Ideas for Activity Use

 
Deciding how to best utilize web-based materials is a challenge for most educators. Should they be reserved for use outside of the classroom, or do they have a place in class? If used in class, should they be completed individually or cooperatively? Do the interactive activities actually contribute to the goals of the lesson, or are they disconnected and seem more like a tangent than an integral portion of the lesson?

These are just a few of the kinds of questions that teachers must address when deciding how they are going to use web-based materials, or even if they are going to bother using them at all.  Although the answers to these questions are not definitive and absolute,  I do have some suggestions for how the activities provided in this site can directly contribute to the work being done in class. 
 

  • Assign the corresponding web-based activity for homework after the text activity (these connections are given in the Activity Index)
  • Critique an activity and email the informal evaluation to a partner in the class (critiquing critiques forces the students to think deeply about the aspects of writing an evaluation)
  • Complete an activity with a partner (tone activities such as #2 &7 are great for partners since they are tone related, the subjectivity lends itself well to discussion)
  • Compose a list of new vocabulary encountered in the activities and discuss these in class (can be great for students who are struggling to write something original about a film -- pushes them beyond "It was good" or "I really liked it")
  • Choose a favorite film review and list the criteria upon which the author based his evaluation (great partner activity- could pair students together with the intention of compiling a list of criteria and then categorizing it)
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