Finding Our Questions

Objectives

Students will be able to ...

• ask questions about how cities form, change, and persist

Procedures

1. Do Now: Take out your homework and then copy each one of these sentence starters at the top of a page of your notebook (use front and back) -- I've always wondered why/how people in cities ...; I've always wondered why/how apartment buildings and houses in cities ...; I've always wondered why/how public transportation in cities ...; I've always wondered why/how businesses in cities ...; I've always wondered why/how traffic in cities ...

2. Students will then brainstorm/list ends to these sentence starters. The objective is to get as many "wonderings" out as possible. The student who writes down the most things he/she wonders will get a free homework pass. They should feel free to go back and forth between the five as they need to. They don't have to do them in order or all at once.

3. After students have run out of ideas, they will share them with their partners. Each partner will come up with the best idea between the two in each of the five categories, plus the homework question, and form them into questions. They will then write their question on chart paper that is posted around the room.

4. After all the questions are posted, each student will receive a marker and go around and put a dot near the questions they like the best. We will come up with a few questions the class would like to find the answers to. We will tell them that the teachers will look at the most popular questions and decide which one to pursue next.

Assessment

Are students asking questions that are in depth and will require some examination and investigation?