Open+Discourse

Type
SOCIAL

Description
Students answer a question or respond to a prompt by writing on the white board as a group, sometimes all at once, sometimes returning singly to make modifications or additions.

Purpose
To harvest student thinking. To promote student expression.

Range
Grade 4+

Fruitility
Kids love to write on walls! This strategy is a nice combination of public and private: students are expressing themselves publicly, but also quietly and at the same time that everyone else is mostly paying attention to their own writing. This activity weaves a kind of social fabric safety net.

Features
I call this strategy //Talking Wall//. It's a good way to generate contributions from many students. Rather than giving the prompt and then asking students to individually say what's on their mind, all students head to the board and many start writing immediately. There's a lot going on, so there's no sense of being in a spotlight. Some students hang back and watch, then go up and write. It's a nice way to coax public speech out of private (and not-so private) young adolescents. The activity nicely straddles public and private space.