With very young children (i.e. first and second graders), I like to establish protocols with them. For example: Look at the listener, nod if you agree. I also like to teach them how to listen for a part of a sentence and to use that part to start their next thought. These are basic, life conversation skills. I also like to regularly ask, "how does that thought go along with the text or someone else's thought?"
For older readers, showing them a video clip of Oprah's book club or some other book discussion and discussing what the participants did when they were discussing the text. One time, I had kids tally literal statements they heard versus statements that were opinions or statements that connected or inferred. They saw that literal statements were few (and usually started at the beginning of the conversation), and the rest that dominated the conversations were inferential or connected to a life experience, or were a struggle to make meaning. Showing students models of, as Ellin says, how adults live; that was a springboard into encouraging more deep discussions from my students. I then had a hook to remind my readers before we read a text, or, if a discussion was going awry. I have even found that, when with working with adults, when you give them a prompt from a reading, ask them to "Talk to you a little bit about what you read." that about 99% of the time, you will see that they will start with the literal interpretation from the text and gradually move to more inferential interpretation (see Judith Langer's Stance Theory). Try it with a class or a group of adults...give them a piece of text, and ask them that question. Scribe their thinking and then label the kind of thinking...you will see a start with literal interpretations and a move to inferential understanding. How many times have we sat through a book discussion and someone starts with a deep thought off the bat, and we can't connect it to something (or, as I like to say, have a hook on which to hang the thinking). That's because we haven't come to a common understanding about the literal from the start. My point is, we need dialogue and ideas to trigger other thoughts and ideas. Ideas grow from other ideas. I really like Debbie Miller's synthesis model...small thought growing with co-centric circles. That's a model of typical human thinking (in my humble opinion); and that is what can give us clues into how we can set up situations for discussing the text. ~Peter Catherine: > My question to you is, first, what kinds of protocol do you set up with > your students about discussions? Then, what changes do you make as the > year progresses? I have heard of Reciprocal Teaching. Do most of you > follow > a guideline or just go with the interest of the class? > I guess I'm asking how do you encourage students to get to the deeper > issues, beyond the surface level questions? > > > > (Embedded image moved to file: pic20101.gif) > -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- > _______________________________________________ > Understand mailing list > [email protected] > http://literacyworkshop.org/mailman/listinfo/understand_literacyworkshop.org > _______________________________________________ Understand mailing list [email protected] http://literacyworkshop.org/mailman/listinfo/understand_literacyworkshop.org
