Activity aim: To facilitate peer-to-peer / cooperative teaching and review; to understand what learners know and what is still confusing
Materials needed: Pieces of scrap paper, post-it notes, or cards with one target vocabulary word / concept written on each piece.
Time estimated: This can take anywhere from 10 minutes to 30 minutes, depending on how much students already know and what needs to be clarified.
Activity description:
Students each get one target word or phrase. They should be able to give an example of that word in a real life context (not just use it in a sentence, but describe a scenario that illustrates it). You might also have them say what real-life context we use this concept:
- Rhetoric example (appeal to ethos): We use this concept in real life when we use our credibility to convince someone to do something. So, when a commercial says that “9 out of 10 dentists recommend Trident,” they’re using an appeal to ethos. We’re more likely to buy the gum because dentists are credible experts about oral health.
- Math example: Imagine a soup can. Now cut down the side of the can and roll the whole thing flat. This is the lateral area.
Students should spend some time making sure that they’re able to think of an example. If they don’t have one, they should ask the people around them or the instructor.
Once everyone’s questions have been answered, participants stand up:
- If Jason (who has the word “kairos”) and Kayla (who has “a straw man argument”) are near each other, they’ll teach each other their words, and exchange their cards.
- Then Kayla will teach “kairos” to Luis (who has “an appeal to logos”), and switch with him.
- Then Kayla will teach “an appeal logos” to Wiley, and Luis will teach “kairos” to Ysabelle (and so on).
The instructor monitors and only intervenes when someone’s really stuck or just totally, completely wrong. Let students struggle a little to give them the opportunity to teach each other (and, thus, themselves)!
As students are mingling, write all of the target vocabulary words on the board. At the end of the activity, have everyone sit down, and elicit answers and examples of each of the words + clear up any confusion that you heard surfacing as you were monitoring.
Image credit: JD Hancock