Step Inside...

The fifth graders just finished up a math unit on geometry.  This unit focused on the area of rectangles as well as different quadrilaterals.  The students had background knowledge on the different types of quadrilaterals from previous years, and this knowledge helped push them forward in this module. The students were not only expected to classify quadrilaterals based on their characteristics, but to construct and compare based on their properties.

In preparation for the end of module assessment, the students were assigned a specific quadrilateral to "step inside." This routine comes from the book, Making Thinking Visible.  It asks students to place themselves inside of a situation or object to see things from that point of view.  The students were asked to consider the following questions:

• What can the shape see, observe, or notice?
• What might the shape or thing know, understand, hold true or believe?
• What might the shape or thing care deeply about?
• What might the shape or thing wonder about or question?

These particular questions really challenged the students' thinking.  They had to push through the struggle of wanting to just DESCRIBE their quadrilateral rather than to truly THINK LIKE their shape.  In the end, the students were not only able to show me their understanding of the different quadrilaterals, but they also had fun hearing their classmates' creative responses.