Processing Learning Activities

1) Start-Up or Warm-Up
The first 3-5 minutes of class time each day are regularly set aside for students to do a quick segment of writing on the topic of the upcoming lesson. (Reflections on my reading, questions I have this morning, highlights from the homework, or response to a specific daily question or quote put on the board by the teacher). This activity works especially well to begin a class since it causes students to break social contact, look down at their writing, tune in to the lesson, gather thoughts, and get centered.

2. Freewriting
In “focused freewriting” students simply write as fast as they can on a given topic for 2-3 minutes, to tune into what they know, to surface their knowledge. The teacher’s instructions must expressly invite “sentences, phrases, notes, jottings – whatever helps you to get thoughts down quickly.” Because the goal of freewriting is spontaneous, quick jottings, teachers are careful not to say “write a paragraph.”

3. Listing or List-Storming
This is written version of brainstorming. Here, the student quickly jots a list of words or phrases reflecting whatever they know – or think they know – about a given subject, without editing or second-guessing themselves. Later, lists can be used in many ways: pairs or teams can compare and discuss their lists.

4. Fact Value Lists

When a new topic with a strong values dimension (e.g. AIDS, nuclear war, slavery) is being introduced, students begin by making two lists side-by-side: on the left, facts about the topic, and on the right, attitudes, beliefs, values, or opinions they have about it. As the lesson continues, students can validate their facts and explore their opinions.

5. K-W-L

When a topic is being introduced and investigated, students make and use three lists that guide the inquiry. Each student divides a piece of paper into three columns, sideways. In the left column, each student
lists all the things they Know about the topic. These can be shared aloud and a whole-group list of Knows is compiled. Next, in the middle column, everyone writes down some things they Want to Know. These can be shared aloud and a whole group list of ‘‘Want to ‘ is also compiled. The class pursues its questions as the unit unfolds. Toward the end of he unit, kids return to fill in their third columns with things they Learned. These then are the subject of a wider class discussion and review.

6. Graphic Writes
Clustering: Students put a key concept, term, or name in a circle at the center of a page and then free-associate, jotting down all the words that occur to them in circles arrayed around the kernel term, in whatever patterns “seems right.” This is great for surfacing prior knowledge and recollecting “lost’ information and reveals connections and relationships.

Semantic Maps: These are maps or diagrams that help us to remember terms, concepts, ingredients, or relationships. These help to chart content or knowledge in order to plug it into the brain or memorize it.

Mindmapping: The principle: if you really want to remember something – like a set of terminologies or a complex concept – it helps to make a careful, craftsman-like, artful illustration of it.

Story Maps: These are diagrams of maps of the events in a story or narrative often done chronologically. This can apply to both literature and historical narrative.

Venn Diagrams: When subjects – books, concepts, people, countries, etc. – have certain attributes that are alike and others that are different, kids can use tow or three interlocking circles to display the contrast and similarities.

Timelines: Another familiar combination of graphics and writing, applied to chronology. These work best when cartoons or other illustrations are added.
Drawing/Sketching: This is the graphic equivalent of freewriting. Students do original drawings to illustrate ideas found in their reading, discussion, and inquiry.

Cartoons: Another combination of words and drawings, cartoons can either be a quick response of a fine art form, depending on the time devoted to it. This can be a key to help getting reluctant writers to get words on a page – in balloons or captions.

7. Written Conversational Dialogue Journals
Talking informally in writing about course content with the teacher and/or other students provides a private, two-way channel of communication, typically developing into an exchange of information about both academic and interpersonal issues (see page 8). If written conversation is to stand alone as a regular class activity, the teacher will have to make significant efforts to institutionalize it (perhaps by initiating the first notes, by installing a mail box, by doing much modeling, and by responding promptly and fully). As this gets to be a regular activity, it blends into learning logs. Either the teacher or another student must respond to each letter/entry. Post-it notes limit the burden and also save the surface of students’ work from markings.

8. Learning Logs
Learning logs are in a sense the natural culmination of doing lots of notebooking/journaling activities. As teachers become committed to journaling, they want to make it an official, regular, consistent, predictable part of their courses. They also need a place for students to store all their drawings, lists, clusters, admit slips, and freewrites. Many teachers have formalized this approach by asking each student to keep a continuous notebook or learning log throughout the class. while some specific topics may be set by the teacher, the essential idea is for students to be making regular journal entries on a variety of class-related topics – 3, 4, or 5 entries per week. A loose-leaf format is preferable so that students can remove and share one entry without having to hand over their whole spiral notebook to someone else. Index cards, admit slips, and other odd-sized entries can be pasted or stapled on a loose-leaf page and added to the notebook.

9. Exit Slips
Instead of teaching “bell-to-bell”, teachers save the last 3-5 minutes of class for students to do a short piece of writing or drawing representing their response, summary, or questions about the day’s session. The teacher may collect and study these and use them to plan future lessons. Exit slips can be a great diagnostic tool and natural source of quick-review during the next class – the teacher can read a few sample exit slips from the previous day aloud (without names) to commence the lesson.

10. Admit Slips
Upon entering class, students hand over their “tickets’ – short writings on a preassigned topic, such as three suggested discussion questions for today’s class, a sketch of a character or historical figure appearing in our reading, or a summary of the previous night’s reading assignment. To begin class, the teacher may share some or all, or admit slips may be passed out randomly among students to be discussed in pairs or groups.

11. “Stop-n-Write”
Too often in presentations, teachers feel the need to plunge on and “cover the material,” when in fact, students would benefit greatly from an occasional pause for them to reflect on their thoughts. Some possible focusing suggestions: what I’m thinking right now; what I grasp up to this moment questions that am bugging me. This pausing to draw or write provides kids a chance to consolidate what’s been learned so far and prepare to go on.

12. Poetry
Many different genres of verse are adaptable to quick-draft or content area writing: haiku, limericks, bio poems, diamantes, etc. The ones with simple and clear-cut formulas seem to work best.

13. Dialogues
A good way to ensure students to grasp both sides of complex issues is to have them write dramatic dialogues between opposing characters, personages, historical figures, points of view, scientific
traditions, etc., giving students practice articulating ideas while’ learning.

14. “Faction”
Students can create a piece of fiction that depends upon a solid understanding of facts studied in a course. Examples: creating a “missing chapter’ from a novel, roving reporters interviewing Pythagoras, Madame Curie, Hitler. All of these factions invite illustration, of course.

15. Definitions
Sometimes it is valuable to focus on certain key words in vocabulary – heavy content areas. Some basic approaches: freewriting on the key word or key term; predicting definitions of the central vocabulary of a lesson, drawing with concrete poetry using key words from the subject mailer.

16. Paraphrases
Paraphrasing means writing precise summaries of key ideas, concepts, procedures, processes, events, quotations, demonstrations, or scenes. To do this over textbooks, it is more palatable and useful if done in pairs or teams rather than solo. The “sidetalk” that goes on while boiling a chunk of text down to its elements is often worthwhile.

17. Predictions
The teacher stops students at a key point in a reading, an activity, or a lecture and invites them to quickly write or draw what they think will happen next, and then discuss the predictions in small or whole groups.

18. Dialects/Double-Entries
Students divide note cards or journal entries in halt thirds, or quarters, and then use each space for a different kind of writing or drawing. In one kind of double-entry journal, the left side is used for factual note taking during reading, lecture, or activity – while the right side is used for personal reactions and questions. In mathematics, one side can be used for doing calculations and the other for explaining in words how the students attacked them. Many math teachers report that if
students can explain a concept in these two languages – symbolic and English – they really grasp the ideas.

19. Metacognitive Analysis
In metacognitive analysis, the student writes to describe her/his own thinking process in the subject, perhaps up the point where difficulties are encountered.

20. Instructions/Directions
The “how to” is one of the most primitive and inherently engaging forms of writing. Possibilities; how to build a birdhouse, how to hem a skirt, how to plan a battle strategy. A realistic performance assessment would be: can a reader do this task based upon the instructions given?

21. Observation Reports
Science labs have always offered a special and valuable kind of composing experience: reporting data from the close observation of physical objects. This sort of writing can be extended to data gathering and observational reports in a number of other subject areas and formats.

22. Class Minutes
One student is elected as minute taker for each daily class session, and must produce a set of official “minutes” by the following class. Minutes are either posted in a regular spot or are copied for distribution to the group. Reading and amending these minutes provides an excellent focusing activity for the start of each day’s class; having everyone’s attention gives each student author a chance to shine. In practice, authors usually try to infuse the minutes with as much personality as accuracy will permit.

23. Problem, Questions, Exercises
OK, it’s the oldest one in the book and potentially deadly if mishandled, but students can write their own discussion, study, essay, or even exam questions, mathematics word problems, or science experiments on the material being covered. This can replace dull, rote, end-of-the-chapter questions or workbook banalities with
questions that students originate because they identify them to be worth considering.

24. Save the Last Word for Me
Each student individually reads a common text. As the students read, they write on the first side of a 3 x 5 card (or slips of paper) any segments of the text words, phrases, or sentences that particularly catch their attention. These segments can be items that they find interesting and want to discuss (Suggest doing at least 3). The page number should be recorded.
* On the other side of the card, the students write out what they want to say about each quote they have selected.
* Once they have completed the reading and writing, they gather in small groups or in a single group to share their cards.
* Before the group discussion, each student goes through his/her cards and puts them in order from most to least important in terms of their desire to discuss them. During the sharing, if someone else uses the same top quote, the person who has not yet shared will choose his or her next quote.
* Each student reads the quote on a card to the group. The other members of the group have a chance to react to what was read. The student who read the quote then has the last word about why that segment of the text was chosen and bases the remarks both on what he or she wrote on the back of the card and on the preceding discussion.

25. Say Something
Students are asked to choose a partner and each pair is given a single copy of a reading selection.
* Before reading, each pair is asked to decide whether they will read the selection aloud or silently. If reading orally, the two share one text and take turns reading aloud.
* Students are informed that as they read the selection, they will discuss what they have read with their partner. After they read the first several paragraphs, they’re to stop to “say something” to each other about what they have read. This continues as they read the text.
* Students can comment on what was just read, make predictions about what will happen next, share connections and experiences
related to the selection, or ask questions about something that is confusing to them.
* After the first several times that Say Something is used with a group, the teacher should engage the students in a group discussion aimed at helping them become aware of how they can use this strategy in their own reading.

Variations:
Say Something can be used with a read-aloud book. The teacher reads aloud, stopping at particular points. Students are encouraged to “say something” and after several comments, the teacher begins reading again. Instead of responding as a whole group, the students can instead turn and say something to a partner every time the teacher stops reading aloud. This works well with young children and to introduce the engagement to the class.
Written conversations can be substituted for oral conversation (see page 7). Writing, however, is more constrained. It is not wise to introduce this alternative until after students feel free to respond to text at a more personal “what it meant to me” level. Writing in the Round is used to get response to writing for revision purposes. A blank sheet of paper is attached to a draft; the draft is circulated to three or four different readers. Each reader reads the draft and previous readers’ comments and then makes suggestions for revisions of meaning.
Reading in the Round involves a student’s writing a response to a reading selection. This response is circulated among other students who write their own comments about the reading selection and about the reactions already written on the sheet by other readers.
Students should be encouraged to use “Say Something” whenever they say they are having difficulty understanding what they are reading. This procedure should be continued until students naturally engage in this strategy on their own.

26. Sketch to Stretch
Students work in small groups of four or five. They first read the selection, individually or as a group.
* After reading the selection, students think about what they read

and draw a sketch of ‘What this story means to me.” Encourage students NOT to draw an illustration of the story, but to think about the meaning of the story and see if they can find a way to visually sketch that meaning. It also helps to ask students to draw their own connections to the story.
* Teachers can help students to understand these directions by sharing several examples of Sketch to Stretch with them before they are asked to create their own.
* Students should be told there are many ways of representing the meaning of an experience and they are free to experiment with their interpretations. Students should not be rushed but given ample time to read and draw.
* When the sketches are complete, each person in the group shows his or her sketch to the others in the group. The group of students participate in the sketch and say what they think the artist is attempting to say.
* Once everyone has been given the opportunity to hypothesize an interpretation, the artist, of course, gets the last word.
* Sharing continues in this fashion until all group members have shared. Each group then identifies one sketch to be shared with the entire class.

27. Written Conversation
Written conversation is introduced just like an oral conversation, except that instead of talking orally with a neighbor or friend, students will do their talking on paper
* Some teachers have announced a “Written Conversation Day” during which students can do as much talking as they wish, but on paper rather than orally.
* Some teachers begin by having a “public” Written Conversation with one student using the overhead projector. Students are then asked to pair up and have similar conversations with each other
* Another strategy is for the teacher to simply begin informally sitting next to various children and have a “Written Conversation”, and then encouraging them to try this engagement with others.
* The first participant writes a question on a sheet of paper and hands the paper and the pencil to the second participant. The second participant reads the question, writes a response and returns the paper to the first participant. This continues until the conversation is terminated.
* When using Written Conversation for young children whose writing is unconventional and difficult for others to read, each participant writes a message and then reads whatever was written to the other participant.
* Once students are familiar with the process, it can be used after a reading selection to discuss the selection. Although they can be collected by the teacher, they’re best used as a device to organize their thinking. Students can read different variations of the same story (such as Cinderella) and engage in Conversations about the similarities and differences. Students can be invited to have a Written Conversation about a topic they want to write about as a way to collect information and ideas before beginning a draft.
* Written Conversation can be used to discuss disputes and disruptive behavior.

28. Message Board
To initiate the Message Board, the teacher may write a message to the entire class or to a particular student and place it on the board. When the students discover the message, they are invited to write a message to one another and for the teacher. The only restriction is that messages must be signed. Each message may be hung publicly, folded over with the recipient’s name on the outside, or sealed in an envelope.
* A variety of types of messages can be posed on the Message Board by teachers, students, and parents, including personal messages, announcements, records of assignments, invitations, jokes, riddles, items to sell, current events, sign-up sheets for classroom activities, exchanges of messages between classrooms – anything that needs to be communicated.
* In one classroom of young children, the teacher used the Message Board in conjunction with sharing time. Children who had something to share with the class wrote their messages on a piece of paper and posted it on the Message Board. When it
was time to share, only those who posted their messages shared. Since each child read his/her own message, it didn’t mailer if it was written conventionally.

29. Dialogue Journals
Dialogue Journals are a form of written dialogue between two people usually either the teacher or a classmate. Usually students write daily in their journals about their experiences at home or at school and then exchange the journal for a response. Teachers often color code the journals so that they can take one color each day for a response. By the end of the week, they have responded to everyone’s journal. Sometimes students place their journals on a table and anyone who chooses can take the journal to write a response. Other times, students hand their journal to another person for a response.