12 Strategies for Using Class Time

Curated by Megan Callow

This bank of strategies is an evolving document, with ideas crowd-sourced from English department instructors. If you have an idea to add, please contact Megan (mcallow@uw.edu) and she will add it to the list! The activities listed below are organized into the following categories:

  • Mood Setting & Community Building
  • Working With Texts & Ideas
  • Assignment Research & Drafting
  • Peer-Review & (Self)Assessment
  • Further Resources

Mood-Setting & Community Building

Find Someone Who (Ice-Breaker)

  • Print out one copy of this handout for each student (there are two different handouts to keep it interesting for students)
  • Then they have to stand up, find a partner, and ask each other “Have you ever __________” If their partner says no, they ask more questions until they get a yes. They then write their partner’s name in the box. No more questions after that!
  • Then find a new partner and start asking questions until they get a “yes”

Artifact Conversation Starters

  • For a particular reading or topic, ask students to find an artifact that stimulates/furthers their thinking, and bring to class (or bring an image or description)
  • Do a kind of “show and tell” of artifacts, and ask students to tie the object back to the reading in concrete ways

Found Poetry

  • Each person hand-writes one sentence on their writing-related goal/hope for the quarter on a piece of paper (leaving plenty of space between words)
  • In small groups, students cut up their sentences and rearrange words with those of their group members to create a poem.

Six Word Sentences

  • Ask students to write a six-word sentence for a variety of purposes: as a check in, a check out, synthesis of a passage etc.
  • It’s quick, low-stakes, engaging, and fun to read everyone’s sentences. Can be used on Zoom or in person.

Let Go of Control Sometimes

  • Feel free to let go of control every so often. If a discussion veers off-topic, if groups seem to be doing more talking and not so much working, if you find yourself on some tangent that’s only barely relevant–all of these things are okay. Students at UW rarely get opportunities to talk to each other, and the opportunities to work on social skills in our classes will help them downstream in important ways!

Working With Texts & Ideas

Social Annotations “Jam Session” (requires a laptop or tablet)

  • Assign a text in advance, or have students read it synchronously in class
  • Using Hypothesis (supported in Canvas!), have students annotate the text, solo or in pairs/sm. groups. Be sure to demo Hypothesis first, if needed, and keep the text projected on screen
  • Optionally for longer texts, take periodic breaks after set section breaks to discuss so far
  • Once reading is complete, have students form small groups to discuss the text and annotations, then report whole-class on their reflections and questions.
  • Important to explain why it’s useful and generative to read other people’s comments so the post-annotation discussion isn’t only about giving kudos to what people are noticing.

Close-Reading Gallery Walk

  • Extract a few choice quotes from reading, post on board/poster paper on the walls around the room
  • Assign groups into teams to reflect, discuss, take notes, generate discussion questions for a particular quote (and optionally write notes on the board/poster paper)
  • Give time for students to quietly stroll and look at other teams’ quotes and reflections
  • Return to whole class discussion to discuss.

Follow-Up Questions

  • After doing a reading, students work in small groups (about 3 students) to develop follow-up questions to the reading. Go over what makes a good follow-up question beforehand, then we collect them all.
  • Once collected, choose a few to address together (thinking about what made these questions particularly compelling).
  • Using a collaborative google doc in the classroom can be helpful.

Debate

  • Split the room according to some open-ended question, and then have students prepare statements in groups, listen to the other side’s evidence, respond, etc. Sometimes there are just two sides of one big question. For example, does Alice in Wonderland make any sense? Or you can have multiple options: 4 different groups each tasked with making the case that a particular chapter is the “key” to a particular novel, for example.
  • Students can pick their position (eyes closed), with option of allowing an “undecided” group in the middle, who become the initial audience. It’s important to allow time for back-and-forth, asking questions and getting responses, which means being strict with timekeeping.
  • Important: A) It must be a question for which both sides are legitimate, and B) The instructor shouldn’t give criteria on which to base their position. Students should articulate their criteria themselves, which becomes the most useful part of the exercise.

Concept Recall

  • Use leftover time or set aside time in class for activities that get students to recall/remember/or retrieve information from either the same day or a past class period.
  • These activities can include non-graded informal quizzes, jeopardy (just with hand raising), and exit tickets that have students perform the act of recalling important concepts.
  • The medium/form/genre can be different but thinking about how to get students to do this important act of recalling can be fruitful for them and for instructors to know how well students are retaining and working with information.

Class Slide Deck

  • Collaboratively build a class slide deck of core concepts, case studies, or whatever the phenomenon under study is. Have students work in pairs or small groups to create a Google slide with a visual and text explanation, example, etc of the concept.
  • Have each pair or group present/teach it to a larger group or the whole class.

Student-Moderated Roundtable Discussion

  • Consider a free write to allow students to collect their thoughts prior to the discussion.
  • Assign a student moderator and set goals for the session. For example, time it for ~12-15 min for starters; everyone participates once; a minute is added if no one speaks up for 30 secs; state content goals; instructor observes but doesn’t speak and so on.

Texts/Genres in the Wild

  • Choose a text/genre on campus (something not viewed through a screen, please). Could be a poster or series of posters, a statue, architecture, something scribbled inside a bathroom stall, or whatever it is you interpret as a text.
  • Conduct a visual /rhetorical analysis. Consider audience, content, purpose, context, what surrounds the text, impact, consequences, power dynamics, and more.
  • Take some notes and a photo if you can. What questions does this text raise for you? What does it tell you about these places and what people care about or what matters (or doesn’t)? What does this text suggest about how to use or be in this space (or not do/be/think)? What did you learn about campus life? What else?
  • After: Share the text you chose, questions you explored, and a couple of things from your analysis (Note: Can be adapted as a genre analysis and visual analysis activity)
  • Note: For more place-based and embodied class activities, see Candice Rai’s slide deck in Further Resources section

Guided Analysis of Primary Sources

  • In this activity students will analyze a primary source as a means to understanding the history of a particular field (e.g., 16th century woodcuts and title pages from early print medical books has led to some interesting discussions about race, gender, class, etc. in the history of Public Health)
  • Guided analysis can use the heuristic of Observe, Reflect, and Question as a starting point and then be adapted depending on the type of source and instructor’s goals for using it.
  • The Library of Congress has more helpful info on teaching with primary sources.

Peer Discussion Leaders

  • Individual students or small groups sign up for a day to lead a discussion of an assigned text or a text of their choosing (e.g., a scientific article).
  • After text discussion (~20 minutes), audience members spend ~10 minutes writing “discussion reports,” or summaries of what they learned using the language of the discipline.
  • Optionally, for part of their final, students revise at least two of those reports according to instructor comments.

Jigsaw Discussion

  • Students are divided into groups and each group is assigned an article to read (e.g., Group 1 reads article A, Group 2 reads article B, etc.) before class.
  • In class, students discuss the article with their group members and come to some consensus on the main points.
  • Then, students go into new groups that include one member of each group from the previous round (e.g., each new group is comprised of someone from Groups 1, 2, and 3). In new groups, students take turns teaching each other about the article that they read.
  • Last, students synthesize the 3 articles—first in their small groups, and then in a full class discussion.

Assignment Research & Drafting

Introducing Assignments

Spend more time than you think you need introducing an assignment, including:

  • Read the prompt together (quietly, aloud, popcorn-style, etc.)
  • Ask students to quietly re-read a paper copy of the prompt, and annotate with questions, emphases, notes to self
  • Give lots of time to discuss and respond to questions

Scaffold Research…

And let the UW librarians do (some of) the work!

  • Subject area librarians are available to give an overview of research databases and other resources
  • Provide time in-class to practice conducting searches for sources while the librarian is there and can float

Two Different Outlines

  • In small groups, brainstorm and write two different outlines for a particular kind of text or upcoming assignment [e.g., in a technical writing class, an article titled “What Happens When You Enter a URL in an Internet Browser address bar?”].
  • Use two different organizing principles [such as Basic to Advanced, Question and Answer, or Chronological, for example above].
  • After you have written your outlines, have class discussion comparing the different outlines and addressing your process and experience. After a break to talk about transitions, write a transition that connects two paragraphs in your outline and a topic sentence for one of your paragraphs.

Crowdsourcing (Rhetorical) Mechanics, Style, & Usage Advice

  • Compile a list of mechanics/style/usage topics that you have noticed in student writing, or that are relevant to the genre assigned
  • In advance or in class, have students or pairs select a topic/issue and conduct research on that issue in class
  • Have students contribute a slide to a shared deck (i.e., Google slides), including info about what the issue is, the contexts in which it matters (or doesn’t), and examples; then share out
  • Emphasize the rhetorical, contextual nature of mechanics, style, and usage!

Jellybean Descriptions

  • This exercise builds skill in writing vivid descriptions. Instructor brings in some jellybeans and distributes one to each student.
  • Each student gets one and then needs to create a list of at least 10 words, phrases, metaphors that describe the flavor. They are NOT allowed to name it.
  • The other students in the group then have to guess what flavor it was.
  • This activity is used in creative writing classes, but could be adapted: the main point is to have an exercise focus on just ONE aspect of an upcoming writing assignment and to then develop a fun collaborative way for students to practice that.

Presentation Presentations

  • To be implemented prior to a presentation assignment.
  • Students get together in groups and come up with 3-5 characteristics that they think or know make a good slide presentation. This can be related to the slides or the way of presenting and engaging an audience.
  • They then have to create a slide deck to inform the rest of the class of those characteristics while also adopting them. This always goes well and leads into good discussion and questions about presenting generally.

Citation Chaining

  • There are two types of Citation Chaining, forward and backward. Backward: take a text with a bibliography and choose a source that is cited to then review its bibliography. Forward: who is citing the text since its publication? (See this in google scholar).
  • Discuss: How many levels back or forward can you go and what does it say about the discipline/conversation?

Peer Review & (Self)Assessment

Introducing Assessment Criteria

  • Pass out and discuss– or even better, collaborate on– assessment criteria specific to a major assignment
  • Share, read, and discuss sample (former) student writing or “real world” examples for the given assignment
  • Practice applying assessment criteria. Even if you don’t use numerical scores for grading, you can have students score sample writing for each criterion, then compare and discuss each other’s scores

Scaffold Peer Review…

And let OWRC do (some of) the work!

  • OWRC can come give a workshop to students helping them give effective feedback on peer drafts (schedule 2 weeks in advance!)
  • Provide super clear instructions on how to conduct peer review, and provide assessment criteria. Practice applying the criteria to sample writing in advance.

Post-Draft Interviews

  • Once an assignment sequence is complete, have students conduct interviews with each other, reflecting on how the writing process went
  • Provide questions or better yet, have them draft their own. E.g., When did you struggle most with this assignment, and what did you do about it? What did you learn about the research process that you’ll use next time? How can the instructor tweak the process next time?
  • Have students share key findings in whole-class discussion… listen to and incorporate their feedback!

Further Resources:

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2024-25 PWR Instructor Sourcebook Copyright © by kersch. All Rights Reserved.

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