Fortino Tafoya Essays (991 words) - Learning, Education,

Fortino Tafoya CURR 119 Prof. Won-Jones 7/8/18 5 Ways to Use Music, Movement and Manipulatives In My High School ELA Class 1.) My favorite way to mix up the normal routine of direct instruction and avoid the long lecture is to use music in the classroom. Either as something to soothe students minds in the background while I talk or as a focal point of a lesson, music is a passion of mine that I hope to transfer over to my classroom. My first example of using music in my ELA class is to create a rhyming debate lesson plan where students are given a simple rap beat and a rhyme structure to create lines of verse that represent information about a topic that they have researched. This would allow grouping of students skill sets to finish the project with a rap battle taking place instead of a typical debate. Students will rhyme over music and present their sources for the information that built their opinions. 2.) In my experience, one of the most awkward challenges for many English teachers is finding ways to inject movement into their classroom. Simply having a moment to stand up and stretch is fine, but I want to incorporate movement into games that help students review material and get to know each other better. This is a two-birds-with-one-stone approach to using games and movement in your classroom. My first example is called "Name 6," where we pass an object around the room and a person in the center claps to stop the passing. The person holding the object is given the topic before the round starts and must name 6 (or 4 or 5) things or examples of that topic. That person passes the object again and has until the object is passed back to them to give the examples or answers. Afterwards they go in the middle for the next round/topic. I loved how this game uses teamwork, review, speaking, and kinetics to get students up and learning. 3.) As students grow older the use of manipulatives seems to greatly diminish, however, the effectiveness of them doesn't seem to lose its strength, even as a student grows into high school. Obviously, manipulatives can be too elementary for older students but if the teacher can be resourseful or creative they can create new ones that reflect the students learning interests, or be more real-world applicable. One example of a high school level manipulative is a game I recently found at a thrift store called Word Teasers.' This game comes in several skill levels and with different topics. The idea of the game is to start a discussion based around a language arts topic. The game I bought was "Funny Sayings" and it taught students about common idioms in English with a definition of the idiom as well as a suggestion or question to ask the rest of the group. I like this game because it is not just for review, it can actually introduce new concepts or make new connections of ideas for stude nts. The game also doesn't keep score or have a winner, it is simply about creating a discussion amongst students based on a topic. I would love to find the other versions of this game for more language arts topics. 4.) Another way that I plan to use music in my classrooms is to create songs that help students review complex concepts and vocabulary words. I would love to use my classroom as an outlet for my music, even if that means making ELA raps or songs. I really like the idea of Language Arts based raps because rap is a lyrical style of music and lends itself to lots of words and memorable phrases. I think this medium would be best to use music to get ideas to stick in student's heads. Rap is the most popular genre of music in America and I don't believe it would be hard to get students who are aspiring rappers to assist or contribute to the music as well. These songs will be available online for students to listen to at study time or for other teachers to use as a resource. Just don't ask me about my MC name quite yet,