A flexible (and quite cheap) resource
for writing
and speaking activities — grades 7-12
Scott
Johnston
Each
weekday in the Herald Sun newspaper, on the Editorial/Letters
to the Editor pages, there is a phone poll question related to
some current event. Each question is accompanied by a black and
white, passport photo-sized image. Not all of these are relevant
outside Victoria or for other times, but many are. I collect the
ones I feel will allow a reasoned response from the students I
teach, mounted on cards. I keep them in my classroom for a variety
of uses.
Examples
of the questions I’ve chosen recently are:
- Are
the Harry Potter Books bad for children?
- Should
the homeless and drug addicts be forced out of the city?
- Have
government smoking bans gone far enough?
- Is
one wife enough?
- Should
parents use private investigators to spy on their children?
USES:
Speed
Writing — I give a card to each child as they enter the
room so they all get something different. They sit and write for
5-10 minutes (depending on group) expressing an opinion in relation
to the question.
Research
— Each child/pair/group gets one card. They collect information
from different perspectives before writing a short essay discussing
the issue.
P.M.I.
— Using this DeBono Cort Thinking technique, groups brainstorm
different responses to the question. Something like "Equal
Voices" would be the Social Task; the brainstorm the Academic
Task. This is a valuable strategy (whether individually, in groups
or whole class ) as it encourages students to order thoughts and
collect ideas prior to writing or formal speaking.
Individual
Essay Topics — After whole class instruction and modelling
of opinionative essay writing, each student gets a topic on which
to write (plan/draft/revise) an opinionative essay.
Discussion
Starters — small group or whole class.
SHORT
TALK TOPICS
Vox
Pop Questions — Each student collects quick responses
to one question from 10-20 people not in class. (Great homework
task!) They display their findings, possibly adding a digital
image and some general information about responders. Students
could draw conclusions from their collected comments and graph
their results. They could also do this on video, using something
like Andrew Urban’s Front Up on SBS television
as a model.
Radio
Talkback — (After listening to less emotional and emotive
talkback radio such as Life Matters or Australia Talks
Back on ABC Radio National.)
- One
student is appointed as talkback host (the teacher may want
to do this as teacher-in-role in the first few attempts to
help maintain classroom control).
-
All class members choose a role description - one or two sentences
of description for each student. It’s good to build these
up over time so that the same characters don’t keep appearing
in the ‘performance’.
- One
question is chosen and introduced to ‘audience’
by the radio host (who might need to do some research to coordinate
and direct discussion).
- Devise
some signalling system for in-role contributors to signal
their wish to enter the discussion.
IDEA
— If this is done as a small group activity, consider tape
record for playing back to the class and to use to collect information
for oral assessment.
