After reading the article by Triplett and Buchanan I realized how important it is to have book talks with your students. From this article I obtained that it is critical to get to know your students and their interests. Book talks are great ways of finding out this information. Studies have shown that book talks promote higher order thinking. In the reading, there was a case study on Mrs. B’s classroom. She asked her students while reading a book, if anyone knew anything about elephants? Courtney, who is one of her students blurted out a ton of information and appeared quite knowledgeable about elephants. She also told the class that she wants to become a veterinarian when she is older. This gave allowed the teacher to understand where Courtney’s interests were. Another important example that was in the reading that I found interesting was when one of Mrs. B’s students, Denny, had anger issues. On top of that, his mother was recently sent to jail. Mrs. B decided to have a book talk using the book, The Pain and the Great One. This helped give Denny socio-economical support though his classmates as they discussed feelings and anger.
Looking back into my experiences this past year in the second grade classroom at Elliott Elementary, I recall that my CT does have book talks with her students. She will sit in a chair while her students sit on the floor in front of her. She will read the students a book and periodically ask the students if they have ever felt a certain way like the character in the story did. She will also ask them to make predictions about what may happen in the story once they read ahead. I have noticed that most students participate when she asks questions. In the past, I have been in classrooms where it is always the same students who respond to questions. In this class, this problem does not occur.
After reading the Almasi article, I realized how important it is to have engaging classroom discussions. It allows students to learn how to interact with their peers, gives them confidence, helps them interpret discussions in new ways; learn about themselves and other cultures though discussions. I also learned that many times the teacher plays the role of the facilitator in the classroom. This often occurs in my CT’s classroom.
I realized that my CT occasionally scaffolds her students in the classroom. When the teacher has book talks with her students they will occasionally get off track and start talking about something that has absolutely nothing to do with the book. She will sometimes guide them and bring them back on track. If she asks a question on how the book has related to their personal life, the teacher would give them an example of how it relates to her personal life. I have noticed that this sometimes clears up misconceptions that students might have.
The Langer article introduced the four major stances while interpreting readings. I guess I never really realized that this was an actual process that took place. The article also discussed that in literature there is a “correct interpretation” that the reader must have. Teachers leaned students into the “right” answer and not allowing them to express and gain deeper understandings. I do not think that this takes place in my CT’s second grade classroom. I feel like my CT is always open to new ideas other than her own. This is important for the learning environment in the classroom.
2 comments:
It is good to hear that your CT is having book talks in a second grade classroom. My CT does not hold response centered discussions and at first, I thought that maybe it was just the grade level. After reading your blog I had more faith in the power of book talks in early elementary. It is also refreshing to hear that all the students participate in your classroom. I wonder if it was always like this or if she had to work really hard on building a classroom community. This might be something you could talk to her about because, to me, building a classroom community seems like a scary and challenging task! Also, do the students ever respond to each other's comments? This reminds me how in class someone mentioned that in order to get students to respond to each other's comments you could require that they reflect on what the person before them said, and then say what they want to say. I know that this would be beneficial in my second grade class because students that are this age mainly just like to talk about their own ideas and have a hard time listening to others.
I'm really glad to read that you are coming across things that you never realized before and are taking note. A lot goes into this process of teaching that we don't see or think about as students, and realizing that is a very important step on the way to good teaching.
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