Issue #20 - August 5, 2025.

Hi there, .

At the start of the year, we’re all tuning in...getting to know our students, their energy, their stories, their "vibe" (my teenager uses this all the time).

This week’s strategy, Me, As a ____, invites students to reflect on how they’re showing up right now—through either a color, a song, or a movement.

Giving students choice in this strategy is important, and also ensures higher levels of participation and trust. Both are important at the beginning of the year.

This Week's Strategy: Me, as a _______

• STEP 1: Ask students to pick one option: a color, a song, or a movement.

• STEP 2: Then, provide the prompt: "If you were a [insert color/song/movement here] this week, what would you [look/sound like]?"
  Examples: "If you were a song this week, what would you sound like?" or "If you were a movement this week, what would you look like?"

• STEP 3: Students respond creatively. Students can write their responses and share out as a community, or share them in the art form they selected (ie: draw an album cover with their song title or dance the movement they selected).
  

• STEP 4: Take note. Use these initial responses to learn about you students and their preferences. You can come back to this throughout the year as needed.

Why This Works:

• Accessible to all ages and abilities
  

• Invites emotional reflection and creative thinking
  

• Builds vocabulary for self-expression
  

• Helps you quickly take the pulse of your class

Ways to Make Connections:

You can use this strategy to:

• ELA – Use this as a prewriting warm-up for personal narratives or character analysis:
  What color is the main character right now? What’s their soundtrack? What movement describes their internal conflict?

• Math – Use movement to represent math operations (addition = forward, subtraction = step back), or ask:
  What kind of rhythm or color matches how you feel about today’s math challenge?
  

• Science – Reflect on scientific processes or states of matter:
  If photosynthesis were a color, what would it be? What kind of movement represents evaporation?

Happy creating and connecting,

Susan