The What’s In a Name (WIN) project is by far the most shared and used of all of my Building Outside the Blocks projects (BOBs). I have presented on it many times, and I have even had an entire school take it on in an epic way culminating in a school-wide What’s In A Name film festival and family event with stations and swag. On the small scale, it’s a project that takes a deep dive into your name, why your parents chose it for you, its etymology and what it means to you. Here is my Ignite Talk that explains the project a bit more (though I can’t figure out how to fix the spelling of my name from YouTube- oh the irony!):
Each year, after my students present their What’s in a Name (WIN) projects over several weeks, I write a blog post about why the project is valuable to them as individuals.Her are a few previous posts:
This year, I'm focusing my post on the audience-factor. Each day, except Fridays, over 6 weeks, 1-3 students presented their WINs. As I see more and more teachers doing “name” work, these reflections celebrate why sharing the learning with the whole class has value. The work isn't just a personal journey that includes an interview with parents and/or caregivers, research into the origins of your first last and even middle names, and a reflection. It is a sharing of yourself with your classmates, and it is a powerful way to build community in your classroom Why no more than 1-3 for students each day? So each student had time to shine and no one gets bored of listening.
In September, my grade 5/6 class embarked on the What’s in a Name project. It comes under our introductory This is Me unit. Students select a date to present and are given a few weeks of class time to get started. Then, they work at home in view of their chosen presentation date. On the day they present, they are required to have any visuals already shared with me and their “ticket” which is a completed outline (hand written or digital). During the weeks that they are working on their WIN in Composition , students rotate through Literacy Centres that mostly have a name focus. In Guided, we explored Unlearning My Name. For Schmooze, they watch and discuss a video or other catalyst, they viewed a former student Rachel Tian sharing her name story. In Reading Response, students read a picture book related to names including titles like:
In the Drama and Language, students read Chrysanthemum in Reader’s Theatre
After providing a few weeks to continue work at home, the WIN presentations begin. It’s a part of my class culture, and students are excited to see who will be presenting each day. After the presentations, the class is tasked to give feedback in the form of questions, comments, or critiques. It creates a shared ownership of the experience, and there is a lot of value in that. Some students aren;t ready to present to the whole class, so they are given the option of presenting just to me. We do so many different kinds of presentations over a year, that I work them up to it from the WIN.
I asked my class a question on Google Classroom about the impact of presenting their WINs and listening to others present. Here is what a few of them said. (It’s hard to choose what feedback to share from my students, so I have over-shared because it’s all been so interesting.):
I think sharing my WIN projects with the class was valuable because you got to share all your name knowledge with your classmates and learn how you can improve on in the future and what you did well.
My favourite part as a presenter was sharing all my hard work with the class and really teaching all my classmates about my name. I also loved how at the end people would say so many positive comments about my work and it really made me feel like I did a wonderful job! My favourite part about being the audience was seeing so many cool and awesome WIN projects and learning so many new things about my classmates’ names. Adriana
My favourite part of being a presenter is that you get to share your name and pick people to ask questions. My favourite part of being an audience is you can discover something new about someone's name. It is valuable to share WIN projects with the class because people will know how your parents chose the names for you and why. Aryan
I think it's valuable because it gets us familiar with our classmates.I liked being an audience because I didn't have to talk and what I liked about being a presenter is that I got peoples opinions at the end. Ava
I feel like it is valuable to do these presentations because it is interesting to learn about people's names and understand them and get to know them. My favourite thing about being a presenter is finishing the presentation because I felt so relieved it was over. As an audience I feel like my favourite part was learning fun facts about people's names. Ben
These WIN projects taught me so much about my own name, and everyone else's names! It was so fun researching what my name meant. I didn't even know my names had a meaning! Sure, it took me a while to find what my last name meant, but it was still fun! I had so much fun presenting to the class and listening to their feedback and critiques. Plus, it was cool learning about everyone else's names and learning stuff I didn't learn before. Overall, before this assignment, I thought I knew everything about my name, but I learned otherwise! Benjamin
I think it is valuable to share the WIN project because it gives a reason why people should actually CARE about your name. I think my favorite part as a presenter was actually to explain my middle name. I liked it because of how much detail I added! And for an audience, I liked listening to the stories of their unique names. Elijah
I think this project helped me learn what my name meant to me and what it meant to my grandparents / parents. Something I enjoyed as an audience was learning what everyone's name meant and how they got it. When I was presenting, Something I enjoyed was telling everyone what my name meant to me! I think this presentation really improved my presenting skills and I hope to do something like this again! - Emily
It is very valuable to present an entire presentation about what your name means and for people to watch you talk all about your name and I think that the three people to give you comments, questions and critiques. My favourite part about presenting my WIN was sharing about my name, doing all of the research and I also loved sharing what I think about my name. My favourite part about being an audience member is giving feedback and seeing everyone improve their presentations overtime but overall I loved presenting my WIN. Gavin
I think it's valuable to share about our name because it helps other people understand that all our names have meanings. My favourite part as a presenter was when people asked questions about our names. My favourite part as a viewer is learning about people's names and its meaning. Ilia
I think it is valuable to share the WIN projects with the class because if students don't know much about you then your WIN presentation can help tell your classmates all about your name in a fun and interesting way so that way your classmates will know so MUCH more about your name and you. My favourite part when I presented was when everyone was listening to me and gave me feedback so I can work better. As an audience I really liked listening to all my friends about their names and giving them feedback so they can have an even better presentation. Samuel
If you want a culturally responsive, meaningful, deep learning activity that builds your classroom around who is in your classroom, make a copy of my WIN outline and adapt it to meet your needs. Even if you don't use it, please the benefits of students learning from each other with projects such as this. Take this as an opportunity to build you classroom around who is in the room, one name at a time. Make it a Whole-Class WIN!!
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