Within the readings we had this week, I was extremely touched by the jigsaw reading I chose, which was the Triplet and Buchanan. The way the teachers reached out to the students with books that were more meaningful to them was amazing. During discussions the teachers would listen to the student’s responses, and was able to gauge how to reach out to them. After hearing about a student’s issues with a separation of parents, and difficulties adjusting to the new family, the book she brought in for him was a wonderful example of bibliotherapy. The student could simply listen and the story did more for him than just engaged him. It helped him to cope with what was going on at home. He felt special when she reached out to him, and that the his classmates could empathize with him. The readings that were most meaningful were the ones that the students could relate to. As teachers, we need to be able to find the books and stories that will make the best impact on our students. Get to know your students interests, home lives, and that can help you to gauge what stories will be meaningful to them. Having a wonderful class discussion will be a great in school activity, but reaching out to those students and helping them with outside of school problems means the world to them. Teachers have a very important role in the student’s life, and being able to reach out to them through books is a wonderful tool because it’s an informal way of giving them information academically and for things they can take outside of school.
When reading the ideas of different types of classroom talks, it showed me that discussions are so important, but overlooked and underrated. Some students said that discussions were simply a catch up for the students who were not there, or even simply in the bathroom. Discussions are important to tie in themes, make connections within the story that you may not have seen, and assess the students’ understanding of the material. Discussions are so important, yet some teachers do not spend time on it because they feel there are more important things to get to. After a story, discussing what you read is so important, yet it is not prioritized correctly. It should be a priority over a worksheet of black and white answers about the reading. It does not simply ask closed ended questions, but allows students to tie it to their own personal beliefs and make it more meaningful. Evaluating and discussing a story is more about talking about open ended questions, where the students can really get involved and express their views on it, rather than giving boring yes or no answers to see who was paying attention. Literature is so much more than that, and we need to bring this important discussion back into the classroom. Students will care for the material more if they have been able to listen to their peers’ views and expressed their own.
In my classroom, I do see a discussion type of talk after readings. My CT does a wonderful job allowing the discussion to flow, without dominating it. Having control of the discussion, yet not exactly controlling it is a hard thing to do for a teacher, and I believe my CT does an excellent job on that. She once told me that it is important to be able to have plans b c and d because a lesson is not going to go exactly how you planned if it is working. If the students are engaged and chatting, they are going to take it to a whole other place you haven’t even thought of! Allowing them to guide the discussion is more beneficial because more of them will be interested. The learning resources available to my placement’s classroom are their own copies of stories, dictionaries around the room, discussions after every story, freedom to bring up their own ideas and questions, and the freedom to choose which book they want to read during free reading. Students who do not participate in the classroom are not participating due to lack of accommodations. They simply don’t want to be there. She has reached out to them by allowing them to bring in books of their choice during readings from home, hoping to make a connection with them. Maybe if my CT allowed them to give a presentation on their favorite book, and lead a discussion on that, would change their attitudes on literature.
I really enjoyed reading your summary and analysis of your reading. I think more teachers need to be like the teachers in your article. Its vital for students to feel connected to their teacher in order to learn and grow from them. As I read your post it reminded me of the book Freedom Writers Diary. I think the idea behind the book, and the article are inspiring and should be a goal for all aspiring teachers.
ReplyDeleteThe article I read was Goldenburg. In the article they talked about how useful classroom discussions truly are. One key point they pointed out was in America students are not encouraged to rise open ended questions to fellow students and to the teacher. They developed Instructional conversations IC, "are discussion based lessons geared toward creating richly textured opportunities for students conceptual and linguistic development." The most important concept for teachers to do during IC lessons are to keep all students engaged. This is a tough skill that I believe will be mastered over time, and through experience. I will definitely take these concepts and integrate them into my future classrooms.
Gabe, I totally agree with you when you say, "As teachers, we need to be able to find the books and stories that will make the best impact on our students. Get to know your students interests, home lives, and that can help you to gauge what stories will be meaningful to them." I also agree with you that discussions are under-rated and not used enough, or many times used incorrectly. They are much more effective than giving your students worksheets that have closed ended questions. These types of close-ended questions are what gives children negative feelings towards reading and makes them believe there is only one correct way of reading and analyzing text, which is completely false.
ReplyDeleteOne important idea that was developed in the Almasi reading is that "the interactions of the reader are not static, but continually shaped by transactions between the reader's experiences and the new information aquired from the text." This means that the reader will continuously change their point of view on a text because their experiences are evolving all the time. It is crucial to have class discussions after readings because every student may bring a little different viewpoint to the discussion, which may help other's viewpoints grow. Lastly, everything in school for a child is tied to their home life, which it rightfully should be. We as teachers need to use this large influencial piece of their lives and incoorporate it into their schoolwork and readings to make school more meaningful to them.
My CT does not do a very good job of having class discussions after reading books. She might ask them a couple of close-ended questions to make sure students were paying attention, but I see this as a big problem. The students are not engaged in the stories and are paying most of their attention to details that have to do with the questions they think the teacher might ask. However they are not reallly thinking about the story, nor critically thinking about the events and characters. This is a result of their instruction over the past few years, and I wonder if and how they will be able to start thinking more critically about the books they read, which will make them more meaningful and asthetically pleasing.