During the third class, I got to continue to see Professor Gleason's strategies for getting to know the students and classroom management. In addition, I got to see her lead a discussion. This discussion in particular was grounded in summary based on a reading and writing activity based on an article from The Journal of Basic Writing by Cheryl Hogue Smith. I think it is easy to skip over the important foundational step of summarizing a text in the college classroom. It is easy to assume that students are comprehending the text and can retell it, but retelling accurately and carefully is an important step to do first before any additional analysis can be made. I learned I should not take for granted that students are fully comprehending a text and should take the time to explicitly address the skill of summarizing.
Books on Reserve in the Library
Description: Professor Gleason put the books for the class on reserve before the first homework assignment.
Response: To my knowledge, none of the professors I had as an undergraduate put books on reserve at the library. It is very convenient and helps students save money on textbooks. I think it is an important resource to offer to your students.
Ideas/Next Steps: Now that I understand that putting books on reserve is a service that the CCNY library offers, I think it is essential to take advantage of it every semester. Even as CUNY is steering more towards zero textbook cost courses, it is a great way to provide not only required reading to students, but also recommended reading. I do think that I will have to teach students how to use the reserve desk in my syllabus though since I cannot assume they are familiar with it. Any skill that uses library literacy is a great one to add to a syllabus in my book! I am going to contact the library to learn more about the services they offer. The library is a tremendous resource not only for students, but also for instructors.
Basics for Discussions
Description: Professor Gleason established a few guidelines with me about how to lead a discussion. First, she said that it is best to have students sit in a circle for discussions. Second, she said it is important to plan out your expectations for a discussion rather than trying to improvise. Third, she said that it is important to wear a watch not only while facilitating discussions, but for all activities you teach.
Response: I have always been a little puzzled by how to plan discussions. The planning was always so much more invisible to me as a student than other types of lessons, which I could more easily notice how a teacher put them together. It was good to know these foundational pointers for discussions.
Ideas/Next Steps: Discussion is a very common format for English classes and a very important part of the writing process. I would like to learn more about this. In previous schools I have worked in they have used Socratic seminar formats and have also had different group roles in discussions. I think this might translate well to college classes. I would like to do more research on these topics.
Cheryl Hogue Smith Reading & Writing Activity
There were several aspects of this assignment that I really liked. One of the first aspects I really liked was that students were encouraged to reread text. In many of their introduction letters, students complained about having to reread text. In my responses, I encouraged them that rereading is an effective reading strategy and not problematic. I think that reinforcing this idea in class is very important though. It is normal and strategic for readers to reread and that should be encouraged in the classroom.
Secondly, I liked how the students were advised to paraphrase the text without looking at it. I think this is an important strategy to introduce for summarizing. From my experience, students frequently write overly verbose summaries and I think this is because they are treating chunk of the text as having equal importance, rather than thinking about which parts of the text they remember the most and have the most weight in the reading.
Third, I liked having students write down ideas that they learned from their group members. This is essential for helping students have more diverse ideas about a text. This also keeps them accountable for what their group members say.
I would definitely try this type of activity in my future classes. I think it might even be an activity I use multiple times, since it might take them a while to get use to a complex reading protocol like this. I think it could easily be integrated into the classroom as a routine though, especially with short passages. I think doing an abbreviated version of this activity with shorter passages frequently could actually benefit the students a lot and get them used to close reading and the necessary role that rereading plays in doing that.
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