Discussion
As students enter the classroom on Day Three, they would find a discussion prompt on the whiteboard:
What were you thinking yesterday while we read? Be honest and share it with your neighbor.
After five minutes, I would open the floor so students could share their discussion. In my classroom, I would like to encourage students to be honest and forthright about their thoughts and develop metacognitive strategies that, in the end, will tell them much about their learning styles, interests, and thought processes. Therefore, I think this discussion question would be a good one. I would allow for about 10 minutes of group talk.
I suspect we would hear answers such as:
- I was bored and thinking about the party this weekend.
- I was thinking that these characters are flat (or stupid, in for a lot of trouble soon, sad, etc.)
- I was wondering what was going to happen next and feeling bad for the characters.
- I could not follow what was happening and ended up zoning out.
- I thought Steinbeck did a good job integrating character description with the story.
- I could see certain characters, but not others.
After the discussion, in which we could offer one another advice or try to address any challenges, we would again read for about fifteen minutes and try to come up with questions. I’ll live blog my questions after I finish reading like I did last time.
Finally, they would have homework, which would include reading to a certain page in the book on their own and generating two questions to discuss the next day.
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