Starting conversation for the day on the whiteboard:

“Why do rules matter? No, I don’t mean headphones or school stuff. I mean things like you can’t run with a basketball or you can’t have a paper with no punctuation. What purpose do they serve? Where do they come from? Why do they matter?”

My students and I tend to rotate through our morning circle activities. Sometimes we read. Sometimes we write. Sometimes we argue. Sometimes we watch a short video. Most days a student runs the conversation and most days a student keeps track of the conversation. Some of the conversations become posters (more on that later) and most end up in our binders.

Today’s discussion points, all of which are student driven:
do rules bring order?
Without rules, everything will be unorganized
Rules help things flow better
You learn from rules (they help you know what you supposed to do)
You learn from watching others follow rules.
Breaking rules to make a point.

Best part of the day was when someone made this comment: “you can’t practice school.” This will become tomorrow’s discussion starter. But all of the points above (culled from my list and our notetaker’s list) matter. They matter today, as sophomores, and today, as a weary 46 year old man.

Why write about this? It’s central to our model for us to discuss why we do things and why we do things the way we do them. I wanted to have this conversation so that they could think about why writing conventions matter (we’re starting to write plays) but it drifted quickly to school. Some of the work is about learning to talk and listen; some of it is about learning to reflect about their intentions for the day.