Education Standards
Debate and discussion PDF
Debate and discussion
Overview
This lesson plan helps the learners to debate and discuss with each other.
Questions, questions
Unit learning objectives
|
About this unit
Prior knowledge
Your teacher will expect you to:
- know the difference between a question and a statement
- be able to write questions correctly and select appropriate vocabulary
- know what a questionnaire is and understand its purpose
- understand how poetry is different from other text types
- recognise common features of poetry such as line length, rhyme, rhythm and language patterning.
Activity 1 Questions, questions |
About this activity In this activity you will work collaboratively to compose questions accurately as speakers, using standard English. You will analyse, in depth and detail, a range of questions and how these are used and adapted for different purposes and effects. |
Think!
Do all questions have answers?
If a question has an answer, is it always either correct or incorrect? Do all questioners expect an answer when they ask a question?
Questions in conversations
A speaker can use a statement as if it’s a question: You live in the centre of Riyadh? Sometimes we use a question to reply to a question. What do you think about the news from Jeddah? What do you mean? |
Our own conversations are not always neatly made up of questions and answers.
With a partner, try to have a meaningful conversation using only questions. Take turns to speak and see how many turns you can take before the conversation comes to an end.
Conversation starters
- Why were you so late for school today?
- What did you do during the school holidays?
- Have you ever been to Medina?
Twenty questions
Play the game 20 questions with your teacher. Can you ask the right questions to identify the person your teacher is thinking of?
When it’s your turn to think of a person, who are you going to think of? Perhaps it could be someone who:
- is seen on television
- plays a sport
- is well known
- invented something important
- is a character in a famous book or play
- was a writer, philosopher, architect or other well-known person who lived in the past.
Student interviews
The aim of a question is not always simply to get an answer. Questions are also useful tools to change the direction of a conversation or to encourage another speaker.
Examples of questions being used for both these purposes can be found in interviews.
How many different kinds of ‘interview situations’ can you think of?
What kind of questioning skills does a good ‘interviewer’ need and why?
8
Conducting an interview
Work with two other students to conduct your own interview. Decide which of you will be interviewed (the interviewee), who will be the interviewer and who will be the observer. You also need to decide what the topic will be and what kind of interview situation this will be.
Student A interviewee Student B interviewer Student C observer
This way of working is called ‘a triad’. A group of three is known as ‘a triad’.
You will have five minutes for the interview. Your teacher will explain the role that each member of your triad take.
After the interview
Student C, the observer, should tell the rest of the group what they have observed.
- Were some questions better than others at encouraging the interviewee to talk?
- Which questions were most effective? Which questions received short or incomplete answers?
- Did the interviewer say anything during the interview that was not a question? How did it affect the interview?
As a group, share your findings from the triad activity with the rest of the class.
Learning from other interviewers
Your teacher will arrange for you and a partner to view two short videos of interviews.
A young student interviews Shivani Mair, presenter of a well-known UK children’s television programme called Blue Peter.
1 minute 55 seconds
An interview with Leman Ozkan, who represented Northern Cyprus at the World Travel Market in London, 2007.
4 minutes 31 seconds
Watch both the videos all the way through, then discuss your first responses to them.
9
View the videos once more, watching more carefully to compare the contributions that each interviewer made.
- How were questions used?
- What else did the interviewers do, apart from simply ask questions?
- What can you learn from these videos that might help you improve your own interview techniques?
As homework, you will need to prepare to interview a visitor to the school (your teacher will tell you who this is going to be). Can you plan to use techniques you saw in the videos of interviews?
Activity 2 Ask me a question |
About this activity In this activity you will explore the way texts are structured to create meaning. You will apply knowledge of vocabulary fluently and accurately to answer questions. |
Visitor interview
Your teacher has invited a visitor to the school for your class to interview. You will be able to ask the visitor one or more of the interview questions you planned as homework.
Listen carefully as other students interview the visitor to make sure that you don’t repeat the same questions when you take your turn. You might decide to change your questions once the interview is taking place.
When the visitor has left, think about what you have learned about asking questions in an interview situation.
- Which questions are most likely to encourage an interviewee to talk – open questions or closed questions?
- In what way can closed questions be effective during an interview?
Contractions
Why do we use contractions when we are speaking?
Are there situations when a speaker might deliberately avoid using a contraction, and use the full form of the words instead?
On the following page are the answers to some questions. Can you think of a possible question for each answer? Use a contraction in each question.
10
Answer 1: I’ve stopped writing because my hand hurts. Answer 2: They’re leaving because they’re angry. Answer 3: The best time to call me is about 5pm. Answer 4: Nothing’s the matter. |
Think!
Do you use contractions when you are writing in English or only when you are talking? Which contractions usually feature only in spoken language?
Fill in the gaps
Read this text all the way through to yourself.
- Look! Can you see that?
- Where?
A Over there, in the corner.
B
- I think you’re right. It definitely looks like one.
- Is it dead?
A
B Are you sure?
A Yes. Look, its tail is moving.
B
- That’s a good idea.
- Go on then. I’ll stay here.
A
B What makes you think I’m scared?
A B
A Because I just don’t like rats.
11
Now work with a partner and read the text aloud together. One of you should read as A and the other should read as B.
When you come to a gap, make up your own words to fill the hole in the conversation. Try to keep going!
Activity 3 Any questions? |
About this activity In this activity you will plan and draft the content of a questionnaire, framing questions carefully to collect required data . You will demonstrate precision and accuracy of language in your questions and in writing about your main findings. |
Planning a questionnaire
When questions and answers are written rather than spoken they can convey different information. Through this activity you will find out what kinds of questions and what kinds of answers give you the information you want.
A good way to help you compile your questionnaire is to ask yourself the following questions:
- What kind of information do you want to find out?
- Which questions will have answers that provide this information?
- Plan the questions you will include and the way you will order and organise them on the questionnaire.
- What other methods can you use, apart from asking questions, to collect the information you want?
Don’t forget that the data you collect will need to be analysed.
Designing a questionnaire
What resources are available that could help you create your questionnaire, as well as analyse the data more quickly and easily?
Review your planned questions and revise them to ensure that the answers they result in will be suitable for digital interrogation and analysis.
If you intend to merge the data you store in a database with those from another student, which aspects of your questionnaires will you need to check for consistency?
12
What are the findings?
Decide how your questionnaire will be circulated.
You are responsible for collecting the completed questionnaires. You should analyse the data you’ve collected and decide what the main findings are from your available evidence.
Decide on the best method of presenting this information in the simplest way. Your teacher will tell you when and how you will be sharing your findings.
Activity 4 Readers reflect |
About this activity In this activity you will comment on writers’ techniques using textual evidence and develop a personal response to the poems. |
Question poems
Poets can use questions to have a deliberate effect on their readers.
Some poems are like a list of questions. Other poems are questions and answers. Sometimes the title is a question and the poem gives an answer.
Listen to each poem your teacher reads to you. What is the poem about? Did you enjoy it?
Some opposites
The opposite of doughnut? Wait A minute while I meditate.
This isn’t easy. Ah, I’ve found it! A cookie with a hole around it. What is the opposite of two?
A lonely me, a lonely you.
The opposite of a cloud could be
A white reflection in the sea,
Or a huge blueness in the air Caused by a cloud’s not being there. The opposite of opposite?
That’s much too difficult. I quit.
Richard Wilbur
13
Instructions for growing poetry Shut your eyes. Open your mind. Look inside. What do you find? |
Something funny? Something sad?
Something beautiful, mysterious, mad?
Open your ears. Listen well.
A word or a phrase begins to swell?
Catch its rhythm. Hold its sound. Gently, slowly roll it round.
Does it please you? Does it tease you?
Does it ask
to grow and spread? Now those little words are sprouting poetry
inside your head.
Tony Mitton
14
Different types of questions in poetry
In this activity you will listen to and read examples of more poems that use questions in different ways. For example, you might hear questions and answers, lists of questions, or a ‘question title’ with a poem that gives an answer.
In each case, think about what the poem is about and whether you like it. Where are the questions? Does the poem give answers?
Nature poem Skylark, what prompts your silver song To fountain up and down the sky? |
Beetles roast With fleas on toast And earthworm pie |
Adrian Mitchell |
Where go the boats? Dark brown is the river, Golden is the sand. It flows along for ever, With trees on either hand. |
Green leaves a-floating, Castle of the foam, Boats of mine a-boating – Where will all come home? |
On goes the river And out past the mill, Away down the valley, Away down the hill. |
Away down the river, A hundred miles or more, Other little children Shall bring my boats ashore. |
Robert Louis Stevenson |
15
Personal responses
Read a poem aloud to a friend. Discuss your personal responses to the poem.
- What is the poem about?
- Why are questions used in the text? How do they make you feel?
- What do you notice about the structure of the poem?
- Whose voice is speaking to the reader in this poem?
- Who is being asked the question(s)?
What are heavy? What are heavy? Sea-sand and sorrow; What are brief? Today and tomorrow; What are frail? Spring blossoms and youth; What are deep? The ocean and truth. |
Christina Rossetti |
16
Has anyone seen my chameleon? Has anyone seen my chameleon this morning? He has to be hiding somewhere. He asked me if we could play hide-and-go-seek, and then disappeared into thin air. |
I’ve looked high and low in the yard and the house and it seems like he’s nowhere around.
He’s probably hiding right out in the open but doesn’t yet want to be found.
I’m guessing he looks like a leaf on a bush or the back of a sofa or chair.
He could be disguised as a book or a bagel. Regardless, I don’t think it’s fair.
If you come across my chameleon, please tell him I give up. He beat me today.
He’s clearly the champion at hiding so, next time, it’s my turn to pick what we play.
Kenn Nesbitt
17
Activity 5 and 6 Poets at work |
About this activity In these two activities you will Write poems independently making confident language choices for deliberate effect. You will perform poems so that they engage the audience. |
Presentation poems Choose your own poem that uses a question or questions. Think about who asks the questions. If there are answers, whose voice is answering? Plan how to present your chosen poem using more than one voice. How many voices are needed to present the poem effectively? How will you share out the lines between the readers? |
18
Writing poetry
Poets make decisions all the time as they write. Here are some of the questions they ask themselves:
- Which word should I choose next?
- How long should this line be? Do I need a rhyme?
- How shall I begin this line?
- How can I make the rhythm sound like... ?
Watch your teacher showing you one approach to writing the first few lines of a poem. You are going to make decisions like these when you write your own question poem, so watch and listen carefully.
Inspiration for poems
For this activity you are going to write your own question poem.
Remember to use some of the strategies your teacher demonstrated. Think carefully about the choices you are making as you write each word and each line.
Change things as you go along, if you want to. For example, you might decide to:
- use one line for each answer to a question
- write short lines with a simple rhythm
- choose words that work best rather than searching for words that rhyme
- try out first ideas by writing them in any way then go back to each line and change words
- read aloud to check the way each line sounds
- think carefully about the important words to get them just right. Change words as many times as you need to.
19
Example 1
Write a poem that is a list of questions. Use the very end of the poem to give an answer.
Who is small and grey and furry?
Who chews the wires in the roof at night? Who squeaks like a broken toy?
MOUSE
Example 2
Life is full of questions
Q How....................................................................?
Q Why.....................................................................?
Q Where................................................................?
Q When..................................................................?
Q Who....................................................................?
A I don’t know! I don’t know!
Example 3
What does an ant do on its day off? It …
… sleeps till lunch time
… reads a book
…
…
…
…
…
…
…
… turns out the light and goes to bed.
20
Write your own poem Goodish ideas?
What’s reddish? What’s reddish? – a radish, a fox with his long brush, a tin of floor polish, the sky when the clouds blush. |
Sue Cowling |
Read the following poem, which takes the form of a question and a list of answers.
- What does ‘reddish’ mean?
- Why is this word important to the meaning of the whole poem?
- Play around with words and word meanings to create your own new words using the suffix –ish, for example greenish, brownish, happyish, funnyish.
Write your own poem using this as a model or a starting point, and play with words in the same way.
Opinions and emotions
The most effective poetry often grows from strong opinions and emotions.
Choose a topic that you feel strongly about and write your own poem using a challenging question or series of questions.
Sharing your work
To find out if your poem will have an impact on an audience, read it aloud or ask other students to read it to themselves. Be creative with your presentation.
Did any of your friends choose the same themes?
21
Unit learning objectives
|
About this unit
Prior knowledge
Your teacher will expect you to:
- know the difference between a question and a statement
- be able to write questions correctly and select appropriate vocabulary
- know what a questionnaire is and understand its purpose
- understand how poetry is different from other text types
- recognise common features of poetry such as line length, rhyme, rhythm and language patterning.
Activity 1 Questions, questions |
About this activity In this activity you will work collaboratively to compose questions accurately as speakers, using standard English. You will analyse, in depth and detail, a range of questions and how these are used and adapted for different purposes and effects. |
Think!
Do all questions have answers?
If a question has an answer, is it always either correct or incorrect? Do all questioners expect an answer when they ask a question?
Questions in conversations
A speaker can use a statement as if it’s a question: You live in the centre of Riyadh? Sometimes we use a question to reply to a question. What do you think about the news from Jeddah? What do you mean? |
Our own conversations are not always neatly made up of questions and answers.
With a partner, try to have a meaningful conversation using only questions. Take turns to speak and see how many turns you can take before the conversation comes to an end.
Conversation starters
- Why were you so late for school today?
- What did you do during the school holidays?
- Have you ever been to Medina?
Twenty questions
Play the game 20 questions with your teacher. Can you ask the right questions to identify the person your teacher is thinking of?
When it’s your turn to think of a person, who are you going to think of? Perhaps it could be someone who:
- is seen on television
- plays a sport
- is well known
- invented something important
- is a character in a famous book or play
- was a writer, philosopher, architect or other well-known person who lived in the past.
Student interviews
The aim of a question is not always simply to get an answer. Questions are also useful tools to change the direction of a conversation or to encourage another speaker.
Examples of questions being used for both these purposes can be found in interviews.
How many different kinds of ‘interview situations’ can you think of?
What kind of questioning skills does a good ‘interviewer’ need and why?
8
Conducting an interview
Work with two other students to conduct your own interview. Decide which of you will be interviewed (the interviewee), who will be the interviewer and who will be the observer. You also need to decide what the topic will be and what kind of interview situation this will be.
Student A interviewee Student B interviewer Student C observer
This way of working is called ‘a triad’. A group of three is known as ‘a triad’.
You will have five minutes for the interview. Your teacher will explain the role that each member of your triad take.
After the interview
Student C, the observer, should tell the rest of the group what they have observed.
- Were some questions better than others at encouraging the interviewee to talk?
- Which questions were most effective? Which questions received short or incomplete answers?
- Did the interviewer say anything during the interview that was not a question? How did it affect the interview?
As a group, share your findings from the triad activity with the rest of the class.
Learning from other interviewers
Your teacher will arrange for you and a partner to view two short videos of interviews.
A young student interviews Shivani Mair, presenter of a well-known UK children’s television programme called Blue Peter.
1 minute 55 seconds
An interview with Leman Ozkan, who represented Northern Cyprus at the World Travel Market in London, 2007.
4 minutes 31 seconds
Watch both the videos all the way through, then discuss your first responses to them.
9
View the videos once more, watching more carefully to compare the contributions that each interviewer made.
- How were questions used?
- What else did the interviewers do, apart from simply ask questions?
- What can you learn from these videos that might help you improve your own interview techniques?
As homework, you will need to prepare to interview a visitor to the school (your teacher will tell you who this is going to be). Can you plan to use techniques you saw in the videos of interviews?
Activity 2 Ask me a question |
About this activity In this activity you will explore the way texts are structured to create meaning. You will apply knowledge of vocabulary fluently and accurately to answer questions. |
Visitor interview
Your teacher has invited a visitor to the school for your class to interview. You will be able to ask the visitor one or more of the interview questions you planned as homework.
Listen carefully as other students interview the visitor to make sure that you don’t repeat the same questions when you take your turn. You might decide to change your questions once the interview is taking place.
When the visitor has left, think about what you have learned about asking questions in an interview situation.
- Which questions are most likely to encourage an interviewee to talk – open questions or closed questions?
- In what way can closed questions be effective during an interview?
Contractions
Why do we use contractions when we are speaking?
Are there situations when a speaker might deliberately avoid using a contraction, and use the full form of the words instead?
On the following page are the answers to some questions. Can you think of a possible question for each answer? Use a contraction in each question.
10
Answer 1: I’ve stopped writing because my hand hurts. Answer 2: They’re leaving because they’re angry. Answer 3: The best time to call me is about 5pm. Answer 4: Nothing’s the matter. |
Think!
Do you use contractions when you are writing in English or only when you are talking? Which contractions usually feature only in spoken language?
Fill in the gaps
Read this text all the way through to yourself.
- Look! Can you see that?
- Where?
A Over there, in the corner.
B
- I think you’re right. It definitely looks like one.
- Is it dead?
A
B Are you sure?
A Yes. Look, its tail is moving.
B
- That’s a good idea.
- Go on then. I’ll stay here.
A
B What makes you think I’m scared?
A B
A Because I just don’t like rats.
11
Now work with a partner and read the text aloud together. One of you should read as A and the other should read as B.
When you come to a gap, make up your own words to fill the hole in the conversation. Try to keep going!
Activity 3 Any questions? |
About this activity In this activity you will plan and draft the content of a questionnaire, framing questions carefully to collect required data . You will demonstrate precision and accuracy of language in your questions and in writing about your main findings. |
Planning a questionnaire
When questions and answers are written rather than spoken they can convey different information. Through this activity you will find out what kinds of questions and what kinds of answers give you the information you want.
A good way to help you compile your questionnaire is to ask yourself the following questions:
- What kind of information do you want to find out?
- Which questions will have answers that provide this information?
- Plan the questions you will include and the way you will order and organise them on the questionnaire.
- What other methods can you use, apart from asking questions, to collect the information you want?
Don’t forget that the data you collect will need to be analysed.
Designing a questionnaire
What resources are available that could help you create your questionnaire, as well as analyse the data more quickly and easily?
Review your planned questions and revise them to ensure that the answers they result in will be suitable for digital interrogation and analysis.
If you intend to merge the data you store in a database with those from another student, which aspects of your questionnaires will you need to check for consistency?
12
What are the findings?
Decide how your questionnaire will be circulated.
You are responsible for collecting the completed questionnaires. You should analyse the data you’ve collected and decide what the main findings are from your available evidence.
Decide on the best method of presenting this information in the simplest way. Your teacher will tell you when and how you will be sharing your findings.
Activity 4 Readers reflect |
About this activity In this activity you will comment on writers’ techniques using textual evidence and develop a personal response to the poems. |
Question poems
Poets can use questions to have a deliberate effect on their readers.
Some poems are like a list of questions. Other poems are questions and answers. Sometimes the title is a question and the poem gives an answer.
Listen to each poem your teacher reads to you. What is the poem about? Did you enjoy it?
Some opposites
The opposite of doughnut? Wait A minute while I meditate.
This isn’t easy. Ah, I’ve found it! A cookie with a hole around it. What is the opposite of two?
A lonely me, a lonely you.
The opposite of a cloud could be
A white reflection in the sea,
Or a huge blueness in the air Caused by a cloud’s not being there. The opposite of opposite?
That’s much too difficult. I quit.
Richard Wilbur
13
Instructions for growing poetry Shut your eyes. Open your mind. Look inside. What do you find? |
Something funny? Something sad?
Something beautiful, mysterious, mad?
Open your ears. Listen well.
A word or a phrase begins to swell?
Catch its rhythm. Hold its sound. Gently, slowly roll it round.
Does it please you? Does it tease you?
Does it ask
to grow and spread? Now those little words are sprouting poetry
inside your head.
Tony Mitton
14
Different types of questions in poetry
In this activity you will listen to and read examples of more poems that use questions in different ways. For example, you might hear questions and answers, lists of questions, or a ‘question title’ with a poem that gives an answer.
In each case, think about what the poem is about and whether you like it. Where are the questions? Does the poem give answers?
Nature poem Skylark, what prompts your silver song To fountain up and down the sky? |
Beetles roast With fleas on toast And earthworm pie |
Adrian Mitchell |
Where go the boats? Dark brown is the river, Golden is the sand. It flows along for ever, With trees on either hand. |
Green leaves a-floating, Castle of the foam, Boats of mine a-boating – Where will all come home? |
On goes the river And out past the mill, Away down the valley, Away down the hill. |
Away down the river, A hundred miles or more, Other little children Shall bring my boats ashore. |
Robert Louis Stevenson |
15
Personal responses
Read a poem aloud to a friend. Discuss your personal responses to the poem.
- What is the poem about?
- Why are questions used in the text? How do they make you feel?
- What do you notice about the structure of the poem?
- Whose voice is speaking to the reader in this poem?
- Who is being asked the question(s)?
What are heavy? What are heavy? Sea-sand and sorrow; What are brief? Today and tomorrow; What are frail? Spring blossoms and youth; What are deep? The ocean and truth. |
Christina Rossetti |
16
Has anyone seen my chameleon? Has anyone seen my chameleon this morning? He has to be hiding somewhere. He asked me if we could play hide-and-go-seek, and then disappeared into thin air. |
I’ve looked high and low in the yard and the house and it seems like he’s nowhere around.
He’s probably hiding right out in the open but doesn’t yet want to be found.
I’m guessing he looks like a leaf on a bush or the back of a sofa or chair.
He could be disguised as a book or a bagel. Regardless, I don’t think it’s fair.
If you come across my chameleon, please tell him I give up. He beat me today.
He’s clearly the champion at hiding so, next time, it’s my turn to pick what we play.
Kenn Nesbitt
17
Activity 5 and 6 Poets at work |
About this activity In these two activities you will Write poems independently making confident language choices for deliberate effect. You will perform poems so that they engage the audience. |
Presentation poems Choose your own poem that uses a question or questions. Think about who asks the questions. If there are answers, whose voice is answering? Plan how to present your chosen poem using more than one voice. How many voices are needed to present the poem effectively? How will you share out the lines between the readers? |
18
Writing poetry
Poets make decisions all the time as they write. Here are some of the questions they ask themselves:
- Which word should I choose next?
- How long should this line be? Do I need a rhyme?
- How shall I begin this line?
- How can I make the rhythm sound like... ?
Watch your teacher showing you one approach to writing the first few lines of a poem. You are going to make decisions like these when you write your own question poem, so watch and listen carefully.
Inspiration for poems
For this activity you are going to write your own question poem.
Remember to use some of the strategies your teacher demonstrated. Think carefully about the choices you are making as you write each word and each line.
Change things as you go along, if you want to. For example, you might decide to:
- use one line for each answer to a question
- write short lines with a simple rhythm
- choose words that work best rather than searching for words that rhyme
- try out first ideas by writing them in any way then go back to each line and change words
- read aloud to check the way each line sounds
- think carefully about the important words to get them just right. Change words as many times as you need to.
19
Example 1
Write a poem that is a list of questions. Use the very end of the poem to give an answer.
Who is small and grey and furry?
Who chews the wires in the roof at night? Who squeaks like a broken toy?
MOUSE
Example 2
Life is full of questions
Q How....................................................................?
Q Why.....................................................................?
Q Where................................................................?
Q When..................................................................?
Q Who....................................................................?
A I don’t know! I don’t know!
Example 3
What does an ant do on its day off? It …
… sleeps till lunch time
… reads a book
…
…
…
…
…
…
…
… turns out the light and goes to bed.
20
Write your own poem Goodish ideas?
What’s reddish? What’s reddish? – a radish, a fox with his long brush, a tin of floor polish, the sky when the clouds blush. |
Sue Cowling |
Read the following poem, which takes the form of a question and a list of answers.
- What does ‘reddish’ mean?
- Why is this word important to the meaning of the whole poem?
- Play around with words and word meanings to create your own new words using the suffix –ish, for example greenish, brownish, happyish, funnyish.
Write your own poem using this as a model or a starting point, and play with words in the same way.
Opinions and emotions
The most effective poetry often grows from strong opinions and emotions.
Choose a topic that you feel strongly about and write your own poem using a challenging question or series of questions.
Sharing your work
To find out if your poem will have an impact on an audience, read it aloud or ask other students to read it to themselves. Be creative with your presentation.
Did any of your friends choose the same themes?