Interest-A-Lyzer

Over the summer, I completed my first grad class at Georgetown College.  It was pretty intense for my first class, lots of papers and everything crammed into 7 weeks.  I was drinking coffee when my husband was just going to bed, but I survived.  The class was an "Intro to the Gifted and Talented Program".  During this class, I read a book by Joseph Renzulli from Renzulli Learning.  He talks a lot about focusing on students' interest and differentiating the lesson to match the interests.  He even has his own Interest-a-lyzer, which is where I got my powerpoint questions.  His is about 6 pages long, and I thought that was a little extreme to give to my new middle school students on day 2 of class, so I made a powerpoint of a few questions and we all answered them together.  

Getting their answers back is both humorous and beneficial!  I get to know each student a little more and I can also line them up with projects that might be of interest!  

Something else we like to do is pick a topic that we (myself and the students) want to learn about and teach, then we make a big exhibit out of it.  We each have different and equally important roles, but the roles are tailored to what we are interested in.  Props, acting, set design, writing, etc.  In the end, we all learn the content, we learn communication and group work skills and we are engaged and proud of our end product.  

The book I read was:


Renzulli, J., Reis, S., & Thompson, A. (2009). Light up your child’s mind.  Little, Brown and Company.

I found it at our local library, highly recommend it!!

Below is the Interest Powerpoint I made into a movie so you could see it.