Mini-Lesson Video for 8th Grade Science Topic with ThemeMaker for Expository Text

Yesterday, we had a great question on our Official Story Grammar Marker Professional Learning Community. This is a closed group on Facebook and it is virtual community of professionals who love SGM^®! Members have the opportunity to share ideas, post photos, ask questions, tell success stories, get help with challenges and basically post anything that might inspire colleagues regarding the use of Story Grammar Marker^® and related MindWing Concepts’ products. Join our Facebook group today.

The question asked was regarding using Story Grammar Marker^® methodology with 8th grade science. We shared a sample of a Science Experiment Map (below) that was used by an 8th grader for the Science Fair project:

Here is a photo of Lauren winning first prize for her experiment “Osmosis in Celery: Which Liquid Will Win?” One of the judges was a local science professor who was impressed with her plan and her execution of this experiment.

After seeing this example, our colleague on Facebook who asked the question clarified for us by offering a sample topic: “Exothermic Changes.” Below is the conversation we had on Facebook:

Here is the topic sentence Jennifer posed: “Exothermic changes are physical or chemical changes which occur in response to heat being released from an element.”

Below is a YouTube video link of a mini-lesson using the ThemeMaker^® Poster and the Universal Magnet Set showing how to use ThemeMaker^® (expository) methodology for complex, content area topics.

ThemeMaker^® Maps can be used for Cause/Effect. A List Map can be used to list examples of exothermic changes. A Sequence Map can be used to explain the process of an exothermic reaction. A Compare/Contrast Map can be used to compare exothermic and endothermic changes.