Synectics

by Jennifer Hoffmann

Title of Lesson:  Descriptive Writing

Part of Unit:  Creative thinking by making connections

Lesson Objectives:

The students will be able to use descriptive words to describe a given topic. The students will also make connections between what they know and what they are to learn. The students will be able to join different concepts together through the use of analogy.  (S.O.L. 5.7)

Rationale for Using the Model:

The Synectics model gives my students the opportunity to express their ideas creatively and make connections between unrelated elements. As we have been studying simile, metaphor, and personification in class, the Synectics model allows my students to incorporate those figures of speech into their daily writing to make it much more interesting. I believe the Synectics model encourages students to be highly imaginative and creative in their thinking, thus making the written expression domain of their writing exceptional.

Lesson Summary:  Step 1

I implemented the Synectics lesson to my fifth grade students the week after we had studied figurative language. I began the lesson by asking students to describe the familiar topic "Running the Mile." (We had just finished our physical fitness testing.) I explained that I was looking for descriptive words and phrases. I emphasized the word "descriptive" and reminded them of our adjective study the previous week. When approximately three minutes were up, I asked for volunteers to share their words and phrases as I wrote them on the board.  I must admit that I was pleasantly surprised with the variety of words that they were able to brainstorm in that short time. The following was the list of words:  hard, sweaty, a lot of breath, complicated, long, rewarding, harsh, breathtaking, cramping, back-breaking, tiring, heart-stopping, brutal, exhausting, challenging, time-consuming, hot, torture, and healthy.

Step 2

In the second step, I asked the students to examine our list of words in step one. I explained that I wanted them to think of a machine that reminds them of as many of those words as possible. I further explained for the students to be prepared to elaborate on why they chose a particular analogy. The list of machines was as follows:  bike, heater, treadmill, sledgehammer, chainsaw, vacuum, electric chair, limousine, dishwasher, play station, lawnmower, and motorcycle. After we compiled our list of machines, I asked the students to look over the list one more time as we were going to vote on the machine that was best described using the words in step one. Although many of the machines received at least a couple of votes, lawnmower was the favorite with ten votes. The student who suggested lawnmower in the initial phase of this step explained that they were hard, complicated, back-breaking, tiring, time-consuming, cramping, exhausting, and sweaty, among several others. The other machines were described using several of the words in step one, but I think the class felt that, overall, lawnmower was the machine that used nearly all of our descriptive words.

Machines Chart

Step 3

For step three, I asked the students to pretend that they were a lawnmower. I explained that I wanted them to become one in their minds, and I encouraged them to come up with some feeling words. I also pointed out that I wanted them to be able to explain why they had a particular feeling.  The list of feeling words, along with explanations, was:

    Dirty:  Everyone's hands have been on me and I've never been washed.
    Herbivore:  I'm eating all of the grass.
    Overworked:  I am constantly in use during the spring and summer months.
    Pleasing:  Once I'm done with my job, everything looks so nice.
    Tiring:  I work all of the time.
    Special:  So many people want to use me to get their task done.
    Dull:  My blades need to be sharpened.
    Loud:  I have a constant noise that never stops.
    Disgusting:  Dirty grass, bugs, and manure have been trapped inside of me.

At one time during this step, I encouraged the students to try to come up with words that may be considered opposites or words that "fight" against one another.

Step 4

In this step, I asked the students to examine the list of descriptive feelings they created in the previous step. I explained that I wanted them to put together pairs of words in step three that seemed to fight each other. The pairs were as follows:

    Special and dull
    Pleasing and tiring
    Overworked and pleasing
    Disgusting and special
    Dirty and pleasing

As the students shared their pairs, they explained why the two words seemed to "fight" one another. I asked the students to examine the list of opposites and vote on which combination of words contained the best compressed conflict. Their choice was pleasing and tiring.

Step 5

In step five, I asked the students to think of an animal that can be both pleasing and tiring. I reminded them to explain their answers as they gave them. The animals and brief explanations were as follows:

    Puppy:  They are fun to play with, and tiring to take care of and raise.
    Horse:  Beautiful to look at, and race horses and show horses can be
              tired.
    Deer:  Pleasing to us for sport, and tiring to them because they need to
             keep away from humans.
    Lion:  Pleasing for human to see at zoos and circuses, tiring for them
            because they sleep for 20 hours a day!
    Kitten:  Pleasing for kids, tiring for those who have to change litter boxes.

After looking over the list, the students voted on puppy for the best direct analogy.

Step 6

In this step, I asked the students to compare our original topic, "running the mile," to a "puppy." I encouraged them to use any of the images that were created in the previous steps of this exercise. We took about ten minutes during this step to share ideas. My brighter students immediately began to make connections. The first volunteer raised his hand and said, "Running the mile takes hard work and dedication, just like it takes hard work and dedication to train a puppy." Another student said, "Running the mile requires energy and perseverance and so does taking care of a puppy."  We shared a few more examples, and then I asked them to try to write a paragraph if they could on our original topic. If they could not come up with a whole paragraph, a couple of sentences would be fine. My brighter students were able to come with good paragraphs, while my below-average students handed in a couple of sentences. I have photocopied several of my students' responses for this step and attached them to this paper.

Step 7:  Evaluation

Overall, I was pleased with the student involvement and participation in the Synectics lesson.  I had them turn in their writing before we did the lesson, as well as their finished product upon completion of the Synectics lesson. I thought quite a few students were able to express themselves much more creatively after we went through the steps of the model. The students seemed to really enjoy the lesson and impressed me with the descriptive words and analogies that they were able to create. I thought all students played a part in the lesson; however, it was apparent that the brighter students were a little more comfortable with creating and explaining analogies.

Step One:

I chose the topic "running the mile" because I figured all students were familiar with the topic and could describe it using a wide variety of words. Just about all students offered at least one word to describe the topic. I honestly didn't think that they would be able to come up with such a wide range of descriptive words. I thought they did an excellent job in that step.

Step Two:

I thought the students also did a good job of generating a list of machines that could be described using the words in step one. At first I didn't see too many hands go up when I explained this step, but as students began sharing ideas I think more people got the hang of it and were able to come up with their own machine. I was also impressed with the number of machines that they came up with, and I was equally impressed with the reasoning behind their thinking.

Step Three:

When I first explained this step, I wanted to make it clear to the students that they were the lawnmower and needed to describe what it felt like to be one. I knew if I didn't explain this step well, they would describe what it was like to cut grass using a lawnmower.  I thought they came up with a great variety of words, and I only encouraged them once to try to come up with words that were opposites. I especially liked the herbivore example, as that was something they were studying in science.

Step Four:

At first in this step the students were tempted to choose one word from the list in step three and pair it up with an opposite word not found in step three. I had to explain a couple of time that the opposite pairs had to be words that were both found in step three. This step required some time and thought, but after the first couple of students shared responses more students more students began to raise their hands. I was pleased with the pairs that the class chose.

Step Five:

The students loved this step, as hands immediately went up when I asked them to think of an animal that was both pleasing and tiring. I thought they did a super job coming up with animals and explaining how their animal was both pleasing and tiring. I thought this would be a hard step, but they definitely proved me wrong!

Step Six:

When I returned to the original topic, "running the mile," and asked students to compare running the mile to a puppy, I had quite a few students immediately raise their hands ready to share examples. I had several other students who looked at me with a bank stare, so I made sure we spent a good amount of time discussing thoughts and relationships. My above-average students led the discussions in this step, and once they were able to connect the two unrelated topics more students began to think of ways the topics were related. I thought all students benefited from the lesson. I plan on using this model again and keeping samples of the students' writing before and after the Synectics activity. I saw major improvements in their writing just after this first activity, so I can only imagine how their writing would improve throughout the course of the year if I used this model consistently. It also ties right in with the written expression domain on the fifth grade SOL writing test.

How is running the mile like a puppy?