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Do More With “Story Structure”

This week, we’re tackling the comprehension skill “story structure” featured in the Houghton Mifflin reading program. It’s absolute nuts and bolts (identify setting, character, and plot) and is part of the reading program beginning in Kindergarten. A quick pre-assessment verifies that my sixth graders have a thorough understanding of this material.

Improving Inferences

The Houghton Mifflin reading program includes “making inferences” as the weekly comprehension skill. Their sample lesson concludes with an underwhelming worksheet. Let’s do something better. We’ll ask students to infer from multiple points of view, incorporate visual art, and present their thinking.

Best Of 2011

A quick look back at some popular articles and important personal moments. Plus, my wish for 2012!

The Eight Great Gripes of Gifted Students

In a 1985 study, Judy Galbraith identified eight great gripes of gifted students. Let’s think about what we can do to meet these needs. It will require more than just making our lessons academically challengeing.

Teaching Search Skills

We begin our year with an ancient tools projects. Students build the tools that early man would have access to. Naturally, many students want to build spears. We type “spears” into Google. Guess what comes up? That’s right: page after page about Britney Spears.

Go Deep With Christmas Trees

Naturally, the origin of a topic is a great place to start, and the Christmas tree has quite a twisty, knotted history. Some trace the roots of the tree-decorating tradition back to ancient winter celebrations. However, the use of decorated trees as a Christmas-specific decoration is surprisingly new, appearing in the last 500 years or so.

Getting Music Into The Classroom

Ever since, I’ve used Morris’ idea, and played the theme from The Andy Griffith Show as a cue for students to return to their seats. These musical transitions have saved my voice years of wear and tear. Here are some of the ways I’ve been getting music into my classroom

Thanksgiving Haikus

This year, I changed one requirement. Students had to compose a haiku as the body of their card. This gave me a chance to introduce a type of poetry that I like to use throughout the year, while still maintaining the purpose of expressing unexpected thankfulness to someone.

Thanksgiving’s Thursday Origins

Teaching students about the first Thanksgiving feast is standard fare in the primary grades, yet there is a gold mine of fascinating information about the origin of Thanksgiving’s date. It’s a bizarre history that will intrigue your students and could lead down some interesting avenues!

Compare and Contrast Movie Trailers Over Time

Here’s a movie made in 1977, and its trailer is barely watchable! In fact, it almost made me not want to watch Star Wars, a movie I know almost by heart. Perhaps we’re onto something interesting for our students to analyze.

Halloween Exploration Ideas

Halloween is coming up, and it’s a hard one to ignore in the classroom. Sure, you can always use the traditional cut and paste pumpkin activity, but let’s think about how we can capture students’ excitement and use it to deepen thinking and increase knowledge?

Beyond Chess: Go, Shatranj, and Xiangqi

Advanced learners and chess go hand in hand. In the past, I’ve used chess to introduce systems, introduce depth and complexity, and discuss paradoxes. However, since so many of my students understand the basics of chess, I decided to expose them to some chess-like games from other cultures.

What Did You (Not) Do During Summer Break?

Ask your students to write about their summer breaks, but remix their activities into a new genre or setting. Perhaps they vacationed at Hogwarts, Mordor, or Tatooine? Not interested in a writing assignment?

Analyzing Suffixes Inductively

The year opens with a vocabulary skill analyzing “Suffixes: -ful, -less, -ly.” I adjusted this lesson to examine how these suffixes change the part of speech of words, rather than the meaning.

The Tragedy of the Commons

Imagine that we all share a common resource, but no one is really in charge. How do we maintain order without an authority? This is a fantastically fuzzy situation for students to dig into.

Lunar Survival Skills

We’re supposed to rank fifteen items according to usefulness if we were stranded on the light-side of the moon. The items range from pistols to powdered milk. Some seem useful, but are actually worthless while others seem unnecessary on earth, but are actually vital when stuck on the moon. However, the structure of the activity as a website is not optimal. Let’s improve this and make it an awesome problem–solving exercise for our class.

Think Like An Engineer: Egg Drop

At our school, 6th graders participate in an annual egg drop. To increase the rigor, I looked for unique scientific roles and came up with three: designing a parachute to slow the egg’s descent, testing materials to pack inside the structure, and developing the structure itself. Each of these roles will be developed into a scientific discipline.

Six Traits of Quality Pre-Assessments

Judy Galbraith identified boredom with school as a gripe of gifted students. This complaint is completely understandable. How many meetings have you sat through, going over material you had already mastered? For our gifted students, their school career is a long stretch of those meetings.

Four Ways To Reduce Behavior Problems

Anyone who’s had to wrangle two or three dozen gifted minds at once knows there’s much more to the story than angelic super students who eagerly obey your every whim. Gifted students can present some interesting behaviors that throw off unprepared teachers.

Think Like A Disciplinarian: The Common Problems

Think Like A Disciplinarian is a method for teaching students to approach concepts from an expert’s point of view. You’ll expose you class to new modes of thinking, teach subject–specific language, and develop questions that delve deeper into problems. As a bonus, students will learn about potential careers.

Make Your Class Cozy For Gifted Introverts

As a teacher of gifted students, you will be in the unique situation of teaching classrooms with a majority of introverts, a population typically in the minority in general classrooms. Consider how you can set the stage to improve these students’ learning, socializing, and happiness.

Communicating Work In Math

Many told me that showing work is important as a way of communicating to an audience. But, whether we realize it or not, the only audience many students are performing for is a test scanner. So let’s give students the chance to actually communicate in math.

An Inductive Exploration of Linear Graphs

Let’s play with linear graphing! First, don’t set this up as a direct instruction lesson. That wouldn’t be playing. Instead, capitalize on your students’ ability to think inductively and recognize patterns. Set up a situation where they can construct their own meaning.

Group Investigation: Lessons Built on Curiosity

John Dewey’s Group Investigation is a favorite model of instruction of mine. It’s simply built on curiosity!

From Silent Reading To Creating Art

I’ve been continuing the idea to explore classic music during silent reaing, and incorporated Gustav Holsts’ “The Planets.” My students, who have an affinity for memorizing gods and goddesses, took a special interest in this idea. I figured, let’s see how far their interests will take us?

Exploring Circumference With Famous Circles

Remembering the formulae for area and circumference of a circle is often a challenge for students due to their surface similarities as well as the additional confusion of radius and diameter. I like to tackle them one at a time and give students a chance to explore the origin of each formula. Let’s look at circumference today by utilizing some famous circles from around the world… and beyond!

Ask Creative Questions

Is this the message I want to give to my gifted students? “Follow the directions?” This is a room full of students who are creative, flexible, divergent thinkers. These are the future Noble Laureates, inventors, and revolutionaries. Let’s allow them (or better yet: force them) to exercise their creative muscles.

Video: Make A Movie Trailer To Analyze Tone

Here’s part of my technology presentation from CAG 2011. In this project, students will develop a movie trailer of a story they have read in class. The purpose is to analyze the tone of the original story and recreate it in a multimedia format.

3D Character Analysis: Gardner, Kaplan, and Kohlberg

As we review for midyear tests, my students are working in groups to analyze eight characters from any story from this years’ readings. I’ve given them three dimensions to use when looking at each character. Each dimension is based on concepts created by three different researchers: Howard Gardner, Lawrence Kohlberg, and Sandra Kaplan.

Review: Challenging Units for Gifted Learners

While at NAGC 2010, the most exciting session I attended was put on by Ken Smith and Susan Stonequist. They outlined a geometry unit in which their students built a working miniature golf course. I was thrilled to hear that this unit was just one part of an upcoming series of books. Last week, I received copies of the series, called Challenging Units for Gifted Learners.

Finding Students’ Gaps

I’m constantly reminded that just because a student is gifted, doesn’t mean they have mastered every skill. In fact, it’s just as possible to have a first grader reading at a sixth grade level as it is to have a sixth grader who lacks third grade skills. Being a teacher of gifted students means feeding their appetite for big concepts while also fine-tuning fundamental skills that may be lacking.

Cooperative Exploration In Math With Clues

I’m beginning to teach the dreaded geometry unit featuring complementary, supplementary, adjacent, and vertical angles. Historically a confusing topic, this year is going to be different. I’m going to use a new tactic: cooperative reasoning with a set of “clues.”

Getting More Out Of Silent Reading

After recess, my students have a ten minute chunk of time to read a book and listen to some relaxing music. This serves as a “settle down” period as well as a time for me to check homework or finish up other administrative tasks. Why not add in a way to expose students to something interesting as well?

Math and Novelty: What if we didn’t have 10 numerals?

Looking for some ways to challenge your advanced mathematicians? If you’d like to keep them on the same topic as the rest of your class, consider increasing the complexity of your current unit. If they’re in need of more advanced curriculum to keep their creativity flowing, try to bring in novel ways of looking at math.

Think Like An Anthropologist to Make Inferences

Like all HM comprehension skills, “Making Inferences” appears yearly beginning in kindergarten, so I know my 6th graders have practiced, and may well have mastered, the skill. To differentiate, I turned to the model of “Thinking Like a Disciplinarian.”

Differentiate Fact And Opinion For Gifted Students

In 6th grade, Houghton Mifflin’s Theme Two begins with the comprehension strategy of “Fact and Opinion.” A quick pre-assessment shows that my class has a solid grasp on the difference between fact and opinion, so how can I up-level my instruction? I realized that my students had an assumption that facts are “good” and opinions are “bad.” So my differentiated lesson became centered on challenging this belief.

“Is This Good?”

Why “is this good?” is driving me mad.

Is Your Writing Process This Fun?

Teaching our students to prewrite, write, and rewrite is a difficult process. Much like getting students to show their work in math, process writing is a challenge for gifted students who work intuitively and are annoyed by artificial processes. What better motivation is there than the chance to point out someone else’s errors AND be rewarded for it?

Exploring Morality Behind Actions

No one can deny that our gifted students have great power. They may be intellectual powerhouses, grasping concepts years ahead of peers. They may be emotionally sensitive, becoming aware of issues such as mortality at an early age. They may be leaders of people, showing leadership qualities from the very beginning. How do we teach them to use this power?

Content Imperatives And Conflict

Conflict is an essential tool for analyzing literature, understanding history, and improving as a writer. Each year, my 6th graders discuss the types of conflict commonly found in stories and analyze writing using the content imperatives.

A Yardstick Of Quality

Our gifted students can do grade-level work with little instruction, but how do we demand excellence?

To Show Or Not To Show Work In Math

We must be careful not to admonish our intuitive learners for being intuitive. As teachers of the gifted, we must set up learning environments that are best for our students. And if they’re doing it all in their heads (and getting it right!), then the environment needs to change.

Taking “Noting Details” To A Higher Level

By 6th grade, our reading program’s comprehension skills have become a bit basic for most of my gifted students. I’ve been working on increasing the depth and complexity of these skills. In this case, “Noting Details” has become “Explicit Vs. Implicit Details.”

111 Greek and Latin Word Parts

To differentiate spelling and vocabulary for my gifted students, I incorporate words with Greek and Latin origins. This list is a compilation of 111 Greek and Latin roots, prefixes, and suffixes, along with 35 groups of 5 related English words, plus 5 task cards.

Mega Homophone List

Challenge your gifted students and advanced spellers with this list of 320 homophones arranged into groups of ten. Also includes five task cards for independent work with homophones.

All About Character Archetypes

Another example of “structure that increases creativity” is character archetypes. An archetype, according to Wikipedia, is “an original model of a person, ideal example, or a prototype upon which others are copied, patterned, or emulated.” Let’s use an inductive lesson to teach our students about these literary tools.

Patterns In Writing III: Themes

We’re continuing our journey through a writing unit focused on the patterns of great writing. This lesson, number three in the series, covers commonly used themes. Be amazed as your students begin developing stories around themes of redemption, coming of age, and the hero’s journey.

Patterns In Writing II: Plot Structure

We’re continuing our unit about patterns in writing. This time, let’s examine the traditional five-act dramatic structure through the modern classic, Finding Nemo. Remember, we’re also framing the whole unit around the big idea that “structure increases creativity.”

Patterns In Writing I: Introduction

Take a break from teaching the details of writing and examine narrative writing from a larger perspective. How can structure increase creativity in writing? Take your gifted writers on a journey through common patterns in narrative writing.

7 Ways To Use Film In The Gifted Classroom

I am consistently amazed that so few of my students have experienced classic films such as The Wizard of Oz, 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea, and It’s A Wonderful Life. Movies like these are cultural milestones that enrich students lives and connect them to a larger community. It is important to expose students to these sorts of classics.

Shakespeare & Gifted Students

To a young student, Shakespeare is the academic equivalent of Mt. Everest. However, with a little coaching (ok, a lot of coaching), my students are able to dig into the Bard’s words and pull out an understanding of the plot as well as some of his incredible figurative language. I bet yours can too!

How I’d Change this Question from my Textbook

Here are a dozen ways to transform a not-so-critical-thinking question from one of my district’s textbooks.

Uplevel Grammar By Examining (And Then Creating) Another Language

After creating an above-level grammar group, I was left with the problem of creating a challenging grammar assignment. Inspired by a friend’s self-created language, I encouraged my students to examine the rules of other languages. Some interesting rules they discussed included…

Ask Them Which Is Better

Moving from analysis to evaluation sure makes things more fun. Why? Check out these examples. Which would you rather answer?

What’s Test Prep Like In A Gifted Class?

Testing is a reality in any classroom, but what does it look like with your gifted learners? Drill and kill, test prep, reviewing material… these all go against the ideals of your gifted classroom. Yet it would be a disservice for your kids to head into a high-stakes test without the utmost preparation, right?

From Apathy To Flow

It’s our job to draw out the excited learner inside our gifted students. Finding the right connection of skill and challenge is one way to accomplish this. Students with a low skill level working with a low level of challenge are destined to be apathetic. Pump up the challenge without increasing skill and your students become worried and anxious.

An Apple Stock Math Project

Entice your gifted mathematicians with real world data and an authentic problem such as: “Let’s say that instead of buying the original iPod, you spent the same amount of money on Apple stock. How much would that stock be worth now?”

A Mess On Einstein’s Desk

Einstein’s desk hours after his death reveals a method of work that might disturb us as teachers. Yet can you imagine chastising this genius about his organization?

Towel Folding Robot

Tell me your students won’t be fascinating and inspired by this video of a robot capable of folding hand towels.

Do Your Assessments Reflect Your Teaching?

If we expect gifted students to learn information at a more rigorous level than the general population, then we must also assess them at higher levels as well. How can you embed higher level thinking skills into an assessment (and ditch those “multiple choice” and “fill in the blank” sections)?

Adding The Beatles to a Lesson on Cause and Effect

For my students, simply teaching a direct instruction lesson about cause and effect is a recipe for boredom and behavior problems. My solution involved bringing in a little help from The Beatles.

Today We’ll Analyze Video Game Systems!

How many ways can you think of to use a gallery of one hundred video game systems in your gifted classroom?

No Street Names In Japan?

Do your learners use the tool 👓 multiple perspectives to analyze stories, problems, and historical events? Here’s a TED Talk about real-life multiple perspectives that will make your students (and you!) reconsider basic assumptions.

Famous Failures

One sad side-effect of gifted students’ success is that it can become the status quo. Students become afraid of not living up to their own high expectations. They then begin to take fewer risks out of fear of failure. Help your students cope with failure by introducing these famous, successful people who have developed a positive attitude towards their own failures.

A Deep, Complex Extension Menu For Character Analysis

A reusable extension menu gives gifted students choice while simplifying directions and reducing teacher workload. These eight options for character analysis incorporate depth, complexity, content imperatives, and interesting uses of technology.

Reordering A Mixed Up Paragraph

I combined my utility Paragraphy with Project Gutenberg, The Differentiator, and The Wizard Of Oz to create a differentiated lesson about how to order sentences within a paragraph for gifted students.

Beyond The Book Report

I began to list all the things I could do after reading a book. Then, something wonderful happened. I began having all kinds of neat, interesting ideas. The more I thought about it, the more ideas came. By Erika Saunders.

Should Students Have To Work In Groups?

Once in a while, a student will ask me a question that makes me realize how much more there is to know about my class. One child came up and quietly asked me, “Do I have to work in a group?”

Think Like A Psychologist

Looking to help your students go deeper into any content area? One technique is to teach them to “Think Like A Disciplinarian.” This idea, part of the Depth and Complexity Framework, teaches students to analyze ideas from the point of view of a specific profession or discipline.

The Original Puzzlement: A Zoetrope

As teachers, I spend a ton of time searching for inspiration to enliven my lessons. But sometimes, inspiration hits as soon as you leave the desk and books behind. Friday my wife and I took a trip to Disneyland and saw this unbelievable (literally, it seems like magic) intersection of art & technology.

Remixing Stories With Gifted Students

One of my favorite ways to differentiate for gifted students is to create “remixes” of an existing idea. Students take an existing story, reshape it, and create a new product. It encourages them to explore the stories behind existing stories, helps them to understand how real writers work, and gives them a creative way to explore literature.

Enticing Gifted Students To Read Twice

Think you’re lucky to get your students to read a story once? Can’t imagine convincing a class to read a story through again? The key is giving your gifted students an enticing purpose for a reread.

Meeting Advanced Learners’ Needs in Language Arts

To start differentiating in Language Arts, it’s often as simple as upgrading your examples. Bring in authentically interesting novels, paragraphs, sentences, phrases, and words.

Concept Attainment: A Model for Inductive Thinking

The first grammar lesson in our reading program is titled “types of sentences.” Nothing excites gifted 11 year olds less than watching me explain the difference between interrogative and declarative sentences. This year, rather than teach the lesson using direct instruction, I used another model of instruction: concept attainment.

Books for Teaching Thinking

We teach our gifted students to solve math problems, write fantastic essays, and read above grade level, but do we teach them to think? Edward Debono believes that thinking should be taught as a discrete subject. As I start the new school year, I’ve found a few books to help me embed quick “thinking lessons” into my day. These tools make great options for extension menus or creative differentiated products.

Advanced Vocabulary Sets

I know many gifted students slog through the typical vocabulary contract week after week. I know because I put my own students through it. However, gifted students can get more from vocabulary and spelling study than writing the word five times, writing the definition, and then using it in a sentence.

3 Ways Teachers Battle Students’ Giftedness

How easy is it to forget that our gifted learners have truly unique needs? How easy is it to plan lessons straight from our textbooks and use unaltered pedagogy from our credential programs? An amazing article by Dr. Karen Rogers reminded me of three counter-intuitive facts about gifted students’ learning.

Introducing Universal Themes and Generalizations

Generalizations, big ideas, abstractions, universal themes… they are designed to help our gifted students learn. However, what I didn’t realize was that they would help me teach!

Differentiating in Math: Running Multiple Groups in One Class

100%, 100%, 100%. If you’ve ever taught gifted students math, you’re probably familiar with those kids who can knock perfect scores out week after week. You’ve probably also questioned what good you’re doing for those students. A differentiated math program may be just what you need.

The Content Imperatives: Going further with Depth and Complexity

The Content Imperatives are five more prompts that work in conjunction with Depth and Complexity to take your students even deeper into their content.

Movie Previews and Poems’ Tones

In California, both Third and Sixth grade teachers are required to teach students to recognize elements that contribute to the tone of a written piece. I struggled with this abstract concept before landing on an engaging tool to help express the meaning of tone: movie previews.

How To Write A Lesson Objective

Creating a differentiated learning environment for gifted students doesn’t mean throwing out everything you learned in your credential program. Learn how to add on to or adjust the base program, curriculum, or standards that any general education teacher uses.

Gifted Learners’ Social Emotional Needs

While gifted students look perfect on paper, their teachers know that in the classroom they are not all the academic angels and stellar scholars that people assume they are. Successful teachers of the gifted require a special understanding of their students’ social and emotional needs.

Using Pre-Assessment To Group Within My Class in Language Arts

Nothing stirs up behavior problems like trying to teach a gifted student something they already know. After watching my class average over 90% month after month on their Houghton Mifflin end of unit tests, I began to get a sneaky suspicion that some of them already knew the material prior to my instruction. This realization led to my use of the HM Theme Skills tests as a pre-assessment to create flexible groups.

Writing a Song to Respond to Literature

As I walked around the room with my guitar, groups of students raised their hands, asking “Can you come check ours!?” I approached and sang the lyrics they had written, strumming along to check their rhythm. My students were writing songs as a novel way of responding to literature. Literary Response as Song In my […]

Solving An Authentic Classroom Problem: The Desk Arrangement

How often do you give your gifted students the opportunity to solve authentic, relevant problems? What is more authentic to a student than solving classroom problems? And what excites students more than having ownership over the classroom seating? Here’s an authentic problem solving idea that ties in public speaking skills, group work, and classroom ownership.

Building Confidence in Speaking Skills

When preparing your students for standardized tests, those little standards labeled Speaking And Listening can easily slip by the wayside. And yet, is there any skill more important in landing a job, surviving social engagements, or being a successful leader than confident oral language skills? Teach your students to analyze great speeches to become better public speakers themselves.