This artifact may not seem like much from appearance but the activity that went along with it for the students was beneficial to their learning. It was one of my first lessons at Braddock Middle School. With the mentor teacher the students usually took notes from the presentations on powerpoint. For middle school students this could sometimes become monotonous.

     2e Organizing Physical Space- In order to get students to move around while still accomplishing the required notes, the students created their own mini book. The last attachment is the front page of my sample book. The other five attachments were placed around the room on the walls.

     2c Managing Classroom Procedures- Once the students created their book by folding a plain piece of paper following the teachers instructions, in their mixed ability groups, students would go from pillar to pillar and write the information on each one in their book. The students were told to keep this book and study it from time to time.

     2b Establishing a Culture for Learning- The five pillars of Islam was the essay question for the unit test. Students who were responsible, and followed all instructions were allowed to use their created handbook on their test. The only catch on that is that they could not copy their book word for word. I allowed for student use of their notes on this part of the test because I wanted to focus on how to construct a well developed essay. In the classes prior to the test we practiced the necessary skills that students should use when writing a paper.  The students were taught to write as if your audience has no background information on the topic you are writing about. Students were to write their final essay on the five pillars of Islam as if I had no idea what they were talking about. In order to do this, students also defined many of the words in the pillars that the average person may not know such as "Hajj."