180 Days of Inspired Teaching...Twitter in the Classroom

Well....as much as twitter can be in the classroom.

Without acutally being on Twitter.

And....without a computer.

The twitter platform is such a great way to teach students about theme, central idea, and point of view! 

My Twitter Board

How to do it...
1.  Have students read assigned pages.
2.  Put a hashtag {#} on the board all characters in the novel could respond to.  For example, in our novel Schooled, one of the hashtags I put up was #newkid,  #ohmy!, #unbelievable

3.  Give each group/table/pair a character
4.  Allow them time to write a tweet from their character's point of view.  The key is the tweet has to center around the hashtag in 140 characters or less.
5.  If time...let them type the tweets or they can just write them on post it notes!
6.  Put up on your super cute Twitter board!

One of the tweets from Zach's POV

It's fantastic! They learn not to include allllllll the tiny details they just read, how to write about a theme, how to summarize from different character's POV, and how to distinguish the similarities and differences of each character's point of view.  

All of this in 10 minutes or less!

Bonus:  Great ticket out the door & quick formative assessment!

*If you are reading Schooled, you can get the downloads for the bulletin board here.  I can also customize one for you if you would like...just shoot me an email!

Happy teaching,