Question for anyone in the group on the scripts:
Hello Ben,
I just purchased the 97 Scripts (Matava) from your website. Thanks for making it available!
Question: Do you think it might be a good idea (apart from creating a story with the whole class) to provide students with the script so they can create their own story? Or maybe do it in pairs?
Of course, this would mean providing them with a story that already has some structures that they are familiar with. I was thinking of using some of the scripts and modifying them to fit where my students are, for substitute plans.
Gracias,
Luisa
CI and the Research (cont.)
Admins don’t actually read the research. They don’t have time. If or when they do read it, they do not really grasp it. How could
2 thoughts on “Script Question”
My response to any such decisions about extension activities is always around whether or not it provides (a) comprehensible input or (b) can eat up minutes on “those” days. So let’s see how extending scripts in the way Luisa asks fills either one of those requirements.
First, if you put the students into pairs or groups or whatever with a written script to create something new after having done a story with the same script, you’re not providing much comprehensible input, but you are providing important mental health time for yourself as they sit there and think they are learning by writing out their own story.
Of course they aren’t learning anything: they are creating something that they are not ready to create yet (as output). BUT you are protecting your mental health, which is FAR more important than doing CI, as has been said for a long time within the confines of this PLC, at least.
One thing about what they create is that you can then put it on the doc camera and “edit” it with them. I have noticed that when we “edit” stuff that they themselves write, they love it. So, although hardly any acquisition is going on, they love it and so what’s not to love, since our mental health is the goal here, and their acquisition only secondarily. That is why doing this is an excellent sub plan idea as you suggest.
Just note that we already have a fantastic set of options in the form of the 21 reading options as expressed here, and they are input. You could just use them instead- esp. options # 4-7 – and the kids would learn more. Those options are in ANATS and ANATTY and can also be found here on the site:
https://benslavic.com/blog/reading-option-a-updated-april-2016/
Hey Luisa. I’d say, not a good idea. I’ve tried doing what you say, having students fill in the script themselves, and it flopped. I did it a couple of times where students filled in the details the day after all the time we spent co-narrating the script and reading the script. I had them do it in small groups. Then they were to read to the whole class their version. It felt dry. Uninspiring. I came out of those class periods feeling like I just both wasted my students time and drained the good spirit out of the room.
Then again, maybe you could make it work for you and your students. Maybe they’d be into it.
Here’s another option if you want group work. Have students Freeze Frame a part of the story. As they Freeze Frame in front of the class then the teacher can describe the actions framed by students’ bodies.