Step One: Introduce the toolbox metaphor
The toolbox metaphor is particularly effective with students because it is easy for most of them to imagine a physical toolbox.  You might begin by asking students to brainstorm the purpose of a toolbox and the items that typically are placed inside of one.  After students consider how toolboxes are used to build and fix physical structures, ask them to imagine a figurative toolbox that includes tools that can be used to build and fix our communities – local, global and national.  You can make this point more specific by linking it to the particular content you are studying.

Step Two: Decide the kind of toolbox that students will be building

Different tools are needed to address different goals. You might align the toolbox with a specific purpose. For examples, students can consider the different tools that may go into each of these toolboxes:

Ÿ         Toolbox for Justice

Ÿ         Toolbox for Democracy

Ÿ         Toolbox for Citizenship

Ÿ         Toolbox for Responding to Difference

Ÿ         Toolbox for Participation

Ÿ         Toolbox for Genocide Prevention

Ÿ         Toolbox for Social Responsibility

Ÿ         Toolbox for Upstanders

Depending on your unit of study, exploring some of these toolboxes may be more appropriate than others. You might focus on only one, such as “Toolbox for Justice,” or you might allow your students to decide the toolbox that is most needed for a given situation or most important to them.

Step Three: Define key term (focus of the toolbox)

A beginning step should include having students clearly define the purpose of their toolbox. In other words, if students are building a “Toolbox for Citizenship” they need to be able to define what citizenship means to them (hopefully building on the definitions of others).  This definition step can be done as an individual or whole class activity.

Step four: Identifying tools

Once students have a clear focus for their toolbox, they can begin identifying tools that can help work toward this goal.  Depending on how much time you have and the scale of this project, this can be done as a brief brainstorming exercise. Or, students could spend days or weeks researching the tools that have been used during particular periods of history to achieve this goal.  For example, if students are creating a “Toolbox for Civil Rights,” they might explore what individuals, groups and institutions did during the Civil Rights Movement.

Step five: Building the toolbox

After students have a list of potential tools, you might ask them to prioritize by having them select a certain number (5-10) that they would put in their toolbox. For each tool they include you might ask them to define the tool, explain its purpose, provide evidence of its usefulness, and describe how it might be used effectively.  They might also present cautions or warnings for how the tool could be misused.

Toolboxes can be presented in many formats. They can be as simple as a list of items that students explain to the class. Or, they can be actual 3-dimensional structures with physical items representing each tool.  Some teachers may ask students to write an essay to accompany their toolbox.

Step six: Sharing toolboxes

Students can learn a great deal from seeing each other’s toolboxes. You might have students pair up to discuss their choices with a partner. Or, students could showcase their toolboxes to the whole class, as an exhibit or oral presentations. You might use a graphic organizer or prompts to help students compare and contrast the different toolboxes.

Step seven: Debriefing and building new knowledge

Ÿ         What tools are the most popular? Why might that be the case?

Ÿ         What stands out to them about a particular toolbox?

Ÿ         What questions do the toolboxes raise for them? Which tools seem most accessible? To whom? Who might not have access to these tools? Why?

Ÿ         Which tools seem out of their reach at the moment and what could be done to gain access to them?

Ÿ         After viewing other toolboxes, what changes, if any, would they make to their own?

These are examples of questions that can be used to structure a conversation about the toolboxes.  Before the discussion, students can reflect in their journals about what they observed.  One way to conclude this activity is to have the whole class build a toolbox together, selecting tools from the different student-created toolboxes.

Step One: Create a prompt
The most effective prompts for this activity are statements that are focused clearly enough so that there is a direct link to the purpose of the lesson and are neutral enough so that students feel freely respond to the prompt. Many teachers use prompts that begin with stems such as “Your role/task is to…” or “You want to / A group wants to.” A prompt could also be a description of a class project.

Examples:

-          You want to prevent genocide from happening never again.

-          Your role is to draft a class contract - a list of rules or expectations that we will follow this year.

-          After World War II, the Allies want to achieve justice for the crimes committed by the Nazis.

-          You will design a way to teach other students about media literacy.

You can also use visual prompts – a movie or a series of images – as a prompt. After students view the visual prompt, proceed to step two.

Step Two: Students generate questions

In groups, give students a fixed amount of time (5-10 minutes) to generate a list of questions, adhering to these rules:

1)      Write down the questions exactly as they are said

2)      Do not stop to discuss or answer the questions

3)      Write down as many questions as you can

4)      Statements should be rephrased as questions.

Step three: Students identify open and closed questions
Ask students to look at their lists and put an “O” by all of the open-ended questions (questions with many possible answers) and a “C” by questions that elicit one answer (a “yes/no” question or a question with a factual answer).  Then, have students change one of their open questions into a closed question and one closed question into an open question. 

Step four: Students prioritize questions

Have groups select 3 questions from their list. It could be the three questions they find most interesting or important or the three questions that they think need to be addressed first.

Step five: Groups share questions

When groups present their questions, ask them to share why they selected these three. The questions that the class generates can be used as the focus of a class discussion, a writing assignment, a research project, or as a tool to help you plan future lessons.

Step six: Reflections

Give students the opportunity to reflect on this process by writing in a journal and/or through a brief discussion. What did they learn about formulating questions? About the content? About their own priorities? About working with others? What challenges did they encounter? How did they manage these challenges? You might also give students the opportunity to select one or two questions, from their own list or from another group’s list, that they would most like to pursue and then write about why they selected this question.