Performance Task 4
Performance Task 4
and reflect on reactions from others when they shared their idea. Students discuss how it felt to
be accepted or rejected because of an idea. After the reflection and discussion, we will read the
book, What do you do with an idea? by Kobi Yamada. In this story, a child has an idea and at
first, he ignores and runs away from it as though ashamed, but gradually he comes to like his
idea. He gives it attention and sees it grow and bloom until it becomes a part of everything and
changes the world. After reading the story, students will discuss in small groups how the child
felt about and dealt with his idea and consider how they deal with their own ideas. Students will
then discuss how it feels when other people consider their ideas weird and what students can do
failures, and determine where the idea came from, how people reacted, and what the thinker did
to develop the idea as well as consider why some ideas are successful and others are not
successful.
different and isolated. They have a need for internal motivation and self-actualization (Clark,
2012, Seagoe, 1974, VanTassel-Baska, 1989b, Webb, 1994; as cited in Ferguson, 2015, p. 487).
Discussing how it feels when others do not accept your ideas is important for students to develop
skills and strategies for responding to rejection and for persevering in the face of obstacles. This
discussion also helps students to identify people or places they can seek out to find support in
What would it look like for them to be advanced in making sense of problems and persevering in
solving them? What would it look like for them to be a beginner in regulating emotions,
After completing the rubric students will score themselves and identify how they can continue to
Grade Level: The book is an elementary level text, but the activities are for high school
students.
Major Characters:
➢ Child – The child spends the entire story wondering what to do with his idea before
realizing that he should embrace it and see what it does.
➢ Idea – The idea starts off small and unwanted but grows throughout the story and
becomes a part of everything.
Summary:
What do you do with an idea? is the story of a child who has an idea and is unsure what
to do with it. At first, he ignores it, then he runs away from it because he doesn’t want people to
know its his. As the story progresses, he realizes that he likes his idea and that it is okay if
people think it is different or strange. He gives the idea his attention and enjoys his idea. At the
end of the story, the idea explodes to become a part of everything and the child concludes that
what you do with an idea is change the world.
Themes:
➢ Feeling different and/or wanting to fit in
➢ sticking with a passion or drive
➢ accomplishing big things even when you are small
➢ accepting yourself
Suggestions for Use in Bibliotherapy:
Before reading the book, ask students to brainstorm ideas that they have had that felt like
good ideas. The ideas can be as simple as what to have for dinner or what movie to watch.
Think about how you share ideas on how to solve a problem and how people around you react.
Do people always agree with you? Are you proud of your ideas?
After students have brainstormed, read the book aloud for the whole class and ask
students to discuss the stages the child went through in how he felt about his idea. Did he always
like his idea? Was his idea popular? How did his idea change throughout the story? What does
an idea need to grow? When you have an idea, what do you do to make it come to fruition?
What obstacles do you need to consider and overcome to make your idea a reality? Are all ideas
good ideas? Is it bad to have a bad idea?
Have you ever felt that you had an idea that other people considered weird? How did you
know that people thought it was weird? How did that make you feel? What did you do? If an
idea is weird to some people, does that make the idea wrong?
Extension:
Ask students to research famous ideas. These ideas can be ones that turned into
tremendous successes or were big failures. Who came up with the idea? How did they come up
with the idea? What did they do with the idea? What did people think of the idea? Why did the
idea succeed or fail?
Application to math classroom:
When solving a problem, students have different ways of looking at the problem and
thinking about how to solve it. It is important to be able to share ideas, even if you are unsure.
Just because your idea is different does not mean that it is wrong. Just because your idea isn’t
finished, doesn’t mean that you can’t keep thinking about it and grow the idea to find a solution.
There are lots of ideas about how to solve math problems and each one is important to explore.
References:
Common Core State Standards Initiative. (2020). Retrieved from
http://www.corestandards.org/Math/Content/HSG/CO/
Yamada, K. (2014). What do you do with an idea? Compendium Inc.
Ferguson, S. K. (2015). Affective education: Addressing the social and emotional needs of gifted
students in the classroom. In F. Karnes, & S. Bean (Eds.), Methods and materials for
teaching the gifted (4th ed., pp. 479-512). Prufrock Press.
SEL State Standards. (2018). Retrieved from
https://selstatestandardresources.weebly.com/sel-standards.html