Collaborative or Silent Conversation Activity
From NYC Writing Project, written up by Lisa B. Lauritzen
- Looking for a Quote or Other Evidence to Support a Thesis: 5-10 minutes
Tell students:Please take a few minutes to review the sections you highlighted in the research you have gathered. Choose a piece of evidence you are thinking of using. It can be a direct quotation (only one or two sentences long), a table, chart, or image. You will be sharing it with the class and you will have to be able to recreate it on another sheet of paper.
- Copying the Quote or Other Evidence: 5 minutes
After a few minutes, hand out big paper (11” x 17” or chart paper) and markers.
Tell students:When you have found the quote you want to share, please copy the quote on the center of the big sheet of paper we have handed you. Use a marker to copy the quote. Please make sure that you leave a lot of space around the quote that you copy in the middle of the page.
Show students a sample.
- Thesis and Explanation of Why Chose Quote or Evidence: 5 minutes
Tell students: In pen, please write directly on the paper, what your thesis is and how the quote/evidence supports your thesis. We will be sharing these comments with each other. Don’t write too big, as we want to leave space for others to write.
- Describing Collaborative Conversation: 5 minutes
Tell studentsThe next activity we will do is called Collaborative Conversation. We will get into groups of four. We will then all pass our papers to the person on our right, read the thesis and evidence in the center and then either respond to how you think the evidence supports or does not support the first students thesis or what the first student said as to how it supports his/her thesis. When everyone is finished, each group member should once again pass the paper that they have just written on to their right so each person will have someone else's paper to respond to. This time the reader can respond to the evidence/theme support or any of the comments on the newsprint. This process will continue until everyone has had a chance to respond to everyone else's paper. When this occurs, the person who chose the quote should read all of the responses they have received from their group members.
- Doing the Collaborative Conversation Activity: 15 minutes
Tell students:Now that we each have a large paper with a quote in the middle, we are going to break up into groups of four. We are going to count off by ______. You will have approximately 15 minutes to complete this activity. Please make sure that everyone has a chance to share.
- Processing/Exit Ticket: 5-10 minutes
Tell students:We would like to hear about how this activity worked for you. What did you notice? Hear some responses and then ask students to write an exit ticket answering: What did you learn about the quotation/evidence you chose to use to support your thesis? How will this help you explain the rationale for the other quotations/evidence you choose to support your thesis or counter argument?