The idea of using videos as bell-ringers came after an interaction with a student in my grade 10 English class. The student sauntered into class at the bell, took a couple of bites out of his chocolate bar, and threw the rest in the trash. Obviously, I was horrified. Who throws out perfectly good chocolate?! I asked him if there was something wrong with the chocolate bar, and he said that he was just full…

This reminded me of a video I had seen about cacao bean farmers from Ivory Coast who had never tasted chocolate. I decided to scrap the start of my lesson plan in favor of this “teachable moment.” Don’t you love when that happens? I brought the video up on the screen and the class, who usually took a while to settle down, were immediately engaged. Then, I asked students to respond to the video in writing for 10 minutes. The class was silent, and everyone was writing.  The discussion we had after watching was also engaging and meaningful. It was a lightbulb moment!

Benefits of Video Journals

In my experience, middle and high school teachers often start class with instruction (usually in lecture format). To change things up, I like to start one class per week with students in groups for discussion for 5-10 minutes. To avoid the stress of forming groups weekly, I have them keep the same group for 4 weeks, then we switch. I try to choose topics that spark a lot of debate or discussion (Check out these Ethical Dilemma Prompts or “What if?” prompts).

1. Be respectful
2. “We are done” is not acceptable. Keep talking!
3. Everyone must speak at least once.

On Monday, I like to introduce a literary term of the week. When possible, I give students examples of how this literary term is used in TV, movies, music, novels, etc. This engages students and makes the content more relevant!

I also have a bulletin board dedicated to these terms, and I try to choose words that relate to what we will be studying that week. For example, if I were teaching “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson, I might choose Foreshadowing, or if we are reading “My Last Duchess” by Robert Browning, I might use Dramatic Monologue. This way, I can refer to the terms in the context of what we are learning. I also have students bring in their own examples of the terms they find to add to the bulletin board.

6.  QUOTES

Quite a while ago, I decided to use my favorite quotes to make classroom posters to brighten up the room. In an attempt to make students actually read the quote posters, I started having them respond to them in journal format at the start of class. Although I’ll admit that the video journals are usually a bigger hit, the responses to these are usually more mature and thought-provoking. Here are some of the prompting questions I use:

• “What does the quote mean?”
• “Do you agree with the quote?”
• “Does this quote still hold relevance today?”