Sometimes things don't turn out as you plan. I decided to try an anticipatory activity with my classes today to get them to predict what our next story would be about. Honestly, I thought it would be pretty easy to figure out. I had them perform some simple tasks using their non-dominant hands. Then we talked about how they felt while doing the tasks--frustrated, stupid, slow, etc. The point of this was to get them to predict that the next story was going to involve characters who had issues with their dominant hands (one in a car accident, one in the war in Vietnam) and had to learn to compensate.
The predicting part did not go so well. When I asked the class why they thought I had made them do this activity, they immediately responded that I was trying to get them to write more neatly. While that is indeed true for some of them, I noted that we do have other things that we do in ELA other than writing. Maybe they could make a prediction about something having to do with another topic we are learning about, such as characterization or point of view?
After more discussion, the class finally determined that the activity had something to do with a story we were going to read. Then a student made a prediction that it might have something to do with veterans since today is Veteran's Day. I was very excited-YES! It DOES have something to do with a veteran! What might that connection be? WHY WOULD I HAVE MADE EVERYONE WRITE THEIR NAME AND DRAW A TREE USING THEIR NON-DOMINANT HAND? HOW MIGHT THAT CONNECT TO THE STORY?
And then...a student raises her hand. Surely we'd gotten to the whole point of the exercise, that one of the characters was a veteran who had injured his hand. She says, "I may be a little off base with this, but I think it means you are going to send us to war."
If memory serves, I think I need Congress's approval for that.
