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.
Within my first grade classroom, I do not see a lot of book discussion time, which bothers me! Every morning she either reads them a short picture book or part of a chapter book, but that's where the literacy ends. The students do not get to ask questions, talk about the characters, guess what might happen next, etc. I am not saying that my CT is "bad," I just wish that she would do things differently. This past summer, I taught a second grade migrant classroom, and whenever I would read to them, we would talk about the characters and make webs. We would also stop occasionally and brainstorm what might happen next and various other "book talk" ways to get the students involved in what they are reading/listening to. The article, "Book Talk: Continuing to Rouse Hearts and Minds to Life" states that, "Teachers also reported that they did not have time for book discussions because they had to keep pace with the county's pacing guides, which allowed only enough time for reading the story and answering the questions at the end of the story." This is so frustrating to me because I don't really see the point of just reading a short book to students and then not discussing it - I think that's the best part! You get to hear a number of interpretations and feelings about the story, and this is where the children start to share and really develop their thinking skills. The article later goes on to say that in their study, they found that "in the contexts where book discussions were not a part of literacy instruction, students struggled cognitively, motivationally and even emotionally." This should be a wake up call for all teachers! There are many ways to scaffold your students and the book talk activity and a simple way is to find out what your students like. I am always trying to get to know my students better on a personal level, because it helps me become a better teacher for them when I understand not only their strengths and weaknesses but also their interests. The study in this article also talks about how students who read books that truly interest them have increased motivation. This sounds like a no-brainer to me, so why are teachers still reading what THEY want to read. Why not read the books your students want to hear? In conclusion, I think that there are many ways to teach to your students' needs/interests and to get them excited about literacy. Next, we should look for ways to incorporate our students' abilities and have character webs and prediction/discussion time. Allowing the students to talk about what will happen next and to even think for a minute about a time where they felt like the main character does is so important - it allows the students to connect with what they are reading and that is what literacy is all about.
ReplyDeleteI really like what you talked about at the beginning of your post about asking “why?” when trying to engage our students in discussion. In the article by Goldenberg, he states that, “real education – real teaching – involves helping students think, reason, comprehend, and understand important ideas.” By asking our students to explain their ideas, we are helping them to do all of those things. This helps to pull teaching from rudimentary fact memorization and regurgitation to thoughtful, responsive and engaging interactions between the students and the teacher.
ReplyDeleteGoldberg also aligned with some of the other points you presented, like not sticking to the “traditional” forms of discussion. He introduced the idea of instructional conversation, or IC, which is similar to the “discussion” that Almasi described in her article. First a teacher picks a thematic focus for the discussion, relates it to the students’ prior knowledge, teaches any new skills/information that is necessary, elicits extended responses from the students (tell me more about that…), and then tries to get the students to connect their ideas back to any texts, pictures, previous discussions, etc. Throughout the conversation, the teacher should be scaffolding the students and getting them to move their thinking forward by acting more as a collaborator than an evaluator of the conversation.
Goldberg also gave some useful tips to teachers who are planning to have an IC with their class. He states that teachers, first of all, need to choose a story that is appropriate for the class. Then it is important for the teacher to read the book as many time as necessary to have a very solid knowledge of the book and the issues it presents. The teacher now needs to choose a theme that is both interesting and meaningful to the students, decide what background information the students need to have, decide how to start the conversation, plan and think through the lesson mentally, and then finally decide an some follow-up activities for the students to do.
In my classroom, I don’t see many conversations unfold the way Goldberg described these instructional conversations. When students have time to read, they usually just choose from a predetermined set of books in their book bins and then are never asked any questions about what they have read, how they feel about what they have read, or their interpretations of it. In the time that I’m there, I haven’t seen my CT read a story aloud to the class. They have gone over a few poems where they read it together and then go over its meaning, but during the conversations that students aren’t really given the time to come up with their own meanings and interpretations; it is usually given to them or they are guessing to get the “right” answer that matches the teacher’s thinking.
I really liked this article because it talks about a very important issue in literacy learning, but it also gives the reader ideas and suggestions for getting around the problem and engaging in meaningful, thoughtful conversations. I think this is a great article to refer back to when planning our lessons that we will be teaching in our classrooms!