Spotlight on Sources:
Welcome to Renzulli Learning’s Spotlight on Sources, some of our most engaging resources to excite and inspire your students!
This week we are featuring our favorite resources from Thinkalong! The Thinkalong team is passionate about building media literacy and critical thinking skills alongside middle and high school aged learners. It's a free resource, requires no registration, and is based on compelling and timely current event questions. From Tricia George at Thinkalong, “We think your learners will LOVE it - and we have outreach specialists on staff to help you figure out how to implement! We're so grateful to Renzulli Learning for the opportunity to share this with you!”
A great way to use these resources is to create a Collaborative Group and have your students engage in discussion on their message board! This way your students can participate no matter where they are. Want to expand your student’s exposure to different opinions? Create a Global Collaborative Group as a starting point for these discussions.
Thinkalong features topics for all interest areas and passions! Explore topics like education, civics and government, science and technology, and more below!
These resources are most appropriate for high ability fifth graders through high school students!
Check out a few of our favorite activities below!
Don’t forget, if you want to assign a weekly activity simply search the title of the weekly activity from your Teacher Dashboard and then send the activity to a student as a favorite! To locate these activities within Renzulli Learning you can SEARCH Enrichment Activities and type in the title of the activity you would like to locate. For more ideas to infuse enrichment activities with your curriculum, please visit the Unit Supplements on the Teacher Site, under “Teach.” We can also link these enrichment resources to your regular curriculum if you send us a theme or topic.
Thinkalong Activities
Should controversial books be censored?
Social Action
Every year, libraries, schools, authors, and readers celebrate Banned Books Week, which casts light on the issues of censorship and banning books. Classic novels, like Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (one of the most consistently challenged books) join with comics, young adult novels, and children’s books on the American Library Association’s list of most challenged books. Explore the resources provided, use the graphic organizers, and submit your Pro and Con Arguments!
Are protests necessary for social change?
Social Action
Protests have played an important role in our society in relation to civil rights and social change. After widespread attendance at larger protests like the Women’s March, DAPL, and March for Science, as well as localized Black Lives Matter rallies after the killings of Philando Castile, Sandra Bland, and Michael Brown, critics and supporters alike are wondering whether marching actually changes anything. You decide — are protests necessary for social change? Explore the resources provided, use the graphic organizers, and submit your Pro and Con Arguments!
Are standardized tests necessary to measure students’ academic abilities?
Education
Standardized tests, a fixture in American education, have been the source of increased anxiety for students, parents, and teachers. In particular, student performance on the SAT or ACT is widely seen as one of the most important factors in admission to competitive colleges. While proponents of testing say it is the best way to objectively measure students’ learning, critics argue that the tests are an inaccurate way to assess students’ achievement and potential. Are standardized tests good, bad, or all of the above? Explore the resources provided, use the graphic organizers, and submit your Pro and Con Arguments!
Should a college education be free?
Education
With rising tuition rates and average student debt at near $30,000, tuition-free college is one popular proposed solution. Some say it will make the positive effects of higher education accessible to more people, while others argue taxpayers will pay too much to benefit those who can take on the costs themselves. Explore the resources provided, use the graphic organizers, and submit your Pro and Con Arguments!
Should humans colonize Mars?
Science
From mapping the stars to exploring Pluto, space exploration has always fascinated us. Lately Mars has been the focus of several new exploration initiatives, with campaigns for colonization from the Mars One project, SpaceX, and several governments around the world. Technology has yet to be invented to build human colonies on Mars, but that doesn’t stop its allure. Explore the resources provided, use the graphic organizers, and submit your Pro and Con Arguments!
Should scientists be able to modify human genes?
Science
With CRISPR (Clustered Regularly-Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats) scientists can edit the DNA in human embryos for the first time, a process that was previously thought impossible and possibly unethical. Should we allow it? Explore the resources provided, use the graphic organizers, and submit your Pro and Con Arguments!
Should we lower the voting age?
Social Studies
Voting rights are always a topic of conversation during election season and even well afterward, but some teens under voting age are bringing national attention to their own inability to vote. They say that teens pay taxes and are mature enough to understand the consequences of their vote, but critics say the responsibility is too much. Explore the resources provided, use the graphic organizers, and submit your Pro and Con Arguments!
Should we rewrite our Constitution?
Social Studies
As one of the oldest documents in our country, the Unite States Constitution serves as a model for goverance, a rule of law, and a catalyst for some of the nation's most divisive debates. While we constantly reshape our laws based on the 27 amendments to the Constitution, these changes can seem vague and leave things ope to interpretation. How relevant is this 230-year-old document to our everyday lives? Explore the resources provided, use the graphic organizers, and submit your Pro and Con Arguments!
Each week, we will send you teaching suggestions and a few examples of our best and most popular resources. For more ideas to infuse enrichment activities with your curriculum, please visit the Unit Supplements on the Teacher Site, under “Teach.” We can also link these enrichment resources to your regular curriculum if you send us a theme or topic.
Thanks for being a part of the Renzulli Learning family and we hope you find these resources helpful.
Your Renzulli Learning Team