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. 

I am looking forward to using Live Binders.  At this point, I have set up the tabs and some subtabs in the binder, but I really need to think through how I want to use the binder before I do more work on it.  I have a question about how the binder is to be used.  Is this a resource for me to use for teaching this subject or is this something that my students will use and have access to?  Can this be the product for the project we are to complete?