Lesson Plan: English

Post Box Activity

I use this lesson plan to get students exploring their ideas and the ideas of the whole class on a topic that we have been studying. I have done it with various classes both before and after a teaching unit. Before it can be to explore their preconceptions and after to get an idea of how they have interpreted the material they’ve read and discussed.

Students are given the post box sheet with at least four numbered questions on it and they are to answer them in writing in silence. They are not to discuss their answers with anyone else and the questions are open ended so there should be a variety of responses.

When this is done they are to cut the sheet up into one section for each question and they are to place each sheet into the appropriate numbered box. They are then placed in groups of four to five students. I then distributed the boxes to groups of students to analyse.

Students have a sheet of butchers paper on which to organize the responses and their task is to categorise them in any way they see fit. In the example I have attached the students are doing VCE Unit 1 Area of Study 2, Technology and Communication; and they are to write opinions on various aspects of social media. These can then be organized into positive and negative and then types of reasons. This takes about 20 minutes.

Each group then has to present to the whole class the types of responses and summarise the thinking of the whole class as they interpret it. This usually takes a whole single lesson 50-60 minutes, by the time they have the ideas explained and then do the writing, thinking and interpreting.

The resulting sheets of paper can then be displayed around the room as they are useful for further writing tasks.

If you have a website or a Learning Management System you can either take photos of the sheets or videotape the final presentations.

I have used this with year 7 to year 12.