A Modern Preamble

So today in class, I was talking to my kids about how we have lost the language of our ancestors as texting and facebook and twitter have become an integral part of our lives. In order to help with this, I created a page that broke up the Preamble and they were to use only thesaurus and dictionaries (it broke their heart that the computer was off limits) to change the Preamble into modern day laymen terms. Man were their little brains smoking once they got to the end of the assignment! lol

Tomorrow they are going to use what they did today to create a "kid language" Preamble and then will discuss how the Preamble affects their own lives.

Although this is activity that I'm sure many of us have done to a point, it still always amazes me how difficult it is for students to do this assignment. Technology is a wonderful thing but I think our students have lost some really important skills in research and thinking along the way. I'm one of the first to jump on any new technology bandwagon but it is equally important to teach your students the difference between a thesaurus and a dictionary, how to find information in both, and push our students out of their comfort zone in order to grow.

All day (I have 4 reading rotations), I heard "This is so hard! I'm having to think soo much!" My response... "Good, that means your brain is growing. Keep going."