Keyword Predictions

Today was a weird schedule day with shortened class periods. But, a weird day because I was starting a new unit and the timing of certain activities wasn’t working out. For example, I had students assessing their knowledge of vocabulary for our Constitution unit based on 3 categories – Know It, Not Sure, Don’t Know It. Throughout the unit, we keep revisiting the vocabulary and reassessing. (If this sounds interesting to you then here is a link) This activity took 10-15 minutes and didn’t leave much time to begin a CyberSandwich.

To fill the time, I through in a 5-8 minute Blooket, as well as a graffiti board. However, these things weren’t that great. So I began thinking, “How can I set them up for our CyberSandwich on Popular Sovereignty for tomorrow?” An idea entered my head that I saw in the book Doable Differentiation by Jane A. G. Kise…

I wanted students working in small groups discussing the idea of popular sovereignty – even with no knowledge of the word. I found a piece of paper and wrote Popular Sovereignty in the middle. Around the word, I pulled out key phrases and words from the CyberSandwich article (I love this article because it hits on everything students should know about popular sovereignty). Here are the key words and phrases:

The first class I did this with, I asked them to make connections and predictions about popular sovereignty and the key words and phrases. Students would then see if their predictions were correct when reading the CyberSandwich article. For example, I asked, “What do you think is the connection between Popular Sovereignty and voting?” However, my plan backfired because they had no clue what popular sovereignty meant. On top of this they were focused on wrong versus correct answers. I wasn’t discouraged by this as I will find a way to make things work because this is what teaching and learning is all about.

The next class I put them in groups of 2-3 and gave everyone a paper. This time, however, I asked them what the most common words and/or themes were around the idea of Popular Sovereignty. The responses were, “People. Government. Laws. Power.” Then I asked, “Based on your responses about themes, what do you think Popular Sovereignty means?” Students stated, “Government has power from people. People give government power. People have the power to make laws. So forth…” This was the key moment that made this successful. After this, group discussion, predictions, and connections were awesome! Here was my setup:

1. Students got into groups of 2-3.
2. I had students find common themes and words to help them better understand the main idea.
3. I gave groups 7-8 minutes to discuss and connect key words and phrases to the main idea.
4. Same day (ideal) or next day, pair this Keyword Prediction up with a reading from a CyberSandwich or a reading in general to help with checking their predictions and building background knowledge.