Day 19: Blood Wars

Agenda-
Homeroom
Class: Creative Writing
Class: Pre-AP Sophomore English
Class: AP Senior English
Study Hall

Today I got the students set up on their blogs, into their clan groups and started the blood war that they will be competing in during the unit. Unfortunately, it didn’t go as well as I planned for it to. I got their blogs set up. That part went fine. Then I split them into their clans, told them where to move to and started them on their first tasks; picking a clan name and creating a flag. This did not go so well. Two groups worked really well together. The other two not so much. One group kind of pushed Garrett out and ended up sitting on his laptop while everyone else was coloring. The other group ended up split in the middle. Jeremy and Mariah on one side with Adam and Brooke on the other. The group created two flags because they couldn’t decide what to do for a flag. I told them only one was going up so they had to come to a decision. They took a vote and when the flag Brooke worked on didn’t win she threw a fit. I also saw a lot of people migrating from their group to other groups to gossip, talk and hang out. This was not what I wanted. I wanted them to be on task collaborating with their clan members. I had to keep asking them to go back to their seats or suggesting things for them to do in order to help. The whole thing was not what I wanted. I should have done table groups. I should have been prepared to tell them where to sit. I should have set some time limits. I should have set some more rules. I also should have been more certain about what their prize would be at the end of the unit. I should have been more clear with them and established this at the beginning. I think I need to try this with the next group.