Dug Deep For a Writing Activity Taught to Me by a 6th Grader. It Was Superb. Youth Up. They Know the Magic.

Maybe it was 20 or so years ago, but I remember a 6th grader from the Brown School sharing a prompt with me that was wonderful. He brought a suitcase into my room and dumped its content telling me, "I grabbed the wrong suitcase from the conveyor belt after my family trip. Who do you think this belongs to?" 

Well, I asked my seniors to respond to the request. It was one way to explore character development, but last night I used it as a data analysis tool for an Education Action Research class. I used the idea and brought a bag of goods in and asked my graduate students to do 'artifact analysis' to piece together what the story might be. In the bag was a wig, fancy glasses, a wand, a book on German Nazis, a flashlight, a wrench, lightbulbs, a copy of Robert's Rules, a container of Hungarian cookies, a pearl necklace, a crown for a 60th birthday and a note that read,

Hey,
I was going to leave this on the table, but decided I needed to go. You know where I am and why I left. We’ve had this discussion before. The last time, your mother came over to be with you. I phoned her before I left and said that I was going to mail you this note. I found it in my bag and need to put it in an envelope and get a stamp before I do.
Kelly and Shaun know. I also phoned in to work. There’s an ultimatum before my eyes and, as always, I needed to act quickly. 
Paul knows where the credit card is.
XoXo,
CRM

From there, I ask everyone, what can you piece together from the data. It was a better experiment than I anticipated and groups put together a wide variety of stories, making their case from the items they found from the pile that was dumped on the table.

From there I moved to student writing and how one might make a case about a kid-writer and we discussed how data collected is typically much more abundant than what can be written. Analysis is about looking at the data thoroughly and coming up with claims that can be made across the data.

I think it resonated, and although I planned the evening to be a shortened class, the activities lasted the entire night. I have admitted that teaching this course is extremely tough, but as the instructor it is extremely useful. I gain so much more insight on methodology, literature review, and context for the research than I've ever had before. I love it - not sure if I ever want to teach the class again, but definitely more optimistic about the experience than ever before.

I will definitely find a way to use this activity in similar ways in the future. It really was useful and intriguing, especially for students.

Okay, Tuesday. What do you got for me?