Brain Dump

The Situation

You want to know what you students know about a subject or topic.

The Solution

The Brain Dump is a way to access students prior knowledge and find out what your class knows.

The Brain Dump a simple instructional strategy where you:

1. Provide students with an A3 piece of paper between 3 students.
2. Students take a pen and record everything they know about a topic. You may like to give students just a topic or a list of questions to respond to.
3. Students should have 5 minutes to discuss and record ideas.

Here is a brain dump focused on students exploring why they study English:

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Here is a brain dump from the beginning of the year, focused on getting students to consider what they know about storytelling:

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Here is a brain dump from the beginning of a Shakespearean study:

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Here is a brain dump from the beginning of a study about fantasy fiction:

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Here is an example a brain dump using questions about the narrator of the story:

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