Pop-Up Debates and Writing

I love my PLN on Twitter.  I pick up so many useful strategies and ideas. The first time I heard about Pop-Up Debates was in a tweet by David Stuart Jr. about his blog post.  This discussion strategy immediately appealed to me because it incorporated the use of interesting texts in an activity that utilized thinking, listening, and speaking.  Being a writing teacher, I adapted his standard procedure to incorporate writing.  I believe this to be one of the best new strategies I've tried this year.

Pop-Up Debate Norms

Before you begin anything new, you must set norms. I have three norms:

1. Every student must speak at least one time, at most two times. We will use popsicle sticks to keep up with this.
2. To speak, simply stand up and speak. The first person to do so has the floor; when more than one person stands up, cordially and smoothly yield the floor. The teacher doesn’t serve as “Who gets to speak” referee.  On a side note, one of my classes needed a little help "yielding" the floor.  They are stubborn.  If no one sits down within 30 seconds, they all must sit down and loose the opportunity to speak next.  Turn-taking is not easy for all students.
3. For the sake of keeping the debate as lively as possible, the teacher may, at any point in the debate, call upon students who haven’t spoken yet or open the floor up to all students, even those who have already maxed out their speaking turns.

Pop-Up Debate Steps 

The debates are easy to prepare.  The hardest part is finding an interesting article that will spur discussion.  Find a 1-3 page article of a debatable issue.  The length depends on how much time you have to devote to the debate.  It's best if the article includes evidence for both sides.  I've started a google drive that includes some articles that are perfect for grades 5-12.  Many have different lexile levels for one article.  Also, New York Times has a post linking 100 different debatable topics.

Follow these steps for easy Pop-Up Debate implementation:

1. Introduce the Pop-Up Debate to your students.  The powerpoint I use is in the google drive. 
2. Students vote for what they believe about the topic.  This week our topic was: Should countries be able to ban the wearing of a veil in public places.
3. Give students the article to read.  I encourage my students to "read with their pencil" or "mark up" their text, locating evidence to support their opinion.   
4. After they've read the text, they write a short response in their journals to organize their thinking.  I use a short response format called A.C.E. Our students use this framework for all short response writing.
5. Once they've organized their thinking, they are ready to debate.  All students receive 1+ popsicle sticks.  To speak, they must "pop-up" to talk.  Every time they make a claim, they must give me a stick.  This ensures all students participate and no one dominates the conversation.  The number of sticks a student receives depends on the amount of time you wish to spend on the debate.  I typically use two, however if I want a quick discussion, I will use one. 
6. The teacher acts as mediator, only getting involved when necessary.  The majority of the discussion takes place between the students.  
7. When we are finished, students get out their journals.  They write a short response, in A.C.E. format, about one of two topics:
1. They explain what they have learned during the debate.  
2. They expand on the opinion they already wrote.  This is their chance to say points they didn't get a chance to verbalize during the debate. 
8. Finally, students may vote again on the issue.  In my class, if they change their mind they go and move their name from one side to the other.
9. After the debate is over, I select a few students to create a poster of our debate.  They include the text, steps, best quotes from the debate, and some pictures.  I plan to display all our Pop-Ups in the hall to encourage other teachers to try this strategy.
   
   

Pop-Up debates allow students to read an article, process the information, and debate the topic using evidence.  This strategy encourages students to use evidence when discussing important topics and allows all students to verbalize their thinking. It is the perfect strategy to reinforce multiple ELA standards.