Here's what I did.
The 7th grade standards on informational documents have been a bear to teach. They're seriously boring. Until yesterday.
Instead of explaining structure and features of memos, business letters and instructional manuals (to name a few), I put the onus on my kids. I spent a ton of time looking for examples of these materials, then gave them a set and pretty much said, "figure it out."
No, I did a little bit more. I gave them some guiding questions. They wrote them in their Cornell notes. Then I said, "Figure it out."
I asked them to notice what all the memos had in common and to try to make some general statements. Then I walked up and down the classroom and prodded them as they worked. And, work they did. I know it was hard - all that thinking - but in the end, I think most of them did ok.
So here's the flip.
For homework, I recorded a screencast (using Jing) of the five minute mini lesson I would have given them if I had approached this the old way. Then I gave them the notes, just in case they missed them. Then I showed them an Abbot and Costello video. What? Yeah, for fun. And so that the one question test the next day was about that video - to help me know who visited the blog and who didn't.
Wanna see? Check out these links. (But don't embarrass me further about my choppy lecture, hard-to-follow mouse, misspellings, etc.)
http://period5minkin.blogspot.com/2013/03/informational-documents.html
and
http://period5minkin.blogspot.com/2013/03/business-letters-vs-memos-who-wins.html
