Response-Centered Talk: Windows on Children's Thinking

This past semester in my TE 348 class, my teacher said one of the most important questions to ask students (in regards to "book talk") is not HOW or WHAT questions, but why. This may seem obvious to some, but to me it was eye opening. Although I have always focused my questions towards WHY while engaging in books with either students or adults, I never took into consideration how the WHY questions were more effective. I have mentioned in the previous blogs my passion for literacy. I do not know at what age this began, but my mother is a teacher, and she is known by her co-workers as the "literacy queen". I think my gratitude and the gifts (in regards to Literacy) have to be accredited to her. She taught me to approach books with an inquisitive mind. One that moves beyond the pictures of the print, and to ask why. It is the why questions that bring forth not only rich discussion, but a lens into the psyche of a persons mind. In the context of school; students. In the Almasi article "A New View of Discussion", she states; "literacy is inseparable from the cultural and social context in which it occurs...As "interpretive communities" of students and teachers interact, alternate interpretations and divergent views may be forwarded that also have an impact on a persons interpretation".

I know that the following quote from Almasi seems to be long, but it's meaning is critical, in understanding why McGee believes that Response-Centered Talk is more effective, compared to the more traditional types of discussion, being recitation. Recitation can be viewed as students demonstrating that they have either read the material and are able to "regurgitate" facts. I believe that recitation is okay; but only in a particular situations. We (as teachers) have to make sure our students are taking in the content, but class "talk" or discussion, can be more rich and exciting with response-centered talk.

Almasi talks in her article about building or establishing an "interpretive communitie(s)", and how discourse amongst the students and teacher can help establish such community. If we are to build community within the room, then why not allow students the authority or autonomy to direct class discussion (so to speak). McGee notes in her article that "an important hallmark for response centered talk is that children set the agenda for discussion; their comments initiate topics for discussion". We have all witnessed the traditional method of classroom discussion and it is boring to the say the least. McGee lists four key components to integrating response-centered talk into their classroom. The first on this list is careful planning on the teachers end. McGee states; "Good conversations about books begins with books that are worthy of deep thinking...they have multiple layers of meaning". This may seem obvious to some, but it requires teachers to go beyond what is provided or "recommended" for the curriculum, and look into finding books that foster such discussions. Engaging books are not limited to subject area either, as engaging texts can be related to any of the major content areas.

In my service learning room I have unfortunately not seen much literacy this semester in the classroom. The activities I did see in reference to literacy were in another room (fourth grade), in which the students were talking about genre's. This was effective because they were able to relate their favorite books, to the genres that were being discussed in class. I personally feel that autonomy and a sense of ownership is vital in students motivation and level of contribution to class discussions. I draw frequently upon Abraham Maslow's hierarchy of human needs. Esteem and self-actualization are critical components to the completing of "ones-self". Whats not a more effective way to tap into or build upon these "human needs" by allowing them to talk about themselves, and bring into the classroom community their own unique opinion, or interpretation of the world around them. This is all contingent upon good texts, that promote such discussions. As the facilitator (teacher) all we need to do is provide a general topic, and then allow the students to run from there. We noted last week in our posts that we fail to recognize a lot of the students cognitive capabilities. We have to trust that the students are capable to engage in such discourse.

I need to rap this blog up, so I will try to end my "babbling". I witness a lot of students in my room that shy away from participating in class discussions. I have read a few times to the students, and one time in particular I read "The Giving Tree" to the class. This is a great book, full of different avenues in which the students can travel to find new lights of meaning. I purposely engaged some of the more shy students, by asking them why the tree looked or certain way, or why did the tree continue to give. I would always ask them to relate the tree and the boy in the story to their own personal experience. I wanted to make the discussion more personal and to their unique situations. It not only allowed them to share, but also allowed the students to gain an understanding of one another, which is vital to building an effective community. In the Almasi article, it talks about an inquisitor, which is the individual that "asks personally meaningful questions that will help interpret and make sense of the text". In my class there are a lot of students such as this. Students that not only lend questions, but responses that demonstrate their way of seeing the text. These students are more academically gifted then some of the others and are avid readers. Their responses are still important because they serve as a catalyst, which ignites further discourse to occur amongst the class.

Incorporating Literacy!

After reading the articles for this week (specifically focusing on "Out of the Box: Critical Literacy in a First-Grade Classroom") I have found that incorporating literacy is easier than we think, and that our children are probably smarter than we give them credit for. Within the article, teacher Kim Huber discusses how she felt uncomfortable discussing controversial issues at first. She read the children a book about a homeless woman living in a box, and didn't know how much her first graders would be able to relate to this. I can understand her fears because, after all, they are young children, but I think that we underestimate them! The teacher mentioned that she used to only focus on simple things like having the kids point out the beginning/middle/end of the story or talking about the characters' names. However, once she was given a grant for critical literacy within the school, the classes were exposed to a number of social issues that were often times on controversial topics. We had a guest speaker during our social studies section of TE 401 who really stressed to us the importance of addressing controversial issues (that may make you uncomfortable at first!) throughout your classes. I think this is so important because these kids will all be exposed to these issues (race, class, gender, etc) at some point or another, and I think that the earlier we start, the better.

I have noticed that when my CT chooses stories for the children, they are often "happy" stories with simple characters. Although the stories are fun to listen to and the students can identify important characters, they are not really able to relate to the issues in the books because there aren't any issues! I would LOVE to introduce "critical literacy" into my classroom, and I think my students would be able to have an intelligent first grade discussion about the stories. I think that reading a story on homelessness (like the teacher used in the article) would open them up to what is really happening in the world around them. I like that the teacher did a canned food drive with her students after reading the stories on homelessness. This gave them an opportunity to get involved and really connect to the characters in the stories that they were reading.

I think that teaching our children about controversial issues should be exciting - not scary. I know that there are some serious topics out there, but as long as you go about the story/situation the right way, it should be a positive experience for us (as teachers) and our students. I think it will allow us to get to know our students better, push them to think critically about a story/topic, and introduce them to the world around them.

- Kelly P.

Dom's Late Blog Post

The article that I read was "Building on the Strengths of Families: The Promising Readers Program". This article highlighted a particular program, that was implemented from the P.T.A., in order to increase family involvement, but in and outside of school. The objective of the program was to increase the literacy rates, for low-achieving students (primarily African American or bi-racial). This article was extremely relevant to Allice's article, due to the fact that staff in this particular elementary school, was looking for effective, low cost practices, that would assist low achieving students in literacy. Studies show that parental involvement both in and outside of the school will have a positive influence on the students performance.

A lot of what I was reading in my article and in Allice's blog, was reflective of my own experience in the schools, and in dealing with lower performing students with literacy. For example, in my third grade class this year, the demographics in the classroom are primarily African American, except for a few caucasian, asian, and hispanic students. The low achieving students, that have difficulty in reading, also come from homes in which there is a lack of parental involvement. There is one student (caucasian) who is the most proficient reader in the entire classroom. It came as no shock to me, that this students mother works at Barnes and Noble. All he knows and reads is books.

My article also tied in with the work that I do in the Lansing School District, in which I mentor minority males from the local high school in the area. I also supervise an after school program, in which I work with 21 elementary students (k-4), three days a week. These students are labeled as "at risk" and "low achieving" students. My job, is to design and implement lessons, that help to fill the learning gap in the major content areas, in particular math and literacy. This is not to say that all of the students are performing low in these areas, but the students that do perform low in literacy and math, come from homes in which there is little to no support. The program that I work for (Promoting Academic Success, P.A.S.), used to have an outreach element in place, in which home visits were made, and relationships were formed with the parents, in order to increase their involvement. A lot of the parents look at this service as just a means of daycare or babysitting for their students after school. I cannot tell you the countless times that parents tell me to have their children complete all homework at school, due to the fact there is no time to complete it at home. The outreach component to this program should have never been cut out, because a lot of these students are struggling still, due to the fact that once the school day is over, there is no additional help outside of the after school program.

If studies show that there is a positive correlation between parental involvement in a students education, both in and out of school, then methods to get the parents involved need to continue to be designed. I personally don't believe that this is the answer to all low performance, as there are students that I work with, that still struggle, and a parent works in the school, in which they participate in major school events. I believe that students have an increased motivation when their parents are a part of the learning experience, but there are other cognitive and social issues that hinder students performance in literacy.

Jigsaw reading - Fleming article

My article was called Teaching All the Children: Strategies for Developing Literacy in an Urban Setting. The authors formed a group of experienced and inexperienced teachers throughout the Chicago Public School District and asked them to talk about their experiences working in “some of the most challenging schools”. The teachers that were interviewed worked in schools with mainly African American students whose families were at or below the poverty line. I found this quite interesting because in my placement on Thursday, my teacher showed me some statistics about the families in the Lansing Public Schools System. We found that there is an average of 82% of the families with students in LPS are at or below the poverty line, and my school specifically was around 78%. So while this article was based on teachers in Chicago, their observations, fears and experiences have relevance right here in Lansing.
I found some similarities between the issues that the interviewed teachers discussed and things that my CT has talked to me about. One of them is that teachers need to develop sensitivity to students and families without extra resources. The article noted that some teachers spend a lot of their own paychecks to buy materials for the classroom and the students, like notebooks, snacks, band-aids, etc. My teacher has talked a lot about having compassion for the students and their families. She said that teachers need to understand the kinds of issues that they students are dealing with at home (violence, alcohol, not enough sleep, adult responsibilities…) while still trying to keep them focused on the classroom lesson at hand.
Another similarity between what the teachers in the article expressed and what I’ve seen at my placement is working with students across a wide range of reading abilities. Some students come with lots of literacy knowledge while others cannot read. As teachers, we have to find ways to incorporate those different abilities into the classroom, but, as the teachers in the article stated, it takes a lot of time and energy to adapt the work to all of the different reading levels in the classroom. However, it is important and necessary to do in order to make sure that every student is learning.
Some of the teachers from CPS discussed how they feel that they have to play many different roles in the classroom; they have to be teachers, disciplinarians and caretakers all at once. The students come to them needing someone to talk to about out of school issues, and the teachers start to take on the role of a counselor, as well. In my placement, the home life of many students is less than ideal, and they talk to my CT about their problems. From what the teachers in the article and my CT expressed, it is important for the teacher to find a balance between all of those different roles for the students.