Character Chat Room

Team Member: Melissa Minkin

*This assignment was inspired by this fabulous article 7 Tips For Using Social Media In Your Classroom from NBC News Education Nation

Project Description - Using the chat room site Todaysmeet.com, students will assume the role of key character in our class novel.  

 

The key to this project is organization. Here are some suggestions:

• Assign each student a character and have them become an expert about that character, re-reading key passages that involve the character.

• Before the day of the chat, put your students in groups and create a chat room for each group.

• Go into the room yourself and write a post that says, “This is period 7, chat room 5” or the like so they know they’re in the right place. It will help you later, too.

• Students need scaffolding when they chat. Projecting a powerpoint or other document with prompts is a good way to keep the chat lively and focused on the big ideas of the book. I put the questions below in a powerpoint, then rang a bell each time I changed the slides.

Below are some screen captures of the chat. To see my blog post about this, and a full chat room transcript, click here.