I Love Using Quotes in the Classroom!

Developing Critical Thinking Skills Using Quotes in the Classroom

I love using quotes in the classroom!  Listening to my students as they formulate ideas and begin to think deeper is one of the true joys of teaching!  I had one of those great moments in my classroom today, and I just had to share it!

I asked my students to take a good look at the poster above - I asked them to think about, but not answer the following questions:

• Is this literal or figurative language?
• With figurative language, imagery is very important - so look at the pictures in this poster.
• Look at the colors - who would these appeal to?
• What do they represent?
• With figurative language there is always symbolism 
• what words are being used to represent something else?  
• What is the theme of this poster?  
• How does this apply to your life?

First I had the students write in there journals, and then we discussed their ideas as a class.

At first I got the kinds of thoughts that I had expected - things like "success is sweet," or "try hard."  One of my students even talked about the different scoops of ice cream being our different goals.  Another student said there is not just one way to approach success, and like Baskin Robbins, there are at least 31 flavors/ways to approach a goal.  If one doesn't work for you just pick a different one!  So cute!!!

Then the students started relating this quote to some of the other quotes in the classroom, making connections and drawing correlations.  One student related this quote to the quote on our bulletin board - "Why not go out on a limb?  Isn't that where the fruit is?"  - drawing correlations between the fruit and the scoops of ice cream. 

But my favorite comment was when a student related the scoops of ice cream to the building blocks of the Pyramid of Success.  He explained that we can not reach a full level of success without all of the various building blocks, and that in this poster there were many different scoops of ice cream - the poster wouldn't look as good without all of the different colors of ice cream scoops.  I just  loved this thinking!  And this from one of my most quiet students, who rarely shares his thoughts!

I love these types of moments!  Just had to share! 

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