Steps
- This exercise encourages students to collaborate with each other to develop a topic, working questions, a path of inquiry, and a baseline of communal knowledge. Part One is completed independently; Parts Two and Three are completed in two different groups of two or three students. Detailed steps are available in the pdf activity instructions
- Part One: Students generate topics and subtopics that they are curious about based on broad categories.
- Part Two: Students collaborating with classmates to consider the topic from several perspectives beyond their own.
- Part Three: Either in small groups or as a gallery walk, students free write questions about other students’ topics.
Materials Needed
- enough copies of the activity instructions for all students (download file below)
- 11 x 17 paper for all students
- tape (if doing the gallery walk version of Part Three)
Considerations
- This activity would work especially well in TWP or composition courses.
- The activity takes the better part of a class period. Part 1 could be assigned to students as homework ahead of class to reduce the amount of time needed.
- This activity is from the book EmpoWord: A Student-Centered Anthology & Handbook for College Writers (p. 289-292) by Shane Abrams and is reproduced here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 License. The use of this Creative Commons license means that you are also welcome to edit the activity to better suit your course.