PDF In Review: WBT Contrasting

The handy dandy PDFs Coach B. created to teach our classrooms while we sip on a foamy latte, are PERFECT for end of year lesson fillers.  To my surprise, it got the best response of any other PDF we have done thus far!  When I say even the most loafing students were out of their chairs begging to share the examples they created with their partners, I mean it!  EVERY single student was eagerly participating, yearning for the opportunity to detect what was DIFFERENT in each example.  The pictures are what really made the lesson enticing for students.

I particularly liked how the examples increased in difficulty, such as with Name That Box where students had to pick the contrast and use the Because Clapper to explain why they were right.   Eventually both boxes had contrasts or sometimes none at all!  Students enjoyed trying to dodge the trickery Coach B. had so carefully created.  As usual, the already made QT test gave me an excellent indicator of students understanding of the material, before heading into  critical thinking sentence frames.  

The lesson culminated with this final writing assignment:

We are on the second book, Reptile Room, of the Unfortunate Events series that my students LOVE!  I read a chapter aloud a day and give them very detailed writing prompts to answer.  This assignment fit in perfectly with the multitude of multi dimensional characters that we have come across. I gave them 15 minutes to write this 5 paragraph essay...What would have taken an hour or more to complete in the beginning of the year, now was completed in 15 minutes!!!  Ahh, I love Whole Brain Teaching.  You can view a few students sharing their essays with the class right here: