For my genius hour lesson plan I decided to create a lesson using current events and Twitter to strengthen collaboration & connectedness in classrooms. Students will work in groups to critically analyze new articles, research the topic, and create a tweet to express their opinions on it. Then students will read their classmate’s tweets and leave powerful comments on them. The lesson finishes with an individual reflection on their articles, reading classmates’ tweets, and how making powerful comments made them feel.
The full lesson plan is linked below:
Below is the Tweet Printout
And finally, the news article analysis worksheet
I hope you find that this lesson plan incorporates social media in your classroom in a transformative way
And I have a bonus suggestion for those of you who made it all the way through this blog!
If you have problems choosing which groups pick their article first, or any other time you need to have a system to pick students order try out this picker wheel You can even remove people/groups from the wheel as they are picked by clicking the checkmark so people/groups are only selected once.
I even made a YouTube video about this resource! Check it out below
Hi Carla! Your lesson is so well organized and easy to follow! I really liked that you gave students specific jobs in the ‘analyze articles and research’ portion of the lesson. I think that is a great way to ensure everyone has a role and feels included in the group. I’m wondering if you would consider exploring ‘fake news’ or media bias, as I see some possible connections within the discussion part of your lesson? Thanks for sharing!
Hi Leona,
Thanks for your comment! I would definitely consider exploring ‘fake news’ and/or media bias. I think this could work well as an additional lesson(s) in a unit on media literacy.
Hi Carla,
I think having a class discussion before your activity, using common sense media’s questions, is a great way to get students into the lesson. Your idea of using Padlet as an alternative to twitter is smart because not every student will have twitter. Have you considered having each group member rotate roles, so everyone gets practice developing the skills associated to the different roles?
Hi Jessica,
I love the idea of rotating roles! I think that would work well for a unit of four (or five, if including an introductory lesson on this process) lessons, so each student in a group gets to try out each role. Thanks for your comment.