Link It Up

Purpose

Students make connections between ideas that reflect cognitive relationships.

Materials

• Paper (white plus 2 additional colors)
• Scissors
• Tape

Instructions

1. Organize students into thinking partners.
2. Students cut paper into strips.
3. Students write ideas from content recently learned on the colored strips and then Link It Up by writing a connection between the 2 ideas on the white strip.
   Ideas and connections might look like this:

   Idea (color 1)	Idea (color 2)	Connection (white)
   topic	topic	cause or effect
   fact/detail	fact/detail	inference
   text title #1	text title #2	connections
   character	character	similarities
   event	event	sequence, order, or connection

4. Pairs tape their idea links together, making sure the white connection link is in the middle.
5. Students work collaboratively to make as many connection links as they can.
6. Use the strategy Pair-Square-Share to have students explain their connection links.
7. Observe students’ thinking and clarify/verify as appropriate.

Classroom Management

• Model how to cut and connect the strips.
• Provide exemplars of thinking connections.
• Consider using the activity as a learning station.

Differentiation

• Provide students with a set of pre-cut paper strips.
• Promote access by providing the 2 topics/ideas for the colored strips so students focus only on developing the connection.
• Provide response support by allowing students to dictate responses to a scribe or allowing speech-to-text or word prediction support if completing the activity digitally.

Think It Up!

• Have students think more deeply about the concept by responding to a Think It Up prompt as an exit ticket or journal entry:
  • Evaluate all the connection links you and your partner created. Write a paragraph explaining your strongest connection link.
• Encourage students to use lead4ward’s Thinking Stems (English/Spanish) to frame their responses, if needed.