Slide outline for Lesson 7.3. Eleven slides, one day. Keep slides 6 to 10 covered or blacked out until the reveal. If students see the four traits before they answer, the drill stops working, because they start performing for the traits instead of thinking.
ACT FAST
- Unit 7, Lesson 7.3, Topic 7.1 Present Yourself
- Today: questions nobody can prepare for
- Nobody is getting a grade
Teacher notes
Image: a kitchen timer set to 30 seconds, dial visible.
Desks pushed back before the bell. The deck shuffled. Four cards pulled out that are too hard for your room this year. The four trait headings written on the board and covered.
Do now
- Write down the last time somebody asked you something and your brain went blank
- One sentence
- You will not have to read it
Teacher notes
No shares. Then the hand vote: "Hands up if that has happened to you." Then: "Keep your hand up if you thought that meant you were bad at it." Count out loud. That number is what this lesson is aimed at.
The rules
- Stand up
- 10 seconds of silence to think
- 30 seconds to answer
- The timer ends it, even mid-word
- No do-overs
- We clap for everyone the same
Teacher notes
Say the last rule once and enforce it on the very first answer. Then: "At the end I will tell you what I was actually watching, and it is not the answer."
Round 1
- Six people
- Six minutes
- No commentary in between
Teacher notes
Deal cards to six students. Keep the pace hard. Take private notes on the trait tally and say nothing evaluative, not even "good job." The moment you praise one answer, everybody after it performs for you.
Round 2
- Six more people
- Same rules, one change: I may interrupt you once
- "What if that does not work?" or "Say that in one sentence"
Teacher notes
Announce the interruption at the start of the round so it is not a trick. Students who answered in Round 1 write one word per speaker: the word that speaker used most.
Nobody got it right
- There is no right answer to "sell a bicycle to a fish"
- I was not scoring the answer
- Here is what I was writing down
Teacher notes
This is the pivot. Say it and then pause. Uncover the four headings one at a time, not all at once.
Composure
- Did your voice stay at a level anybody could hear?
- Did you breathe?
- Did you start inside the ten seconds, or did you stall?
- A four-second pause and then a clean start is composure
Teacher notes
Take a second observable sign from the class and write it on the board. Then name one moment from the rounds without naming a student: "somebody paused and then started clean, that was this."
Communication
- Did I understand you?
- Did you look up?
- Did you finish sentences?
Teacher notes
Same move: one sign from you, one from the class, one unnamed moment from the rounds.
Problem solving
- Did you make a decision and give a reason?
- Or did you narrate being confused?
- "I would do X because Y" versus "um, I don't know, maybe, like..."
Teacher notes
This is the most useful distinction in the lesson and most students have never heard it named. Say the two versions out loud, back to back.
Adaptability
- When the question changed on you, did you change with it?
- Or did you restart the old answer?
- That is what the interruption was testing
Teacher notes
Then the transfer, said plainly: "An interview. A first day at a job. A customer with a complaint. A principal in your doorway. A judge asking you a question next Friday about a business you built. This is that skill."
Round 3, then score yourself
- In pairs. One draws, one times. 30 seconds. Then switch
- Then: score yourself 1 to 4 on all four traits
- One sentence of evidence each. Something somebody could SEE or HEAR
- "I was nervous" is a feeling. "My voice shook and then it stopped" is evidence
- Circle the one trait you will work on first
Teacher notes
Two resume conferences run during the pair round. Closure: one sentence each, standing, "The trait I am working on is ___ because ___." Five seconds each, no comment. Collect the self-score sheets; they come back in Lesson 7.5 and again in Lesson 7.12.