Teach Like a Pirate Chapter 13-Stand and Deliver

Ah- Public Speaking. VOMIT. Dave starts this chapter by asking if you consider yourself a public speaker. I give a resounding NO. And I have to respectfully disagree that teachers are public speakers. SOME of us are public speakers in front of children only. I can teach, sing, dance, and act like a complete crazy in front of my kids. Put me in a room full of 25 adults and I.AM.DUNZO. It is all over. I panic, shake, stutter, and freak right out. BUT this past year, I sure got myself right up on stage for a TCAP pep rally with a bunch of other teachers and did all kinds of silly things. And even helped my students perform Test Me Maybe. This is something I NEVER would have done a couple years ago. So at least I am getting better. But back to the chapter and hooks...

Storytelling Hook-How can you hook students with a story? My kids are always interested in my personal life. My daughter to be more specific. If I start a lesson with a story about Payton, BAM I have them hooked.  Get really into it with dramatics, acting, facial expressions and they are all in.

Swimming with Sharks Hook-How can I enter the audience and participate in the activity? Get IN the lesson. Don't just give it, DO it. BE it.

Taboo Hook-How can I position my topic so it seems like a little known secret? Kids LOVE secrets. One year I decided to start the year by telling my kids a secret. You wanna know the secret? Come in reallll close. Ready? "You are the BEST and SMARTEST class in the entire school. BUT we can't go around telling people that. So we just have to SHOW them." Yep. They ate it up. Any time I worried about behavior (going to other classes, substitutes, etc) I just said, "And don't forget about the [whisper] SECRET" and they loved it! And believe me when I say, they did NOT tell a single peer about that secret. Another student overheard me say the shh it's our secret line and asked what it was and my kids would NOT tell. LOVE kids!

Mime Hook- How can I use silence to spark my students' engagement? This works really well during inferring and drawing conclusions. Charades and pictionary type activities would go well here.

Teaser Hook-How can I gain interest by promoting it ahead of time? This one is easy- "You do NOT want to miss this activity tomorrow." "If you thought today was fun, just WAIT until next time." Here's a blog teaser "You do NOT want to miss the announcement Jenn and I are making this week." (This is serious, there really is an announcement coming.)

Backwards Hook- Can I show the end product to help get theme excited about learning what needs to be learned in order to get to the end product? Dave relates this one to CSI. They show you the murder straight from the beginning and then work through the entire episode to get to the actual criminal. I am not sure of a good way to do this one in the class. Any ideas?

Visit the AMAZING Jennifer for today's chapter

 

And the super sweet Lynda (in my exhaustion while typing this 2 weeks ago, I forgot we had TWO amazing hosts this week!)