Literary Discussions in the Classroom

While reading through the various articles for this week, they reminded me of how important literary discussions are in the classroom. I remember being read to often throughout elementary school and reading a lot on my own. Unfortunately, the typical activity/ assessment that followed was what Almasi called recitations. My teachers would ask simple questions that required the class to recount the events in the book we had just read. Never do I remember diving deeper into books to uncover or explore multiple interpretations. Although I don't recall experiencing discussions in elementary school, discussions and multiple interpretations were the main focus of one of my high school classes. This class was called Novels. The class consisted of reading six novels throughout the semester and analyzing them for further interpretations than just what the text said. I used to struggle finding multiple interpretations of these books as I read them, however, through class discussion I was able to hear what other students thought. As the class discussed their ideas I could understand where their interpretations were coming from. Through these discussions and listening to other students, I learned what to look for while I was reading that would help me find alternate meanings of the books. By the end of the semester I learned how to analyze books. Therefore, through this class, I came to realize how important discussions are especially when focusing on reading.
With that said, I will focus on my field placement. I am in a kindergarten classroom where much of the time is spent on literacy, including phonics, writing short stories, centers, and reading to the whole class. While not much time is allotted for discussion of the books that are read, I feel that the CT presents a recitation and response- centered discussion. Recently, the CT has been reading a book about Junie B. Jones. Throughout the book, Junie explores the possibility of what the tooth fairy does with all of the teeth she collects. After reading a chapter out of the book, the CT will ask the students to think about how Junie feels, whether or not they agree with what Junie thinks, and ways that they can relate to the story. In this way, the teacher presents a response- centered discussion by having the students think beyond what is written in the text. However, much of the discussion is teacher centered with the CT asking all of the questions and calling on students to answer. After being in this classroom for more than a semester now, I feel like I know the students very well. Overall, the class may need some prompting from the teacher to get the discussion started, and may need some guidance about what to discuss and guidance to stay on one topic until that topic is talked through, but most of the students in the class love to talk and tell their opinion. I think that if a full response-centered discussion were used with this class, the students would learn much from their peers including the multiple perspectives of the story that are sure to come out, as well as the ways that other students are thinking about the story.
At least three quarters of the class would do great with a response-centered discussion, while the other quarter may not understand the story and be able to give input into the discussion, or may be to shy to readily give input. However, for the shy students, as mentioned by McGee, teacher interaction in the discussion by calling on these students to answer will help to alleviate the non-participation. For those students who may not understand the story, I feel that when they listen in on the conversation, they will gain much insight from their peers about how to think about books and what is read to them. As the students listen more and more to the discussion of their peers, they will hopefully apply the strategies that their classmates do when listening to the stories and use these strategies to be able to understand what is read to them. I think that response-centered discussion benefits everyone in the classroom in some way or another.

Until next time,
Lisa :)