Unspoken Rules

Our primary learning goal this week involves your new groups:

New Groups

That post explains why assigned groups have become important for a nontraditional space like ours. This week is the experimental step — the test of what those groups can do, with time set aside to debrief and adjust on Thursday and Friday.

The secondary learning goal this week is to analyze an author’s writing in a unique way. You’ll have an article from The New York Times that was published on Thursday, January 5. Specific instructions for analysis will be given on Tuesday, after you’ve had a day to interact with the text as you normally would.

We also have a tertiary goal1: to extend and apply the text’s ideas to our current work, including the online components of your Pareto Projects.


Monday


Start by reading the article:

Rules for Social Media, Created by Kids (Published 2017)

Another group of seventh graders (of mixed gender and in a different community) told me the rules regarding how many pictures to post from an event. There was a sense of what was acceptable and what was not.

Work with this text however you normally would2. You can take notes, annotate the printed copy, click on hyperlinks, have discussions — anything goes. We’ll use whatever you choose to do as the basis for reflection and metacognition later in the week.


Tuesday


Remaining in your current seats — that is, wherever you normally sit during a class period — spend Tuesday analyzing the text. Commit as much of that analysis to writing as possible. You need written work for Wednesday. Use these prompts:

How does the ol’ rhetorical triangle break down in this text? More specifically, what can you tell about the audience of this text, especially compared to you? I think we can make a meaningful distinction between the intended audience and you, the actual readers of the article.

Beyond the rhetorical triangle is the style of this piece, specifically its tone. What is that tone? Make a distinction between tone that is backed up by language and logic in the text and a reader-projected tone. The latter is a tone that isn’t actually present. We often hear what we expect to hear, not what is actually written.

Finally, what can you, the reader, do with this? I would call this practical redirection. Are there other unspoken rules for social media? And since the answer is obviously yes, which ones matter to our studies?


Wednesday


Get into your new groups as you enter the classroom. Find space to work with these two or three other students, and then figure out how best to share your writing and thinking from Tuesday. Then work together to revisit the text and refine your responses.

If done correctly, this day will see you editing whatever you typed on Tuesday. You’ll have a record through Google, which monitors every change like a benevolent Big Brother, of how you incorporated your new group’s feedback.


Thursday


On Thursday, sit again with your new group. I imagine that many of you will need the extra period to finish Wednesday’s assignment, so that will be first; then you’re going to start reflecting on the previous three days. Consider how your new group meshed, how well you worked together, and how different the experience was compared to your usual chambered work.

Your assignments over the next few days are (1) to submit the text-based work you’ve done, and (2) to write metacognitively and reflectively about the group work, focusing on collegiality especially among the many other GAP skills and traits.

You’ll receive Google Classroom assignments for both of those. Expect the text-based work to be due on Friday; the metacognition will probably have a due date of Monday night.


Friday


Friday’s lesson will be determined midway through the week. As always, pay attention to the interstitial hubs of the course for information.


  1. Mostly so I can use the word “tertiary,” which is one of my current favorite words. 

  2. With emphasis on the imperative verb there: Work with this text. If your normal approach is to ignore an assignment, try something outside the box.