Strategies and Activities for Discussion

Strategies and Activities for Discussion:

At the end of my last blog post, my goal for myself was to come up with strategies and activities for discussion. While I can’t honestly say that I found any new and innovating ideas, I can say that I found a few things that work (most of the time); things that I knew about but wasn’t implementing.

One thing that I noticed, with the help of both my Mentor Teacher and Penny Kittle’s “Book Love” is that students do a lot of retelling. When you ask them to write about their day or more specifically, what they are reading, you generally get a lot of information regurgitation which is great because, you know, they are taking in what they read but I have always been more interested in what people are thinking about. So that’s what I asked them: what were you thinking about as you were reading today? At first the question threw off even my seniors. It was, once again, as though I was speaking a different language. However, after giving them plenty of time to write – and allowing them to “write to think” (completely informal) – they started to get the hang of things. 

So how is this related to discussion? I’m glad you asked. My mentor teacher and I have asked each class, from our literacy strategies class, to our sophomores, to our seniors about their thought process and each time, the writing has improved - gone are the days of retelling. And with better writing and being cognizant of the reading process, came better discussions. (Why didn’t I think of this before?)

Of course they are going to have better discussions. My sophomores are in small groups for literature circles and they are all reading the same book within that small group. If you ask them to talk about the book, even if it has to do with the major conflicts of the book, they’re going to look at you funny because they all just read the same part of the same book. I think they feel like it is redundant to read and then talk about it but if you pry a little, and try to find their thought process, they have more to talk about because no one thinks about or processes information in the same way. 

My seniors are in the middle of a unique unit because of the AP exam: they are picking their own books to read, writing about their thought process, and then discussing their individual books with their peers. It doesn’t seem like it would work but because the common factor between all of these different books is how they think about and process the books, it really does come together – and they seem more excited about writing and discussion.

Through this unit with our seniors, we have also had the opportunity to implement individual conferences. While students share with their neighbors, we can select a few students per class period – each ( sometimes everyone in my smaller class) and check up on how they’re feeling about their books as well as what questions and ideas they have or what connections they are making.

Another contributing factor to great discussion is the arrangement of desks. It makes since to put students into pods of 4 or 5 for literature circle groups but what about when they’re all reading different books? Or what about when they’re all reading the same book? I have been using my time in the classroom to arrange the desks in various ways and gauging the level of engagement for each layout. After testing out an arrangement where all of the desks are pushed together in one continuous line (two desks facing each other and repeat the formation until you get to the end, allowing for one desk on each end much like a large dining room table setting) my smaller class of seniors has taken it upon themselves to keep this arrangement.

TLDR: (Too long don’t read): Try asking students about their thought process rather than comprehension questions and play around with your learning space.

I sincerely hope all of you are enjoying our final few weeks and I hope you are finding some strategies that will help you in our coming years as teachers.

Note: Josh, if you’re reading this, I started opening windows and blinds after lunch in my classroom and it seems to have helped my students focus a little more. Thanks for the suggestion!

-         -  Ms. Dawson