Violet Band - Group Class

One of the things a lot of the Violet Band said when listing their goals for the year was experience teaching and mentoring. Brightworks is a good space for that - it's filled with curious, interesting minds of all ages. And we'll work on being community members and mentors for the younger bands.What's even harder, though, is leading a class with your peers.And so the Violet Band Group Class was created. Every day after lunch, we'll spend a half an hour on a student-selected and student-led study. Each "class" will last two weeks, and we'll shuffle to the next one.To start, my two weeks of "Sample Group Class" - a nonfiction literary study on information consumption and critical understanding. And while I led today's class, I created a guideline and template for how to lead future classes, and we discussed ways in which they can lead their own sessions.And then I passed the other chapters off to the group.The book is Thomas Foster's How to Read Literature Like a Professor. And our schedule is as follows:

To help prepare for full group class, each session leader of our sample class gets to create their own lesson - introduction, meat, practice, closing - and lead the discussion around the chapter.I really love this book, and as the BWXian high schoolers work to become quicker observers and more intentional writers, I feel like the book unlocks a lot of mysteries and deeper meaning in content. It is exciting.Brightworks is always full of excitement, though. In addition to group class, today we got first-hand favorite Rock thoughts from a geologist, explored independent learning pathways, had SketchArt session one, and designed iteration two of the (standard, regular, but with a kid-attached motor) motorized wheelchair.Check it out:

Cheers!