Cultivating Deeper Understanding With a Comprehension Clash

Cathleen Beachboard, an English language arts teacher at Fauquier High School in Warrenton, Virginia, doesn’t shy away from debate in her classroom. In fact, she finds it to be an engaging review activity aimed at cultivating deeper understanding with her students.

At the end of a unit of study, she asks each student to reflect with the following prompt: What is the unit’s most important piece of information? They start with a solo writing exercise, then take their idea and have mini-debates with their classmates, trying to persuade others to change their opinion and adopt their idea. “You get to learn persuasive argumentation,” Beachboard says, “and it values everybody’s voice in the conversation.” 

Eventually, students team up more and more, coalescing around a central idea and building more arguments along the way. “They’re responding with… evidentiary support for each one of their claims,” Beachboard says, an important lesson “that you don’t just state an opinion without a fact.”

Once larger groups form, spokespeople from each group make their case, and students are encouraged to change their minds. “That’s something that I also want to teach kids,” Beachboard notes. “As you grow and you learn new things, you become different. You’re not the same person you were when you were in kindergarten or first grade. You grow and you evolve. And so it’s OK to change your opinion.”

Though there is never one right answer, this engaging review activity always leads to energetic discussion and revelations. The winning team is the one that has the most students at the end (or, in the event of a tie, the team that persuades the teacher to join their side). But the best outcome? The process of formulating an argument—and then strengthening it through peer collaboration—cultivates a deeper understanding, develops students’ critical thinking skills, and helps them remember key lessons.

To try this activity (and adapt it for any subject), download the Comprehension Clash handout that Beachboard uses to guide her students through the process.