I'll wager you'd like to dramatically improve your class discussions! You yearn for discussions where all students participate. You dream about student conversations that tackle compelling topics with DEEP analysis, inquiry, and speculation. I'll also predict you'd love your students to enthusiastically plunge into primary sources evaluating the perspective of the author, contextualizing what they wrote, and then corroborating the source with other primary documents.

Last week, my students did exactly this with Lin Zexu's letter to Queen Elizabeth imploring her to end the opium trade in China. It was an epic performance by my students! The instructional template is Philosophical Chairs. What inspired this wonderful class was the Stanford History Education Group. Today, Joel Breakstone, from SHEG, will discuss:

-The Stanford History Education Group
-Philosophical Chairs
-Empowering students to devour primary sources
-Inspiring kids to dramatically up their class conversation game