Acrostic Student Example
Students created an Acrostic Poem to demonstrate biographical information about an author. The students were already familiar with novels written by the author. They had limited background on the author himself. The task, Acrostic Poem, was explained to the students. The parameters of their acrostic were given. Student choice was encouraged by having the assigned Acrostic information be required to contain 50% facts about Tolkien's life, while the remaining 50 % was choice and could include his works or any other area of interest connected to Tolkien's ife. Students worked with a partner to encourage communication, collaboration, and provide differentiation and peer support. Each student pair was assigned to a computer and given a list of sites to choose from as they gathered information. Twenty-five minutes was allowed for research. After researching, the pair returned to their seats to create their Acrostic. The Acrostics were shared after they were completed. Students took notes on the information provided by the other groups. The follow up assignment is to write a brief one page biographical essay on J. R. R. Tolkien. Follow-up and student self-report on enjoyment of the task was high. It was a thumbs-up and to-be-repeated way to learn new information and present it to the class.