Social Contract- SWAG

After brainstorming the classroom rules, using the social contract, the students summarize our expectations and create a poster for class display.

Below are two ideas for summary/display:

1. Social Contract Haiku- During the guided discussion about our social contract I record every suggestion that the students make on the board, then together we categorize and prioritize the list.

Examples of student's suggestions for class rules and expectations:

• Student Suggestion- "Respect"
• I always follow up with a series of guided questions that help students explore what it means to show respect, such as:
• Respect for who or what?
• When do show respect?
• How do we show respect?
• Can you think of a time when someone showed you that they respected you? How did they show you?
• Can you think of a time when you showed someone else respect? What did you do to prove to them that you had respect for them?
• What does respect sound like? How am I communicating with respect right now?
• What is respectful listening? Are we showing respectful listening in this moment?
• How to we show respect for guest speakers or during a peer presentation?
• How should we respond when someone is not being respectful?
• Once the students have all shared at least 1 expectation for our social contract we organize and prioritize the list into categories:
• Category 1- How I should treat you.
• Category 2- How you should treat me and your peers.
• Category 3- Class norms (Example: Earned Friday Fun-day)
• Category 4- Grace in this space (Example: Pushing in chairs, putting materials back after use, keeping the classroom clean and organized)
• Category 5- Eats and treats (Example: Candy answers and class parties, also food in the classroom)
• The students are then paired up to come up with a social contract Haiku, the Haiku does not need to address all of the expectations that we talked about however it should provide an accurate overview.
• The students then vote on which Haiku to post in the room as a visual reminder about our agreement.
• Student Example:
• Kind, Honest, Friends
• Fun and Intellectual
• Dream It, Achieve It
• Second Student Example:
• Think outside the box
• Believe in your happiness
• Dream to achieve

2. Acronym: The process for this is the same as above however instead of a Haiku the students develop an acronym. See example below.