I would first like to explain the title of this post. At first glance one may think that it has nothing to do with any of or required readings this week. For me, this excuse was why I had my first exposure to literature circles when I did. When I was a sophomore in high school I moved from Massachusetts to Pennsylvania, because of this move I was placed in all lower level classes. In my lower level English class I connected with my teacher who could see me and a few other students were flying through the material and need to be challenged. To do this she set up a single literature circle, so while the rest of the class was doing lord knows what, myself and a few select students were responsible for covering the rest of the years topics through literature on my own. Personally, I thought this was the teachers way of no longer having to deal with the fact that we were finishing the work so quickly, but know that I look back I realize that because of this I learned to appreciate the literature.
I think that is what literature circles can do for children, it gives them a deeper appreciation for what the book is talking about. My only reservation about with literature circles is sometimes the students don't talk about the books or you do have those students who are not interested in the literature, whether or not they picked it themselves.
When looking at the novel chosen for this week I freaked out, think there is not way I am going to be able to finish this thing by Wednesday. This is something I think will happen to our students. If we give them a long novel they are going to be scared by the size. I have been racking my brain for ways to deal with this novel size problem. How can we keep students from looking solely at the size of a book. I know it even happens in college. Students look at a textbook and think "oh know this is going to be difficult" (often said in more colorful language), but really how can we deal with this problem?
I agree that managing an "on-topic" discussion with middle/high school students can sometimes be challenging. We should be aware of this with any small group work we assign.
ReplyDeletein a small group i was in last class we actually discussed this. a lot of popular adolescent literature in the past few years has been greatly increasing in size and depth... look at the twilight and harry potter series. i don't think size is as much an issue anymore. however i do think a large 550 page book like The Book Thief should be given more time than say House on Mango Street or Number the Stars so that students are not overwhelmed with the amount of material to cover. i certainly would never require a high school class to get through this novel in a week... but two weeks, no problem, this novel is not filled with advanced philosophies and vocabulary, no tripping vernacular or customs children are not completely ignorant to. infact, one of the things i most like about the novel is the way it conveys so much in such simple writing.
ReplyDeleteI think your teacher did an excellent job of recognizing your needs as a higher level student and acted accordingly. It is so important to recognize our student's abilities and various needs.
ReplyDeleteIt is interesting that your teacher secluded the students who were "flying through" the reading.... Why not allow all of the students to participate in the circles? How do you think the other students thought when they were not included in the literature circles? Did you, since you were in the class, notice anything different from the students who were not included?
ReplyDeleteAs a teacher, we need to come up with fresh ideas for literature circles so our students do not lose focus or get bored. We want them to have the mind set as I did when I couldn't put down The Book Thief this past week. That is on our part to have books that are interesting and intriguing. But I do understand we will have those few students who will not want to do it. That is our challenge then to get those students interested.
ReplyDeleteI can definitely understand the frustrations that come with keeping students on-topic. Working at a summer school with students 16-21 it was SO hard to keep them from talking about the latest Jay-Z song or Adam Sandler movie and just focus on what was going on in the classroom. I'll admit that what is happening in the classroom isn't ALWAYS the most interesting thing I could be doing, however as a student that values education I have learned how to keep myself on topic. It's definitely important for us as future teachers to consider how we will deal with the students that just "don't care."
ReplyDeleteOne of the ways that you can deal with the size of a novel is to break it up in chunks..or assign particular parts of the novel and not the whole thing...you don't always have to read a novel in its entirety or use books that are meant to be read as a whole..for instance, the House on Mango Street has alot of small "scripts" that could work better alone...introduce the students to smaller parts of the text and then allow them to read further through the text on their own time if they want..I don't know if this at all helps, just something that initially popped into my head
ReplyDeleteYour concern about book size is valid; it is true that an ultra thick novel can be intimidating to many students. Even our professor had to encourage us - university students paying for our education (thus supposedly wanting to learn) - to not give up when reading the very lengthy "Book Thief." I am not sure, actually, what works in this situation. I was just speaking with my 16 year old cousin about it, though, and it sounded as though her classes are not very...innovative. She is assigned to read Dickens, they read it (maybe) and discuss it and have a test on it. Surely this is NOT the way to encourage actual cover-to-cover reading of a long novel! Maybe it could be useful to start by reading a section, brief enough perhaps that it could be read in class, and then doing small group discussions on what was of interest in the section. This would work best if it was an isolated incident sort of section - such as Rudy's donning black paint to resemble Jesse Owens. (It would also work best if it were a section of great amusement, to reel the students in - I think this section on Jesse Owens might work). The students could then form into groups based on interest. Maybe some would want to read more about Jesse Owens and athletes in general. Maybe some would want to delve into race relations at the time. Maybe one group would want to know more about how news traveled internationally in the 40's versus now. Maybe they could even discuss the international nature of celebrity (beyond athletes) these days versus in the 40's. But this exercise might be a good way to get them "hooked," so that they want to start the beginning and follow through.
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