Laura Peterka, Special Education Teacher The 7th grade Emotional Support class at Easton Area Middle School has been studying Greek Mythology. In an effort to enhance their learning, each student created a project on one God or Goddess. The project required the students to create an acrostic poem on the God of their choice. The students began by spending one history period researching facts on their Gods, taking notes on their facts sheets. Each student was required to have at least ten facts on their God. The students then selected the facts that they were going to use on their poster. What made this difficult was that each letter of the God’s name needed a fact that started with the corresponding letter. They worked very hard on trying to make their facts work with the letters in the God’s name. Dictionaries and thesauruses were used to help them create the perfect acrostic poem. Once all of the facts were perfected, the students created posters by writing their God’s name vertically down the sheet. Each fact was then added to the corresponding letter. They added colorful artwork and added pictures that represented their Gods. When the project was finished the students shared their posters and spoke about what they learned with the rest of the class. The students loved working on this project. They enjoyed the computer time and learned how to effectively research a specific topic. The students also learned essential English skills such as appropriately using the dictionary and thesaurus. Most importantly, the students successfully met the curriculum standards and learned about different Gods/Goddesses, not only from the teacher but from each other as well. The students pictured are from Easton Area School District.
