How to Answer "Why Do I Need To Learn This?"

Every teacher has answered the question, "Why do we need to learn this?" almost as much as, "Can I go to the bathroom?" and we all have our go-to responses. They vary by the subject we teach and the age of our students, but do our clever justifications really convince kids their effort in school is worthwhile? Here is one of my favorite ways to get students on board with reading and writing - or at least to help them understand why they really will need these skills later in life.

"I'm going to be a chef" (or vet or soldier or fashion designer or unicorn trainer) "so why do I have to read books and write essays?"

Step One: The Homework
During the first week of school, I assign the first "real" homework, and I introduce it by telling students they are going to have to do some research. Before they really have a chance to panic, though, I discuss primary vs. secondary research and tell them how cool it is to interview a primary source. The assignment is short and sweet:

They can pose Question #1 to a parent, grandparent, neighbor, bus driver, coach, or whoever happens to be around them after school. (I usually ask that it not be an older sibling.) Then, hopefully having widened their perspective a little, they have to think ahead to their own careers, families, or hobbies and choose some way reading or writing will be necessary for them.

Step Two: The Discussion
The next day, everyone gets to share one result of their research - something someone told them in answer to Question #1. Kids tell me about adults in their lives who read credit card statements, operation manuals, legal documents, textbooks for college, and cookbooks; they talk about people who write police reports, technical instructions, emails for work, auto repair plans, and HTML code. The students teach the lesson for me! After everyone has shared, I ask, "Why did I have you do this?" and they tell me! It's magical...probably one of the most impactful lessons I do all year.

Step Three: The Bulletin Board
Even though the discussion part is AWESOME, this is actually my favorite part. Once everyone we've all shared our research (Yes, even me! I perform my own primary research by asking my ship mechanic husband what he reads and writes for his job, and I share that with the kids!), I hand out colorful index cards or cutouts, whatever I have on hand that year. Each student writes down one way to use reading or writing in real life, and I post them all on the bulletin board. I leave it up all year, so students can be reminded why they're working so hard in English. I'm hoping if they see reality written by other seventh-graders, they will believe that no matter where they go in life, reading and writing will be there!

(The sticky note says, "Answer coming soon."

How do you convince students your subject is relevant?

Shades of Gray Gallery Walk

Shades of Gray by Carolyn Reeder is one of my favorite novels to teach. It's such a relatable picture of Virginia after the Civil War because it tells the larger historical issues through the eyes of a boy dealing with the usual things - family, moving, bullying, and the challenge of proving himself to adults. I always need more creative ways for my gifted students to respond to novels, and this past year I tried a  couple of gallery walks for the first time. (I know, I'm way behind the curve on this!) There are so many other gifted strategies that I love, but for some reason I never quite got around to a gallery walk. Well, I finally did, and it went incredibly well! The kids loved the chance to write on giant Post-it notes, I got a comprehension check and some great synthesis-level discussion out of it, and it happened to be a day another teacher was in my room for something and she got to see my kids doing some awesome learning. Yippee!

My classes were huge last year, as usual, so I tried to come up with as many good, open-ended questions as I could. It turned out to be seven, which meant I could divide my kids into groups of 3-4. Although I would have preferred it to be an individual activity, there is something to be said for making students agree on a group answer; ideally everyone contributes ideas, but then the group must prioritize and boil down several ideas into one "best" answer.

Anyway, they did great! These were gifted students, mind you, so someone "creatively" invented reasons to write about cats for every question. It comes with the territory, but overall the quality of answers was wonderful. We had some thought-provoking discussion afterward (even our resident cat enthusiast, because he had to think harder than anyone else to justify his answers!).

Check out my new Shades of Gray Novel Gallery Walk question set! I wish I could post pictures of my students' actual work, because some of it was pretty entertaining, but instead here's a Pinterest photo showing a similar setup:



Here are some alternate ways to use this strategy in both gifted and regular-ed classrooms:

• Pictures - I've done the activity where I put pictures up on the smart board and asked students to use the details they see to make inferences. A gallery walk would be taking things one step further; I could model the skill with one picture, and then students could circulate to each "exhibit" and fill in a line of their inference charts.

• Note-taking - If you're introducing new material, you could post facts, pictures, or vocabulary words and let students record main ideas in their notebooks instead of just copying notes from the board. It's kinesthetic note-taking!

• Student work - Another way to directly involve students in their own learning is to display their work! After they have done a project or completed a group presentation, it would be so cool to let them walk around and peruse their peers' work. If students know their work will be displayed, certain students might be more motivated to do good work, and the ones who devote lots of effort can enjoy letting their work shine!

• Questioning - After introducing a new topic, you could post several of the new terms or concepts and let the kids ask the questions. This is a type of formative assessment, which is a big thing at my school now; it tells you exactly what the kids got and where you need to fill in gaps. It also gives shy students a comfortable way to ask questions they might not have been willing to raise a hand and ask in front of everyone.

• Poems - A teacher I work with created an awesome poetry gallery walk for our inclusion kids! She chose several kid-friendly poems that contained examples of alliteration, rhyme, figurative language, and other poetry terms, and she made a worksheet for students to fill in as they walked around to each poem. They loved the chance to get out of their seats, and it was a great way to make the poetry terms much more accessible for them! Don't tell anyone, but I think they actually liked reading the poems, too.

• Quotes - I think gallery walks would be an interesting strategy for character education. I have a ton of inspirational quotes that I could post around the room (what teacher doesn't?); then kids could respond on large paper with their own perspectives, opinions, and examples. I could even write a specific, open-ended question to go with each quote, like "What is an example of this?" or "Why is this important advice?"

After my success with gallery walks this year, I'm definitely excited to try some of these ideas with my new seventh-graders. If you have used this strategy, please share your tips!

Summer Project #1: Unload Some Books

One of my summer projects (besides finally starting my blog!) is purging my collection of teacher resource books. This is a big job, because five years ago, when I was a new teacher, some super sweet and helpful retirees passed on a TON of awesome resources to me, from grammar reproducibles to reading passages for comprehension to ideas on classroom management. Now, as a more experienced educator, I've gotten in my groove and realized I really don't need to keep everything, especially if I already have similar items I'm actually using. I know other teachers out there can use these books, so I'm slowly posting them on Teachers Pay Teachers. (Shop my store here.) I've already sold one and sent it off to a good home! Yay! It feels so good to reuse and recycle - and not let these valuable resources gather dust on my shelf for one more year.
Here's to cleaning out clutter and trying new things! Happy summer!