No "Wasted" Days

It is the Tuesday before Thanksgiving. It is the Friday before winter break. Or spring break. At least ⅓ of your class is missing, and the kids who are physically present are mentally halfway to grandma’s house. 

Perhaps you knew that the orchestra field trip was coming up, but you didn’t realize that half of your class is in orchestra due to some mechanics of the master schedule. Maybe the power is out, or the wifi is down. (Note: I did have a windowless interior classroom in my first year of teaching. There’s not much you can do but wait for the power to return and plead with the students to stop screaming. Seriously, why do they scream?)

Regardless, you can’t do what you planned, or it feels pointless to go on with your prepared lesson because you’ll need to teach it all over again when the kids return from…wherever they are. 

What can you do that would meaningfully engage the students?

Here are some student-centered activities that can be deployed when you feel like you need to hit “pause” on the progression of your normal learning:

• Unconference
• Group Argument Construction
• Participatory Mapping
• Brackets and Extemporaneous Debate

What is an “unconference”? 

At many conferences, participants attend a keynote address where an expert shares their learning. In an unconference, the participants drive the topics and format of the learning. An unconference in the classroom centers the students as experts and permits them to have intellectual discussions on topics of their choosing.

How can I do that in a classroom?

This is an opportunity for students to practice their academic discussion skills outside of course content, and can look something like this:

1. Have the students brainstorm a list of topics that they are knowledgeable about and could have an intellectual discussion about with their classmates. Give the students access to sticky notes and have them write one topic per sticky note. The students should then place the sticky notes on the whiteboard. 
2. Weed out the sticky notes that would be inappropriate or too controversial for the classroom. You or some student volunteers can group the sticky notes by topic. 
3. Once you have topically arranged the sticky notes, you can schedule the conversations. Depending on the length of your class, the size of your classroom, and the number of topics, the conversations could be 10-20 minutes long, with several conversations running concurrently. Give the students a few minutes to decide which discussion they’ll participate in for each session. The locations for the conversations could have a circle of chairs, but it really isn’t necessary for you to prepare the locations. 

You’ll need a healthy tolerance for noise. Decide in advance if students are permitted to change conversations once they’ve begun. Circulate during the conversations to encourage discussion skills and make sure they haven’t strayed too far from the topic.

What might that look like?

Group Argument Construction

This activity reinforces key skills in argumentation: claim, evidence, and reasoning (CER). It can also reinforce rhetorical appeals if the students are already familiar with them. In small groups, the students will co-construct an argument on a topic that gets them fired up. 

How can I do that?

1. You know your students best. Do you need to provide a list of 4-5 things that you know bother them/get them excited? Can they brainstorm a list of topics? In the past, I’ve given the students a prompt like “What are some things that are ridiculous about being a teenager?” or “If you could change one thing about school, what would it be?” I then have the students vote to get the top 4-6 answers.
2. In groups of 4-5 students, the students will practice writing thesis statements, claims supported by specific evidence, and reasoning linking the evidence to the claim. This can be done on whiteboards (if you have the space), chart paper, or in a shared document (if the wifi is up and the devices are charged). Download our free CER template for an easy guide in using this method.

What might that look like?

The “winning” topics: being overworked, balancing life and school, quality of teaching, being able to drive and join the military before they can vote. 

The “winning” topics: being overworked, balancing life and school, quality of teaching, being able to drive and join the military before they can vote. 

The “winning” topics: being overworked, balancing life and school, quality of teaching, being able to drive and join the military before they can vote. 

The “winning” topics: being overworked, balancing life and school, quality of teaching, being able to drive and join the military before they can vote. 

Participatory Mapping

Participatory mapping links personal associations with a place with a person’s individual understanding of the physical layout of a space. This can be an empowering experience for the students while also highlighting the often invisible insights into the physical space of a school. This activity reinforces key skills in argumentation: claim, evidence, and reasoning.

How can I do that?

1. Give each student a piece of paper. They need a writing/drawing utensil and at least one colored utensil (marker, highlighter, colored pencil, crayon).
2. Have the students outline the school on their paper. At this time, they should only be concentrating on the outer walls and other physical boundaries of the campus.
3. Ask the students to map out the interior of the school with as much detail as they can remember without consulting a building/campus map. Encourage them to form a map key to keep their maps legible.
4. Have the students compare their individual maps with the students closest to them. None of the students need to make a change to their maps unless they really feel that they missed something important. The accuracy of the map is not important.
5. Have the students indicate the place on the map where they feel the most comfortable and the least comfortable.
6. On the reverse side of the map, have the students use claim, evidence, and reasoning to compare and contrast the two places they’ve indicated on the map.

What might that look like?

I would love to show you, but it wouldn’t be smart to post interior maps of my former school, even hand-drawn maps distorted by the students’ perceptions. I can tell you that there were a lot of giggles while attempting to detail the interior of the school. I also learned which student restrooms should always be avoided. I received a lot of unfiltered criticism of the school’s “learning cottages” (temporary classroom trailers) and several moving paragraphs about the performing arts wing of the school that I shared with that department. 

Brackets and Extemporaneous Debate

Brackets aren’t only for sports. They are a visible representation of trade-offs made on the way to discovering the best of something. Anytime something is “the best,” there’s an argument. Depending on the reasoning for your foray into deciding that you might need one of these “No ‘Wasted’ Day” activities, there are many ways to approach this activity. Regardless of your approach, this is an opportunity to practice academic discussion skills and claim, evidence, and reasoning.

How can I do that?

Is it the day before Thanksgiving? Do a “side dish smackdown.” Is it the day before Winter Break? It’s time for a holiday movie showdown. Is it a random Tuesday, and you aren’t sure where half of your class is? Maybe it is time to learn which cafeteria meal the students like best. The key to a successful bracket and extemporaneous debate activity is managing your time. You don’t want to start off with a “Sweet 16” if you aren’t going to have the time to get to the final pairing. You also don’t want to let a student’s argument go on for too long and then lack the time for the opposition to give their argument. I’ve done the “side dish smackdown” the day before Thanksgiving break for years. It is always a hit, and I’m always surprised by the students’ fervently held opinions. 

1. Start by brainstorming the “best of” list. You’ll want 8-10 options. If you have time, you can get fancy with the pairings: keep the movie musicals paired and separate from the slapstick movies, and keep the vegetable side dishes separate from the carbs. Otherwise, just pair them with other items on the list and keep it moving.
2. Start with the first pairing (maybe something like cornbread vs. corn pudding). Tell the students to think about which they like better. Students with strong opinions should take turns giving 30 seconds to 1 minute (tops!) evidence and reasoning for why the side dish they selected is so good. This helps to describe side dishes for students who might not be familiar with all of the options. Note: We don’t “yuck” other people’s “yum.” The students are not permitted to say things they don’t like or think are “gross” about the other side dish. We are respectful of families’ food traditions.
3. Then we do a simple “hands up” vote and move on. 

What might that look like?

It looks like big smiles. It looks like intensity during descriptions of homemade mac and cheese. It also looks like a really intense quarter and semi-finals where I’ve had some of my more reluctant students volunteer and give detailed evidence and thoughtful reasoning.