toolbox to use when I show films in my class – visitor or no visitor. Some of the tips would work with any type of film, and some would work well with either a major motion picture or documentary. What’s best is that most of them can be done with NO PREP and at a moment’s notice.

1) Graphic Organizers

This week my juniors started their Antiques Show and Tell Research Presentation that was inspired by my loving of picking and The History Channel’s American Pickers. To kick off the unit, I show a portion of an episode in class so students can see how Mike and Frank research the personal and historical stories of the artifacts they find. Since that was my goal for the lesson, I included those questions on my graphic organizer and took the opportunity to add a few other specific ELA skills as well. When my assistant principal came in, I was able to tell him what the students were working on and he glanced at one student’s paper while he stayed to evaluate me. If you have some time to prep before showing a film, a graphic organizer is a really good way to engage students and guide their focus on a few key points and skills while they watch. This strategy keeps students on task during the viewing but can be concise enough with only a view questions so that they actually get to enjoy the film as well. They are also perfect pacing guides, so you could pause and discuss a particular point during viewing if you needed to. A graphic organizer can be used for a movie or documentary.

Check out my ready to go movie guides catalog for a variety of films- NO PREP! Click Here for Gatsby, Their Eyes Were Watching God, The Giver, Hunger Games, Frankenstein, Red Badge of Courage, To Kill a Mockingbird, The Last Song, and more!

2) Pause to Summarize

This is a classic strategy for quickly assessing students’ understanding and reactions to a film. Just press pause and have students write a quick summary of the main details up to the point where you stopped the film. I like the use the SWBST strategy, and I keep blank templates handy. Another way to jazz up pausing to summarize, especially if you have an unexpected visitor, would be to give each student an index card or sticky note to write their summaries on. Extend the activity for movies by having them flip the card over and predict what they think will happen next. You can collect them and read a few aloud and discuss their accuracy when the movie is over.

3) Four Square Facts

This interactive activity would work very well for a documentary or tutorial. Students fold their paper into 4 sections. I have students write three facts from the film – one per square. They must elaborate on each fact in the square. Then students move with a partner to share their ideas and gain one more. By the end of the quick and easy activity, they have reviewed and should have a total of four facts on their paper. This activity would work best to stop
half-way through the movie or at the end. The foldable would look exactly like this one does – from my previous post.

4) 3 – 2 – 1 Check Point

An excellent check for understanding is the 3-2-1 strategy. To make this a little more interactive, I have students fold their paper into three sections, horizontally. You can have students do this before the movie begins, during, or at the end. I have students write 3 new facts, 2 questions they still have, 1 part they enjoyed. You can certainly modify the elements of the 3-2-1 to focus on particular content questions or for other purposes you may have. For example, when my students watch the Salem Witch Trials Documentary during our Crucible unit, I don’t give them a set of questions to record or a fill-in-the-blank sheet to do as we watch. Instead, I have them write: 1 thing you learned
that helps you better understand The Crucible; 2 facts about “witches”; 3 facts about the Salem Witch Trials. We always spend time discussing afterwards to make sure everyone has the crucial information, but I like giving them the chance to draw it out on their own.

5) Compare & Contrast Characters

Comparing and contrasting is a very important skill and most state writing exams, EOCs, and even the ACT require students to think on this level, so I try to incorporate as much of it as I can. If you are showing a major motion picture with fictional characters, compare/contrast works very well. Have students make a vertical fold to divide the paper in half (a hot dog fold). On the left side they will write “Protagonist,” and on the right side they write “Antagonist.” In each column they must write at least five traits about each character. This activity can be done at the beginning of the film or during viewing quickly and easily.

Movies are an excellent way to engage students any time of year, but you can take it to the next level with these simple and easy ideas. If you are planning for a substitute, again a movie is a good choice for a sub plan, and any of these choices could be left with a sub and would do an excellent job of keeping kids on track.

Don’t see a title that fits into your curriculum? Check out my printable and digital worksheets for any movie analysis.

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Keeping Kids Tuned in at the End of the Year: A Secondary Linky

Host a Gatsby Party: End of Year Literary-Themed, Text-Based Classroom Parties

Effective Activities to Use with Digital Media in Any Class

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