Driving through Amherst, Nova Scotia, I saw this street intriguing sign.

The elementary school teacher in me was intrigued. For the rest of my drive, I thought about how to use this image as an anchor for a project that engages students in thinking, research, reading and writing. Here’s what I came up with:

• Display the image of the street sign. Beside the image, post questions that invite the students to think. Questions such as:
  •      What’s a gosling?
  •      What’s a glen?
  •      What’s a duckling?
  •      What’s a dell?
• Students work in small groups to share what they know and gather additional information about goslings, glens, ducklings, and dells.
• The next question to pose is, “If you follow the arrows, where will you go?” The obvious answer is, “to streets named Gosling Glen and Duckling Dell” but, hold on, what if that’s not where the arrows lead?
• Using a “thinking outside the box” mindset, invite your students to brainstorm other possible answers to, “If you follow the arrows, where will you go?”  The chart below will get you started. It offers a few outside the box answers to the question and some extending research questions chosen to engage students in thinking, reading, and writing in a variety of fiction and nonfiction genres.

• Have each small group of students complete one of the “possible answer/research questions.” When complete, share the results.
• Go back to the beginning by reminding the students that all of their work originated from looking at, talking about, and thinking about 4 words on a simple (albeit intriguing) street sign. Kinda cool!
• Search for other intriguing signs, images, or questions that provide anchors for students to share knowledge, research, read, write and, most of all, think.

What’s the purpose of this sort of project? Think about the group discussions in terms of the grade level’s expectations for speaking, listening, vocabulary building, and cooperative learning. Then think about grade level expectations for strategic thinking, using research skills, questioning, and writing for a specific purpose. Needless to say, there are cross curricular links as well. As you observe the process unfold, decide on the focus points of your observations and make notes about student progress.

Stay tuned, because we’re visiting another Nova Scotia town named Pugwash, where the street signs are written in Gaelic . . . maybe that will lead to a project linking home language to school language.

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