Students Teach in Mrs. Maughan’s English Classes

In Mrs. Maughan’s ninth-grade English classes at Springville Junior High, she and her students are switching places for a while.  During the last two weeks of school, students have gotten the opportunity to become the teacher for five minutes by giving a lesson on any topic of their choice.  “The Utah State Core Curriculum requires that ninth-grade students complete an oral presentation,” said Mrs. Maughan. “This is one of the ways I like to meet that objective.”  According to Mrs. Maughan, she also did this with her ninth-grade classes last year.  So far, the presentations have been very popular with students.

One of the most important parts of the assignment was being prepared beforehand.  According to Samantha Allan, a ninth grader at SJHS, she had to prepare at home by measuring out ingredients so that the class would be able to make their own Play-Doh.  “I think the most difficult part [of the presentations] was picking the topic to present on,” said Eleah Coral, another ninth grader at SJHS.  Not only did students get to pick their own lesson to teach, they also got a chance to watch their classmates teach.  “It was really fun seeing what sort of things other people thought of,” said Eleah.  

Presentation topics covered anything from ‘Learning to Ride a Unicycle’ to ‘How to Train Dogs.’  According to Mrs. Maughan, she loves to see the variety in the students’ presentations.  “It isn’t often that students have a lot of freedom to choose topics,” she said, “so it’s very interesting to [be able to] share in each other’s interests and hobbies.”