Stop, Collaborate, and Listen

Earlier this week, my university supervisor came into my classroom to observe me -- I was terrified.

He came to my first class on Monday morning, and I was so worried that my lesson would flop because most of my students forgot to do their homework that I was fairly scatterbrained when he walked into my room three minutes before the start of class.

But the lesson was great, and despite not having done their homework, my students caught on to the lesson after I provided a short review.

My supervisor was impressed, and in all, I was happy with how it went.

Now, don’t get me wrong, there are definitely things I would change now that I’m reflecting on the experience, but for having my first observation only about a week and a half into school, I think it went well.

The lesson I created was about heart maps and hand maps, which are tools that my Creative Writing students can use to help brainstorm topics for their writing.

In essence, a heart map is, so to speak, a map of your heart. You start at the center and work your way out with what means the most to you. However, not everything in the heart has to be a positive experience.

A hand map is a map of anything that you like to do. When I asked my students to make these, I asked them to think about everything they’ve done recently. An example I gave them was putting out fires – which I meant both literally and figuratively.

I gave my students 15-20 minutes to work on both maps, and then I had them stop and collaborate with their tablemates. Not only did they have my maps on the board to reference, but they were also able to listen to what their peers had to say.

This exchange of ideas not only helps build the community in our workshop, but it also helps students recognize different ideas that they could put on their own maps. It all goes hand in hand (pun intended).

Later in the week, I had the chance to do a marathon writing activity with one of my Creative Writing classes. For the activity, I typed a list of firsts, printed it, and then cut out each sentence on a strip of paper. I put the paper strips in a brown paper bag and went around so each student could pick a topic to write about.

Some of the items on the list were “First time getting in trouble with your parents.,” “First time trying coffee.,” “First time driving by yourself.,” and “First paying job.” were among some of the first time experiences.

I had my students pick a new topic three or four times throughout the course of class so they could get more ideas for their first assignment.

Before my students left for the day, I checked in to see how they felt the exercise went, and with the exception of a few students, they all asked me if we could do a similar activity with different prompts later in the semester. I’d say that means the lesson was a success…