The teacher has students sitting at the table and working in groups.  She is asking them open ended questions to make them critical thinkers.  One student oversees writing the key words from the reading. Then as a class they decide if they should keep it, junk it or cloud it and give their reasoning for their choice.  They are working on coming up with a sub-head for their writing assignment.  The teacher does of great job keeping the kids involved. 

I love the fact that the teacher kept the students fully engaged from the beginning of the lesson. She had them read a paragraph each, after which they started writing keywords from their text. The students began to collaborate in their groups about why they choose those words and how they can use those words to answer the focus question. The teacher used the strategy of keep -it or junk-it to help the students decide which word to keep or scratch off their list. The students were fully engaged in their groups and the teacher guided the discussion. The strategy can be used in any lesson to help students identify keywords that can help uncover the concepts and answer focused questions.

I really like that the teacher kept the students very engaged with the reading by having everyone read together as a class, or as an alternative one student gets to read one paragraph  then passes it off to another student for the next. What was really interestng was her concept of Keep it or Junk it where she has the students raise a 1 or 2 finger based off if the subject in the passage was relevent to the passage when the students were picking out words in the paragraph onto the sheet of paper to the class.  If the students raised 1 finger in the air then that would mean it would mean they get to keep the word. However, if they raised two fingers in the air then it meant Junk it, or in this case scratche off the word from the list. This really falls in conjection with the classroom because it allows for oppertunity to grow, and if one student felt a topic wasn't relevent compared to the rest of the class then they would discuss their reasoning with the teacher on why they feel that way about it. 

This was about students collaborating in their groups. This lesson was about Jamestown and the effects of tobacco. The groups collaborated while the teacher did laps to make sure that everyone was on task. The teacher asked open-end questions to make them think, and it worked perfectly with their lessons. At the end of each lesson one person from the group stood in front of the class and talked what their thinking were as a group about the effects of tobacco on Jamestown. I thought that was a good strategy to ensure group collaboration.