Teaching to Learn, Learning to Teach

FIG. 3.3 The perfect “brain” storm.

In the sample streamlined high school social studies lesson plan on the lives and hopes of

enslaved Africans in the American South, I suggest having students brainstorm a list of

ideas on the front board about ways we can we learn about the ideas and feelings of or-

dinary people from the past.

Many teachers like to begin a lesson by having students “brain storm” or list what they

already know, or think they know. The “K-W-L approach” provides a useful structure for

organizing brainstorming. After students list “what we know,” they evaluate the list for

missing pieces and contradictory statements, and then construct a new list, “what we want

to know.” At the conclusion of a lesson (final activity) or a unit, students return to their ini-

tial lists and construct a final list, “what we learned.”

What We Know What We Want to Know What We Learned

PLANNING 97