The Week That Was In 505

Monday – Ugly Christmas Sweater

Tuesday – Archetypes

This week I completed several fun holiday activities with my classes leading up to Christmas break. On Monday, we finished an ongoing project – creating historical ugly Christmas sweaters. The previous Thursday, Katie Cherney had generously shared an ugly sweater template with me. I decided to use it and have students design sweaters related to a topic we studied first semester. After sharing a couple sweater examples, I let them creatively develop their own. On Monday, they colored the sweaters, cut them out, and we displayed them on a large red paper. I considered having them write explanatory captions but opted not to add that extra graded component.

On Tuesday, I introduced archetypes in a low cognitive load way. I defined archetypes as typical examples of someone or something. I had students think of a favorite book, movie, or TV character and explained how applying an archetype helps better understand that character’s actions and dialogue by providing context. I then introduced the Archetype Four Square template and had students type their favorite character in the middle, along with an image and quotes/actions representing them. Next they selected an archetype they felt matched the character. As a class we discussed their choices – this helped students articulate their reasoning. They then typed evidence supporting their selected archetype. Making connections between characters and historical/pop culture figures is challenging – only 15% answer these questions correctly on the AP exam according to 2021 data and my co-author Dr. Scott Petri.

After this activity, I incorporated some local history for a second representative. We read about Pringles inventor Fred Baur, a Cincinnati native who developed the can to prevent chip breakage. Interestingly, the uniformity of the crisps did not align with 1960s individualism. We concluded by discussing Baur’s 2008 burial, where his family fulfilled his wish to have his ashes buried in an Original Pringles can. Students analyzed Baur by creating archetype four squares. Finally, we ended some classes with Random Emoji Power Paragraphs, always a favorite. Typically students type paragraphs based on emoji prompts, but this time I had them hand write then attempt to toss papers into the recycling bin. I photographed the closest paper, extracted the text via Google Keep into a shared Google Doc for peer editing – fixing spelling, topic sentences, and adding descriptive details. Moving from handwritten to digital paragraphs was an engaging variation.