We may earn money or products from the companies mentioned in this post.
This post may contain affiliate links. You pay the same and I get a small commission. Win Win! (Check out the full disclosure here.)
Love the idea of having whole class discussions but racking your brain with how to assess student involvement & contributions? I feel you, trying to keep up with what kids are saying and evaluate the quality in the moment has kicked my butt.
I tried so many different things, including using a rubric per student (that was a wild adventure). I also gave up on grading this type of lesson at all. Then I developed a discussion tracker template that I love using (good news, it’s FREE!).
The best part is the simplicity! It’s easy to use, works with any topic/subject area & Let me talk you through how I use it:
I usually have my room set up in a circle when they come to class the day of the discussion. Directions are posted that tell them to sit wherever they want and complete an opening activity. While they are doing this, I make a quick seating chart on a copy of the template. I put each student’s name where they sit in the circle.
Here’s the setup in my class for a Shared Inquiry Discussion on “The New Colossus” by Emma Lazarus.
Once the whole class discussion starts, I use the symbols in the center of the template to track each student’s participation & contributions. Depending on the topic of the discussion and how often the students discuss, I will also jot down what the students say.
As the discussion comes to the end, I will have students reflect on their own participation and the goal they initially set and write about how effectively they reached their goal. I use this as I look over my notes on the circle template to determine a grade for the students.
I absolutely love facilitating whole class discussions to work through complicated texts. Some of my favorite discussion lessons of all time have involved Socratic Seminar and the Shared Inquiry structures. Using the process I outlined above has made this a breeze!
Looking for a lesson to practice this with? I love using “The Seventh Man” by Haruki Murakami as an excellent short story that leads into a great Socratic Seminar discussion, using this lesson & questions.
Looking for more rubrics? Join my Free Resource Library for access to my ready-to-print rubrics.
