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In the classroom: Teaching with themes

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By Sheena Dooley | Monday, December 10, 2007 10:57 PM CST | () comments

Anna Lorenz reads to her class a Rock Island Primary school. (Larry Fisher/QUAD-CITY TIMES) Buy this Photo

VIDEO: In The Classroom
Check in with the Rock Island Primary Academy two years after the district …
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No time is wasted as 24 first- and second-graders file into Anna Lorenz’s multi-age classroom at the Rock Island Primary Academy.

Just back from gym class, the children scurry over to the large rug at the front of the room. Lorenz starts immediately, listing words aloud. In response, her students rattle off words that rhyme.

“Fox,” Lorenz says. “Justin?”

“Box.”

“Nox,” another student says.

They continue to do group exercises focused on word sounds. Throughout the lesson, Lorenz allows her students to interrupt if they don’t know the meaning of a word that is said. They question munch and bunch before their teacher moves on to a book called, “The Gingerbread Baby.”

Lorenz teaches some of the district’s children who are most at-risk of failing. Almost 97 percent of the students at the Primary Academy are poor. It is one of the most diverse schools in the district, with about 89 percent minority students.

The school was formed three years ago when Rock Island-Milan School District leaders reconstituted two elementary schools, renaming them and replacing all staff in hopes of turning around abysmal student achievement.

To help her students better succeed and retain what they learn, Lorenz teaches in themes. On this day, learning is centered on gingerbread men.

After she finishes the story, the students break into groups. Some go to the math table to work on addition with Lorenz. While they get help, the other children color a sheet of paper with multiple little gingerbread men. Each one has a different word on it. There’s “drop,” “snow,” “frost,” “tooth” and “gum” to name a few.

Once the students finish their coloring, they carefully cut out the figures and arrange them alphabetically on a second piece of paper.

“That gives them the incentive to do the ABCs because they had that fun little coloring to go with it,” Lorenz said.

Later in the day, the students will have their own gingerbread man cookie. As they take bites out his body, they will graph what parts they have eaten. Lorenz hopes the gingerbread men help students better remember the lesson the next time they work with graphs.

“When you introduce a new theme, it’s easier for them to go back and say, ‘When we did this, we did that,’ ” Lorenz said. “I am building that foundation for a house so the future teachers can build the walls and give them the furnishing.”

Sheena Dooley can be contacted at (563)383-2363 or sdooley@qctimes.com.