We begin our work with establishing the foundation for book clubs next week. I'm both excited and overwhelmed. Overwhelmed because I have too much to do and not enough hours in the day! Thankfully my students are all taking exams tomorrow, so this should allow me some time to sit down and think through some of the specifics for the process I'd like students to follow next week. (Downside of this is that by 3 o'clock I will have roughly 120 essay exams to grade and 30 exams on Islam to grade.)
Now the exciting part is that we are going to attempt to use 2 short stories and a narrative poem to have the students "warm-up" to the process of book club discussions. Dragon Boy inspired this choice! :) I like all three of the pieces and believe they should generate fantastic discussions from the students...key word there is "should." As Dragon Boy so clearly demonstrated, group dynamics are key to the success of a book club.
One of my plans for tomorrow as students are typing up their exams is to create their groups for our first round of book clubs without books. I'll use my notes on participation from our discussions of Gathering to guide my choices. Of course, I suspect this will be more of a challenge than it sounds like. My observations so far have led me to the conclusion that in these classes I either have conversation dominators or silent wall flowers. Obviously, this is a sweeping generalization, but I don't have a lot of students that fall into the middle category. Therefore the question becomes what is the appropriate mix of talkative to shy students in a group. Too many shy students and they sit and stare...too many talkative students and the group talks over each other and becomes contentious... The trick for me will be to put the right talkative students with the right shy students and then there is the issue of where to put the social pariah...Wish me luck!
Thursday, September 27, 2007
Thursday, September 20, 2007
Discussion on Discussions
My students have been reading and discussing A Gathering of Old Men by Ernest Gaines this past week. As we have been going through this process I have tried to be mindful that one of my goals is to help prepare the students for book clubs, which also helps move us toward my ultimate goal which to to prepare the students to discuss literature in any context without the direction/guidance of a teacher.
With this end in mind, I have been asking the students to participate in a variety of discussion styles--Socratic Seminars, teacher led discussions, student led discussions, small group discussions, etc. I have also come right out and asked the students to think about our discussions and to evaluate them. We talked about what needs to be improved in each class; they have been amazingly insightful.
The other twist I have put on all of this is that I am keeping track (on some days) of how often students participate. This has allowed me to make sure I get those quieter, or all together silent, voices in the room and it has also given me a concrete record of which students are dominating the conversation. My hope is the use this information when I place students in their book clubs. I'd like to not only remain mindful of friendships in the class, but discussion styles in the hope of forming balanced book clubs. We'll have to see how this goes.
With this end in mind, I have been asking the students to participate in a variety of discussion styles--Socratic Seminars, teacher led discussions, student led discussions, small group discussions, etc. I have also come right out and asked the students to think about our discussions and to evaluate them. We talked about what needs to be improved in each class; they have been amazingly insightful.
The other twist I have put on all of this is that I am keeping track (on some days) of how often students participate. This has allowed me to make sure I get those quieter, or all together silent, voices in the room and it has also given me a concrete record of which students are dominating the conversation. My hope is the use this information when I place students in their book clubs. I'd like to not only remain mindful of friendships in the class, but discussion styles in the hope of forming balanced book clubs. We'll have to see how this goes.
Saturday, September 15, 2007
Morning Pages
As I was telling Stacey, this has been the most challenging start to a school year that I have ever had. Not that this is an excuse, but this is why my attention has not been focused on my research. I have entirely neglected my blog. It did not help that Blogger is again blocked at school. This said, I have been able to keep up with some of the items I outlined on my timeline.
The middle of last week we started reading and discussing A Gathering of Old Men in my class. We held our first Socratic Seminar and I feel good that the foundation for solid discussions of literature are beginning to be established in the course.
That is the good news…the bad news is that I have dropped the ball in all sorts of other ways. For instance, I realized this week that I have not yet submitted the request to conduct research to the district (Sorry, Cindy!) According to my timeline I needed to order new titles for book clubs in August…it is September and I have not selected any new titles let alone ordered books. I also planned to pass out a generic permission slip to parents in August; the book club specific permission slip will be the only one parents will receive.
That is what I haven’t done…here’s what I need to do: I need to select the works I am going to use in my short-story-author-study-pre-book-club unit. This is the idea that Cindy generated to help students see what it is like to be in a book club before they are in a book club and hopefully teach them the “norms” before they are in a book club drawing dragons. ☺
I need to get that form to the district and reconcile myself to the fact that I may not be able to record student conversations this semester which I am sure is not ideal for Cindy’s research, but that I may be able to record the conversations of the other half of my students second semester.
I need to select the titles that we will add to the options we offer to the students. Any ideas or suggestions? Cindy and I came up with a list this summer and I simply need to carve out some time to devote to that endeavor next week.
I need to recover some of the focus and enthusiasm I had this summer. The beginning of this school year has had me fantacizing about working at Starbucks (that might be sacreligious to type in a Mugs ☺ ), so my hope is that by reconnecting with my research I can also reconnect with some of my enthusiasm for teaching.
From my inquiry group, I need forgiveness for being the worst blogging buddy ever. I also need some feedback and ideas about what would be helpful to other teachers in a demo about book clubs. Would you want the nuts and bolts how to organize it? Would you want specific anecdotes on some of the challenges and rewards of book clubs? What should I focus my demo on in order for it to be useful to the majority of my audience in February?
The middle of last week we started reading and discussing A Gathering of Old Men in my class. We held our first Socratic Seminar and I feel good that the foundation for solid discussions of literature are beginning to be established in the course.
That is the good news…the bad news is that I have dropped the ball in all sorts of other ways. For instance, I realized this week that I have not yet submitted the request to conduct research to the district (Sorry, Cindy!) According to my timeline I needed to order new titles for book clubs in August…it is September and I have not selected any new titles let alone ordered books. I also planned to pass out a generic permission slip to parents in August; the book club specific permission slip will be the only one parents will receive.
That is what I haven’t done…here’s what I need to do: I need to select the works I am going to use in my short-story-author-study-pre-book-club unit. This is the idea that Cindy generated to help students see what it is like to be in a book club before they are in a book club and hopefully teach them the “norms” before they are in a book club drawing dragons. ☺
I need to get that form to the district and reconcile myself to the fact that I may not be able to record student conversations this semester which I am sure is not ideal for Cindy’s research, but that I may be able to record the conversations of the other half of my students second semester.
I need to select the titles that we will add to the options we offer to the students. Any ideas or suggestions? Cindy and I came up with a list this summer and I simply need to carve out some time to devote to that endeavor next week.
I need to recover some of the focus and enthusiasm I had this summer. The beginning of this school year has had me fantacizing about working at Starbucks (that might be sacreligious to type in a Mugs ☺ ), so my hope is that by reconnecting with my research I can also reconnect with some of my enthusiasm for teaching.
From my inquiry group, I need forgiveness for being the worst blogging buddy ever. I also need some feedback and ideas about what would be helpful to other teachers in a demo about book clubs. Would you want the nuts and bolts how to organize it? Would you want specific anecdotes on some of the challenges and rewards of book clubs? What should I focus my demo on in order for it to be useful to the majority of my audience in February?
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