Teaching Ideas by Diane Mitchell

 Today we went over an article by Diana Mitchell called "Fifty Alternatives to the Book Report". It included fifty different options to take average teaching routines and turn them into something that may stimulate your students more.
One of the ideas I really enjoyed was listed as number 6, the college application. Mitchell quotes, "Create the application that a character you have just read about could write and submit to a college." I think this is a brilliant idea because the student would not only be using what they just read to make a super interesting project, but they would also be structuring it as they would their own college application. It is a fun and great way to practice for their future! Throughout the "application", Mitchell instructs to add in their name, academic rank, high school name, grades, extracurricular activities, work experience, then a two page college essay. All of these topics are similar to what my college application looked like, so again this would be great practice for high school students to relate to, especially the college essay portion. Mitchells ideas are definitely something I will attempt to bring into my classroom for different projects in the future.

Link: http://www.ncte.org/library/NCTEFiles/Resources/Journals/EJ/0871-jan98/EJ0871Ideas.PDF