Four people, one story, and four different answers. A group can sort that out in fifteen minutes or argue about it for an hour, and the difference is five steps.
Not started yet.
Students will learn the five steps of a group discussion (choose roles, state the goal, brainstorm, reach a consensus, present), say what the moderator and the recorder do, and apply the steps to a discussion of a story's theme.
A consensus is a general agreement, not a vote and not the loudest person winning. Everyone has to be able to live with the answer.
Brainstorming means getting ideas out before judging them. A bad idea said early often leads to a good one.
Skipping the goal. A group that doesn't know what it's deciding talks for ten minutes and has nothing to present.
Treating consensus as a vote. If three of four agree, the discussion isn't done until the fourth has been heard.
Have the student hold a five-minute discussion at dinner on a question he picks, with a moderator and a recorder chosen first. The written task at the end of the lesson is exactly that.
The model discussion is invented for this lesson. The details the students mention come from Jack London's 'To Build a Fire', which the student met in the previous lesson.
Read-aloud is not available in this browser. Try Chrome or Safari.
Before You Start
The words this lesson uses. Tap a card to see what it means, then come back to them whenever a question uses one.
Part One
Questions about the story you just read. Pick your answer straight off, or press Find it in the story if you would rather hunt for the sentence first.
Part Two
The word cards are at the top of this page. Look back at them as often as you need, then answer.