More on Class Discussions
Many of my favorite pieces of advice from Professor Gleason are short and sweet. A new favorite of mine on planning for class discussions is "Students always have an answer to this question: How did you like the book?" As simple as it is, this question is the perfect way to have students access the conversation. Though it comes from a perspective that's more emotional that intellectual, how the student felt about the book will likely be the seed for their eventual claims in their paper.
I also noticed that a good way to open up a discussion is to have students connect the text they read to themselves, other texts, and the world. These questions are pretty common prompts in elementary school literacy instruction, but they are also great conversation starters for reading response-based conversation at the beginning of a more sophisticated literary discussion with older students.
The more I am seeing discussions in class, the more I am realizing that it is important to plan out not only the questions for a discussion, but how I anticipate those questions will be answered. Luckily there seem to be general paradigms for discussions about texts, which should make it easier to plan class discussions over time. Until I get a better sense of these general structures as well as common ways to extend questions, I definitely need to script out all my questions on a piece of paper though.
Another thought I have had about discussions is that I would like to make sure students talk to each other more. I have seen resources for this for younger students and I think it's an important speaking and listening skill to have a conversation that doesn't rely on the instructor for leading the whole time. I also think I would like to do some research on how to take notes on class discussions. I think that charting what students say is helpful for many reasons. First, it will help me grade students on participation later; it is important to know who is sharing in class and even more important to know who isn't sharing in class. Second, I would like to refer back to what students said in class. Third, I think that acting as a scribe for students allows me to step back as a discussion leader and be a more passive facilitator, jumping into the conversation when there is a lull, but putting most of the responsibility for sustaining the discussion and propelling it forward on the students.
Use of an Agenda
Today, Professor Gleason wrote an agenda on the board. I think she did this because the activities we actually did in the class were different from what was originally written in the syllabus. It was nice to see that it is ok to diverge from the syllabus if necessary to meet the students' needs. I liked seeing a way to keep students oriented in class, while still providing flexibility for me as an instructor.
Today what the students really needed was to focus on comprehending the text, so Professor Gleason continued our focus on summary. Today students worked in groups to summarize chunks of the book. I think this also made sure to hold students accountable for reading the book. I think I would like to think more about other ways to keep students accountable for reading. I would like to avoid the stress and grading of quizzes, but I might consider doing reading notes or more Blackboard posts that I grade in the beginning.
After consistent focus on summarizing skills in the class sessions this week, I started to think about how I could characterize a good summary. My initial brainstorming about summarizing narrative texts was that they:
- Focused on the protagonist's realizations
- Used sequence words to orient the reader
- Highlighted tensions between themes, ideas, characters, and beliefs in the book
- Focused on important choices the protagonist makes
- Use the theme of the book to frame the summary
- Use strong verbs to keep the summary streamlined.
Beginning to analyze the traits of an effective summary was a very useful exercise for me. I realized that in analyzing the structure, I was able to identify small features of good writing. Consequently, I created a rubric I could use for grading student summaries, but I also discovered concrete and specific skills that I could teach students to include in their own writing.
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