Day 4: Morning Pages

How does your investment in your research question and the students' background about your topic affect the research?

Not at all.

Just kidding. I have come to realize that my investment and repeated attempts to use book clubs has affected my research in a variety of ways. As a result of doing book clubs several times I fear that I at times jump into the middle with students. What I mean by this is that I don't always give them enough background or set it up with enough information to help them anticipate what the experience will be like. This was particularly true last fall.

Of course, the upside of my repeated use of book clubs is that book clubs have a reputation in my classroom. Students have heard from previous students of mine what to expect, what book clubs are like, which books to read, which books not to read...you get the idea. I've also come to realize that some of my students have previous experience with participating in book clubs. Some have been in a book club in a previous teacher's classroom (there are a ton of Cindy groupies in my district). Some have been in a book club with their friends. Some have seen their parents (usually mothers interestingly) participate in book clubs. All of this is a great asset to me.

Of course, I also have students participate in discussions in my classroom that are supposed to prepare students for this type of discussion. Yesterday during inquiry group Renee gave me a great idea or at least the start of an idea that I need to flesh out a bit more. She is going to use literature circles to help set her students up for writing circles. I have been attempting to use writing groups in my classroom and I wonder if I should be making a clearer link between the norms established in writing groups and those that students will eventually establish in book clubs. Mirroring these two activities will be useful to both, I suspect. Thanks, Renee!

What about Dragon Boy? It all really comes back to my friend, Dragon Boy. Every class has a Dragon Boy; he may be named Wears-the-same-sweatshirt-every-day Boy or Changes-her-hair-color-every-week-to-confuse-me Girl, but every class has one. Would more scafolding have helped Dragon Boy? Maybe. Should I have made my expectations clearer to him? Natalie has asked me about parameters and maybe clearer parameters would benefit Dragon Boy and those like him who are not ready for the expectation that students should maintain a mature conversation about the novel and the "difficult" topic it presents. Now, I just have to determine what those parameters are and how to keep those from stifling the conversations of students.