Thursday Throw-Down

It's time for the first Thursday-Throw Down with Erin from I'm Lovin' Lit. I'm so excited for the opportunity to link-up with her. She has been so helpful with offering advice and suggestions to help me get my blog started. I really consider her lessons a standard for what middle grades learning should look like! Anyway, now that my gushing is over, our first "Throw Down" is all about what makes learning interactive.

By far my favorite activity we did in my class this year was a mock trial. My seventh graders struggle to get out of that middle school mind-set and experience a new point of view (but what middle schooler doesn't?) So, we took on to perform a mock trial based on the ever-popular book The True Story of the Three Little Pigs by Jon Sciezka.

Now, most of what I saw out there for mock trials based on fairy tales were either for very little kids, highly scripted, or just irrelevant. This was the first time my kids had ever done something like this, so I didn't want to jump straight into a trial based on a more serious issue. I remember doing a mock trial based off the novel The Lottery Rose by Irene Hunt which centered around child abuse, so I knew I couldn't start with something like that.  As far as time, I decided to spend a week on this project. Three days of prep work, and two days for the actual trial. But first, they needed to hear the story read a loud to them...you wouldn't believe how into picture books they still are! From there, we voted to assign roles, lawyers, Al T. Wolf, etc. Every single student had a role. I even had kids making props and drawing Wanted Posters my exploratory class at the end of the day.

I ended up videotaping the actual trial to show parents at my school's Family Education Night. They loved it. I had some kids go on camera to say why they liked the mock trial, and I had one lawyer say on camera, "It's nice to take a break from learning and do something that's the real world." I think it's funny how they still believe that they are two separate things. Did she forget that she wrote  5 paragraph opening and closing statements that effectively argued her points?

Nonetheless, they work that each student produced from this week was incredible. Students who were had chronic missing work disease were mysteriously cured for this week. I got my feet wet this year with using mock trials in the classroom, and I will certainly be creating more for next year. I turned this project into a unit on TPT and it makes me so happy to see how the students in other classrooms are finding the same joy in this activity as well!

What activities were memorable for year this year?

Thanks for a great first Throw Down Thursday!