Transcript: Introduction to the Text

(Note: The transcripts in this webcase are excerpted from longer classroom discussions. They are not intended for use independent of the videos which they accompany.)

Teacher: Are you ready? Should we do a mini quiet drumroll?

(Students doing a drumroll before the teacher reveals the last part of text students are studying.)

Teacher: OK, here it is. "At noten aleha even achat v’chulah omedet" (makes a motion with her hand going up). What’s this? You’re going like this?

Eli: Building up ideas.

Teacher: What words do you recognize or know in this last sentence of this text we are going to study? "At noten aleha even achat v’chulah omedet." Ben, what do you recognize?

Ben: All of them.

Teacher: OK, do you think you could translate it?

Ben: Yeah, it means ...

Teacher: OK, let’s give him a try. Let’s listen to each others’ ideas and see if we agree.

Ben: It means that if you add more it will keep it from … it will balance it.

Teacher: Where do you see that in the text?

Kaniel: The omedet we’re thinking it means balance.

Teacher: Do you know what omedet means?

Jacob: It means to build or stand up.

(Students in the background: "omed.")

Teacher: La'amod. (Students stand.) Lashevet. (Students sit down.)

(A few minutes later in the discussion ...)

Halle: If you add a rock, a stone, to the pile, it will build.

Jake: If you put that stone back there it will, umm, I forget the Hebrew word. It will stand up straight.

Jacob: I agree with [Jake], but my idea is a little bit different. Like, if it's already tottering and you don't want it to fall, then you put the rock in where it was so that'll gradually get back to the nice pile.

Kaniel: What if you take it out of the middle? It will fall right away and you can't really put it back quickly, so it will stand up again.

Teacher: So do you want to respond to that?

Eli: I think it means if you put one stone in it, the whole heap builds.

Teacher: So can I maybe ask a question that might be the question that you’re thinking of but haven’t said yet, which is, do you think the text is talking about the same stone here?

(Some students say yes and some say no.)

Teacher: What do you think?

Eli: I don’t think it’s talking about the same stone.

Teacher: So the question is: Is the text talking about the same stone, and how would that change how we are interpreting this text?