Video Recordings from WordGen Elementary Classrooms

Teacher: Monique Conaway
Boston, MA

Activity: Developing a Position
Topic: School Uniforms
Clip 1
Preparing students for discussion
Clip 2
Ms. Conaway introduces the debate topic. Students around the circle share their perspectives.
Clip 3
Students respond to other’s perspectives and/or further support for their own perspective.
09:03 - Student references another’s perspective.
Clip 4
00:00 - Ms. Conaway asks student about how previous assertion supports his perspective.
01:13 - She reminds students to ground their arguments in the their previous research.
02:35 - She questions a student’s assertion.
03:35 - She relates a familiar experience to the topic.
Clip 5
00:00 - Ms. Conaway wraps up discussion and questions students about their experience… if their minds have changed, etc.
05:12 - She identifies some common themes that arose in their debate.
05:55 - She explains that next students will go back to their desks and write out their final perspective on the debate.
Clip 6
Ms. Conaway asks students to share their current, and in some cases revised, perspectives on the topic.
Clip 7
00:00 - Ms. Conaway introduces a new question: Does arguing make you smarter? She then asks students to write their positions in their notebooks.
00:48 - She asks students to share their ideas.

Teacher: Beverley Brembt
Dennis, MA

Activity: Perspective Taking
Topic: When is it acceptable to break the rules?
Clip 1
Class reviews topic and the unit’s focus words.
Clip 2
Five students present the unit’s reader’s theater.
Clip 3
Partner work. Students pick one character from the reader’s theater and focus on that character’s perspective. Students look for evidence in the text that supports their view of the character’s perspective.
Clip 4
Students gather to discuss their chosen character perspectives. They cite evidence. Ms. Brembt also asks questions.
Clip 5
Ms. Brembt asks students to think about what they would do based on the choices presented in the text. Students are asked to consider a situation similar to the one described in the unit. Students work in groups based on the the situations they chose.
Clip 6
Ms. Brembt asks the students to think about the characters' views in a more general context. She also offers students the opportunity to modify their positions.
Clip 7
Students discuss the characters' positions in different contexts and frequently use the the unit’s focus words.
Clip 8
The class has a “fishbowl” discussion. Groups of four students are chosen to have a discussion about the perspectives of the characters and to use as many of the unit's focus words as possible. Other students are asked to keep track of how many times the focus words are used.

Development of Word Generation was led by Catherine Snow (Harvard University) and Suzanne Donovan (SERP). Major SERP contributors to program development include: Claire White, Alyse Krantz, Halley Wheeless, Matt Ellinger, David Dudley, and Patrick Hurley. Boston Public Schools and other districts in Massachusetts and Maryland collaborated with SERP to develop Word Generation.


Support for Word Generation was provided by the Carnegie Corporation of New York, the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, the Noyce Foundation, the Spencer Foundation, the Leon Lowenstein Foundation and the Institute of Education Sciences, U.S. Department of Education through grant numbers R305A090555 and R305F100026. The information provided does not represent views of the funders.

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