Last semester I tried out ReadWriteThink's Student-Centered Comprehension resource for my English 30-1 study of Elie Wiesel's Holocaust memoir, Night. It was somewhat successful, but our round-table discussions felt clunky and bogged down with the pressure on student's to act as the teacher and follow the Reciprocal Teaching Guidelines. One of the goals in my Professional Growth Plan for the year is to increase the amount of discussion in my classroom, and to become a better facilitator of discussion. I've been reading an article each month in this area, and came across a point that really struck home: "We learn best when we formulate and answer our own questions."
With this realization, I decided to focus on the student-made discussion questions this time around. I still used one of the resources from the ReadWriteThink package.
I divided the memoir into 4 sections, and split up my class into 5 working groups. The groups had one block to read/meet to create two of each type of question
I checked out a few websites for ideas, and experimented with different discussion strategies throughout the four sections such as:
- questions of fact
- questions of interpretation
- open-eneded questions
I checked out a few websites for ideas, and experimented with different discussion strategies throughout the four sections such as:
- factual questions as a review quiz
- Around the World with poster paper
- Group "Experts" who met with each of the 4 remaining groups
- Round-table discussions
- Think, Pair, Share,
- Snowball
From sciencemuseum.org.uk
I had each group submit an interpretation or open-ended question. Then, we pushed all desks to the edges of the room and gathered in the middle. I used the smartboard to display each question while students went through their snowball discussion. When there were ~3 large groups in the circle, I'd stop the discussion, and have each group share 1-2 ideas. I'd type these as we went, to keep a running record our our discussion.
Check out this example below:
Check out this example below:
Students were engaged, and eager to participate in Snowball Discussions. Those who are shy, were able to share their ideas in a more comfortable way (talking to a single classmate or small group is less intimidating than sharing with the whole class), and their more outgoing partners and snowball members were able to share these ideas at the end.
I even had several students remark, "Wow, we've had some great discussion lately!"
The difficult content of Night actually lends itself well to student-created questions and discussion because the big questions raised by the memoir lend themselves to debate.
I never formally provided a single questions to my English 30-1 class during their study of Night. They have shown me that we really do learn best when we formulate and answer our own questions.
I even had several students remark, "Wow, we've had some great discussion lately!"
The difficult content of Night actually lends itself well to student-created questions and discussion because the big questions raised by the memoir lend themselves to debate.
I never formally provided a single questions to my English 30-1 class during their study of Night. They have shown me that we really do learn best when we formulate and answer our own questions.