Coolest Test Review Ever - Day Seven

I'm giving a test on irony and ambiguity tomorrow and until today had always just lectured a list of things to do, handed out a review sheet, and let students work together in groups through the material while I walked around answering questions. Collaborative critical thinking, right? (Remember that phrase for later, mkay?)

Today was different, very different.

First, since I couldn't hand out anything, I made a shared Google doc that was "view only." In it contained that obligatory list of "Things To Do So You Will Pass My Test," but what made it different was that I linked the online version of the textbook to it (no need to lug the 12lb brick home), and I linked the notes we had discussed (but didn't write down) from Day ONE of the experiment much to the relief of my pack of OCD girls.

(Insert lots of "yay's" and "sweet!'s," as well as the predictable, "Do we have to do all of this?")

But that isn't the best part of the review.

After that I shared with them a Google Presentation on Irony. They thought it would be me yammering on about definitions and such, but they started to figure out something was different when they all had privileges to edit.

(Small diversion: One kid wrote "poop" on the slide show to delight and entertain his classmates. (He had to close his computer). "But how did you know who it was?? Since no one fessed up?," you ask. I just looked at the revision history and found out instantly. No longer was he "delighting" and "entertaining" his classmates. Ahhh, power is good.)

But I digress...

So 23 people are sharing this one slide show I made. They start to notice that each student has his own slide and ask what is going on. I explain that I would like them to go and find comics that contain irony, add them to their slide, and write one sentence labeling the type of irony and explaining why the comic is ironic. Then I let them loose. On the technical side, I strolled around and helped a few insert images, but MOST of the questions (for the first time in a week) were about IRONY!

"I think this is situational irony because those three people are fighting over a book about the art of sharing; I'm right, right?" (Yep!)



"The fact that George Bush is upset that reporters are invading his privacy while he is using government surveillance to monitor people is situational irony, right?" (Yes, again)




"OMG, he has no idea that he's about to jump in a swarm of jellyfish. Dramatic irony!?" (Yep)




Ultimately, after about 10 minutes of hunting and thinking, copying and pasting, we had a 23-slide presentation that they could view later while they were studying tonight. They laughed at the cartoons, asked tons of good questions, and all worked on the same slide show at the same time and both delighted and entertained their friends without writing "poop" all over my slide show.

Now, that was some serious collaborative critical thinking.