Entry #3

1. Brief Description: Interactive Word Wall
2. Details: I use the interactive word wall strategy as a way to incorporate some of the big “themes” of government that can be found as an accompaniment to our standards. The five themes are (one of which I changed): Conflict Resolution, Distribution of Power, Self Interest, Beliefs and Ideals, and Rule of Law. I put those themes up at the top of my word wall, then at the end of a unit I ask the students to write down what aspects of government that we recently learned about fit under those themes. So for Conflict Resolution, several students put “Conference Committees” and explained why. For Distribution of Power, several put “Our current two party system” with an explanation. For Self-Interest, several students put “Gerrymandering”, etc. I then put up the ones that I think are the best examples. I also encourage students, for extra credit points, to look for any current event stories that relate to any one of the themes. So, the word wall is constantly changing, and it is mainly student generated content.
3. Reflection: I have been doing this for a few semesters and really enjoy it. The problem I run into though is keeping it going throughout the year. Usually the first two weeks I am pretty into it, but then my word wall fills up pretty quickly and it is easy to just let it stand as is the rest of the semester (a testament to out first unit or two, but not quite indicative of our entire course). I obviously could take down the examples every few weeks and ask the students to put more up, but that takes time. However, I have come to the conclusion that it is something that is worth the effort, in order to facilitate higher order thinking by having students make connections and find patterns in the content.