Two Sticks

I viewed the conference Monsters Bloom in our Wiki about using the wiki to connect art software, writing, adjective and 6+1 traits.  The teachers collaborated with classes in other schools to develop word choice in the students’ writing.  After a number of lessons on developing and sorting quality adjectives students drew and then wrote a description of a monster.  Classes exchanged descriptions and then drew their partners monster.  Students reflected on how quality word choice or lack of word choice effected the final drawing.

This is so exciting for me!! These lessons and ideas are so easily adaptable to my classroom.  It really gave me a concrete way to use art and writing programs along with a wiki.  In the past my class has used adjectives to create a restaurant menu, but this went so much deeper into writing analysis and critical thinking about how to communicate ideas clearly.  I’m impressed and have already e-mailed this to my grade level!!

I like this format for learning something new – but I’ll be honest, I’m not sure I would know how to seek this out on my own.  I often research teaching ideas but not really professional development.  I wonder if I just didn’t “see it” before because I wasn’t looking?