Slide outline for Lesson 2.2, two days. Day 1 is slides 1 to 10 (strengths and notice cards). Day 2 is slides 11 to 21 (the interest quiz and careers).
Day 1
Traits, Strengths, and Interests
- Lesson 2.2, Day 1: what you do well
- Unit 2: Me, My Goals, My Money
- Today: your own list, and three people's lists about you
Teacher notes
Image: three small cards face down on a table, one labeled "To: you."
Leave this up while students enter. Same tables of four as Lesson 2.1.
Do now
- Write one thing you are good at
- Write one time you did it
- Two sentences, two minutes
Teacher notes
Cold call four. Count the answers that name a school subject versus an action. Then the hook: by the end of today, three people at your table will each tell you something you are good at, and some of it you do not know yet.
Three words
- Trait: how you usually are (quiet, outgoing, patient, stubborn)
- Strength: something you do well (fixes bikes, calms down a crying kid)
- Interest: something you want to do more of (drawing, basketball, cooking)
- A trait can turn into a strength: patient becomes "sits with my cousin until she gets the math"
Teacher notes
Students copy the three definitions onto the handout header.
Which is it?
- One finger: trait. Two fingers: strength. Three fingers: interest
- I am usually quiet in a new group
- I can take apart a bike and put it back together
- I want to learn to make sushi
- I am stubborn
- I remember everyone's birthday
- I like drawing on everything
Teacher notes
Answers: trait, strength, interest, trait, strength, interest. Six more on the next slide. Cut to six total if time is short.
Which is it? (continued)
- I am patient
- I calmed my little brother down when he got lost at the mall
- I want to run my own business
- I talk a lot
- I get a group to agree on a plan
- I like taking care of animals
Teacher notes
Answers: trait, strength, interest, trait, strength, interest (accept strength for the last one with a reason). Settle the arguable ones: the difference is whether it names something done.
The strengths inventory
- 24 strengths in four families: Thinking, Doing, People, Character
- For each one: yes often, sometimes, or not yet
- "Not yet" is not an insult. It is a to-do list
- Then star your top three and write evidence: one time it happened
- 10 minutes
Teacher notes
Circulate. Push feelings toward events. "I am good at fixing things" becomes "I fixed the chain on my brother's bike without a video."
Notice cards, the rule
- You write one card for each of the three other people at your table
- A card names something the person did, not something they are
- "You are nice" does not count
- "I noticed you are good at explaining because you re-explained the recipe to me on lab day" counts
- Sign it, so they can ask you about it
Teacher notes
Image: one filled-in notice card, the sentence frame visible: I noticed you are good at ___ because I saw you ___.
Read a sample from each table before cards are handed over. Send back any card with only an adjective.
Hand them over
- Face down
- Nobody reads theirs until I say go
- On go: read your three cards
- Copy the one that surprised you most into Part 2
Teacher notes
Watch the quiet student at each table. If a pile looks thin, drop in a card of your own; you have watched this student work for 37 days.
Debrief
- Whose card named a strength you did not put in your own top three?
- Why do other people see strengths we miss?
- Today was what you do well. Tomorrow is what you like doing. They are not always the same, and that is fine
Teacher notes
Take four. Keep it short; the exit line is next.
Exit line
- A strength I put in my top three: ___
- A strength someone else saw in me: ___
- Are they the same? Yes or no
- Keep your three cards. You need them on day 39
Day 2
Teacher notes
Three students read theirs. Collect handouts and cards together. Tomorrow: the interest quiz.
Traits, Strengths, and Interests
- Lesson 2.2, Day 2: what you like doing
- Today: a 30-question quiz, six letters, and two careers to explore
Teacher notes
Image: six small icons in a row: a wrench, a magnifying glass, a paintbrush, two people, a megaphone, a checklist.
Quiz at every seat, face down. Lesson 2.1 sort sheets out of the FACS folder.
Do now
- A bike. Would you rather: fix it, figure out why it broke, paint it, teach someone to ride it, sell it, or keep the records of who rented it?
- Pick one. Write why. One sentence
Teacher notes
Show of hands per choice. Say: you just took the first question of the quiz. There are six ways to like a bike. The six choices map to R, I, A, S, E, C in that order; this is also the tie breaker.
The six types
- R, Realistic: hands, tools, machines, outside (wrench)
- I, Investigative: figure it out, science, puzzles (magnifying glass)
- A, Artistic: make new things, your own style (paintbrush)
- S, Social: help, teach, take care of people (two people)
- E, Enterprising: lead, persuade, sell, compete (megaphone)
- C, Conventional: order, records, numbers, careful (checklist)
Teacher notes
Students write one word next to each letter on the quiz header. Say what the quiz is: a paper version in the same six categories counselors use. Say what it is not: a fortune. If they have used the O*NET Interest Profiler, say the letters are the same. [Sal: check with the counselor whether grade 8 takes it.]
The rule
- Answer for the you of today
- Not the you that would look good
- Not your friend
- There are no wrong answers and no bad letters
- 30 items, yes or no, 12 minutes
Teacher notes
Read the first three items aloud to set the pace. Then no help on what an item "really means." The student decides.
Score it
- Count your yeses for each row of numbers
- Highest count: first letter. Second highest: second letter
- Tie? Use your bike answer
- Grade 6: items 1 to 18, count the first three numbers in each row
Teacher notes
Spot check three grids per table for arithmetic. A wrong count changes the letters.
Read your two paragraphs
- Find your two letters in the Part 3 table
- Does the paragraph fit? Circle
- One word in it that sounds like you, one that does not
Teacher notes
The "does not" word matters. Nobody is all of one type.
Careers for your letters
- Pick two careers from the lists (one can come from a third letter)
- For each: one sentence that names a strength from yesterday or an interest from today
- "Chef, because I like food" is not enough
- "Chef, because I cook dinner two nights a week without help, and I said yes to 1, 7, and 25" is
Teacher notes
Read one career sentence per table. Ask "which strength?" if it names none.
Values check
- Open your Lesson 2.1 sort sheet
- Would career 1 let you keep your top three values?
- Which value might it fight, and why?
Teacher notes
This is the first time the three sheets (values, strengths, interests) meet. They meet again on the one-pager.
The 16 career clusters (grade 8 stretch)
- Agriculture, Food, and Natural Resources; Architecture and Construction; Arts, A/V Technology, and Communications; Business Management and Administration
- Education and Training; Finance; Government and Public Administration; Health Science
- Hospitality and Tourism; Human Services; Information Technology; Law, Public Safety, Corrections, and Security
- Manufacturing; Marketing; Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics; Transportation, Distribution, and Logistics
Teacher notes
Grade 8 writes the cluster for each of their two careers and the education it needs. Everyone else sees this list again in Lesson 2.21.
Whip around
- Your two letters and one career, five words or fewer
- I tally the letters on the board
- Which letter is biggest in this room? Smallest?
- What jobs would this room be short on?
Teacher notes
Keep the tally. Compare it with the cluster choices in Lesson 2.21.
Exit card and tomorrow
- My two letters, two careers to explore, one thing I want to know about one of them
- Tomorrow: the All About Me one-pager. Bring your three sheets and your three notice cards
- Optional: ask an adult who works what their two letters would be
Teacher notes
Collect. Sort into "got it" (two letters, two careers with reasons) and "needs more." The "needs more" pile gets a two-minute conference at the start of Lesson 2.3.