In order to do this, I believe that an interesting activity would be to create a wordle . Wordle creates word clouds that are generated from text that is pasted into the text box. Word clouds that emphasize the most used words in the document are generated and can be personalized by changing the format, color, and maximum number of words.
In order to compare the two versions of "This We Believe", I will create a word cloud of both versions by copying and pasting the executive summary of each and asking the students to compare and contrast the two versions. In this analysis, I will also ask them to indicate what they think might have been the changes addressed in the newest version and speculate on why those changes were made. This will be used as an introductory activity for discussion of the NMSA's philosophy. I believe that this activity will help students begin to look at the process of developing a philosophy as well...why decisions are made and how, which will help them later on in writing their own philosophy of middle school.
Objective:
Students will compare and contrast the 2003 and 2010 versions of NMSA's "This We Believe" by looking at separate word clouds showing the top 25 most used words in each version.
Students will hypothesize on what changes have been made and why.
Assessment:
For this activity, I really just want to hear the students' discussions of the word clouds themselves. Basically this will be the hook to get students interested used for an exploratory discussion on the middle school philosophies. There are really no right or wrong answers and I expect that all students will participate in the discussion. I will take notes of the conversations and will refer back to them as the more complete discussion of the NMSA philosophy continues.
Below are the two word clouds that will be used for the analysis of the two versions of the philosophy.
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