the Fives

While most students really grasped the concept behind the Keys Assignment yesterday, there was a pretty large group that found it difficult to connect with a metaphorical key, or to choose for themselves a representative key. I tried to just throw out the “Key to life” or the “Key to your heart” aspect, but some of the students still found it difficult to make that connection.

Then I remembered something I learned from Jeff Wilhelm — Students learn more from talking with each other than they do from a teacher-centered lecture.

So, as a brainstorming activity I created something called The Fives. Every day I have a short little activity written on the board — something to get those brains braining. Sometimes it’s as simple as copying down the day’s lesson plan (short notes on what we’ll do), and sometimes it’s a short writing exercise.

I wanted to get the students brainstorming ideas for this “keys” paper so they could cull information from what they already know. As it turns out, this “fives” brainstorm also helped a lot of students discover they already had special keys hidden within themelves.

This set of “fives” was actually four sets of top-five lists:

• Top Five Hobbies — things you you like to do
• Top Five Life Goals — things you want to do before you die
• Top Five Dreams — Things you REALLY want to do, but which also scare you
• Top Five Fears — those buzzards circling around you

The students’ job was to complete these lists as quickly as possible; gut-reaction style. As they were writing their own lists I filled out the same list on the board. (Gotta let the kids know how to do it, and that you aren’t afraid of doing the work yourself– another Wilhelm lesson). So here’s my lists — with explanations:

Top Five Hobbies

• Soccer — Last year a team of 8th grade boys played a team of teachers. Those kids kicked our butts, and it reminded me that I haven’t played soccer in about 15 years. It’s my favorite sport. I watch soccer of TV and an enjoy playing it more than any other sport. That game last year motivated me to play soccer every day during summer school, and I’d like to join a local rec team.
• the Internet(s) — I love all things internet. I’m an internet nerd. I love using the internet for fun, just like everyone else, but I also use it for work by keeping up with the latest trends and making use of what’s available.
• Reading/Writing — I love reading books (read a ton this summer), but I also read the news online day in and day out. Again, I like to keep up with what’s happening RIGHT NOW. For example, did you know Apple just announced a slew of new iPods today? I also do a lot of writing online, but it would bore you students — it’s all about teaching and for teachers.
• Cooking — I love cooking. Love to try new foods and love to make tasty things at home. Food is good, but good food is even better.
• Movies — I am a movie geek. Fear me.

Top Five Life Goals

• Learn Spanish — I know some French, but I think Spanish would help me a lot.
• Write a movie screenplay — Like I said: big movie geek. I’d love to write one. I’ll probably get a lot of help from my students
• Write a book — I’m workin’ on this one.
• Go camping for a month — Serious stuff; I think I could do it, but it’ll take quite a bit of effort.
• ? — I’d like to leave at least one option open for now.

Top Five Dreams

• Direct a movie — Seriously, this is how much I enjoy movies and admire the people who make them. I want to be involved.
• Go to Ireland — It was a life changing experience for one of your other teachers, and I’m pretty Irish; why not?
• Rebuild a Car — It’s just such a manly thing to do. I have friends who do this and they’re always like, “Why can’t you fix your car? It’s easy!” and I’m like: “Why can’t you fix your computer, dude?” So, this is definitely a dream.
• Be famous, yo! – as a…
• Rapper — If there was one thing I’d like to do knowing full well that I could not fail: I’d be a rapper.

Top Five Fears

• Clowns — Everyone knows this.
• A slow death – A fast death would be so much easier to deal with.
• Oceans — Seriously, when I’m hanging out in some deep water, where I can’t see the bottom, I start thinking about all the creatures man hasn’t discovered. My fear is that those unknown creatures will inevitably show up and tickle my foot.
• Someone hurting my wife or son — See here
• Failure — I think this is a big one for everyone. In talking with other teachers and with conversations with students I’ve found that the one killer for us all is failure, or the fear of failure. For adults, it might be as simple as cooking — when I spend a night making something I think tastes good and my wife tells me she doesn’t like it, there’s no way I’m going to waste my time making that dish again. With students, this is probably the biggest reason behind their grades and successes. If you are afraid of failing, most of you won’t try. Surely you’ve all worked your butts off on an assignment for a a teacher and she/he gave you a bad grade. Were you willing to start all over from scratch and get the better grade, or did you just say “Screw it. And screw the teacher.”

That last one got many of the kids. Most raised their hands to signify that they’ve given up before and that they understood this. I told them that if I were to write this Keys paper, I’d probably focus on one or two things: A key to one of my dreams or A key to defeat my fears.

After I did this example list and example talk about my fives, I turned the class loose to discuss their own lists. As I walked around the room I got a little insight into what makes these kids tick, and I was able to watch them make choices about what they’d write.

What started out as a pre-writing exercise, something to get the brain juices flowing, turned into a brainstorming session for ideas. Today, when the kids came to class to write their rough drafts, there were almost no students who couldn’t find a topic. And those kids who finished their lists were able to make rough sketches of the papers they wrote today.