What is in your backpack? Cross-curricular Lesson
Attached, are shared examples of what students had drew in their journals.
Redesigning “What’s in your bag” assignment:
I am essentially teaching a behavioural class that is also a pilot course. It’s course goal is to improve students’ literacy strategies, in addition to teaching grade 8 students humanities concepts in social studies and English studies 8. I thought why not enable reflective thinking in their morning, journalling routine that connects to our thematic exploration on “love”?
The novel we are studying is Shannen and the Dream for a School. In Chapter 13, we discuss and read about the idea of love. I provided the students with a prompt and writing stems, “Shannen said, ‘Nothing is stronger than love. Why do you think love is important?”
- I think love is important because…
- To me love is important because…
- Love helps me…
- Love makes me feel…
- I show love by…
I asked the students what their thoughts were on love and what that may look like for them and others around them. The students’ exit slips were brilliant in opening up about personal examples of love and what that looked like or felt like. Whereas their sketches were more distant in finding connection to physical possessions. I realized that our responses to the first assignment were so different compared to the responses from youth. Love and sentiment came from if they ate breakfast or not, if they had a break before class, getting ready for school, what they got packed for lunch, what happened at home the night before, how their first block went, etc.. It was not about
what they packed for school or what they had in school. Love was about what the students felt and what they knew.
From an educator’s perspective, I was reaffirmed with the idea that student behaviour is connected to their feelings and every little experience they have throughout the day. I enjoyed being able to create a cross-curricular lesson plan that engaged students’ critical thinking, social-emotional needs, and supported their time to reflect on self care.