Chapter 6

This chapter was about the different strategies that can be used in the classroom to incorporate each of the eight intelligences. The chapter gives five examples for each intelligence and how it can be tied to the curriculum in the classroom. My favorites from each one are: linguistic – storytelling, I absolutely love listening to and telling stories though I’ve never used them to teach; logical – Socratic questioning, I was definitely the kid who always asked why and this is the perfect excuse to do it as an adult; spatial – picture metaphors, I tend to actually use metaphors a great deal naturally, but using them as pictures is pretty awesome and something I never thought about; kinesthetic – the classroom theater, this one is hard for me, but this way challenges the students, not just to move, but also to perform, which is something many students have trouble with; musical – rhythms, songs, raps, and chants, it occurs to me that most forms of poetry would fit in this category and that is something I do understand, and if that can be called musical intelligence, then I’m all set; interpersonal – simulations, whether or not you feel like an idiot, you almost have no choice but to learn something from it, even if all you learn is that a corset is painful; intrapersonal – feeling-toned moments, I figure if you make your students laugh or cry or jump in shock, they are listening and they will remember whatever it is you said because they connected to it somehow; naturalist – I’m going to go with pet in the classroom, but I have to confess, it’s mostly because I love animals, but also there is a great deal you can learn from caring for and observing animals.

The chapter gave great examples on how to incorporate the different intelligences into the classroom and also how to use them to help students connect on a personal level to what they were learning. Our mentor teachers use some of these strategies but if they were able to use more of them, they would likely get the class more involved in what it was they were learning. It was also great for those of us who have trouble with specific areas such as musical intelligence. Having examples like these makes it easer to come up with ideas of our own to use. It was also useful to show how it could be connected to content. I really liked the idea of Socratic questioning because not only is Socrates historic, but it is a great way to direct student thinking and discussions.