Left to right: Amelia Earhart, Cesar Chavez, Susan B. Anthony
Students started arriving early into the classroom, some already in costume, most carrying bags and asking if they should get changed yet (the answer was an emphatic "yes"). The pair of Frederick Douglasses were tearing up a length of burgundy tulle into what they made into excellent-looking cravates. I was relieved that I'd taken the time to arrange the classes so thoroughly last night - the arrangement of the room established expectations and provided clear channels for the energy buzzing in the room. Here's what the classroom looked like before school, with a shot taken from behind the back tables (the tables set up for the note-takers) - all arranged, but empty:
And heres's a close-up of two panellists' place-settings:
Our guests of honor were fifth graders from High Tech Elementary, who arrived with clipboards and a note-catcher. They were focused on studying our exhibition, because they are in the early stages of planning a US History exhibition of their own. You can see them watching the panel here:
I'll have a lot more to say about the exhibition after I debrief it with the students tomorrow, but tonight I'm focusing on a single component of it: the "two axes of content".
I'm focusing on this because of an interesting dichotomy: the characters' "opening statements", in which they introduced themselves and touched on the issues within the State of the Union that they were most preoccupied by, were excellent. However, the discussion that followed tended to be stilted and a bit shallow.
We'd done "practice discussions" too, but never as deliberately as we prepared the opening statement.
However, there was a bigger problem that wasn't clear to me until the discussion started: students didn't understand the issues in the depth required to discuss them meaningfully, particularly "in character". We hadn't addressed the nuances of, for example, the implications of a minimum wage increase on different parts of the country, so there wasn't scope for depth in the discussion. I'd thought of the students as "skilled at discussion" because they are adept at hosting their own Socratic Seminars, but these are always focused on a single text focused on a single issue, rather than on an array of different issues, as this one. I visualize the content knowledge required in order to be a part of a discussion like this as two axes - like this:
What makes sense now is that we need to attend to these two axes individually before bringing them together. Next year, my plan is to start studying the issues that are likely to be in the State of the Union as soon as we get back from Winter Break, and to make bingo cards with our predictions for issues that will be covered in the State of the Union. We'll then watch the address and play issue bingo, and THEN, we'll start talking about which historical figure everyone wants to portray.
Day 2 down! At some point I intend to write something with an intended audience other than "me", but no promises.
