teaching honors classes

Hi everyone,
In September I will be teaching two classes of Government (12th grade). One class is regular, and one is honors. This may sound like a stupid question, but can anyone give any advice or point me in the right direction to some resources on how to change the curriculum to make the honors class harder than the regular one? I am a first year teacher and any advice would be very helpful. Thanks!!
--Meaghan

Re: teaching honors classes

Re: teaching honors classes

try prufrock press,

Re: teaching honors classes

I would try to incorporate more non-traditional projects into the honors class. Maybe things like power-point presentation, shadow boxes, have the students give speeches, etc.

Re: teaching honors classes

Re: teaching honors classes

You could do mock trials, debate current situations, research projects, have them write grants.

Re: teaching honors classes

Re: teaching honors classes

More work, more projects, more discussion. Let them research items (in the computer lab or library) and have them present them to the class. Have them do prepared debates.

Re: teaching honors classes

One idea I have is having them create their own political party and platform, then create commercials and posters and hold a mock election. It's a pretty big class (34) so I can do some interesting coop learning with them. I also plan on doing a lot of current events and socratic seminar type activities dealing with different issues.

My main problem is how to make the "regular" class different from the "honors" class. How different are the requirements supposed to be? I am afraid I will make the honors class too easy and it will become a joke to them.

Re: teaching honors classes

I teach an 'accelerated class' and a regents level class, 7th grade though, I tend to approach the teaching for the 'accelerated' class in a more analytical way. I let them analyize the language and let them to explain to me what it means and how to use it. Where the initial introduction of the language for me 'regents' students I tend to do more straight forward. I have also found that my 'accelerated' students tend to like to take things to the next level on their own. So I might start them on a structure and then let them take it from there. I hope this is making sense.