I believe my lesson was a success overall. I think the sequence of the lesson flowed well, and my expectations for the students were communicated clearly. The subject matter was interesting and allowed for creative and thoughtful responses.
There is still plenty to work on, however. I need to get more comfortable pushing my students to engage with each other’s responses, instead of simply answering to please the teacher. If students aren’t providing many answers, I think it would be helpful to have guiding questions written down that I can lean on when students are having trouble engaging with content. Something that I can ask for them to talk over in pairs, and then hopefully return to the class to enrich the discussion. High school students, especially in the morning, tend to be very apprehensive to sharing, so having as many guiding questions as possible, and letting them work it out between themselves before presenting their findings to the class, might be a good way to make them feel more comfortable.
Getting students to interact is always a challenge. Since most classes don’t do that very well, you need to work to create a “collaborative culture” in your classroom. Over time, students will find your class to be a “safe” space to share. There’s many good ideas for fostering discussions here: https://sites.google.com/site/edmethods16/strategies-2/student-interactions