Musical Chairs Topic Critique
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Summary

In this lesson, students write for each other what’s sometimes hardest for them to write for themselves: topic selection. Arriving in class, students first open a Word document and type a couple of their strongest current topic ideas for an upcoming paper. They put plenty of space between these ideas, and perhaps bold them. Then the entire class stands and moves to the right one seat, sits down, and reads the topics on the screen. Each student types a response to one or more of the topics, hits Apple+S to save, and stands and moves to the right one seat. If the seat is still occupied, the student waits and reads the topics and plans responses.

 

Target Courses I observed this lesson in a UWP 19 Writing Longer Research-Based Papers course, although it has wide application in other UWP courses. It would work great as an exercise leading up to any assignment for a lay audience.	Amount of Time Required The lesson took the full 80 minutes of class time.
Software You’ll Use Word, and the classroom Dropoff Folder.	Prep Before class, the instructor should make a dropoff subfolder.

 

LESSON PLAN

Background

Students should arrive in class with a couple fairly specific topic ideas for an upcoming paper they have been assigned to write.

Step 1: Students Type Their Current Topic Ideas

The instructor begins the class by moving students around to fill in any gaps, consolidating computer seats.

Next, he asks students to open a Word document and save it.

Tip: In one of the most common protocols for saving Word documents in the computer classrooms, students save documents under the title of their last names and the current date: “Meisenheimer10-6.doc.” You might modify this to include the initial from the student’s first name if the last name is a common one.

The instructor then says, “Please type two or three topic ideas--at least two, three max. Make the ideas as specific as you can, but at this stage, they’re probably pretty general. Once you’ve got a couple ideas down, bold them and put several spaces separating them.”

The instructor circulates around the room, encouraging students to put sufficient space between ideas and reminding them to save.

Step 2: Students Move One Chair to the Right and the Instructor Gives Instructions

Once all the students have entered a couple topic ideas, the instructor says, “Now we’re going to play musical chairs.” He asks everyone in class to stand, then he moves the first student at the end of the first row one seat down, and asks everyone to follow suit.

“Now,” he says, “sit down and read the topics on the screen. Respond to one or more of the topics. React to what you think is good and workable. Help the writer see how they can develop it further. You could even write a question.

“Once you’re done, hit Apple+S to save your response. There’s no need to attach your name, unless you want to talk to the writer later.

“After you’ve saved, get up and stand behind the next seat.

“If someone has been standing behind you for more than 20-30 seconds, you better speed up your typing and move on.”

Tip: Apple key + S is a shortcut for saving.

Step 3: Students Respond to the Topics

In the class I observed, four or five students were already standing behind occupied seats within the first couple minutes. The room was quiet except for rapid typing. When a bottleneck developed, the instructor moved to that area and said, “Uh-oh, two or three people behind this seat. Feel the pressure. Feel the people hovering behind you.” He also suggested, “If you’re waiting behind somebody, it’s okay to read over their shoulders and plan your own response.”

In some cases, I noticed that students took time to type “Response:” before their comments. Single spacing the comments seemed to work best.

After fifty minutes, three students had completed the cycle of 21 seats.

Step 4: Students Drop Off Topic Critiques and Debrief as a Class

If everyone has visited all the computers, the instructor can ask students to drop off the critiqued topics in the appropriately named dropoff subfolder. They can also save copies to their flash drives as well, or make hardcopies if they want to--although in that case, he might urge them to put in headers and page numbers, because if everyone prints at once, the resulting unnumbered pages will be difficult to sort.

The rest of the class time is devoted to debriefing. The instructor asks students what was useful about the assignment.

In the class I observed, students noticed that oftentimes the topic they wanted to write about was not the topic which generated the most responses or interest. They also said that just reading over other students’ topic ideas was inspiring, and in some cases they got definite ideas about how to develop or research their own topics further.