Provide a metaview, lifting students into a wider view of the concept. Use another medium (not reading or writing) to connect students' personal knowing to the concept (i.e. visual arts, music, movement, metaphor, etc.) Involve learners in reflective production that blends the emotional and the cognitive.

Students develop their own written communications system

Objective: Give students a visual image of hieroglyphics and how they were used.

Activity: Students develop their own written communications system in which they will write messages to their friends. The message will need to be limited to a couple of sentences to start with. This because of the time it takes to develop their system and then to write the message.
I found out that good idea is to have each student draw a name for a classmate to write to. This keeps students from being left out. The messages also need to be positive, friendly, etc. No negative messages of any kind are allowed. Talk about how the message in the fortune cookie was written . Have students brainstorm other ideas for a code. Students are allowed to use some of the symbols from the fortune cookie message. If they use that system, they need to come up with a least 7-10 original symbols.
Students need to be reminded about making symbols for punctuation marks. For the students who have trouble getting started, get into a group with eme and write down the alphabet and give ideas for symbols for each letter. Students might need to write their messages first and go back and devise a system. If students are stuck on what kind of message to write, have suggestions ready. The messages can be very simple. Messages such as “Hello. Have a nice day. What is your favorite color?” are fine.
Students could also put a fact they have learned from the unit you are studying or ask a question about something they want to know concerning the unit you are studying. You don’t want the messages to be too complicated because students get wrapped up in writing the message and miss the point that symbols have meaning.
Be sure to remind students to sign their messages and that they need to make a key for the message. Have them turn the message and the key into you before giving it to the recipient. This allows monitoring of the message before the recipient sees it.
One idea I have found useful is to make overhead transparencies of each message. This way the whole class can seethe message as it is being explained. If students know the message will be made public, this helps to alleviate any problems with inappropriate messages. Give students sufficient time and have them share their system with the group. Question them a bout their system- why they used certain symbols, etc. and allow questions for the class. In order for every student’s message to be shared and explained, you will probably need to allow a couple of days, depending on the length of your class periods, for this portion of the lesson.

Assessment: Students will begin to associate symbols with letters and that those symbols can be used for communication.