Image Gallery: Native American Contributions Categorizing Activity
The students studied a variety of contributions made by American Indians. In small groups students worked to create 5-7 categories in order to organize their list of contributions. Once the small groups had their categories the whole class got together to consolidate and select the final 5 categories that the contributions would be sorted into. Students then placed their contribution in the category they thought it would fit best. There were several items that student thought should go into more than one category! At that point, we had a whole class discussion to determine the "correct" location for the contribution or we discussed if the name of the category needed to be revised. Students came up with very persuasive arguments as to where their contribution should be located. This three day exercise involved the students in defining new vocabulary, analysis of the contributions in order to organize the items, synthesis of the categories to reduce those proposed to the 5 required and finally all students were actively engaged using accountable talk to express their thoughts or opinions.