I've got my lessons and materials ready for my 7th graders to focus in on using, annotating, and understanding primary sources this week. As I mentioned in my last post, I wanted to scaffold students through annotations by working as a class, then in partners, and finally individually. I'll do this with a section of the Bhagavad-Gita (class), What is Nirvana (partners), and a shortened story of Solomon and Asmodeus (individual). The materials are included later in this post (and if you want a Word Document to edit, just let me know). For some of my kids, I think this will be at just the right level of challenge. For others, they will definitely struggle (and complain) with how much reading there is in this assignment. Hopefully by working as a class and in partners, that might help reduce the stress or work load a bit to make it more manageable for those students. Any ideas on how to help struggling (and/or complaining) students are always welcome. |
The plan is to guide students through annotations for the Bhagavad-Gita first, doing a think-aloud myself and modeling what to write along with them. We've done this before, so I'll probably start and then ask for students to offer suggestions and ideas about what else to add. This can then further support their ability to think about how to do this in partners with the next text before finally trying it independently.
I'll be sure to emphasize that the annotations are important and they must do them for all three readings. I think mentioning that I'll grade them on their annotations might also help with some students' motivations, but I'm a bit reluctant to use that as the main source. Of course, I'll also be sure to talk about why taking notes and talking to the text is important as a reader, learner, and particularly as a historian, but suggestions about how to get students motivated to annotate beyond giving them a grade for it would also be helpful.
I'm hoping we can do the class and partner work in class and then have the individual section for homework because we still have to finish up discussions about some Hindu and Buddhist holidays that we didn't finish last week. Materials are below, so click the "Read More" and let me know what you think.
I'll be sure to emphasize that the annotations are important and they must do them for all three readings. I think mentioning that I'll grade them on their annotations might also help with some students' motivations, but I'm a bit reluctant to use that as the main source. Of course, I'll also be sure to talk about why taking notes and talking to the text is important as a reader, learner, and particularly as a historian, but suggestions about how to get students motivated to annotate beyond giving them a grade for it would also be helpful.
I'm hoping we can do the class and partner work in class and then have the individual section for homework because we still have to finish up discussions about some Hindu and Buddhist holidays that we didn't finish last week. Materials are below, so click the "Read More" and let me know what you think.