Friday, March 4

Today's Content:

• Tier 1 Priorities:  Academic Vocabulary in Toby Osborn's World Cultures class, and Analyzing TEKs in Mickie Siek's US History class

• Tier 1 Priorities: Socratic Seminar in Lori Liles' Texas History class

  
Falcon Focus: Academic Vocabulary in Word Walls

Feel like you've got too much on your walls?  It may be that you haven't settled on a way to really pull that information into your daily instruction.  By adding a header, Toby Osborn has turned the Social Studies Thinking Words into part of his students' daily routine.  

Academic Word Wall in Toby's Class

When students come in, they can read the TEK and the language objective, and they can review all of the academic vocabulary (with graphics!).  However, by adding the Thinking Words wall, students now know exactly what process they'll be using to work with all of that content.   All Toby has to do is circle the appropriate verb.


Falcon Focus: Academic Vocabulary in TEKs

If you need help getting your students to take ownership over the TEKs, try this approach that Mickie Siek uses in her 8th grade US History classes.  We know that students need to see the TEKs in all their scholarly glory, but sometimes (a lot of times) the meaning gets lost in the academic language.

When students are introduced to a new standard, Mickie's classes work together to analyze the TEK for  unknown words and academic vocabulary.  My video-editing skills here are not great - but her strategy for introducing new TEKs is.

Kids can create their own word walls, connecting the TEKs to the vocabulary displayed around the room.  Simple and to the point, having the kids discuss what they don't know about the standard will lead them to a deeper understanding of what they need to know.

Falcon Focus: Socratic Seminar

Finally, if you have never heard of Socratic Seminar, never used Socratic seminar, tried Socratic Seminar and tanked, or facilitated Socratic Seminar like a boss, you should take a couple of minutes to watch this next clip.  This week, Lori Liles created the environment for a lively academic discussion on states' rights and Texas secession.  Students spent day 1 prepping for the seminar through close reading and question writing.  By day 2, they were able to (almost entirely) move through an academic discussion on their own!

Students demonstrated respect for others' opinions, stayed on topic, and even invited more hesitant participants into the fray.

Socratic seminar requires a little prep work, but the results far outweigh the challenges.  Sometimes adults can't have conversations like this, so just imagine what our students can accomplish if they can learn how to express their informed opinions and disagree with others respectfully.

Word.

If have any questions or would like some help implementing these or other strategies, please let me know.  And remember...

It's a great day to be a Falcon!