Speed dating

I've been awful about blogging this year...  I think it's because I feel like I do the same-old, same-old every day.  But after a month plus of absences and family illnesses, I jumped back into the classroom ready to try some new stuff.


One of the things that I tried:  I started talking to my students about something (might have been some movie or a book series or something) and really worked on I agree, I disagree, and in my opinion.  We talked like that for a whole hour, but I decided to extend the activity (something I haven't been great about in the past) by creating a speed dating activity. 


I'm not sure if I've explained this activity before, but I create concentric circles and then have a PowerPoint of discussion topics ready.  I set the timer for 1-2 minutes and let them discuss the question.  When the timer goes off, the middle circle moves over and they have a new partner.  Not life-altering, I know.  If there's an odd number of students, I join the circle, which gives me a great way to informally assess students and their speaking skills. 


For this particular speed dating, I started with basic opinion statements:  Miley Cyrus sings well, The Walking Dead is the best series on TV, Wendy's has the best fries...  and then slowly ramped it up to more controversial statements: Women are smarter than men, violence is never the answer, All Muslims are terrorists.  Ooooh, those kids were jumping out of their skin ready to answer those questions!  They were so passionate that their affective filter was almost zero as they spouted anything in French that they thought would convey their perspective.  It was wonderful!  And the best part?  It wasn't just wonderful for me, the teacher...I had parents contact me about how much their children enjoyed that lesson plan and I had a student work all weekend to draw me something based on our discussion of power of non-violence.