The Schoenblog

This year, I’ve made more efforts to promote meaningful student-driven discussion, and I explored some of those idea through blended learning in articles like Blending Discussion: Using Technology to Enhance Student Voice & Audience.

This week, I continued that exploration through a three-day Socratic process to help students develop discussion and questioning skills. It was rewarding and enlightening, and revealed some major areas of growth to work on throughout this year.

Overview

To conclude our study of Elie Wiesel’s Night, I sought to expand our analysis beyond the book to the world today, as well as to promote student voice and empowerment. Throughout the three days, students spoke more and I spoke less, and students drove the discussion--to both great success and awkward silence. Each day, the students were asked to return to the texts and to continue to provide evidence to support their ideas. Find the slides and questions for the week here.

Day 1: Class Discussion

On the first day, we circled up and discussed questions that the students had. What haven’t we discussed enough in the text? What questions still remain? How does Wiesel’s character, purpose, or style change throughout?

This day focused mainly on analysis and closure for the text before we expanded to bring in more texts. Then, students helped me find current events articles related to the ideas of persecution, oppression, injustice, and silence.

Day 2: Socratic Seminar

Next, students read and annotated their selected articles to prepare for another layer of instruction. I chose three articles from the students’ findings, and assigned each one to five students, and provided the questions to drive today’s discussion.

In class, students used the first five minutes to review their annotations, articles, and the questions to prepare for discussion. We discussed the following questions:

1. What would Elie Wiesel say about the world today?
2. Has the world changed?

These open ended questions led to discussion of the texts, the memoir, and our world in new and interesting ways.

#SchoenTell English 10 is discussing Wiesel's Night through current events with a backchanneling and fishbowl combo #OssiningPride pic.twitter.com/poweOZlJYc

— Adam Schoenbart (@MrSchoenbart) December 14, 2016

Day 3: Fishbowl & Backchannel

Now came the real challenge: to get students to ask the questions. We again circled up, this time with an inner and outer circle. The Tweet above shows some pictures of our setup. In the inner circle, students discussed their articles from the previous days, and all students in the circle read the same article. I had provided some tips for generating good Socratic-style questions and stem starters previously, but didn’t guide the discussion in any way. I didn’t even talk.

In the outer circle, students used Today’s Meet as a backchannel. I participated here with the students, as we discussed the articles, interesting quotes, and responded to the inner conversation. After 7-10 minutes, the groups rotated positions. And it was a glorious mess.

Some of it was sophisticated, high level discussion. Some was awkward silence and blank stares. But for now, that’s okay.

Next Time

At the end of the first awkwardly quiet group, we discussed the awkwardness, in my only interjection of the period. We talked about how weird it is to sit in the middle of the room and how hard it is to ask questions. I assured students that it would get easier and that we would keep working on these skills, so I hope that diffused some tensions.

When I asked students for good reflection questions for tomorrow, one student wrote: How awkward your conversation was and how well you made an effort to try and bring it out of the awkward stage.

Next time, I want to add a layer of small group discussion to lower the stakes. I want to set clearer expectations for developing questions and what good preparation and participation looks like. And most of all, I want to find more ways to engage the quiet, reluctant, and resistant students.

The learning, discussion, and analysis this week showed progress. In a few months, I’m sure I’ll write about these ideas again, and hopefully we will all do better.

How do you promote meaningful questioning and discussion in your classroom? What strategies do you use to engage all learners? Share your thoughts in the comments or on Twitter @MrSchoenbart.

Students’ Task

Argue, create, and compete! Then, decide your peers’ fate! Develop, craft, and film an argument about a selected topic. Your job is to convince your audience that your argument is right by effectively incorporating the four parts of a good argument: claim, counterclaim, specific evidence, and organization.

I created a list of high-interest topics for my students. In self-selected groups, students signed up for the yes or no side of a topic, which ranged from “Should schools have uniforms?” to “Would Batman beat Superman in a fight?” Then, they worked to craft, develop, organize, script, and film their videos.

I provided a rubric that assessed claim, counterclaim, evidence, organization, and preparation. Then they were off to work. The videos were capped at 90 seconds and shared for my students to watch and vote on. Each video received feedback and students voted on the winning arguments, providing evidence to support their choices.

For more, check out the assignment sheet here.

The Logistics

I was smart this year--or at least smarter. I introduced the task and asked students to form groups before working in class. This allowed me determine the the number of topics necessary. With 28 groups of students from my three class sections, I needed 14 topics. Students selected their topics on a first come, first served basis, and I used the Google Forms add-on Choice Elimator 2 to remove choices as they were selected. This ensured that every topic was eventually selected and we had an even split of yes and no videos.

Students then submitted the link to their video, which was uploaded to YouTube on another Google Form. I didn’t require any fancy editing--students recorded on everything from an iPhone to Chromebook to DSLR camera.

Then, after I organized their submissions, they were assigned to watch two different arguments (four videos) and provide feedback for their peers.

For more of my students creations and our workflow, read The 21st Century Book Report and Teaching Comic Books: Sharing Students Multimedia Analysis of Maus.

The Products

As I write this, I just finished reviewing the student' work. And it’s awesome. Most of the videos are so much stronger than I expected and really show an understanding of the elements of argument.

For this project, I allowed students to opt into me sharing their work. Usually, all of our products and classroom learning are public but since these videos had to have my students featured on camera, I gave them the option to allow me to share them here and on Twitter.

Below, find a few of the videos that really impressed me. At the end, find both sides of a debate and share your vote in the comments!

Do celebrities make for bad role models?

YES! By Sarah, Jillian, and Emma

Should schools ban homework?

NO! By Grant

Should schools have open campuses?

NO! By Zoe, Sri, and Lexi

Should high school students be required to do community service?

YES! By Thomas

NO! By Jimmy

Who wins, fair reader? Thomas or Jimmy? Share your thoughts on their arguments, the project, or your strategies and tools for teaching argument or content creation in the comments or on Twitter.

The Lesson

To conclude August Wilson’s Fences, I wanted to move from organized class discussion to more of a Socratic approach, encouraging authentic, thoughtful, and critical discussion. My main goal was to discuss and analyze the play’s conclusion to prepare for a writing task.

To do this, I wanted to blend online and face to face discussion, as we often do in my classroom. Usually, we use Twitter and social media to respond to and share our learning and classroom with the world. This time, though, I hoped to use it as a tool to process and document learning, too.

Students participated in a fishbowl discussion blended with an online Twitter chat. While the inner circle discussed the text and prepared questions, the outer circle discussed, responded to, and analyzed on Twitter. The key to success was structure and preparation. Students learned the Q1/A1 Twitter chat format and had time to review the topics and questions with close reading.

The procedure and questions are documented in the slide deck below.

#SchoenTell Twitter Chat

Students created the #SchoenTell hashtag in the beginning of the year, and we use it often. Mostly, students share reactions to learning, respond to ideas, and share their products. Different students are also assigned to Tweet about class each day to share our classroom with the world. I use it to share relevant ideas, reminders, jokes, and pictures of our classroom learning, too.

On this day, though, #SchoenTell curated so much learning, collaboration, and student voice. You can find the Storify archive of the chat here.

21 students participated in the 25 minutes of the chat during this lesson. In that time, each student spent at least 6 minutes in the center without a computer, and some stayed for longer. That means that students averaged 18 minutes online.

There were 93 tweets with #SchoenTell during this class period, which averages to 5 per minute and about 5 per students. With the Twitter chat, every student contributed to an authentic audience and shared their voice and ideas at least 4 times.

Technology and social media help us connect, communicate, and collaborate in ways never possible before. These students shared with the whole world, and not just our classroom, working together to develop deeper understandings and leaving with an archive of their learning and progress.

#SchoenTell watching themselves on @CNN #OssiningPride https://t.co/lIcPR7L6JL pic.twitter.com/0DzKpFGNrs

— Adam Schoenbart (@MrSchoenbart) April 7, 2016

Why I Want My Students Using Social Media

Technology can’t come before learning or students.

The Twitter chat during this period was wonderful, but it took two failed attempts to find the right questions and format. I want my students to share, create, collaborate, connect, and build digital citizenship skills. But we all need to remember that technology and social media are tools that can enhance and transform education, but they must be used with purpose.

For more about my students work with social media, check out Why I Want My Students Using Social Media Reason #1: Community, #2: Crowdsourcing & Connecting, and #3: Sharing our Awesome.

How are you using social media, backchannels, or Twitter in the classroom? Share your stories, lessons, and experiences in the comments or on Twitter.

I could write the article about how teaching the novel over a dozen times has influenced me as an educator. Or I could write about how staging the trial of Tom Robinson like a play always incited my students with gasps and grumbles of surprise, emotion, and frustration like nothing else we ever read. Then I could write about my nostalgia for the text, as it was moved down to the middle school a few years ago, how I miss it dearly, and how it makes me long for the pre-Core days of teaching the dense novel. But this is not that piece. If you’re looking for that, I encourage you to check out the New York Times’ article by William Grimes, Harper Lee, Author of ‘To Kill a Mockingbird,’ Dies at 89. Also, I wrote about Lee and the evolution of Atticus and Scout in Go Set a Watchman in my article, Rewriting History: A Grown Up Maycomb in Go Set a Watchman.

Instead, I want to to share one particular story--a lesson I always taught--that helped students begin to evaluate and question great literature. Through To Kill a Mockingbird , we studied story and structure, themes and the cannon, and the concept of “capital L” Literature.

A Lens For Great Literature

Mockingbird is more than great literature; it is a timeless piece through which other stories can be understood and analyzed. In a sense, it serves as more mythology than fiction for me and my students: it’s coming of age story in the face of injustice represents a story that is told again and again in our mythology, fiction, history, and religion. Harper Lee imprints a timeless struggle into a specific historical context and understanding, but it’s a story of our collective unconscious, not of one particular event.

In the end, Atticus can’t beat racism because society is only on the brink of change. Like so many injustices, conflicts, and turning points before and after, this story is only the beginning.

Why is Mockingbird Great? The Lesson

After we concluded our study of Mockingbird, I would always end the unit by evaluating its themes and the concept of Literature and the cannon. What makes this text worthy of being read and studied by young people across the world for so long?

Do Now:

Respond to the following statements in writing and then discussion:

To Kill a Mockingbird is good Literature. It belongs in the literary canon and should be taught in all schools. A book like Harry Potter is just popular fiction and is not as good. These books have nothing in common.

Most of my students have read texts like Harry Potter and Twilight, so they served as important points of connection and comparison. From here, we evaluated what makes Literature “great,” the differences between the classics or cannon and popular fiction, and more. We listed the themes of both Mockingbird and Harry Potter as a focus for comparison.

Although my students always argued for an appreciation of Harry Potter, they usually agreed with the Do Now statement, writing about the timeless nature, dynamic characters, and universal themes of Mockingbird. Then we began to apply and analyze their theories, and that’s where the fun began. Why wasn’t Harry Potter great?

Image courtesy of azquotes.com.

Atticus vs. Dumbledore

Next, I shared the Stephen King quote above to steer the discussion towards the value of a text like Harry Potter. I asked students to compare and contrast the stories plots, themes, and characters. Is Atticus a better mentor than Dumbledore? Why or why not? We kept going back to King’s argument about the central idea of Rowling’s series: “confronting fears, finding inner strength and doing what is right in the face of adversity.” Wait a minute...doesn’t that sound familiar? Soon students start to reassess their ideas and arguments--isn’t King really describing Mockingbird here, too?

This might seem like an overly simplistic connection at first because it’s simply describing most stories. Characters face adversity and grow and change with the help of mentors and allies. They face challenges along the way that cause them to suffer loss and learn, usually leading to some sort of triumph or growth. It’s the hero’s journey at it’s core, Joseph Campbell’s monomyth which deconstructs storytelling and mythology to analyze its structure, archetypes, and role in society. Through this lens, we come to realize that these stories--one a canonical classic and the other modern popular literature have much more in common that most realize. Some of my notes from the lessons are below, and the list always grew after every class.






Still not convinced? Check out the quotes and images below from Harper Lee’s Mockingbird and Rowling’s Harry Potter.

Great Literature

Great stories, like history and mythology, repeat themselves. By no means do I think JK Rowling or any other author stole their ideas but that great stories permeate in our collective unconscious--the story of heroes are cultural and societal tropes that influence our characters and people.

And To Kill a Mockingbird is a great story. The novel and its characters were a touchstone for Ossining High School English students, who would refer back to Atticus’ closing argument or Scout’s coming of age for years after my class. Like all great stories, it became a lens through which to view the world, analyze, and grow. So many years later, it’s messages about people, society, and growing up are as relevant as ever, reminding us all that we still have work to do.

And for all of that and more, thank you Harper Lee.