Fun With Index Cards

May 22, 2008 in Lesson Plans
Tags: and, card, china, classroom, dirty, discussion, education, effective, fun, index, learning, master, master teacher, number, page, prc, protest, quick, quickwrite, student, student teacher, teacher, tienanmen square, useful, uses

My sophomores had to learn, and quickly, about Chinese history. The year’s winding down, and they need to know at least the basics for our next unit, on Tibetan protest and the 2008 Olympics.

I didn’t have the time or inclination to put together representative jigsaws, or make copies. What we did have: textbooks and index cards.

There was also a leftover transparency of that photo of a guy standing in front of the tanks at Tiananmen Square from an earlier period’s presentation. I used it as a set induction, and I asked my students to, without talking, write about all that they saw in the picture.

When we were done, we talked for a time about how this photo came to symbolize, in the minds of the West, how the PRC responds to protest, and how that’s different from American responses. Now that they were riled up and more-or-less interested, it was time to look at China’s side of the case.

On each of about 20 index cards, I wrote a page number in the upper right corner.

Each of these page numbers correlated with a page in their textbook that talks about the history of China. With a partner, they were required to write on their card what happened on their page, how Chinese people lived, how China viewed the West and how Chinese people viewed their government. Not all pages were able to answer all questions.

After 20 mins., they presented. In both classes, we didn’t finish, but we would have had more than enough time to do so had we cut down on the Tiananmen Square discussion.

Quick and dirty. More importantly, effective.

About these ads