Lesson Overview 

The Quiz 

As always begin with a quiz.  If the students don't read - they should do the reading, and this assignment then becomes homwork.  Without penalty.  I include two different quizzes below, depending on how much you assign to read: 6-12 and 9-13.

A Quote Group Discussion:

Unlike a Group Work, with this exercise the students will not be turning anything in.  The discussion that they have, though, will help them with their exam and/or essay on Persuasion.  For students that did not do the reading (as evidenced by their quiz), they are not allowed to get into a group and some years I would ask to see their notes the next day on these quotes which they were to go over for homework.  Here are my directions to the Groups taken directly from the student Handout:

You that don’t need me to have a good discussion – but, you do need to have done the reading.  DO NOT get into a group unless you completely finished the reading (read the actual book, NOT summaries).  Choose a group of anywhere from 2-5 members.  Choose people that you’d like to have a discussion with.  This is NOT group work – you will turn nothing in, though your notes may be very helpful for the Persuasion exam.  Take good notes. 

The students are then given the table and directions as follows:

Each group member should come up with a total of 2 things (just like in class).  Write them down.  They should be either a I) Comment  II) Question  III) a direct quote (a cool or interesting one) IV) or a specific link to something else that we have done.  Spread your comments (or whatever you wrote) throughout whichever chapters you are assigned.  Look below and find the chapter that you doing - examine the quotes you already have been given – make sure your two don’t repeat them. Make sure each chapter has at least one thing.  Give yourself only 4 minutes to find these (at the most).  When you have them ready – quickly get started on your discussion.

Discussion  - have a timekeeper – divide your time by 5 and write that next to each chapter heading  below – so you know where you have to be time-wise – in order to finish your discussion.

  Begin each chapter with what your members came up with (if time is short, limit each member to 2, rather than 3 of the things they came up [especially in the bigger groups]) – ask, comment, link – and then talk about it.  Discuss.  Make sure you take notes, just as you would in a large class discussion. 

For each chapter, after  you and your group discuss what you came up – read through that chapter’s quotes (found below) and use these as starting points of discussion.  If you’ve already talked about them (with your own quotes or comments) move on to the next  – keep taking notes – write down what you come up.  Talk about whatever you want – but you may want to link to other quotes from this reading – from the first reading – or from anything else that we’ve done. 

A Vertext Based Class Discussion:

 The Vertext is actually like the Small Group Quote Discussion except it takes place with the entire class.    Start at one end of the room - have a student read the first quote that appears on the Presentation, then that quote starts a conversation.  The quotes are picked to faciliatate discussion and the students always have something to say or ask about them.  See my page on class discussion methods for how to run a Vertext discussion.  There are 28 slides in this presentation - so plan your time well.

Row Reading Discussion:

In the years before I did the above Quote Group Discussion - we had a Whole Class Row Reading Discussion.  See my page on Class Discussion Methods for more on the how and why.  If you choose to go this route  you can find the Power Point that assigns which row is responsible for which part of the reading.  Beyond that here are the student instructions:

You will only have 5 minutes to prepare - good thing you wrote in your book!  Each person must prepare THREE ITEMS for their chapter.

•The First Two are either a comment or a question about their Chapter (these should be thoughtful enough to lead to discussion)

•The Third Item is a quote from this chapter that you found interesting, thoughtful, or important (again, this should have the potential to lead to discussion).

After the five minutes are up - begin the discussion by starting at the first row, first seat and the student will pick their choice of the the three specific things that they came up with.  Make sure you guage the time so that every student gets a chance to contribute.