Hello, everyone! This post will summarize a project I did with Shavy’s English Hut, where we participated in a competition and went back in time! We had many amazing time travel activities, so keep exploring this post to learn more!
Who is on your guestlist?
The Project Competition is back, and this year we’re asking students to imagine their ideal guest list for an online video call. Who will you invite? What will you ask them?
For the Project Competition 2021, we’d like you to work in a group (2 to 4 students) and imagine you can invite anyone you’d like to your online video call, why you have chosen them, and what you’d like to ask them:
- Who: Make a list of four people from past or present you’d like to invite
- Why: Write a short paragraph explaining why you’d invite them to your online video call
- What: Create (e.g. draw/dress up as) your people and write one question you’d like to ask them and what their answers might be!
Lesson plan
Find some photos of famous people past and present and stick them around the room, each with a piece of blank paper below. Try to have an equal balance of male/female, dead/alive, local/international. If you can’t find pictures, the names will do.
Ask the students to work in groups and think of questions they would like to ask the pictures. Then, ask them to walk around the room, writing their questions on the blank paper below the pictures/names. (Note: students don’t need to write a question for each person – just the ones that interest them.)
Inquiry 1
Aim: This stage aims to encourage students to brainstorm people to help them prepare for the project.
Put the students into their project groups. If you are doing this online, put them into breakout rooms of 3 or 4 students.
Ask the students to make a list of ten people who they admire. These people can be dead or alive, be people from stage 1, or by other people. Try to encourage an equal balance of male/female, dead /alive, local/international.
Ask them to think about who would be friends and who would not get on. For example, Would Nelson Mandela be friends with
Katy Perry? What do you think they have in common?
Tell them that they are arranging a video call, but they can only invite four people. So they must choose four people from their list to invite. Then, put them into their project groups/breakout rooms to discuss their new list.
Ask them to share their ideas with the class.
Inquiry 2
Aim: This stage aims to access and share their existing knowledge about the people they have chosen.
Put these three questions on the board or screen and go through the examples. Next, ask the students to think about their own ideas. Then, put your students into their project groups/breakout rooms and ask them to discuss their ideas for their chosen people.
- What are your video call guests’ greatest achievements? For example; Harry Styles’s first solo single reached number 1 in the UK.
- What item would you like your guest to have with them during the video call? For example; J.K Rowling could have the first draft of Harry Potter.
- What question would your guest want to ask you? For example; JFK would ask – what’s a video call?
Aim: This stage aims to get students collaborating, develop their teamwork skills, and create a draft project. Write Who? Why? What? and How? on the board/screen.
Explain that to complete the project, they need to answer the following questions.
• Who are you inviting?
• Why are you inviting them?
• What question would you like to ask your guests, and how would your guests answer?
• How are they going to present it?
Show the students the template and the example. Tell them they can follow that or do it their own way.
Remind them of the competition rules; remember: they can’t use pictures from the internet.
Put the students into their project groups/breakout rooms (online) and ask them to discuss and answer the questions, then draft their project.
Find the original lesson plan here!
A collection of student’s writing and the photos of their costumes: Our time travel activities in action
The Creative Four
The Fantastic Four
The Space Geniuses
The Brain Stromers
Have you ever participated in a project like this? Will you be able to reuse these activities in your classroom? What do you think about our time travel activities? Let me know in the comments or via the contact page what do you think of this topic.
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