DEAR: Drop Everything And Reflect on Friday

I decided that I really enjoy the "DEAR" model for my blog today (found in the book Innovator's Mindset). There were so many good things, but I also want to be more reflective about what I could've improved.

This week my students did A LOT of reading. As much as I feel kind of bad giving them DBQs and articles, most of me feels good about it because my students don't read enough. Thinking back to when I read Readicide, I agree that my students don't have enough tenacity when it comes to reading. Because my students don't get enough opportunities to read at home, it's my responsibility as their teacher to help them read more and read better.

The topic this week was the slave trade and slavery in the Americas-- a high interest topic. The students looked at many primary sources this week, including ones written by former slaves like Olaudah Equiano. There's no better way, in my opinion, to help students understand the gravity and impact of a subject than to read the actual words of someone who experienced slavery firsthand.

What worked?

• My lecture on Monday about the slave trade went amazingly well. Most classes had so many questions we barely got through the notes by the end of the hour (when they probably should have taken like 15-20 minutes). That was extremely gratifying for me because it did prove that when I lecture about high interest topics it does engage the students. 
• Showing students primary sources and also giving them more context for each source proved to be successful as well. 

What didn't work?

• I horribly timed most of the assignments this week because I didn't expect to get so many student questions. Everything was kind of a hot mess in terms of starting and finishing. 
• I wish I would've done the slave experience documents differently. In the past, I've grouped the students, had them read just a few docs, and then had them be the teachers for their classmates. I regret choosing not to do that this year, since students seemed to be pretty exhausted by the end of the day Thursday.

What can I do about it?

• I definitely need to be more creative with the teaching of primary sources (jigsawing, or something), because they can get pretty boring. 
• I'm also going to make more of a point to create some context for important primary sources. Like showing a quick video clip or telling an interesting story about the source or its creator.