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9 thoughts on “Question on the Invisibles”
I get better results when I started grading it. Each piece of info is a 1/2 point or a point, plus the picture is a point.
I teach four classes. One class is really well behaved and has the best artists. At this point I am doing the Invisibles process with them and for the other classes (who can’t handle the back and forth that much anymore at this time of the year) I do storylistening with the good classes’ stories.
In a class of 30 I usually get 6-10 drawings which would make it to the next round. I think it’s common for it to be a low percentage.
This idea just came to me so if it’s not best practices just ignore, but I think it could be cool to have your classes submit characters and you could sort of have a bracket. Do a march madness in your classes to pick the “best” invisible. You could solicit them and/or use previously made characters. Then you could do a story with each character or you could wait until you picked a winner and do a story with them. You could also do it with locations, problems, solutions, etc. Again I am just brainstorming but I think it could be a good way to sort of encourage more characters in a fun way. Of course you would not want any one to get hurt feelings because their character didn’t win so it wouldn’t work for every kid in every class, but I think it could be fun.
There’s actually a process that Tina and I describe somewhere where we do just that, Russ. But I can’t remember where we wrote it up. I’ll try to remember. Doing this, choosing individually drawn characters (vs. OWI’s) results in better stories.
Hi Ben, just this past weekend I presented at the CSCTFL Conference in Milwaukee with one of my CI colleagues. The topic was “Getting Started with CI even if you are bound to a textbook”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nc1ynLi3wF0&feature=youtu.be
I talk about the Invisibles @ 39 minutes. Due to the fact that this session proposal was submitted one year ago (before I knew about NT) a lot of the stuff has to do with targeted CI.
At the same time, I think any kind of CI (T2 or NT) which can get a textbook teacher started is valuable.
Our talk really should have been called “A commercial for Ben Slavic’s books” LOL. Teacher’s Discovery had a table at that conference.
Ben, I don’t remember either. But it was basically March Madness. Also Sean I’d say to do a batch of em then pick one yourself. I’d say that having the committee is what’s freaking you out. You’re worried they’ll choose a shitty looking character. If you take back that power you’ll know that you can exert some quality control.
Grading their drawings might be what I need to do, giving points for certain things, as much as I’d rather not. Points could be given for things like 1) character fills up the paper, 2) lines are bold and colorful, 3) each element of the back story is short and sweet. Thanks Greg.
Tina, I’m happy to choose the character myself and bypass the committee. The problem is getting students to create decent characters, something that would spark inspiration in me to actually work with.
If I had several decent characters to work with I would gladly run a March Madness bracket. Again, my classes are super small. 12 kids.
Now I remember what I did to choose the final Invisible for the story that day, and I did this in CT and we have that on videotape somewhere is have the students choose. I hand out all the drawings, one per kid. They get in pairs and choose the best one based on which one gets the most points. Four points for quality of drawing and six points for the back story information on the back of the page, thus ten points. Then, each group of two gets together with another group of two with their drawings and, from those two, they do the same thing to pick the best one. On and on until the final two best ones make it into my hands. Then with great ceremony I choose the winner and off we go into the seven level sequence. (I would never allow them to pick the final one from the two finalists bc I am the one who has to work that story and I have to like it).
Sean, have you tried showing other OWIs / invisibles from other teachers? Sometimes when kids are stuck, I show some from Cameron or Tina, etc. to prime the pump. Also, I like to use things they are familiar with (ie, Sponge Bob, or that crazy talking cinnamon stick from the Apple Jacks commercial…was new to me but a kids brought it up and it was brilliant). Ask question like “how did they think of a talking sponge? or a cinnamonstick who is Jamaican?” Stuff like that is everywhere. What about those giant NCAA mascots running around? Whatever is inanimate that your kids are familiar with can be used to discuss and model creating a “personality” and such.
Great idea, jen! I think I’m going to present and talk about some of these famous commercial animated characters like Sponge Bob, or a California Raisin, or the Pillsbury Dough Boy… before I have them try again to create their own characters. I’m looking forward to seeing how this works out!