Written Conversations a Success

When my 5th grade finished up a section of our History is Intertwined unit, I tried using written conversations with the students.  Each table had papers with a question related to one of our essential questions.  Students responded and passed the papers around keeping four or five separate conversations going about the same question.

The questions I used were:

What types of dilemmas did Tim and Sam face?  (In the book, My Brother Sam is Dead) What would you do if faced with one of these dilemmas?  (This question called for the lowest level of thinking because the dilemmas were specific and we had discussed them all as we read the book.)

What types of dilemmas did the slaves face?  What would you do if faced with these dilemmas?  (This question stepped up the thinking a bit as the dilemmas were mentioned in our social studies books, but we did not discuss them much.)

Are there principles worth dying for?  Why or why not?  Which ones?  (This question came from something the character, Sam, said in My Brother Sam is Dead and called for the highest level of thinking.)

The responses varied from meaningless chatting to deep insights and gave me a real window through which to see the students comprehension and higher level thinking skills.  Here are some examples from the ridiculous to the sublime.  (The names have been omitted and the worst of the errors corrected to protect the not-too-innocent.):

• But what would you do if you’re faced with those dilemmas?
• First of all, you can’t know that.  You have to investigate more!!!  But I also agree.
• Yeah, I agree with __________, you have to know more.
• What do you have to know more about?  Slaves or what?
• I agree with _________.  Oh, um…….what did you guys get on the bleep test? (They went on to discuss nail polish.  Sigh.)

Here’s one that shows more actual thinking:

• Tim faced a dilemma in which he had to decide if he would tell his father that Sam stole the Brown Bess or not.  I would not have told my dad because I’d want my brother to go to war and have pride.
• I don’t know because it would be scary to have a brother you didn’t hear from and who might well be dead, but it is a hard dilemma.
• Is Sam going against his principles?
• Yeah, I think so.  You shouldn’t steal or go against your father.  This describes how the war tore apart families.  His best friends should not decide what he would do.

I was able to assess who needed more help to understand the books, the movies, the times, and the thinking.  It was great.  We repeated this for three days until everyone had a chance to answer all the questions.  It was the best test I ever gave.