[mesmark]

I take 5 minutes at the beginning of JHS classes and have all the students remain standing (they stand for greetings at the beginning of each class.) I ask a question and the students have to raise their hand and answer the question to sit down.

With simple questions this goes really quickly, even with large classes.

The benefits are that students listen to 30 or so questions and answers each class. Also, doing it as a group and not individually means the students are always involved. The stronger students will answer first and they will generally keep listening and learning. The weaker students are 'forced' to stay in the activity because they'd like to sit down.

Help the students out by giving example answers and keeping the questions appropriate. I'm not trying to challenge students with this activity, I'm trying to increase competence.

I use harder questions (wh- questions requiring full sentence answers) in the beginning and then eventually work towards yes/no questions.

It has really helped a lot of my JHS students.