Big Paper: Building a Silent

Conversation
Rationale

This discussion strategy uses writing and silence as tools to help students explore a topic
in depth. In a Big Paper discussion, students write out their responses to a stimulus,
such as a quotation or historical document. This process slows down students’ thinking
and gives them an opportunity to focus on the views of others. It also creates a visual
record of students’ thoughts and questions that you can refer to later in a course. You
can use this strategy both to engage students who are not as likely to participate in a
verbal discussion and to help make sure that students who are eager to talk and listen
carefully to the ideas of their classmates. After they participate in this activity several
times, students’ comfort, confidence, and skill in using this method increases.

Procedure

1. Select a Stimulus for Discussion

First, you will need to select the “stimulus”—the material that students will
respond to. A stimulus might consist of questions, quotations, historical
documents, excerpts from novels, poetry, or images. Groups can all be given the
same stimulus for discussion, but more often they are each given a different text
related to the same theme. This activity works best when students are working in
pairs or triads. Each group also needs a sheet of big poster paper that can fit a
written conversation and added comments. In the middle of each of these, tape or
write the “stimulus” (image, quotation, excerpt, etc.) that will be used to spark
the students’ discussion.
2. Prepare Students
Inform the class that this activity will be completed in silence. All communication
is done in writing. Students should be told that they will have time to speak in
pairs and in the large groups later. Go over all of the instructions at the beginning
so that they do not ask questions during the activity. Also, before the activity
starts, the teacher should ask students if they have questions, to minimize the
chance that students will interrupt the silence once it has begun. You can also
remind students of their task as they begin each new step.
3. Students Comment on Their Group’s Big Paper
Each group receives a Big Paper and each student gets a marker or pen. Some
teachers have each student use a different color to make it easier to see the back-
and-forth flow of a conversation. The groups read the text (or look at the image)
in silence. After students have read, they are to comment on the text and ask
questions of each other in writing on the Big Paper. The written conversation
must start on the topic of the text but can stray wherever the students take it. If
someone in the group writes a question, another member of the group should
address the question by writing on the Big Paper. Students can draw lines
connecting a comment to a particular question. Make sure students know that
 more than one of them can write on the Big Paper at the same time. The teacher
can determine the length of this step, but it should be at least 15 minutes.
4. Students Comment on Other Groups’ Big Papers
Still working in silence, students leave their groups and walk around reading the
other Big Papers. Students bring their marker or pen with them and can write
comments or further questions for thought on other Big Papers. Again, you can
determine the length of time for this step based on the number of Big Papers and
your knowledge of the students.
5. Students Return to Their Group’s Big Paper Silence is broken.
The groups reassemble back at their own Big Paper. They should look at any new
comments written by others. Now they can have a free verbal conversation about
the text, their own comments, what they read on other papers, and the comments
their fellow students wrote for them. At this point, you might ask students to take
out their journals and identify a question or comment that stands out to them.
6. Discuss as a Class
Finally, debrief the process with the large group. The conversation can begin with
a simple prompt such as, “What did you learn from doing this activity?” This is
the time to delve deeper into the content and use ideas on the Big Papers to draw
out students' thoughts. The discussion can also touch upon the importance and
difficulty of staying silent and students’ level of comfort with this activity.

Variations

1. Little Paper: With a Little Paper activity, the “stimulus” (question, excerpt,
quotation, etc.) is placed in the center of a regular-sized piece of paper. Often, teachers
select four to five different “stimuli” and create groups of the same size. Each student
begins by commenting on the “stimulus” on his/her Little Paper. After a few minutes,
each paper is passed to the student on the left (or right). This process is repeated until
all students have had the opportunity to comment on every paper. All of this is done in
silence, just like the Big Paper activity. Then students review the Little Paper they had
first, noticing comments made by their peers. Finally, small groups have a discussion
about the questions and ideas that stand out to them from this exercise.
2. Gallery Walk: The Big Paper activity can also be structured as a Gallery Walk.
In this arrangement, Big Papers are taped to the walls or placed on tables, and
students comment on the Big Papers in silence, at their own pace. Sometimes
teachers assign students, often in pairs or triads, to a particular Big Paper and
then have them switch to the next one after five or ten minutes.

Example
In a Big Paper activity, students respond silently to a text excerpt or image by writing
their comments on a shared paper.
 STAAR
The experts on STAAR, such as the Texas Education Agency, the Lead4Ward team and
Regional Service Centers tell us that there are some very specific things that we need to do,
and other things we should let go of in order to prepare our students for the state
assessment. In addition, these strategies can also deepen and broaden their knowledge.

1. Allow for more collaboration on rich content between students (student-centered)

2. Provide higher level thinking questions
3. Give ample wait time
4. Increase critical thinking through authentic instruction
5. Follow the DETAILS of your TEKS
6. Know the vertical alignment of your TEKS and collaborate with other grade levels

The following are ideas for activities that you can use in conjunction with our curriculum in
order to help meet some of these criteria, as it is necessary to adjust our mindset from
TAKS driven packets to STAAR rich conversations and activities.

Collaboration

TALKING CHIPS
1. Pass out a colored chip to each person
2. One player at each table scribes ideas on chart paper
3. Each person contributes an idea that answers the question
4. Afterwards, the player places their chip in the center of the table.
5. Listen while others contribute their views
6. Instructor clarifies/verifies

PAIR - SQUARE - SHARE

 Informal Response Activity
Teacher poses a question to the class
 Yes = Stand
 No = Sit
 Depends = Sit and Raise Your Hand

3 FACTS AND A FIB

This helps with distinguishing between multiple choice answers.

1. Have students write 3 facts and a fib on a sticky about a subject, content or problem
2. They will trade with a partner to find the fib
3. Discussions
4. Instructor clarifies/varifies

FACT OR FIB SLAM DOWN

1. Get 2 sticky notes
2. Write "Fact" on one
3. Write "Fib" on the other
4. Instructor will read a statement
5. Instructor will count, "1-2-3" ...then slam your answer down in the middle of the table
6. Compare responses
7. Instructor clarifies/verifies

Differentiation and Multiple Representations

 PASS AND PLAY
This helps with students distinguishing between and creating their own multiple
representations.

1. A word problem is posted on a graphic organizer (different problem for each person in the
group).
2. Boxes are strategically placed on the graphic organizer with various representations.
3. Students choose the box they like, place their name in the box and complete the activity.
4. When finished, they pass it to the group member to their right.
5. Now everyone has a new problem
6. They read the new problem, check their partner's box and complete a different box.
7. Continue to pass and play.

MENUS
Students work from a 2x2 or 3x3 grid in a tic-tac-toe format
Activities in each box represent Bloom's type activities, such as:
- create a drawing that shows...
- write 3 sentences that correctly use the terms _________, ___________, and
_______________.
- create a comic strip that includes...
- make a game in which players ....

CUBING AND THINK DOTS

1. Teacher creates a numbered 6 box graphic with varied activities on a student
expectation.
2. Students roll die to determine which 3 activities to complete.
3. Students work together to record their answers.

http://daretodifferentiate.wikispaces.com/Cubing+and+Think+Dots
 RIDDLES
My number has nine digits
It is evenly divisible by 100
The value of one of the digits is 700,000
The digit in the millions place is both even and prime
The digit in the hundreds place is the temperature at which water freezes
The digit in the ten millions place is triple the number in the millions place
The digit in the thousands place is the number of fluid ounces in a cup
The digit in the hundred millions place is a special number because it is a factor of every
number.

http://mathriddles.williams.edu/?cat=398
http://www.mathwarehouse.com/riddles/math-riddles.php
http://www.kidsmathgamesonline.com/funstuff/mathriddles.html
http://www.onlinemathlearning.com/math-riddles.html

CAROUSELING
1. Place butcher paper around the room with different question stems, problems or activities.
2. Students are in groups of 2-5 students in each.
3. Each group has a different colored marker.
4. They go to each poster for 2-4 minutes doing the activity required.
5. After they are prompted by the teacher to switch, they check the other groups response
with: a check if they agree or a correction if they disagree and WHY
6. They then create their own question stem, problem or activity for the upcoming group.

academic vocabulary
 THINKING BUBBLES
This activity is to be facilitated by the teacher and is for the groups collaborating as much as
it is the main student who is guessing the word.

1. A vocabulary word is held above a student's head where they cannot see it.
2. The other students in the room collaborate to find the best clues for the vocabulary word.
3. The student calls on each group to give them their best clue/clues. (make sure they are
giving acacemic rich clues)
4. After AT LEAST 1 clue from EACH group, the student tries to guess the word above them.

*It may be good to provide a list of academic vocabulary words from which to guess.

FRAYER MODEL VOCABULARY

This can be done many different ways. I will give you a very collaborative one that I like.

1. Vocabulary word goes in the center of a 2x2 grid for each group and one large one for the
whole class.
2. Student groups brainstorm words/phrases to place in the upper left corner of their Frayer.
3. Groups discuss with the entire class, while a scribe posts the words/phrases to the class
Frayer.
4. Each student group uses the class words/phrases to brainstorm their BEST definition and
writes it on their group Frayer.
5. Each definition is written with different colored markers in the right corner of class Frayer,
while corrections are made in a polite, productive manner.
6. When finished, the class will have the BEST student made definition in their upper right
corner.
7. Students write examples and non examples in the bottom boxes of their group and class
Frayer Models.
 Student Self Monitoring
INTERACTIVE JOURNAL
Simply copying notes from the board is a low level thinking skill, so please promote higher
level thinking by providing appropriate graphic organizers, question stems or reflective
prompts, which help students recognize their strengths and strengthen their weaknesses
through effective critical thinking.

JOURNAL DATA GOALS

Students become their own progress monitors.

1. Students write down their goals for the year.

2. Students write down all of their grades.
3. Monitor with graphs and charts to view progress.
4. The goal is not to compare to one another, but to show growth within oneself.

HUFFMAN ISD - CURRICULUM

@mdorcz

STAAR requires us to provide more opportunities for collaboration and reflection in order to
promote critical thinking skills. We hope that some of these activities will help you in
brainstorming ideas to use in your classrooms. Please contact us if there are any questions
or needs.
24302 Fm 2100 Road, Huffman, TXmdorcz@huffmanisd.net281-324-
1781huffmanisd.net/education/dept/dept.php?sectionid=2017&

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