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A Slightly Different Twist on Claim Testing - Global Conflict

Andrea Wong

I think I have used almost all of the Claim Testing activities so far this year so I decided to switch things up a bit for Claim Testing - Global Conflict. Instead of getting students into groups of 4, I had them choose a partner to work with. I gave each set of partners two different claims and had them discuss the claims and come up with 3 pieces of evidence to support the statement. For some of my struggling students, I think it was helpful for them to have a partner to bounce ideas off of. Once each group came up with their supporting evidence, I had students switch claim cards with another group - If they started with 1 & 2, they now had 3 & 4 and vice versa. This time they had to read the evidence that was written and determine whether it were strong enough to support the claim. They were challenged to add more details to make the evidence even stronger. Finally, they turned the claim card over to write a counter-claim on the back. Students seemed to appreciate a new way to tackle the activity and I appreciated the slightly quieter classroom on a Friday afternoon! Student samples are below!

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  • That's a cool lesson design Andrea.  I'm thinking maybe I can do this with my students next month as a review for our final and state exam.  Thanks.  I'll make sure to share whatever I come up with.  Thanks for the inspiration. 

  •   , very nice. Do you think having to evaluate the evidence other students selected to support a claim added something to the activity? 

  • in reply to John Vidoli

      , I do think it added to the lesson. After the first few Claim Testing activities I noticed that a few students started to get a bit lazy and were not using as much detail as they should have been. They were relying on others in the class to come up with 'better" evidence. This activity put the pressure back on them for the first part of the activity. The second part of the activity where students evaluated the evidence was similar to the original activity, but instead of choosing the best evidence, students could add/change what was written to make it stronger. There were a lot of conversations going on which is what I was hoping for!

  • This is one of my favorite lessons in the 1750-Present course too!  I love the partner idea, that's genius.  I think next year I'll do it this way the first time around to scaffold the skill; thank you.

     ,did you add any written component (paragraph/other) at the end this time?