These Very Important Post-Its fit perfectly with the new thinking strategy we introduced on Friday. The new strategy is determining importance. To introduce the idea of determining importance we had the class try to survive in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. Tables were given the scenario of a sinking yacht. The table had to abandon their yacht and enter the inflatable life boats. In the life boats the tables had thirteen items. The items included a case of Army C-ration food, a five gallon container of clean water, 15 feet of rope, a shaving mirror, two boxes of chocolate bars, and on and on.
We asked the class to rank the items in order of importance from 1-13. The class got to work thinking about what would be the most important and what would be the least important. After a good amount of time debating, the groups had their final lists. The class was shocked to find out that the shaving mirror was the most important item in the group. The mirror could be used to signal planes and help in your rescue. I thought it was a great way to introduce the importance of this new strategy.
All week long and for the rest of this year we will continue to focus on this idea. When students are reading at home, you can always help out by asking them what was important today. You could also give them one post-it note with the letters VIP, and they will know what to do. If you are talking about Determining Importance, you can use some of the thinking stems that we will be using in class:
- What's important here...
- What matters to me...
- One thing we should notice...
- It's interesting that...
Hope you all had a great start to your week.
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