By John Eric Vona in AP Seminar — 26 Jan 2026

The Next Invitation

A Quick Follow Up on The Dinner Party

This is a quick missive to show off the awesome results of my Dinner Party assignment. Three student-made examples below that are now hanging on my classroom wall. Actually, all the posters are on the wall, good or not. Each is hung over each group's table so that they can reference them as they enter the next phase of their research.

I really appreciated the detailed summation of each source in addition to how they would respond to each other and each of the three group members providing their individual opinions in such detail. This is great prewriting for their papers.

This beautiful poster is fun, attractive, and includes extra information about the overall topic. The collaboration between the group members is apparent and the conversation between sources demonstrates complexity of research and critical thinking about that research.

A little small, but I had to get the waiting room they made for extra credit. Love the thinking going on here about sources that 'almost made it' and the detail or side conversations as well as across-table convos.

This took my students a period and a half. The second half of the second day was them returning to their notebooks, transitioning away from group collaboration and discussion to silently reflecting on the activity. They wrote about who would get invited back to a hypothetical next party (because they have more to say or their argument is just so powerful), who wouldn't get to come back (sources they are rethinking or will only use sparingly), and what voices have yet to have a say (future research). I made sure to articulate that this writing could also lead directly to them writing their paper and it's also a great thing for us to discuss at the checkpoint. Those directions are here.

I was happy to hear from some subscribers about how they are going to use this, including someone asking about adapting this lesson for AICE Lang. Feel free to message me or leave a comment on any post!

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