If you're anything like me, you might find our traditional discussion modalities of the Socratic Seminar, Harkness Discussion, and Fishbowl to be lacking.
In my experience, a handful of students monopolize the discussion while the bulk of my students blend into the void.
Further, it's another pedagogical exercise that sees teachers doing the real heavy lifting.
As such, I created what I call Plato's Play-Doh Discussion - a modality that finds students asking the real good, pithy questions of a text in a gamified format that highlights the elements of collaboration and competition.
In this video, you'll not only see how my students are trained to read poems like a professor, but you'll gain a glimpse of our Jenga edition.
The featured texts are as follows:
This Is Why People Burning Down Fast Food Joints & Whatnot -- Jacqueline Allen Trimble
A Woman Cohabitates with Three Men --- Jacqueline Allen Trimble
The Difference Between Pepsi & Coke -- David Lehman
The kicker --- watch how this discussion modality also simultaneously prepares your students to be better multiple-choice test takers.
If you're liking the brainchildren I share on a weekly basis, then I invite you to look into the latest course I am offering with the National Writing Project entitled the Teach It "Write" 5-Week Mastermind.
Our next session begins this Sunday live in Zoom at 7 pm EST.
It's going to be, without doubt, a fantastic PD opportunity.
Hope to see you on the inside!
Happy teaching and happy writing!
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