Infographics for Novels

I finally have a moment to post about a great project that I did with my students last semester. We were reading Julius Caesar and I wanted them to work on their digital skills in a way that isn't just technology. I also wanted them to practice their essay skills without writing an essay.

I decided to make an infographic project! They had to compare (or contrast), William Shakespeare's Julius Caesar to Tina Fey's Mean Girls. There are other movies you can do this to (21 is one I've seen many teachers do), but I like Mean Girls because the high schoolers can really relate to it. Plus, I teach a lot of exchange students from other countries. Since my school is private, I appreciate the ability to point out that no, not every public high school in America is like their pop portrayal.

The assignment:

Mean Girls, has a lot in common with Julius Caesar. Just look at the themes! However, since the movie and play have vastly different settings, and audiences, it isn't just a modern adaptation (like Ten Things I Hate About You and Taming of the Shrew). In your infographic, create an analysis of the play vs. movie where you argue the basic story of Julius Caesar was changed specifically because one one thing. Please support your ideas with at least 6 pieces of textual evidence (three from the movie, and three from the play).

For example: They could argue that because Regina was much younger than Julius Caesar, the movie becomes a comedy rather than a tragedy.

I got students started by telling them they could think about which characters were alike, and then why they are different.

For example:
Cady -Brutus
Janis-Cassius
Regina-Julius

Many students also want to say Gretchen is like Caesar (mainly because of her monologue where she suggests Brutus is just as cute as Caesar. Give freedom here! Whatever makes the most sense to them, is what they should support.

They could also look at the setting

For example:

Students High School vs Politicians and Soldiers in Rome

60BC vs 2004

A small town near Chicago, Illinois vs The Roman Empire

And anything else they found interesting! Heck if they wanted to I'd be happy if they wrote about fashion, or diction.

Some example, "thesis statements" from my students (you can see their complete infographic by clicking on the links)

• In the movie Mean Girls Regina's ambition destroys the dreams of others, but in the play of Julius Caesar his ambition destroys his life.
• The play Julius Caesar, written by William Shakespeare, talks about a character name Caesar whose ambition was potential, whereas the movie Mean Girls, written by Tina Fey, talks about Regina whose ambition was destroying social life of others.
• The differences in the stories comes from the difference in themes. Julius Caesar is a serious play with honor and a historically backed betrayal of one of the great Roman rulers. On the other hand, Mean Girls talks about betrayal at a smaller scale and relationships with other classmates.
• In the movie Mean Girls written by Tina Fey, and The Tragedy of Julius Caesar written by William Shakespeare, their main themes is individuality. Whereas Cady cares only about the good of herself, Brutus cares about the good of his country.

This was a great way to get them practicing essay writing skills, without making them write essays. They needed to find support (quotes), interpret the quotes, and analyze them to support their argument.

 It was challenging, but they really enjoyed it!

This could have been done entirely as a homework assignment, but we spent two days working on it in the computer labs my school has on campus.

There are quite a few infographic tools to choose from. I let my students select their own, but in the future, I plan on limiting it to one site. This time troubleshooting the whole class got complicated as they each needed different directions.

The three sites I suggested to my students were:
http://piktochart.com/ 
https://venngage.com/
http://www.easel.ly/

They were all free sites and I thought they all worked just fine. My students seemed to prefer piktochart. I would suggest you find the one that you like the most since you'll be the one answering their questions.

That's it! Has anyone else used infographics with their students? I am looking forward to including them in my speech class!

Pizza Project (Paragraph Writing)

I am all about playing with words and enjoying a pun, so when I began my unit on Julius Caesar, I immediately wanted to implement this pizza project using Little Caesar boxes.

What is the Pizza Project? I've seem them done a few different ways. With my high school students, I use them as a way to practice finding concrete details (or specific examples) from texts.

Essentially, students were each given a Little Caesar's pizza box. I think technically these cost $.45 cents each (plus tax), but if you politely explain that this is for a school project, then you may get your boxes for free.

"Project Pizza," as a call it, is composed of three distinct parts:The Pizza Box, the Pizza Slices and the Pizza Presentation.

The Pizza Box is the part with the simplest directions. Students decorate the pizza box ti reflect the themes and characters they choose to discuss on their pizza slices. 

Since, these boxes are from Little Caesar's and we were reading Julius Caesar, most students chose to keep at least some of the box visible.

Clearly, if your topic was unrelated to the name of your pizza chain you would have them cover all of it, but you can get creative. Pizza Hut could be used for The Painted House, The House on Mango Street. Da' Boys for The Body, or any other book about a group of boys.

The next part is more complicated. The Pizza Slices of course can vary based on your preferences and the level of your students.In this case, Each group received eight slices. They had to create individual slices of pizza. Each slice has a crust (the topic) and toppings (quotes, pictures, and other general facts).

As for topics. I have students choose from themes, characters, motifs, conflicts, the setting, and anything else that interests them. In the case of Julius Caesar this could be anachronisms, fashion, battles mentioned, historical inaccuracies, or anything else in the story that intrigues them.

I don't grade my students on artistic skill, but I do let them know that they will be graded on effort and appearance.

Finally, my students had a Pizza Presentation. For this students chose three of their slices of pizza and shared the information with the rest of the class. The topics were pre-approved to avoid listening to the same concept over and over again.

This acted as a great review and a way for my students to practice presentations.

You can make this more specific by having students replicate paragraphs more closely.

Hopefully you're inspired to have your students make their own pizzas!

If you want to see exactly what I did, I'll be sure to upload some worksheets later, but for now, here's a  Pizza Graphic Organizer: Only $.80

Doodling for Complex Sentences

Are your students struggling with making sentences more complex?

Many students can write simple sentences, and run-on sentences, but they struggle with writing solid complex sentences.

This written activity is a fun way to get students to sculpt more complex sentences using relative clauses and transition words.

Before ANY of this, my students have learned different transition words, how to use them where to use them relative pronouns, etc.

Pre-Activity:  
I usually start by drawing a few random doodles on the board. describe what a doodle is. If students guess scribble, I also accept this word as appropriate.Then, I ask what they see in the doodles. Once they see how doodles can be changed into different forms, we are ready to start!

Activity: This can be arranged in many ways, but I like to have students sit in circles.

Step One Doodle on different pieces of paper and 

STEP ONE Each student gets a paper with a doodle drawn (Note: To make this a no prep activity, students may make the first doodle, but I find giving them a doodle tends to work out better.)

STEP TWO Each student expands on the picture. I know the picture below vague, but notice how the student turned the doodle into a rabbit!

STEP THREE (optional) Have the students write one or two words describing their picture. Again looking at the picture to the below, the student could write something like, "An animal," or, "A rabbit,"

Have a box of transition words and relative prnounouns

STEP FOUR The students pass the paper to another student. The student will form a sentence describing the picture: "The rabbit is tall"

STEP FIVE Pass the paper again. This time students also take (or are given) a piece of paper with a random connecting word.  They are told to find a way to make the sentence longer using that word, "The rabbit is tall; however, he is fat."

STEP FIVE  There are multiple ways to do this. I like having students pass the doodling paper to the right, and their connecting word to the left. The students then needed to add another word to the sentence, "The rabbit, who is furry, is tall; however, he is fat."

STEP SIX At this point you can continue having the students pass connecting words to the left and doodles to the right, or you can give out new connecting words.

STEP SEVEN Continue step six until students become bored you you have had them make at least four rotations.

STEP EIGHT Finally, the last time students don't add to the sentence. Their job is to read through the sentence, which at this point can be quite complex, and make it coherent.

STEP NINE Students present the final pictures to the class as well as the final description of the picture.

 Why it Works 
Students could get bored by this, but because the pictures are so random almost every time it goes like this:
Teacher: OK pass the paper to the next student please.
Student 1: What is that?
Student 2: What did you draw?
Student 3: Oh my god this sentence is ridiculous.

They are ALWAYS entertained!

This is also a great activity to use with adjectives or any other clauses. Basically, anything where students add onto a basic sentence. If you want students to practice speaking you can have them do this in partners.

This activity isn't directly humorous, but I PROMISE you that your students will laugh at some of the doodles created and sentences written.  On August 2nd the deadline for submitting your blog to be part of the ELT Blog Carnival on Humor will CLOSE! Don't miss out!

The importance of research in writing

When studying research in essay writing, a lot of time is spent on how to paraphrase, summarize, quote, and cite. These are all essential skills, but pretty useless if not accompanied by proper research.

Laugh all you want, but the truth is many of our students tend to take everything they find on the Internet as a "fact," even though on some level they know better.

Here's one of my favorite examples to use in class. There is a quote going around the Internet that Stephen King said, "Harry Potter is about confronting fears, finding inner strength and doing what is right in the face of adversity. Twilight is about how important it is to have a boyfriend." Now, it is true that Stephen King is not a fan of Twilight; however, he never said this quote. This is not what the Internet would let you believe though! Check out some of these graphics circulating the Internet:

Some of the graphics seen giving King credit for the quote.

At the end of a class where we are talking about different ways of integrating quotations I like to bring up this quote in class. We talk about whether or not it is a good quote and if they would use it. Then I show my students a quick google of the quote:

The first 3 responses suggest that this isn't his quote!

What's the lesson? The Internet is a chaotic, chaotic place. Roger Ebert once said, "Doing research on the Web is like using a library assembled piecemeal by pack rats and vandalized nightly."

I'd say that this is pretty accurate. The Internet is a fantastic tool and one which can give you and your students  a seemingly endless supply of information, but they need to put the effort into making sure that it is reliable information. We have to make sure that they are aware of this as well.

Well...what does make a good source?

Seriously, ask your students what do they think makes a good source.

I often get incorrect answers such as: It has a lot of quotes. or It is long.

So, what do you do you think makes a source great? I suggest you come up with a list as a class that makes sense for your level. For my class we usually come up with a list of:

• The information is verifiable
• They refer to their own sources
• There is an author / company putting its reputation behind what is said.
• The author / company is known for good information and not a satire or rumor based publication.
• Normally no blogs (exceptions for official blogs or blogs which show their sources: e.g. The White House Blog)
• No Wikipedia. Now, they will argue on this one. It is true that Wikipedia is becoming better every year, but even Wikipedia states it should not be used as a credible source. You can teach them to use Wikipedia as a jumping point for finding sources.

What search engines to use? There are many for specific subjects (e.g. JSTOR) but some charge. For freebies that cover most topics try:

1. SweetSearch - This search engine does NOT check all of the Internet. It only checks the about 35,000 sites that have been evaluated and approved by research experts, librarians and teachers. 
2. Google News- Most students know about Google, but they don't check the news which gives them blogs, fan pages etc.

Do you have a different reliable search engine or a method for reinforcing how important research is? I'd love to hear about it in the comments!

Cheating in your class (WRITING)

Even SpongeBob struggles with starting

Why do students plagiarize? Maybe I’m naïve, but I believe it is because many times they don’t know how to use sources properly. Another common reason is they don’t know where to start. Moreover, when students don’t manage their time well and leave the entire essay for the night before, plagiarism is an easy answer.

Some teachers don't worry about their students plagiarizing because they use a plagiarism checker. However, these only punish plagiarism; they don’t prevent it. As an analogy, they’re like seat belts; they don’t prevent accidents, but they do help if an accident occurs.

Plagiarism checkers are also pretty useless against bought essays. If these are well written, they don’t show up as plagiarized. Lucky for teachers, often these aren’t well written and are sold to more than one student. Those do show up as plagiarized via plagiarism checkers.

How do we keep students honest? If a student really wants to cheat, they will find a way to cheat. However, you can scaffold your class so that in the end writing the essay is easier than cheating!

This schedule is made up of ten days, but you can combine days.

In my classes we practice grammar, literature and essay writing, so these days aren’t back to back.

Before you start, tell students they should save EVERY assignment as each assignment is due with the draft and final copy.

DAY ONE- The assignment. We go over the requirements, multiple deadlines, and write a few sample theses as a class. HOMEWORK Come up with a good thesis statement and a few prospective topic sentences. 

DAY TWO-Finding a good source.  This lesson focuses on good sources versus bad sources. We cover the basics as well as the exceptions. By now, you should have looked over their thesis statements and said whose was a good start and whose needed work. If some need work offer them the chance to change it now. Homework: Find a good source that is about your topic. It doesn’t need to completely support your opinion, but it should be a GOOD source in English. Bring in a photocopy of the cover page and a random page if it is a hardcopy or online in PDF. Print one page of the article if it is an electronic source (include the URL and author). LAST CHANCE to change theses.

DAY THREE- Citation. I take this lesson to discuss why plagiarism is bad. We look at current pop culture examples of plagiarism and the punishments. How to prevent this? Attribute your sources. Show parenthetical citation, in text citation and a Works Cited page. Homework: Have them find another source in English and make a Works Cited page with their two sources.

DAY FOUR- Quoting. Teach your students WHEN to quote and more importantly when NOT to quote. Show them how to integrate a quote into a paragraph. Advise them AGAINST translating something from another language into English and then quoting it. Homework: Find another good source in English. Find something to quote from two of the three sources. Write sample sentences integrating them into a real sentence AND using parenthetical and in text citation (one each). Add the new source to your Works Cited page.

DAY FIVE- Paraphrasing- MAKE SURE they know that paraphrasing needs to be attributed. Often they feel since the words are theirs now they don’t need to give credit. Point out It is AWESOME to use when they find something useful in their L1 (mother tongue).  Homework: Find another good source in any language and paraphrase it (make sure to use in text or parenthetical citations). Add the new source to your Works Cited page.

DAY SIX- Summarizing. Again, MAKE SURE they attribute when summarizing. It also a GREAT option to use if they find something useful in their L1. Homework: Find another good source in any language and summarize it (make sure to use in text or parenthetical citations). Add the new source to your Works Cited page.

DAY SEVEN- Outline. I like doing this in class, but you can assign it as homework. I discourage using full sentences for the main ideas and details unless it is one of the quotes, summaries or paraphrases they’ve already submitted.

DAY EIGHT- Peer Review. I also like to do these in class, but sometimes there’s no time. In that case it becomes extra credit. I put up worksheets for peer reviews that walk them through a series of questions (Is every quote integrated? Is the thesis specific? Is the Works Cited page on a separate page? Etc.) If they swap papers with a classmate and review the other person’s essay, I give then some extra credit. I find these are more effective than self-reviews.

DAY NINE- Draft. Some teachers don’t collect drafts; I do. Be sure to collect EVERYTHING with the draft. This way you can see the progression of your students’ thoughts. Run anything that looks iffy through a plagiarism checker. Otherwise be sure to pay close attention to attributions as well as essay structure and grammar.

DAY TEN- Final. I make final essays optional. If a student is happy with their grade on the draft, I transfer the draft grade to their final essay grade. This saves me the hassle of writing, “You didn’t change ANYTHING” on a final essay and getting cranky. If a student wants to fix their essay and improve their grade, they turn in a final copy (again with EVERYTHING).

Grading: How do I give a grade? I usually put everything towards the essay grade. For example: Each good source, paraphrase, summary, quote goes into “Essay Preparation”

Essay Preparation- 5%

Peer Review- 5%

Outline- 15%

Draft- 25%

Final- 50%

The scale is designed so passing is easily achieved and students have to do the work along the way if they want a great grade.

Regardless of how you break down the grade, be sure students have this on DAY 1 when you give the assignment.

Each of these topics will be covered with an in depth idea of how to teach each of these days during the month of July.

How do you prevent plagiarism on assignments?

Proverbs in the EFL class

I've been reading a lot about including culture in the classroom. I think it is important to note that you should never shove your culture down someone's throat. It will only turn them away from the culture and harm your relationship. That being said, most students want to learn English AND they want to know more about the culture. Besides, culture shows up on the TOEFL so they need to understand at least some of where the test is coming from. An easy way to do this is by adding some proverbs in your classes. There are TONS of ways to do this!

This website lists proverbs via repeated sounds making it useful for pronunciation practice.

• If your class struggles with the sound a "J" makes try: Every Jack has his Jill.

The British Council has some suggestions on how to use proverbs in class (and when to avoid them).

• Don't teach more than 5 a day (I'm going to break that rule later, but it is a great rule of thumb)

BogglesworldESL has a communication exercise using proverbs

• In this exercise students become the "experts" on one proverb and go around explaining it to classmates. At the end they take a quick quiz to see how many proverbs they understood.

 I also think proverbs are great to use for a dictogloss

• Not on their own, but many proverbs are based on a story. Telling a short story and ending with a proverb makes this a great activity.

 There are also quite a few songs you can use that have proverbs.

• There are multiple ways to use a song, just try to steer clear of clozes if you have already done one that month.

Finally, here's a packet I put together. It plays off of this graphic you may have seen floating around:

Essentially it gives funny endings to proverbs, so I thought, "my students could do that."

This packet contains: The first part of 20 proverbs for students to try and finish. 20 funny endings given by other students. It has opportunities for pair and group work in finding their favorite proverb, a matching section where they can match the start of the proverb with the real ending, 6 different homework assignments (I like to let them choose which one they want).

For upper level students who are practicing writing I also included my essay prompt, essay outline, sample outline, and sample essay all on proverbs.

 The packet is available for free on Teachers Pay Teachers. If you don't already have a membership it is FREE just sign up here.

I'd love to know more about how you use proverbs in class. Do your students like them? Do you?