Poetry Term Web Quest

     Before we started preparing for STAAR, I went back over my notes and realized that my students did not get as much time as they should have, to learn a slew of poetry terms that they should know in 5th grade.  Instead of doing some lame review where I stood up in front of my Activboard (because even that is lame to me NOW!) and asked the students if they knew what each term meant, I decided to use our Samsung Galaxy 2 tablets to let the students discover the poetry elements on their own.

       I found a pretty good website, GameQuarium (link below), that presented the definitions of each word to the students and then gave them a whole page of simple examples for each.  Students scanned a QR code (which they just LOVE doing) and then they were taken to the website.  It was their responsibility to find the definition of each word and choose the example that they liked the most, that would be the best example FOR THEM to remember.  They had to take notes from the site and turn them in.  

                       

  http://www.gamequarium.com/figurativelanguage.html    


         After students did that work, they were allowed to explore the site which gave links to various ways to practice and identify the different elements of poetry that they had just studied.  (They even played a game called "Fling the Teacher" which REALLY got their attention! And they didn't even realize they were LEARNING!)  

        The student engagement that I witnessed this day was incredible- EVEN my reluctant students were engaged, focused, and taking responsibility for their OWN learning!  I literally had to stop myself while they were working and just take snapshots and even write about the moment in my journal...

            Working hard!

                     Engaging for my  
            English Language Learners!



Concentrating...


Focused...


Taking OWNERSHIP of their learning! 
  


                                    Whole class engagement!