Anthony Fitzpatrick's Sherlock Holmes Strategy

Anthony's Sherlock Holmes strategy reminded me of a book that I read this summer, Focus: Elevating the Essentials to Radically Improve Student Learning.  In his book, Mike Schmoker encourages close reading in social studies, in which students research and formulate answers to a central, standards related question.  It also incorporates writing and discussion.  This was something that I was planning to try to do this year, and the Sherlock Holmes strategy will help me to do that.

Dr. Denenberg's Hero's Quilt

I thought that this was a great idea that would be relatively easy to put together.  Also, it could be changed easily throughout the year as students studied other American heroes.  I think that reading biographies of important people in America's history could easily lend itself to a response to literature which could also become part of the quilt.

Fran Macko's Building Prior Knowledge in History

I have had the same experience with KWL charts as Fran described in her presentation on August 19.  They have always seemed to be a waste of time because the students don't have enough background knowledge to make the charts useful.  I thought that the BKWLQ strategy was a great way to remedy my student's lack of knowledge in social studies.  I look forward to using this strategy, especially using some of the reading materials suggested by Fran.