Here's what we did:
We're reading the book Copper Sun by Sharon Draper. In this section, the protagonist survives the middle passage and spends her first day enslaved on a Carolina farm. Also in this section, the protagonist, and the reader are introduced to new major characters.
I think that part of the reason this worked was that the students were prepared. Last Friday they knew which character they would chat as, so when they read this weekend, they paid special attention to that character. I gave them a list of questions and told them they should know the character so well that they could answer the list of questions. But I didn't have them write the answers. The list was to guide their thinking.
Today, I had them read this post on our class site and they jumped right in. I guided the chat with a powerpoint that included a list of questions to answer. Then, during the second round, they were allowed to ask each other questions. At the bottom of this post is a transcript from one group.
Lessons Learned
Lessons Learned
- It was a more democratic way for students to discuss/ participate than a traditional classroom discussion.
- This was an exercise in higher level Blooms because students had to generate and create. By asking them to talk as the characters and responding to prompts, I got much more complex thoughts than I would had if I had just given them questions to answer.
- Today's Meet was a venue for students to demonstrate their thinking, their understanding of the characters and the book. It was a more expansive, generative process. Students learned/ synthesized their thinking in the process of generating, and in the process of reading other people's posts
- It's a full-engagement, fast-paced activity. Students are reading, thinking, writing/ typing. If they don't concentrate, they miss a lot of what's going on
Good times! Looking forward to using this tool again.
