Let's Go to the Polls

No, this isn't an appeal to get all of you to vote (although, seriously, you should if you haven't already). Anne Smith's freshmen recently began a unit that includes Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451 and Kurt Vonnegut's "Harrison Bergeron". Anne decided to get some discussions started before they started reading Harrison Bergeron:

The following day, before we read Kurt Vonnegut’s “Harrison Bergeron”, I used Polleverywhere.com to create an in-class texting poll asking them to submit their answers to the following questions. The paired up in class with one other student who had free, unlimited texting and then once I put up the poll question, they text in their answer, after discussing the possibilities together. It was AWESOME! The twosome discussed their answer, then we took sides in class. I had one participant be the voice of the yes, no, or maybe on each question presenting their case, and then opened it up to the entire class for discussion. They were so into it, it was challenging to bring them back to move onto the next question. Talk about motivated learners.

What were the questions? Statements like: History books are accurate. Censorship is never justified. People should always obey the law. Visit the post to read all the statements and the results of the polls. (Note: You'll need PowerPoint 2007 to open the polls and you have to actually run the slideshow to see the question and the results.)