‘Defend Your … X’ Discussion Strategy: Explanation
Defending something orally or in writing takes a high level of skill.
You need to persuasively advance your own arguments and critique the counterarguments of others.
In this activity, you can ask learners to defend a variety of things. For example:
- Defend your consequence
- Defend your cause
- Defend your reason
- Defend your argument
- Defend your decision
- Defend your interpretation
- Defend your suggestion
In each case, two things are implied.
First, that whatever it is you think or have been given is only one among many and that, as a result, you must defend it to show why it deserves to be taken into consideration and, in fact, why it is better, more likely, or more reasonable than the other options.
Second, that whatever it is you think or have been given is likely to come under attack from those who think or have been given something different.
Defence must thus be both protective (why I am right) and offensive (why other possibilities are wrong).
When planning the activity, decide what you want learners to defend.
For example, a history teacher might want learners to defend the causes of World War One.
An art teacher might want learners to defend the different approaches to representation.
Or an English teacher might want learners to defend different interpretations of a play.
Create slips of paper with the things you want learners to defend written on them.
For example, our history teacher would create a series of sets, each containing a range of causes of World War One.
In the lesson, introduce the activity and divide learners into groups. For this activity, groups of between four and six are ideal.
Give each group a set of slips and explain that these should be shared out, one per learner.
Learners will need to defend whatever is written on their piece of paper.
Learners are given a few minutes to think about the thing they have been given to defend, and to come up with some arguments.
They need to work out how they will defend what they have been given. (Depending on your class, you might want to give learners longer for this phase.)
Next, it is time for the discussion.
Begin by giving each learner one minute in which to mount their defence. The rest of the group must be silent and listen while this happens.
When every learner has spoken, the group discusses the topic in a free-for-all. This is a great opportunity for learners to attack each other’s positions and try to prove why they are right.
Learners continue to discuss until you feel the activity has run its course.
‘Defend Your … X’ Discussion Strategy: Example
Topic: Achieving Sporting Success
The teacher introduces the topic and explains that learners will be focussing on the question: ‘What is the main cause of sporting success?’
Each learner will be defending a cause.
The class contains eighteen learners.
The teacher creates three groups and hands out the following slips, one to each learner in each group:
- Innate talent is the main cause of sporting success
- Practice is the main cause of sporting success
- Coaches are the main cause of sporting success
- Luck is the main cause of sporting success
- A winning mentality is the main cause of sporting success
- Learning from your mistakes is the main cause of sporting success
Learners have five minutes to plan the defence of their cause. The teacher might develop this by letting learners who have the same cause work together, so they can share ideas.
When the time is up, learners go back into their groups and the activity runs as outlined above.
First, learners take it in turns to defend their causes, then there is a free-for-all discussion.
In this example, where there are three separate groups, the teacher might end the activity by asking one person from each group to report back to the whole class about what was said in their debate.
A reflective discussion could then ensue in which learners talk about the difficulties of defending certain positions and think about where they now stand in relation to the overarching question: What is the main cause of sporting success?
Defend Your … Discussion Strategy: Extensions and Developments
- At the end of the activity, ask learners to swap slips and to then go again, this time defending something different.
- Hand out the slips at the end of a lesson and ask pupils to prepare their defences for homework. If learners complete the work, this should lead to a high-quality discussion with good use of evidence and examples.
