Sustainability Pair & Share Activity Winter 2016

Date you and your partner(s) are leading a discussion activity: ________________________
Section of reading you are responsible for: ______________________________
For this assignment you will have 10 minutes to teach the content of your chapter to your
classmates. Preparing for and completing this assignment will allow you to practice several
important skills, such as critical reading, group facilitation, and presentation.
What You may combine any of the following activities to structure your discussion time. Budget
45 minutes for your discussion session. Remember to have a Plan B, C, and D. The ideas are
here to provide some guidelines, feel free to be as creative as you like with them. If you have an
idea that doesnt fit into one of these, please let me know and we can work it in.
Ideas:
1. Related Media Clip: Bring in a media object (film clip, painting, song, etc.) that relates
to the reading and have students discuss the connections.
2. Pick A Passage: Have students identify a passage of the reading they found interesting or
confusing and use them as the basis for discussion.
3. Free Write: Using a theme or idea from the reading, create a prompt and ask students to
free write on it. Then use their free writes to focus the discussion.
4. Small Group/Large Group: Give students an activity (e.g., discussion questions, a
problem to solve, etc.), have them work in groups of 2 or 3 and then have a large group
discussion based on their small group conversations.
5. Create an Outline: Have students, either in small or as a large group, brainstorm all the
concepts and ideas they found in the reading. Then, working as a whole group, create an
outline the points of the reading.
6. Discussion Questions: Formulate questions based on your reading section for the class to
discuss. The best discussion questions are those that give students multiple things to talk
about and cannot be answered yes or no.
To receive credit for your discussion activity, turn a 400-500 word critical reflection on the
next day of class describing what you learned the most from leading the class.