Robin Talkowski’s Blog: Reading & Technology

Attach new learning to something you already know.  Create a visual image to help you remember a concept or word.  These are two principles of reading and learning that my students learn.  To apply these principles, students have created and made movies.  Their podcasts include examples of images they have created to help them remember.

Recently each of my students was given a Latin root word to research and find 10 words that were derived from their root word.  Each student then needed to choose 10 ways to teach their classmates the root word and its derivatives.  The student who taught “rupt” meaning to break or burst developed a Power Point presentation and included a picture of an Xbox 360 for the word “corrupt”.  Corrupt and Xbox??  Luckily, I have been teaching long enough to ask students for their thinking before jumping to any conclusions.   For me, corrupt means politicians who take bribes or a computer file that doesn’t work.  For this student … and many others, corrupt means that little symbol at the front of the Xbox that turns into a red X when the system is broken.

Attach new learning to what you already know.  If I had tried to teach this word, I would probably have begun with one of the all too prevalent political scandals.  Thankfully, a student was leading the way and he chose an image with which students could identify.  Then we could move to understanding corrupt and corruption in different contexts.