The Conversation Project puts students in charge of their own learning. This project comes with a total of 98 links to nonfiction sources with an essential question for each link to help generate deep conversations on a variety of relevant, modern topics.

The file contains space for students to take notes after each link and question, a handout to take notes on sources they find independently, and a list of nonfiction books and websites for when they get free time at the end of the project.

There is also a one page description of the final project and directions for how to assign the work and divide up the time.

Table of Contents

Outline of Five Parts of Project pages 2-3

Part 1: Essays pages 4-7

Part 2: Podcasts pages 8-14

Part 3: Images pages 15-17

Part 4: Videos pages 18-20

Part 5: Notes on Free Literacy Blocks page 21

Additional reflection page page 22

Additional sources page 23

Nonfiction book list page 24

The time for each section will vary greatly depending on the length of the class conversations and how much time you allow for independent work and group work. The teacher could ask for volunteers instead of requiring every student to present. You could either handle each section in one or two weeks or stop for 20 minutes every week throughout the year. Either way, it should take at least four weeks but as many as seven weeks to complete the project.