Outers, Inners, Switch, Rotate

Today in class I switched something in my plans completely last minute to get my students moving around, and it was very eye opening. We are currently in the middle of understanding how to write an argument paper. Using plans through NWP College of Ready Writers  to teach the process, we are at the part where students write their claims. To begin with today, my students did a thinking tracker.

They had originally done one the day we got started so today's thinking tracker was to show how their thinking has changed since we listened to everyone at the table. There were ten people (sources) at the table and each source had a different idea about our argument: Should chocolate milk be served in schools? I have taught the students that they can not join the conversation until they listen to what everyone else has to say.

It was interesting to watch how much they had to say this time around on their thinking trackers. After that, I created a conversation piece called Outers, Inners, Switch, Rotate. I had half the class line up around the room. They were the outers. I then partnered the other half with one of those students. They were the inners. The outers went first and never rotated. The inners always went second and moved from person to person. The outers spent 15 seconds to sharing their thinking about the chocolate milk argument and needed to explain why. After 15 seconds I said switch and the inners started speaking. After 15 seconds, I rang the bell to motion my inners to rotate. They moved to the next person. And the process was repeated. Over and over again until the students found themselves back  to their original spot.

Here is what I learned by doing this:

1. Some students have a hard time explaining why. They can tell what they think but are unable to verbally explain their thinking.

2. The students interacted with one another quite well. When it was not their time to talk, they listened intently, and only spoke when it was their turn.

3. This was the perfect scaffold to help my students understand they need to have reasons to support their thinking. When we came back together as a group and talked about reasons to support or not, many had a hard time narrowing down their thinking to the specifics.

4. They were moving and not sitting stagnant. It was the perfect activity for the afternoon so they could get up and have a change of pace.