Silent Discussion

By Valerie Bherer, John Abbott College

At a Glance

Discipline

  • Languages and Literature

Instructional Level

  • College & CEGEP

Course

  • Literary Genres or Literary Themes

Tasks in Workflow

Social Plane(s)

  • Individual
  • Group

Type of Tasks

  • Discussing

Technical Details

Class size

  • Small (20-49)

Time

  • Single class period (< 90 mins)

Inclusivity & Accessibility

  • Diversity of engagement

Instructional Purpose

  • Consolidation & metacognition

Overview

In this activity, students deepen their understanding of a text through a written discussion. The goal is to encourage students to develop their analysis beyond the natural threshold of an oral discussion. Through this activity, students are exposed to different interpretations and aim to connect different points and perspectives to create a more comprehensive interpretation. They also gain an awareness of audience and practice supporting or refuting others’ arguments.

Students are in groups of 4-5. Each student is given a question or passage to analyze. They begin answering the question on a piece of paper. When they have made a point, they pass their sheet to the next person and receive a new question. They then continue the answer that was started by the previous student, and so on until they have added to all 4-5 discussions.
This draws on a socioconstructivist approach that allows students to work collaboratively to expand their understanding of a text.

It is a good idea to use this activity towards the end of a unit on a text, when discussion dies down or students feel like they have exhausted the points they can make on their own. A sustained writing exercise, the activity will usually take a good hour or more.

Instructional Objectives

Students will be able to elaborate on an argument and support it with additional evidence. They will also be able to analyze a text in a sustained and developed way.

Workflow & Materials

Workflow

Activity Workflow

View on CourseFlow
Document

Model

Valerie Bherer

Document

Template

Valerie Bherer

Contributor's Notes

Benefits
Challenges
Tips
Benefits
  • Allows students who are shy or uncomfortable with discussions to participate
  • Deepens the conversation by giving students time to reflect
  • Gives students a platform to disagree with each other in an academic way, something they are often reluctant to do out loud.
Challenges
  • Conversation can get blocked if one student takes longer to answer the prompt. If multiple students are waiting to answer, you could diverge from the order to provide everyone a chance to write at the same time. Numbering the prompts will help everyone keep track of which prompts they still have to answer.
  • Questions that are easier to answer (or demand less reflection) will be dealt with more quickly, so try to come up with questions that are similar in terms of depth.
  • Students can be confused about what to do at first. Provide a model of the discussion so students know what to expect.
Tips
  • This activity will work best if the teacher first models the kind of engagement they would like to see from this student. Show students examples of the kind of elaboration and counter-argumentation you would like to see.
  • As answers develop, it will take progressively longer for students to respond; the students will need to read their teammates’ answers and think of new points.
  • A public version of this activity can be done on the board: in this variation, the discussion starts on the whiteboard. The teacher writes the prompt, and one student gets up to add an answer and returns to their seat. Then, a second student gets up to add to what the previous person wrote, and so on. However, this does not work as well in groups of 35-40.
  • Although the activity itself takes one class period to complete, the teacher will likely need to plan for a debrief or synthesis the next class. The discussions could be redistributed among other groups and students could take on the job of synthesis (I have not tried this, though.) Questions that generate controversy could also be examined a second time during the next class. However, this exercise takes a lot of stamina for students, so I would not recommend redoing the full exercise a second time.

Applied Strategies

Peer Instruction & Think-pair-share

Communication, conceptual reasoning and reflection

Reflective Writing

Formal preparatory reflection