Survival Guides
Survival guides have some interesting potential for a variety of historical and literary analysis needs. This idea was jump started by the Brighid Survival Manual which was found via Super Punch.
Here’s a quick example for the Witch in The Wizard of Oz.
I’ll see if time allows me to make one for a Jamestown colonist. The problem is that these take a good bit of time and effort if they’re going to be good. That’s great in a project but it does make it harder on me.
Anyway, lots of English and history applications. It’d be fun to write survival guides for self-destructive historical or literary figures- maybe Edgar Allen Poe or Custard.
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6 Word Teen Memoirs
This would be a fun way to start off the school year. It’s similar to a number of things I’ve posted before but I liked these and the presentation is really nice. Ways I might twist it for the first days of school – maybe it’s just your summer in 6 words, your prediction of the school year in 6 words or you have to produce one for someone else in the class on whatever topic is chosen. Make sure you show good examples. Just another example of rules and being “inside the box” driving some really interesting content production. Hat tip – Jackie Gerstein
A few things . . .
Currency Redesign This would be a fun way to look at our government (and other countries for that matter). It’s simple but complex. How do you redesign our currency so that it reflects our history and current values? There’s a lot of interesting analysis potential there. Partnering with an art class would give you some added advantage and would allow for more focus on art as problem solving. Monsters Inspired by this Boing Boing post, I thought it’d be fun to have students draw a monster of their choosing (maybe give it some particular talents) and then randomly assign them to other students who then write a story with the monster as a main character. The artist then works with the writer as a peer editor. I’d do this online and then mix in other monsters and story lines. Then the larger group has to look at the stories and figure out how they’ll merge. Drugs This list of the top 25 psychiatric prescriptions and a comparison to their numbers in 2005 would open the door for a number of conversations about our society and medicine in the U.S. I’d love to see overall prescriptions and a comparison of those numbers between countries. Random Thoughts This card trading game concept for medical students is worth thinking about more. I’m in […]
Utter Nonsense
It’s all in the processing. Ask students to make sense out of what appears to be nonsense. Take the Ask A Ninja “What is podcasting?” episode. Does it seem like gibberish? For sure. Is there a very definite underlying logic? Without question and that logic can be explained.That’s the type of thing I’d start them off with. It’s not that hard. It really does have a purpose and structure. I might move on to something like this. First this scene from The Royal Tenenbaums. They’ve got to make some sense of it. Then expose them to this rather odd ode to The Royal Tenenbaums Jim Groom and I made a while back. Shorn – Jim Groom Bares It All from Tom Woodward on Vimeo. What is the connection to Twitter? A simple question that involves a lot of processing and understanding. Make your own, have students make their own. I’ll also recommend Motionographer as a great way to be exposed to interesting video to use for this type of exploration.
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This is yet another great way to move past our traditional methods of teaching and embrace the digital age. I have been teaching social studies for some time and at some point in the year, students always make a brochure, but this is much cooler. Thanks!