TC0399_001018
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Transcript of
Pinwheel Discussions, Texts in Conversation
Teacher: Sarah Wessling GLI

Let me share with you my recipe for great literary discussions. It requires three students, three authors, and one provocateur.

Today students were getting texts to talking conversation each other. When they walked in they saw the desks were rearranged in this pinwheel shape and they’re coming in knowing something isn’t going to be done to me today, I’m going to be doing something and it made them a little nervous.

Teacher: You’re going to be fine …You’re going to be fine.

This week they had been introduced to three different authors and today I wanted those authors to talk to each other, and I wanted the students to be able to take on the persona of the authors and have a discussion that they were really leading.

Teacher: The three stories that you have read so far we’re going to have them in conversation with each other today, all right?

I needed to prepare these small cards so that every student would have a card with a role on it that I just shuffled to randomly put students in a different category.

Teacher: So you’re either going to be Flannery O’Connor today, you’re going to be Sherman Alexi today, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, or you’re going to be a provocateur.

Teacher: The job of the provocateur is to make sure that discussions continue to happen.
When I introduced the role of the provocateur I saw about seven of them, “I want that one.”

Teacher: We’ve got O’Connor right here.

They will sit in this square shape so that the four people who are sitting kind of knee to knee would be in discussion with each other, and then after a little while someone new takes their place and they in turn then take on that conversation.

Teacher: The provocateur group is going to work to un-devise several questions pretty quickly, but I am going to ask each group to submit at least one question that you think is important to your author and to the story.

At the beginning of the lesson I did a mini-lesson on how to use text from the story in order to write this question.

Teacher: I want to kind of give you a formula. So you can start by saying something like “In O’Connor she,” and then we’ve got an active verb, what are some of our good verbs? Implies. Presents, brings out. Proves. So we’ve got a good verb. Then you’re going to say what that is. You can also use something more specific here. “In Old Man, Marquez writes.” So implicit in your question is a quote from the text, and then you have what he writes, and then you form your question after that. If you’re not using a specific quote you can also use a paraphrase. “In Jimi Hendrix”, you can say something about the character right. “The father.” You can kind of paraphrase something very specific that happens, and then you move to your question from there. As you start to own this skill you need to follow the formula anymore, you’ll be able to craft your own. You’re going to have about 10 minutes to prepare. You’re thinking about concepts, the characters, important textual evidence.

Student: Here’s the question. I said “In a Good Man is Hard to Find the mistress says ….

Teacher: You’re going to answer it as Flannery O’Connor.

Student: Oh, man.

Teacher: I know, but you’re going to rise to it.

Student: I really don’t know much about Marquez because I wasn’t here that day.

Teacher: OK, so just a couple quick things.

I kind of wanted to have a little huddle with the provocateurs because if the provocateurs don’t ask the questions, don’t ask the follow up questions, don’t listen, then the whole thing kind of falls apart.

Student: ….more of a coffee house discussion than a debate?

Teacher: Yes, yes, very well said.

The only thing I’ll do is I’ll just say when it’s time to rotate.

Teacher: All right, go ahead.

Student: In the midst of it he says “Gee ______ off balance, do you think that’s a good thing or a bad thing?

Student: The misfit is maybe a good thing because then he can justify what he did.

Student: Just off the top ___________ I think __________ wants to kill an angel which is kind of weird because you wouldn’t really think of killing an angel. So I think that kind of throws things off balance, kind of your perception of it.

Student: When the father gets arrested and that’s like throwing things off balance and he gets punished for that but without those things then that picture would never have been shown of him and when that happened that possibility for change for a whole group of people …

If the culture of the exercise is to take on a different persona they are more willing to go into that persona, analyze a little bit more fearlessly because that’s what the expectation of everyone is, is to kind of be fearless in this persona.

Student: Alexi presents the conflict of viewpoints in the lines “only the good die young and only crazy people choke to death on their own vomit.” How does conflict outline morality and heroism.

Student: I think some people kind of have a skewed version of their heroes.
My role is really to listen. I also think it was kind of helpful that I’ve told them I was going to tally up on the board some of these skills that we were looking for.

Student: He’s old, he barely has any teeth, has hardly any hair and you don’t see that as something that’s coming to save you.

Are they making connections, are they using textual evidence, are they offering a new idea, are they asking a follow-up question.

Student: What I hear from you guys is that it kind of isn’t the savior or real hero figure ___ in any of these stories, right?

If you’re seeing people getting little tally marks for follow up questions I think it creates the environment for more follow up questions.

Student: So then do you think that there’s no possibility of a cultural reciprocation?

Student: I think there is a reciprocation, nothing is without its consequence.

Student: In Marquez’s story The Old Man, an angel falls and since they’re angels there’s no ____ God yet in the story there’s no explicit God nor is there any savior for the angel in the end except himself. How does this relate back to real life?

One of probably the most important things that I said to them was that they should be ready for some silence and that can feel really awkward and it could make you want to answer your own question. So they were practicing some pretty amazing wait time today.

Student: I think the debate was was it an angel or was it just some weird old dude with wings. I don’t know if it necessarily flies, I don’t ….

One of the things I really loved was when it was a student other than the provocateur who asked one of the other authors a follow up question.

Student: Is the angel an actual angel, or is it a good man?

Teacher: They never actually tell you.

That lets us know they are synthesizing all of these stories at once because they’re trying to get this other person to pull out something that maybe they’re already thinking.

Student: Do you think the misfit actually wants there to be a god?

Student: Not necessarily because he has probably convinced himself already that there isn’t a god but ____ is still unbalanced.

It’s not just about them and their learning, it’s also about seeing them as people. When you give your class to them, when you turn it over to them they get to be who they are and that’s just really special and important.

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