3. Hermeneutics

Sharing Responses

This lesson’s goal is to create space for students to share their personal responses from the writing task assigned at the end of the previous lesson, and then to discuss those responses collectively.

Here are some guidelines you may want to use for this session:

• Begin class by explaining your expectations and clarifying how you would like students to share their written responses.
• Students should each share their responses and explain them to the class.
• After each student’s presentation, allow time for the class to discuss whether the presentation included examples of good thinking, erroneous thinking, or concepts that need further clarification.
• Try to maintain an ethos in which the concern is pursuing truth and improving our thinking processes along the way, rather than simply deciding whether a given response is good or bad.
• If problems in the logic of a response ultimately help us understand the issues better, then this problematic response has still contributed to the discussion.

End class by asking students to celebrate each other, allowing time to go around the room and have students praise, encourage, or celebrate their peers’ creations.