Give Yourself an Early Christmas Present: Silent Discussion

Give yourself an early Christmas present! Ask your students what they’re learning about the big ideas in your unit or course. Even better, use an interactive protocol where they can see each other’s learning and build on it. Best of all: do it in writing, so you can capture it to reflect on when you need encouragement, to know that you are making a difference in young people’s lives. Previously I’ve used online discussion boards, hexagonal thinking, and one-pagers. This week I used a silent discussion protocol. 

In 6th and 7th grade ELA, we’d just finished our final literary analysis essay on A Long Walk to Water by Linda Sue Park, and I wanted to wrap up with some reflection on our big learnings. The novel alternates between the true story Salva, who became one of the Lost Boys of Sudan, and the story of Nya, a composite portrait of the life of a girl in South Sudan. I gave each student 3 post-it notes, and I made 3 posters, each with a prompt in the center that they were to address on one of the post-it notes:

1. What did you learn about the world: What’s amazing? What’s awful?
2. What did you learn about your neighbors: How people are like/unlike you? How knowing that helps you love them?
3. What did you learn about yourself: Who you are? Who you want to be?

Here are some of the things students wrote on the notes that they stuck on each of the 3 posters:

(1) What did you learn about the world: What’s amazing? What’s awful?

1. I learned that my “normal life” might be somebody else’s dream. Being able to go to school every day, have a house, and eat.
2. The world is not a perfect place and never will be, but we can try to make it bearable and prosperous for everybody.
3. In the story, even though Salva’s uncle was killed by some people in the Nuer tribe, he didn’t become prejudiced against everyone in the rival Nuer tribe because he gave water to them, too. Even if you have a bad experience with someone from a certain community, tribe, etc., that doesn’t make everyone from that place bad.

(2) What did you learn about your neighbors: How people are like/unlike you? How knowing that helps you love them?

1. I learned other people’s struggles could be way worse than mine, and I felt encouraged by other people’s stories and how they overcame their struggles.
2. I learned that I shouldn’t just look away from people that are in the middle of a problem even if I don’t know that person that much. 
3. Neighbors are sometimes all the way in other countries, like when the workers at the camps helped Salva to live a better life.

(3) What did you learn about yourself: Who you are? Who you want to be?

1. I would like to be like Salva who has the power to take action for other people.
2. I learned that I am very fortunate and should appreciate the family and people around me.
3. I learned that I should be more grateful for my surroundings, and be thankful for my opportunities.

Students then divided themselves into groups. Each group got 4 minutes at each poster. Students were eager to read their classmates thoughts and write their own responses on the poster around the post-its.

And I’m still smiling, reading over what they learned. 

How about you? Does knowing that students are learning important things in your class energize you? If so, how do you find out what important things they’re learning? How do you ask students to reflect on, interact with classmates over, and record their their big learnings from a unit?