1-31-12: Discussion in a Classroom

For students, talking or discussing a reading is just as important as actually being able to read. 

From my own experience, I remember Literature Circles were on the up and coming as far as new teaching techniques.  Personally, I loved them and found them to be a great way to be engaged in and discuss books.  The idea is that four or so students with about the same reading level, would all read the same book and each person had an assigned role; “summarizer” who would write a summary of the reading, “illustrator” who would draw a picture to go along with the reading, “vocabulator” who would write down challenging vocab words and look up their definitions, and a “discussion leader” who would come up with questions to talk about that pertained to the reading. The first time I did lit circles was in third grade - Mrs. Chapin's class.  We would get to write down who we would like to / would not like to work with for what ever reason, and then the teacher would give a book talk (summary) of all the different books we could choose from.  Then based on our preferences and reading levels, she would group us together.  

  

   

Having roles in discussion is a common strategy in literature instruction.  In the Alamsi (1996) article, it talks about roles like the “inquisitor,” “facilitator,” “evaluator,” and “respondent” which are often reserved for only the teacher in a typical classroom setting. Getting students to come up with questions, or facilitate the discussion, or evaluate responses, helps them to think more critically about the reading compared to being asked a question and responding with their answer.  Aside from the added social benefits group discussions can have in a classroom, discussions also help readers to share strategies and explain concepts, ideas, or themes in the book to each other.  One of the highlighted quotes in the article says that “students who talk about what they read are more likely to engage in reading.”  Needless to say, discussions are very effective and beneficial for students if modeled and scaffold correctly.  One of the best ways of doing this is to have students first observe what a discussion looks like and sounds like.

A few days ago, my cousin, who is a 2^nd grade teacher, told me to look into reading about “Daily 5” / “Café” - a new literacy program created by two sisters. The idea is similar to stations and Literature Circles, but it turns the grouping idea upside down.  Instead of grouping students by reading level, you group them by common strategies.   In the Daily 5 students are given 5 choices to choose from; read to self, read to someone, work on writing, listening to reading, and word work.  The students set individual goals for themselves rotating between stations weekly.  The main goal is working towards independence, which leaves time for the teacher to meet with students in their café groups.  The café groups consist of having a group of readers reading different books at different levels, but they are all working on the same focus of literacy like fluency, or comprehension accuracy.  Each student has an individual reading goal and the teacher also conferences with them individually to hear them read and talk specifically about their strategies and how they are meeting their goal.  The idea sounds extremely interesting to me.  I think the more we research, the more we are realizing that individualized instruction is producing the best results in growth.  As the current educational system is set up, one teacher for every thirty students makes this challenging, but this new program gets my interest as a possible solution to address this problem. 

(This video shows how one school as implemented the program and also includes some student responses)

(These are the two creators of the program.  Left:Gail Boushey, Right: Joan Moser ) 

Comparing this to some of the readings this week, I think that this type of program also needs to be integrated into large class discussions where everyone is reading the same story or book.  Using response-centered talk where the teacher step backs and allows the students to maneuver through the conversation is an important skill for students and allows them to be more involved in their own learning.  With any strategy, it would need to be scaffold.  This involves helping guide students to ask those “why” questions that are only answered in-between the lines of the story.  Making inferences is a big part of the skills learned as a result of response-centered talk.  Also, the teacher should refrain from saying if ideas are right or not, only that it is good that they are thinking and sharing their ideas.  This helps to create a strong positive classroom environment as well as helping them to expand their thoughts of what is possible in the meanings of a story. 

(Hopefully if my bogging skills are sharp, I will be able to include a video about the Daily 5 and Café.) - I did it!  Hurray for Blogging!