Take Five--I've been 'wikified'!

Yes, I have entered the world of wikis. What an amazing journey of just a week. For my senior English Lit class, I created a wiki space that is divided into pages as they relate to student study groups. Lauren's and my classes are reading Yann Martel's Life of Pi and are giving students another lens to read the text. Students are broken into topic/thematic groups: animals, biology, Christianity, Hinduism, Muslim, nature, psychology, relationship, and contrasts. Students get together on Fridays to discuss the chapters, questions they have, vocabulary that is unfamiliar, and then decide what they would like to put on the wiki as important, noteworthy information related to their topic. They are then, assessed on the information they studied and the chapters assigned on the following Monday through quizzes, panel discussions, fishbowls, etc. This has been extremely effective with rich dialogue.

I am amazed an utterly amazed at my students. Please check out their site and join in the praises for their thought observations. Teenagers, when challenged, write thought-provokingly and create an environment where mediocrisy is abolished. http://lifeofpi.wikispaces.com If you're having trouble navigating to various pages, there are directions on the left side describing what links to click on to view the students' topic pages.

There also is a link on the home page to their blog. Comments are slowly being added, as this is optional. The discussion here again, is truly awesome.