4/12/22
Finding assignments that relate to student interests is always a fun time. Honestly, after years of battling fidget spinners, Minecraft, and TikTok, I decided to wave the white flag and truly embrace what seemed like even the most random fad.
Texting is in no way a fad, but it is a student interest of sorts and it is definitely a part of students' everyday lives.
One week, while reading the last page of our weekly story, I had an idea. The story was told from two points of view. On that last page, one paragraph was written from the perspective of one character, longing to talk to the other. The next paragraph was written by the other character, wishing to speak with the first. It occurred to me how different the end of that story might be if these characters had been able to simply text each other. This sparked an idea.
We had frequently examined character traits and analyzed the relationships characters in a story have with one another. Over the course of the year, students had written paragraphs, used Venn-diagrams, and explained the nuances of characters traits and relationships on Flipgrid. None of these are horrible options, but I wanted to mix things up.
I made a template, and asked my students to write a conversation between these two characters that highlighted their individual traits and their relationship with each other. To scaffold towards this independent activity we:
First, listed character traits for each character and supported our identification of each trait with a piece of evidence.
Then, we described the relationship between the two characters.
Once we finished our whole class conversation and recorded our ideas on an anchor chart (collaboration), I set the scene. I told students that we were replacing the last page of the story with a texting conversation between these two characters. I asked them to consider:
What each character would want to say to the other?
Would the characters be as vulnerable in their text messaging as they were in the thoughts we accessed through the narrative? Why or why not?
This activity asks students to think critically about characters, their traits and ways of being, how they had interacted with one another in previous scenes and how their relationship had developed throughout the text (critical thinking). It is also a great avenue to introduce or discuss formal and informal language, dialect, slang and dialogue. I often allow students to play around with one or more of these depending on the assignment topic (creativity).
Since that first lesson, I've developed several different 'Text Me' templates. Sometimes I assign which template students work with, providing a bit more structure and guidance simply with the way the paper is structured (Giving one side of the conversation more speech bubbles than the other leads to one character having more or less diallage, and the size of each speech bubble helps determine how wordy the conversation is.). Other times, I let students choose which template would fit the conversation they are structuring best.
I've done this activity several times in different subject areas and I've wrapped up the lesson in different ways.
Ideas for Using the 'Text Me' Template:
Conversations between historical figures.
Abraham Lincoln and George Washington
John Smith and Native American Tribal Chief
Sir Isaac Newton and Albert Einstein
Conversations between friends that model ...
Kindness
Empathy
Growth Mindset
A conversation between a student in the grade level below, and a student in our grade level about a math concept.
"How do I add fractions?"
"What is PEMDAS?"
"Why should I learn my multiplication facts?"
Ways to Wrap Up the Lesson:
I often have students communicate their thoughts with one another by sharing their text conversations and discussing why they made the choices they did (communication). These discussions often focus on how word choice for characters can represent character traits and how the tone of a conversation can say so much about character relationships.
Other times, I have students work together to compare and contrast the conversations they wrote. By analyzing both conversations, students have to think critically and when identifying similarities and differences together, they are collaborating (communication, critical thinking, and collaboration).
Sometimes I have students read their 'Text Me' conversations as a type of mini readers theater. Working with partners, students read the conversation aloud with a partner. The author of the text conversation gets to coach their partner on tone, cadence, and expression giving them the opportunity to communicate in a new way. Sometimes students record these using Flipgrid, and other times they read them aloud in the front of the class (communication, collaboration, creativity).
This activity is a great way to get students using all four C's in the classroom while harnessing the power of student buy in by providing an opportunity for students to take something that is relatable and use it in a way that facilitates learning.