Geography Terms Analysis Grid

The first week of school exceeded all of my expectations.  The ASPIRE 5 students were ready to think creatively and critically from day one.  This blog will be used as a platform to highlight an activity from the previous week.  Today I would like to explain how even the most simple task can be transformed into a lesson suitable for GT students.  There are times when we will need to cover basic information.  For example, they have to be familiar with the science lab tools so that our experiments will be safe.  However, that doesn't mean that the lesson should not contain critical thinking.

On Tuesday, the students learned some of the basic geographic vocabulary used for reading a map.  After a brief discussion of the terms, we plugged them into an Analysis Grid developed by Dr. Bertie Kingore, an expert in GT education.  The top columns were labeled with ten of the vocabulary words we reviewed such as the Prime Meridian and the Northern Hemisphere, and a latitude or longitude line of their choice.  The rows on the side were labeled with the seven continents, and a country of their choice.  The next step required the students to think about the relationship between the continents and the geographic terms.  For example, since the Equator passes through South America, they would place a "Y" in the box, but since it does not pass through Antarctica, they would leave it blank.  The beauty of the instrument is how it can often create a dilemma.  Things are not always black and white, and the students have to analyze, collaborate and even research before they can decide on the best answer.  

In the end, the students were able to demonstrate their understanding of the material by applying the skills to their atlas.  The conversations that were generated were high level and allowed students to share their reasoning and analysis.  While this was not a lesson that would capture headlines, I think it is important to show how we are able to increase the rigor of every ASPIRE lesson, and provide challenging and thought provoking opportunities regardless of the content.

                                           Kingore, B. (2008). Teaching Without Nonsense, 2nd ed.