First of all, I learned much more about the Dust Bowl tonight than I ever learned in grade school. I never read Out of the Dust in school, so I enjoyed learning about it during the presentation tonight. The book format was also different than I expected. I was very surprised to see that the nonfiction book was a graphic novel. I thought it was a much more exciting nonfiction book than what we typically see. I think it would be a fun book to introduce to students and see how they react to the format.
I liked tonight’s work with primary and secondary sources. I feel like we haven’t done any work with songs as sources. At the end of class when we were doing our closing activity, I liked what Tonya said regarding the source groups. Splitting student groups up to discover new sources and then come back to their original groups can help keep students accountable for their learning. There’s a sense of responsibility that comes with having to teach your peers about something. I think that exercise we did would be very effective in a classroom.
Lane, I am so glad you found value in the lesson on Tuesday. It is not a common practice to consider a song as a primary source in which to analyze. I really liked that lesson too.
The jigsaw strategy is truly a tool to make students accountable for their learning. It also can empower students to become an “expert” at something. Thank you for your reflection.