Interest Groups/Interest Centers

With interest groups, the teacher can divide up groups heterogenously so all students can increase their sociability and familiarize themselves with things outside of their comfort zone. In these groups, the teacher may provide a small, short text focused on a specific content area. The text could, and likely should, include photographs, as this helps appeal to visual learners, and each group will then write a paragraph or so (for each student) on the text and then present this to the class. The teacher can and should ensure that the students be as creative as possible when structuring their paragraphs. This could be a week long lesson, and the students can rotate groups each day. Sociability and networking are important things, and involving writing in this can benefit them greatly, and help them enjoy the experience more than they normally would with a group that may have a dominating member who just completes all the writing himself.