I have an irrational hatred of the sight of students sitting quietly doing nothing. It could be during a powerpoint presentation, a whole-class question and answer session, or a written task that is too easy. As an RE teacher I also have a natural tendency to want to get students arguing with each other and expressing differing opinions without them becoming annoyed and telling each other to shut up. I also want to train them to actually listen to each other rather than just waiting for their own turn to speak, and to foster some sense of group responsibility (I also want England to win the football World Cup and to go into space, but those things are marginally less likely to happen – so I am focusing on the students for now).
One activity that students really enjoy is debates. The weakness I always used to find with debates, though, was that at any one time only one maybe two students would be speaking, while a certain percentage listened/waited to speak, and the remainder quietly switched off, staring at the speakers with that zoned out expression that means the words are going in, but they’re not staying there. The following lesson is my attempt at solving these problems using a GCSE class and the issue of abortion. The lesson should take place towards the end of study on the topic.
WHY TEACH THIS?
Teachers work too hard; so any session with little prep where the students are doing all the work has got to be a good thing. The lesson here focuses on the issue of abortion, but the activity can be adapted for just about any classroom topic. Students will work in small groups and each will have responsibility over two other groups at some stage. The knowledge reviewed in the lesson is half of the learning, the other half is attempting to get the class to work together by ‘forcing’ them to listen to each other and respect each other’s opinions. Also, the key skills in RE (particularly at GCSE level) of turning your opinion into a developed point and being able to offer arguments for either side are practised. I have run this activity with groups of all abilities from year 7 through to Year 11. It’s always been fun.
STARTER ACTIVITIES
Each student writes up to three statements to be debated (one is fine if they can’t think of any more). The statements must be linked to the topic. In this case one must be concerning when life begins; one concerning abortion as a kind deed/murder; and one concerning religious views. The students can use past work in their books for ideas, and/or past paper for and against questions (two of the four questions on the Edexcel paper for each topic involve supporting an opinion).
Each student also draws a rough table in their book for scoring, as shown below (no wasting time with rulers):
Students are placed into groups of three. Usually I would go for mixed ability groupings – and if numbers are uneven I prefer to have two stronger students together rather than four as there is less chance of someone trying to ‘hide’. Each debate will have three groups involved, so it is important that the number of groups is a multiple of three, or threes and one pair of groups, where the teacher can take the place of the third group.
Each group then thinks of a team name, compares their questions from the starter, and chooses two they wish to debate. Selected questions are given to the teacher, who then chooses the best and puts it on the board. Students have ‘X’ minutes to prepare both sides. Teacher draws up table of debates quickly (team 1 vs team 2, team 3 judges; team 4 vs team 5, team 6 judges; etc.) It’s nice to have team names on the board.
Students move to their debate positions and are only then told for which side they must argue. Each debate is up to five minutes (have a timer on board), depending on the ability of the students. Judges individually mark a tally for each group according to the scoresheet and add up the scores at the end to see who wins. All students must be aware that the judges’ decision is final, and there is no arguing. Once the time begins anyone can speak – but there can only be one person speaking at a time, and you cannot speak unless you have put your hand up (which you can do at any time) and have been chosen by a judge. Judges are in control of the debates.
Once the debate is over, winners are marked on the board, a new question is selected, and groups rotate around, with different teams as judges. The process repeats as many times as possible within the lesson, ensuring all students are judges at some point and no team debates the same team twice. I usually give winners two points, one each for a draw and none to the losers.
It can be a headache working out who will debate against whom next, trying to ensure the same teams do not clash and everyone has a chance to be judges, so if you want to pre-prepare the lesson it would probably be an idea to work through that first, students will be on each team. This can always be done though while the students are debating or deciding winners if you want to run the lesson with no physical preparation at all.
It’s good to be flexible during the lesson if there are some teams that are clearly stronger/ weaker than others. I usually have a slide with the rules and instructions on, as seeing the same words I am saying up on a powerpoint seems to give them much more value for some reason!
You can always adjust the scoring categories, include ‘secret’ terms or phrases on slips given to judges that score double points (for example ‘embryo’, ‘sanctity of life’, ‘lesser of two evils’), or have a one minute ‘debate off’ between two representatives of the top teams at the end. I have also included less serious questions before, such as “The continued existence of Justin Bieber is proof that God is not real.”
Winners get a token prize, such as choosing a song to play as the class leaves.
SUMMARY
Quick-fire questions along the lines of “Give me one reason some Christians believe abortion is never right”, “What is the strongest non-religious argument you heard for abortion?” etc.
HOME LEARNING
In this example, I would hand out exam questions on abortion. You could ask students to write a piece explaining their own opinion with supporting points, and why someone might think differently, or a challenge to bullet-point as many arguments for and against abortion as possible, labelling each point as religious (which religion) or non-religious.
ABOUT OUR EXPERT
Ben Lee has been an RE teacher for eight years and is head of humanities at Westfield Academy, Watford. He is still amazed every day at how such a difficult job even without knowing which can be so enjoyable.
