Dear colleague,
One of our amazing colleagues wrote a comment on my YouTube channel recently that perfectly describes how to approach your first Pop-Up Debates of the school year. (For more on Pop-Up Debates, see the index of your copy of These 6 Things or this guide.)
Here's what Connie Fletcher said:
One of my classes is seventh grade social studies, and this will be my first year to try pop-up debates. I’m going to start by just calling it a pop-up the first few times, kind of like a game. Students will pop up information about themselves such as their middle name, their birthday, pets, family names, favorite food, etc. Once I get them used to popping up with super short phrases, I’ll move on to full sentences from a sentence stem. I’m really excited to use this in my classroom!
Connie's doing a lot of things right here, the most important of which is being excited to use Pop-Up Debates in her classroom. If she keeps approaching this tool with such thoughtfulness and care, she's going to discover things that I could only dream of. (As Kelly Gallagher once said regarding my use of one of his strategies, “Dave has done what all good teachers do: take an idea and make it better for his kids.” That is what I'm reminded of when I read what Connie is doing with this idea of Pop-Up Debates.)
So what's so strong about Connie's approach here? What boxes does what she describes check off in my mind?
She's aware of the initial hurdle: kids' anxiety about public speaking. To help her students overcome this hurdle, she's doing a few smart things:
- Calling it a pop-up, not a pop-up debate — that's going to reduce the pressure they feel getting started
- Beginning with topics they are comfortable with, such as trivia about themselves
- Beginning with a low-bar expectation for participation — simply stand up and share the word or phrase that answers the prompt
- Holding in her mind where she plans to take them and how she plans to help them get there — getting them from phrases to sentences, using a sentence stem
I've got a similar progression in my classroom, which you can read about in your copy of These 6 Things (“Common Student Hang-up: My Students Are Terrified of Public Speaking! Help!”) or this article section.
While Connie's approach to helping kids over that public speaking anxiety hurdle is different from mine, I gotta tell ya, colleague: I like hers more.
Why?
Because it's hers.
Because it's smart.
Because she's excited about it.
And because it's going to work.
Teaching right beside you,
DSJR
PS For how I kicked off PUDs last week, see this video:
PPS I do have a student this year with accommodations that prevent me from requiring them to speak during class. As I wrote in this article, I always follow these accommodations. Before doing our first PUD last week, I pulled this student aside, explained Pop-Up Debates, and told the student they are invited to participate but not required to do so. I'm hoping that, before the semester is through, this student will experience the success of standing up during a PUD. I'll seek to cultivate that one gentle MGC at a time.
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