Silent Discourse - Interpersonal Writing

This activity provides opportunities for students to communicate with each other, in writing, on a given topic in the target language.  The teacher provides a question or a topic and students respond to the original question and/or to each other.   The attached document "debate silencioso" provides for an extended exchange between two students, following the arrows, as they respond to each other's responses.  The other document can be used in groups of four where each student responds to the question and then, at the teacher's direction, the paper is turned a quarter turn so that each student then sees a classmate's response and can respond to his or her comments, ask a follow up question, add on to the comment, etc.  As the paper continues to be turned, the students see additional comments from other group mates and thus have more to respond to. This version works best on large newsprint rather than an 8.5 x 11 paper but this document provides a visual for the teacher.

In either version, the idea is to insist on silence so that students are required to express their ideas in writing in the target language.