Practicing Argument Strategies during Socratic Smackdown

We are moving into our next phase of argument practice in Social Studies. This section, Towards Revolution, is a series of Town Hall meetings during which students, taking on the role of Patriot, Loyalist, or Neutralist, debate whether the colonies should declare independence from Great Britain. We are drawing upon the work we did earlier with primary source documents (see previous posts from Dec. 6, 2014 and Jan. 10, 2015) and adding an explanation piece (see post from Feb. 22, 2014). The Town Hall meeting itself is a game-based version of Socratic Seminars from The Institute of Play called Socratic Smackdown. Here's how it goes:

1. Students receive a role card briefly explaining their name, stance (Loyalist, Patriot, or Neutralist), and background (materials and lesson outline from "Towards Independence." United States Through Industrialism. Teacher's Curriculum Press, 2011). These are actual historical people, including John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, John Hutchinson, Joseph Brandt, and many others (including three women). Students are paired up, so the same role goes to two students. This is a scaffold, as well as a means to incorporate collaboration into the activity. Before the first Town Hall meeting, one student from each pair introduces him/herself to the group.
2. Students build knowledge about a series of historical events. Town Hall meeting 1 focuses on The Proclamation of 1763, The Stamp Act, and the Quartering Act. Town Hall meeting 2 focuses on The Townshend Acts and The Boston Massacre. Town Hall meeting 3 focuses on The Intolerable Acts and The Boston Tea Party. And Town Hall meeting 4 focuses on the battles at Lexington and Concord.
3. Students evaluate the series of events using evidence to support their opinions. My co-teacher and I noticed on our unit assessment that our students did not entirely understand the "Evidence/Rule/Conclusion" chart they used during the primary source work in December; specifically, they did not quote text or include specific details in the evidence column and they weren't sure what the difference was between Rule and Conclusion. We decided to switch it to a similar, but easier, chart: Say/Mean/Matter. This chart very specifically asks students to record what the text says (quote/detail), what it means (interpretation), and why it matters (significance). We used this new chart during The Great Awakening debate, and it proved to be much more successful than the Evidence/Rule/ Conclusion chart. For this activity, students will use Say/Mean/Matter to evaluate each event. For example, for Town Hall meeting 1, students will take The Proclamation of 1763 and Say what it is (a law that states colonists have to stay to the east and Native Americans to the west of the Appalachian mountains), what it Means (colonists will not be able to expand west into the Ohio and Mississippi river valleys, there will be less fighting between colonists and Native Americans, Native Americans keep the land on which they've lived for generations), and why it matters (this depends on the role, and students will decide whether this was fair or unfair and justify why). They will do the same for the other two Acts.
4. Students are given the question: At this point in time, how should you and your fellow colonists respond to the British government: Comply (obey without question), Oppose (protest, even if unwilling to rebel), or Rebel (declare independence). They will use their evidence chart and role card to decide what to argue.
5. Town Hall meeting (using Socratic Smackdown): The first partner brings the role card and evidence chart to the inside circle-- s/he is the speaker and will argue their position. The second partner sits in the outside circle with a score sheet. Listeners give speakers points based on speaking skills such as Agree/ Disagree (+1), Connect and Devil's Advocate (+2), and Interrupt (-1). As a scaffold, I will provide a sentence starter for the speakers: At this point in time, I think we should ______ (comply/oppose/rebel) because British Parliament's actions are _______ (fair/unfair). For example, (name Act, what it means, and why it is fair/unfair). In past years, I have found that students want to jump straight to the Acts without the explanation that makes their point clear. For example, one might say, "I think we should rebel because the Stamp Act was unfair." I provided a similar scaffold during The Great Awakening debate and it helped students structure and support their arguments much better. I am hoping that by repeating that structure over and over, they will get the language in their heads and it will appear in their argument writing later (fingers crossed).
6. Reflect: Students in both the inner and outer circle reflect on the Town Hall meeting. Speakers consider points that other speakers made that they hadn't thought about, as well as what they could have done better. Listeners note points they could've made if they had been speakers as well as what the speakers did well or needed improvement. They can use the Explanation continuum to help them think through how well they were able to explain their thinking. A quick class discussion gets feedback to the speakers and alerts the listeners for what to do better when it is their turn to speak.
7. Switch seats. The process repeats for the next Town Hall meeting, with the second partner as the speaker and the first partner as the listener.

By using the same strategies in different contexts, students learn to transfer skills. They will be holding another Document-Based debate in Social Studies in a few weeks. These argument skills will work there too. They are writing argument essays in Science this month. These argument skills will work there too. They will be writing position papers in English later in the school year. These argument skills will work there too. I hope that consistent practice will help them become masters of argument by the end of the year.

"Best" Young Adult novels?

Have you seen Time Magazine's list of 100 Best Young Adult novels of all time? I looked over the list this morning. And then, because reading YA fiction is a passion of mine, I read it again, keeping score: I've read 70 of the 100 on the list. That's pretty good I think. 

I wondered why some books were on the list, and why other books weren't. It seemed like "young adult" had a pretty wide age range, from Charlotte's Web (a typical third grade novel) to Little Women, which I seriously doubt was written with young adults in mind. There were a lot of classics, and books that I read as a kid that haven't aged very well. For example, although I love the word play in The Phantom Tollbooth, I've tried to use that book with fifth graders who look at me askance when Milo receives a toy car as a gift (too babyish) and then later with confusion as he journeys through the Tollbooth into the bizarre and random world on the other side. The Wind in the Willows falls into this category too, I think-- the language is too advanced for the target audience.

Another title I have a hard time with is Harry Potter. OK, granted, it's a good story and it was a fresh idea when it came out. But J. K. needed some serious editing help as the books went on to make them tighter and less rambly. Is part of the criteria for inclusion on the "Best" list that it made an impact on young readers? If so, I'll give it the thumbs up; but if it's about "best" as in "good writing", I'd give it a thumbs down. Same for Twilight-- seriously? The writing is repetitive and boring! But it did influence the YA world to open up to paranormal fantasy.

Here are three books I would have liked to see on that list:

Walk Two Moons by Sharon Creech. This book tells a three-layered tale: Sal's cross-country car journey with her grandparents to visit her missing mother (present), Sal's adventures with her next-door neighbor as they try to solve a mystery (recent past), and Sal's life with her mother leading up to her disappearance (further past). The complexity of the plot, which weaves seamlessly together, the fun word-play, scenes that are laugh-out-loud funny and tissue-soaking sad, and lovable characters all combine to make this my #1 favorite young adult novel.

 

Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card. Six-year-old Ender is sent to Flight

School to learn how to be a soldier and fight the "Buggers" to save the planet. Several issues get attention within this novel: standing up to bullies, empathy for others who are different, working to find your personal best, powerful people manipulate and use the powerless, teamwork and friendship, the value of family.
 

The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern. This may fall into the "not written with young adults in mind" category, but it is certainly appropriate for the older end of the audience. Two rival magicians pit their innocent young apprentices in a competition against each other with surprising and delightful results. I loved the fresh new ideas within this novel, which was told in a "can't put it down" compelling style.

What are your favorite young adult novels? Did they show up on Time's list? If not, which ones would you have recommended?

Using Close Reading of Multiple Sources to Get Away from the "Single Story" of US History

Teaching history is the art of storytelling. But storytelling has its dangers, as Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, author of my January adult book club book Americanah, warns in her TED talk "The Danger of a Single Story." She warns that only telling one story of a people leads to stereotyping and false assumptions, such as disregarding her Nigerian middle class upbringing as not "authentic", according to one of her American college professors, because it wasn't the starving/sick/poor/hard-scrabble story we Americans hear about Africans from our media. She asserts that only by telling multiple stories will we get the true meaning.

This idea of multiple stories, multiple sources, is a topic explored by Mary Janzen in her 6 Jan 2015  SmartBlog post "Using digital resources to enhance social studies, history instruction." She argues that the textbook version is too narrow, that it's the "single story", and that adding digital resources including many primary source documents, helps students to see history from multiple perspectives, without stereotyping or narrowing to only one story.

As we jump back into Early American History next week, my co-teacher and I are pushing pause before moving forward in the chronology. We finished our Colonial America unit right before the winter break, so we are going to linger for a couple weeks in some of the big ideas that formulate the Promise of America, our year-long theme. Many of the "promises" were formed during the colonial era: freedom of religion, self-governance, the free enterprise system, and equality (within contextual boundaries, of course).

One of the defining movements during the early 18th century was The Great Awakening, a time when itinerant Christian preachers spread ideas of breaking away from authoritarian religious practices, like the Puritans, and embracing the right to practice religion in a way that allows the common person to have a direct relation with God. A central tenant was that everyone is "equal" in the eyes of God, a very radical viewpoint for the times. Here is what the textbook closes its three paragraphs with: "By encouraging ideas of liberty, equality, and self-reliance, the Great Awakening helped pave the way for the American Revolution." (TCI, 2011).

So that's the single story: Preachers preached, people converted to their ideas, and the American Revolution was born. Hold on... we all know it's not that simple.

We are going to use the resource What Did the Great Awakening Awaken? (Social Studies School Services, 2007), a collection of primary source documents, both visual and written, that presents two sides of the story: the religious revivalists and the authoritarian establishment. It is set up to be used as a DBQ (Document-Based Question), with guided reading questions to scaffold understanding the documents before answering the question: "'The Great Awakening taught colonial Americans to challenge religious authority forcefully. This helped prepare them for the political revolution to come.' Assess the validity of this statement." However, instead of asking students to write a DBQ essay, we're going to hold a debate. This will build on our previous work with finding evidence, stating a rule, and drawing a conclusion (see previous post on this). Students will need to draw evidence from the primary sources to use in their debate argument, and justify their thinking with the rules and conclusions.

But first, students need to understand the sources. Eighteenth century writing style is very different from 21st century (especially digital and social media) writing style. Sentences are long; grammatical constructs are complicated; they use big words! Our eighth graders will struggle to understand the writing. This is why we are going to use Reading Workshop (mini-lessons on how to read informational text) and Reciprocal Teaching, a strategy we learned from visiting consultant Stevi Quate, to help them learn to read difficult texts. Groups of four students assume roles, and they tackle small chunks of the text together. Roles are rotated with each document, so students get practice with each type of thinking. Here is a "cheat sheet" we'll give students to help them get started:

There are four primary source documents in What Did the Great Awakening Awaken? That gives each student a chance to try out each role. By practicing this kind of thinking in a very structured, supported way, students will begin to internalize the strategies, and move closer to being able to read difficult texts independently. We'll see how well they do, and reassess how much scaffolding they need for our next Debating the Documents packet: Patriots and Loyalists. We may need to stay here for a while, or possible back off to pairs (each student gets two roles). By the time of the assessment, they should be able to tackle a text independently. But that's way down the road.