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Reflection

The lesson I decided to do for my best lesson was a debate on

the Treaty of Versailles. The unit goal was for the students to create

their own arguments with evidence on the different options the Treaty

of Versailles had to offer for the American people. I had gotten most of

the resources such as the readings and thinking maps from a teacher

resources book called To End All Wars: World war I and the League of

Nations debate (Graseck, 2008). These resources were from the

Choices program that was given to me by my mentor teacher to use to

guide my lesson planning. Using this resource I began to plan my

lessons for the World War I (WWI) unit. My goal was to have the

students create arguments from the readings and to make sure they

knew the debate format. However, it was pointed out to me by mentor

teacher that before they could do that, the students needed to get

used to speaking up and having a structured discussion.

During the prep for the debate the students read the readings

and created questions about the readings. The structured discussion

included a philosophical chair discussion where the students created

their own questions and a fish bowl discussion where a small group of

students were to discuss while the outside take notes and come up

with other questions. Once I saw the students were comfortable with

the discussions and coming up with their own opinions, they started to

come up with arguments for the debate.

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The students would enter in the role of a U.S senator. The

students would debate the three options the U.S. senate actually

debated about during the time after World War I. The students would

have to create arguments about all three options. The first option was

that the treaty should be signed as is with no changes. The second

option was the treaty should be signed but makes changes to the

treaty. The third option was that the senators should not sign the treaty

no matter what. Each student started creating arguments about the

first option and have counterclaims supporting option 2 and 3 and a

rebuttal from what option 2 and 3 said but supporting what they

argued for option 1. Once they completed this portion they would be

ready to be split into their debate groups.

On the day of the debate, there was an environmental

disturbance that could have hindered the debate. Since the debate was

based on the response of others their volume was important. On this

day there was construction going on right above our room due to the

installation of solar panels on the building. The class and myself tried

our best to go right through it. The students did their best to go

through the noise and were told by me to speak louder or wait for the

noise to die down.

The debate for itself went according to plan. I selected the

groups because I wanted each group to have a balanced amount of

speakers and made sure that the more quiet ones had an opportunity
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to speak. There were a total of four groups, the three options and one

neutral group. The neutral group was designated to create questions

for them to decide at the end what group they wanted to side with.

This was the incentive for the other groups to make sure the debate

went well and for them to be ready.

Analysis

For the most part, the debate was structured in a way that all

groups and students got a chance to speak or ask a question. The

format of the debate went by a neutral person asking a question to

whatever group they wanted and then the group would respond and

the other groups would respond along with the other group and the

original group would rebuttal. After the round of responses, I would

have the debate stop and ask the neutral party for the next question.

Not just one person was allowed to keep talking, however there were

some instances of some students talking more than others. I would

occasionally tell the groups keep in mind who didnt have a chance to

speak yet. After that instruction the students would give the other

students and even motivate the students to speak.

Throughout the debate I kept track on the students arguments

and the made sure the neutral parties questions were higher level

thinking questions. For the majority of the class the arguments had

evidence and were well spoken. The other factor that I was making
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sure the students followed was their behavior. The behavior was to

respect one another and to respect what each person was saying. To

make sure they respected one another I gave the students examples in

pervious structured discussions on how to respectfully respond to one

another. Majority of the students were able to behave accordingly.

There was one instance where the class debate did get out of hand and

I had to interject and make sure to bring the class back together and

start on the new question.

Overall, majority of the students had achieved my unit goal of

having a debate and have them create arguments with evidence. All

students have shown this through their argument worksheet and the

debate. Both were used to find out what grade the student had. From

what I seen on their argument sheets the students were prepared for

the assessment that was the debate. The debate could be improved by

having the neutral party be part of the debate by having them do more

than ask questions. That was the component in this debate where I felt

was the weakest. I wanted the neutral party more involved and I could

get them involved by clarifying questions and make sure the debate is

on track with the question they have given.

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Work Cited

Graseck, S. (2008). To end all wars: World war I and the league of
nations debate. (Kit) Choices for the 21st Century Education
Program. Providence, RI.