Fishbowl

Fishbowl Checklist

Plan an open space in the classroom or outside for this activity. Two circles of chairs (one inside circle, one outside circle).  The topic or question displayed.  Students having notes page, participation checklist and/or resources.

1. TOPIC or TEXT:  Develop and share an open-ended question to start the discussion.  If using text, students may read the text beforehand or the strategy may be used to introduce text.  Either way, provide students with time to think and a way to write down their thinking before breaking students into groups. 

2. SPLIT THE CLASS: Decide which half of the students will form the inside circle and which half will form the outside circle (tip: you could distribute two different colored sheets of paper to the class, assign everyone as a #1 or #2).

3. OUTER CIRCLE ROLE: Instruct the outer circle to remain quiet, observe and take notes on the content and/or use the process checklist to track the inner circle participation.  

4. INNER CIRCLE ROLE: Ask students in the inside circle to share their response to the open-ended question posed in the beginning of the strategy.  (tip: provide a talking piece, language frames)

5. FACILITATOR: if you have a student facilitator, they will not participate in the discussion, but poses questions along the way to prompt deeper discussion and to ensure everyone inside the fishbowl has a chance to talk.

6. DISCUSSION: Allow the conversation to progress where students take it.  

7. ROTATION:  Rotate students in and out of the fishbowl throughout the course of the discussion.  Have students practice rotating ahead of time so they know how to rotate.  TIme the discussion based on students’ age. 

8. DEBRIEF:  After all students have rotated through the fishbowl, divide the class into small groups of 3-4 to go through the debrief questions.  They may use their observation notes from the outside circle to highlight strengths of discussion and make suggestions for ways to make the discussion more meaningful. 

   1. 1. 1. 1. 1. What did you observe during the discussion of the text?

               2. What is one thing  you heard that is similar to your point of view?

               3. What is one point with which you disagree?

               4. How did you feel while in the outside of the fishbowl?

               5. How did you feel while on the inside of the fishbowl?

               6. WRAP UP:  With a full class discussion, pose a final question and give everyone an opportunity to talk to a partner and then follow up with a quick write. 

               7. Was it difficult to not respond to the fishbowl students? Why or why not?

               8. How did it feel to share your feelings/thinking about the text/question knowing that your peers were listening closely?

• Model Circles: Instead of the whole group, have students begin using this strategy in a small circle beginning with the teacher and a few selected students being the inside of the fishbowl while the other students observe and take notes on the interactions and process, rather than content.  Then, give each student an opportunity to be in the model group (the inside circle) before moving them into the larger whole group circle. 

• Community Building: Introduce this strategy using a non-academic topic or text.  This will help teach the strategy process, so that when using it with content later, the students can focus on the academic content and not the process.

• Facilitator Script: Use the student facilitator script to move students into this role.

• Talking Piece:  Give students a talking piece so only the student holding the talking piece is the student talking.

• Language Frames:  Provide inside circle students language frames to use during inner circle discussion.

• Multiple Circles: Put students into multiple smaller circles around the room.  Each group has a different discussion topic or question.  After each group completes their discussion topic the question/topic rotates so each group addresses each topic or question. 

• Writing Questions: Have students write their own level 2 or 3 questions to be asked in the fishbowl  

• Checklist: Have the outside circle observers take notes on the participation of the inside circle group members.  This would be turned into the teacher at the end. Here is the Text-based Peer Tracking Sheet

• Writing:  Have students complete a writing assignment (quickwrite, gist statement, personal reflection) based on the new information they learned based on the fishbowl discussion.