In my first year of teaching I had a problem. OK, I had many problems, but this one was notable because I solved it. The problem was that students weren’t getting quiet when they needed to write.
This was a big issue, because it didn’t matter how brilliant my lesson plan was. If students weren’t quiet while they were writing, they weren’t writing to the best of their abilities.
Then I observed a middle school lesson. The teacher used one of three keywords to let the students know what the appropriate classroom volume level should be for that activity. These were “Outer Space,” “Library,” and “Restaurant.” Whenever he gave students a task, he also told them what the corresponding noise level should be.
I brought these keywords back to my classroom and they changed my teaching forever.
Outer space is absolutely silent, because there is no matter to carry sound waves.
When to use it
Set the class to Outer Space for tasks that require total concentration, such as reading and writing.
A library is quiet, but not silent. In a library you might ask somebody to borrow a laptop charger or get a suggestion from a librarian, but you wouldn’t start a conversation at your table about your favorite bands.
When to use it
Use Library for tasks that are mostly individual, but require some collaboration, such as art activities for which students are sharing supplies, or gallery walks in which students walk around the room to examine artifacts.
Picture a restaurant in which everyone is having a good time. It’s noisy, but not because anyone’s getting rambunctious, but rather because if people are having multiple conversations at different tables, the cumulative effect is pretty loud.
When to use it
Use Restaurant when you want students to discuss something in small groups.
The first time you explain the noise level concept to your students, play a game in which you call out different levels and have them switch between them as quickly as possible.
If you call out “Restaurant,” they should start talking at their tables. If you call out “Outer Space,” they should get silent. Time them to see how long it takes to move from one noise level to another.
For the first week you use this strategy, repeat this exercise a couple minutes every day.
Caption: This is the slide I use to introduce the three noise levels to my students.
To show how I use these noise levels in my classroom, consider a lesson I designed for our reading of Jon Krakauer’s book Into the Wild.
One of the central questions that drives Into the Wild is “What matters most in life?”
I wanted students to be primed to think about this question as they read, so they began by writing responses to a set of prompts.
The appropriate noise level in the classroom for this task was Outer Space because I wanted students to be totally focused on their own writing.
After they wrote, we did a gallery walk in which students walked around the room looking at photos and bits of information I’d put up that provided context to help them make sense of Into the Wild.
I knew it was unreasonable to expect students to do this in silence (if nothing else, I wanted them to say “excuse me” if they bumped into each other!) On the other hand, I knew that if they were all talking freely, many would find it difficult to stay focused on the task. So, I set the noise level at Library.
At this point, every student got a copy of Into the Wild. At their tables, they examined the front and back cover to get information about the book. I wanted to get students talking to each other and sharing ideas, so I set the noise level at Restaurant.
It was time to start reading the book! I wanted to make sure students were focused on the text without distraction, so we took it back to Outer Space.
