I like to coordinate lessons with other teachers at my school, which has led to using books as sources of debate...

I like to coordinate lessons with other teachers at my school, which has led to using books as sources of debate material. I take whatever book my students are reading that and either a) ask them to generate topics that could be controversial, or b) make a list of questions that would prompt the same sort of discussion. It has worked really well the last few years.

Last year, they read Frankenstein which generated topics ranging from "Who is responsible for the deaths in the book?" to "Do scientists have the right to create life?" It is really though-provoking and the students get really into it (especially for Japanese students).

The writing teacher then asked to use the ideas we generated in debate to write an essay.

Comments

  1. Julia BlinovaNovember 19, 2017 at 2:15 AM

    Mikaela Smith Sounds like a dream :) And how do you organize the 'topic-generation' process?

    ReplyDelete
  2. Mikaela SmithDecember 8, 2017 at 10:25 PM

    Julia Blinova I usually have students group up and ask them to come up with 3 per group. I also warn them to avoid common/overdone topics (and provide examples). After 10 minutes or so I ask the groups to exchange papers and come up with pros and cons for each topics. As I walk around, I make a mental note about which topics have the most deep/interesting conversations. Those are what I choose as the debate topics in the following classes.

    ReplyDelete

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