Teacher Inquiry Report

Context of the Project

School, Classroom Context, and Students’ Backgrounds

Central Crossing High School is part of the South Western City School District.  It opened in 2002, as the district continued to expand with an influx of immigrants.  At the freshman level, there are different levels of classes beginning with Sheltered classes specifically for ELL students, as well as Silver and Gold Dyad classes designating different ability groupings.  The school website states that the mission for their school “in partnership with the community, is to enable each learner to achieve excellence in a challenging, safe environment while promoting a sense of belonging and mutual respect for our diverse population.  Students will demonstrate proficiency in academic standards, including communication skills and technical knowledge, as the staff will work to advance life long learning for all students.”  This draws off of Dewey’s theories and makes sense due to the diverse population that they referenced.  The school averages around 1660 students in classes everyday, with 14% Black, 2.1% Asian, 5.5% Hispanic, 1.4% Multi-Racial, and 76.7% White.  They are diverse in other ways as well, with 35.5% being economically disadvantaged, 8.2% having limited English proficiency, 13.9% having disabilities (Central Crossing High School).

The classroom I am observing is a very different setup from the traditional classroom.  Dyad classes are arranged so that the teacher is actually instructing two classes at once, in a double classroom.  This means that there are two adjoining rooms that have an optional wall between them.  My mentor teacher and her team teacher, a social studies teacher, have opted to do nearly all their lessons jointly, meaning the wall is rarely, if ever, closed.  The arrangement of the desks is in rows, reflecting the teacher-centered orientation of the class.

The Silver Dyad inclusion class has an average reading level of about third grade, though it ranges from about first to eighth grade level readers.  I found through my survey that most of the students really do not like their English class, though in general they do see the use of taking English.  I have also found that they do not have much confidence in their reading, but do not know what they need to improve on (see Appendix A).   One of my mentor teacher’s goals is to, if not help the students enjoy reading, at least make it a task that is no longer so arduous.  One of the ways she works to accomplish this is by always doing all the reading for class out loud, this way students are not burdened with reading for homework that they would struggle to understand.  Something interesting that Heather has noticed is that her “stronger readers tend to not like writing, and [her] stronger writers really do not like to read” (Barnes).  One of the ways she encourages every one to read is through peer pressure.  When the class reads aloud students call on one another to read, and when called on, the student must read at least one sentence before calling on someone else.

The Silver Dyad class is an overview of different literary genres.  They have studied mythology, novels, short stories, and plays.  The reading focuses mainly on basic comprehension skills that will be required on the Ohio Graduation Test, as well as some deeper thinking analyses of texts.  The writing the class focuses on is also based on the OGT requirements.  They focus heavily on the five-paragraph essay, though they also do writing to learn activities, as well as fill out worksheets to aid comprehension and understanding (see Appendix C).

Your Role as Teacher in this Classroom

For my multi-day teaching lesson I taught “Everyday Use” by Alice Walker, and had the classes focus on the term heritage and what it means in general, and what it means to them.  The first two days of the lesson we read the story aloud, and the teaching was presented mainly through a transmission mode of learning, with me asking recitation style comprehension questions intermittently throughout the reading.  I think I did this because I needed to be sure students understood the general plot and idea of the story before we could move into a discussion about the story.  The third day I acted as a facilitator for discussion, pushing students to deepen their understanding of heritage.  I was still more of a focal point in the classroom than I would have liked because the students were unfamiliar with the discussion format and so needed more direct support and scaffolding from me.

I did not have as good of a working relationship with these students as I would have liked.  I had a hard time remembering their names, and that was a huge obstacle to work with when trying to facilitate a discussion with reluctant students.  I was not as effective as I could have been in communicating the material to the students and creating a sense of urgency for them to learn it.  I also did not feel as though I had much in the way of power or agency with these students.  I think in part this was because I was treated as strictly an observer, rather than a teacher, so when I got up in front of the classroom, the students were already predisposed to disregard half of what I said.

This is a very different context than the one I experienced at Westerville Central High School in the autumn.  During that placement I had already developed a strong rapport with the students by working with them nearly every day, and so they worked well with me in my lesson.  They participated well with the short lectures, and then were excited about the writing assignment I gave them because it allowed them a lot of freedom to express their own opinion.  I think one of the issues with my students this quarter was that I did not know them well enough to choose content for my lesson that they could relate to.

Learning Goals – Plan Relations

For my lesson I taught “Everyday Use” by Alice Walker, and had the classes focus on the term heritage and what it means in general, and what it means to them (see Appendix F).  The goals for my lesson were for students to develop an opinion on a text and be able to support that opinion with examples from the text.  I also wanted student to explore multiple perspectives when working through their opinion.

I began my multi-day teaching with an introductory activity about what the students’ names are, what they mean, and if they would change them.  We had a brief discussion around this introductory activity, leading into the concept of family names.  I then wrote the word ‘heritage’ on the board and as my pre-test, as students to write down what they thought heritage meant, or any guesses that they had about the meaning of it.  We then went on to read the story aloud.  My mentor-teacher has set up the class so that students do all reading for class in class and out loud.

As we read the story, I would stop the students occasionally to ask them questions about what they would read, or to clarify different points.  This was mostly done in a recitation format.  The first day I had the students do most of the reading, but the second day I decided to change my plans a little and I read the last part of the story out loud.  The students seemed to have a better comprehension of the story when I read aloud, versus when they read aloud.  On the second day, after having read the story I had time left over.  I had originally planned to engage students in a discussion, but changed my plans due to their inexperience having class discussions.  I instead had the class respond to a Dear Abby article regarding family heirlooms that related to the story.  We then talked about what they written as their response to this letter.

On the third and final day of my multi-day teaching I heavily scaffolded students into a class discussion around heritage and the different ways of valuing it.  I had students fill out a discussion web that forced them to examine both sides of an argument.  I used this graphic organizer as a way for students to gather their ideas together in a group before we moved into the discussion.  I was not sure how they would do speaking on the fly, so I gave them something they could fill out and reference in the discussion.  We then came together and used the points they came up with to support the side of the argument they agreed with, while I challenged them with points from the opposing side.

One of the big challenges I faced was discussion etiquette.  The students had never really participated in a class discussion before, and so they did not know how to act in a discussion setting.  They were talking about unrelated subjects while their peers were making contributions to the discussion.  This presented a challenge for me because the reason the discussion had worth was because it gave students a chance to hear multiple perspectives about an argument, but because the students were not respecting each other and listening to each other’s comments, then the purpose of the discussion was undermined.  There were a lot of good ideas that I could have built on had I not had to devote as much attention to classroom management and just struggling to hear the students myself.

Your Teaching and Your Students’ Learning

Description of How Your Teaching Unfolded

I began my multi-day teaching with an introductory activity about what the students’ names are, what they mean or where they came from, and if they would change them (see Appendix G).  We had a brief discussion around this introductory activity, leading into the concept of family names.  Students seemed quite willing to share, though their responses remained rather superficial. The idea was for them to do this activity with no inclination of how it would relate to the story, but in hindsight perhaps it would have been better to give them some background on that section of the story, and then had them write.

After this introductory activity I wrote the word ‘heritage’ on the board and as my pre-test, as students to write down what they thought heritage meant, or any guesses that they had about the meaning of it.  This was difficult for the students, as some did not even have a clue what it was.  I tried to give examples, but it was hard to do so without them latching onto my definition as the correct one.  We then went on to read the story “Everyday Use” by Alice Walker aloud.  My mentor-teacher had set up the class so that students did all reading for class in class and out loud.

As we read the story, I would stop the students occasionally to ask them questions about what they would read, or to clarify different points.  We engaged in some mini-discussion along the way.  These did not generally last long, but were useful in allowing students to explore the text.  I tried to focus my own speaking here on not guiding them towards a specific answer, but letting them develop their own meanings.  Most of the students did not seem used to this freedom, and were not sure how to respond.  The first day I had the students do most of the reading, but the second day I decided to change my plans a little and I read the last part of the story out loud.  The students seemed to have a better comprehension of the story when I read aloud, versus when they read aloud.

On the second day, after having read the story I had time left over.  I had originally planned to engage students in a discussion, but changed my plans due to their inexperience having class discussions.  I instead had the class respond to a Dear Abby article regarding family heirlooms that related to the story.  We then talked about what they written as their response to this letter (see Appendix G).  This discussion went really well, and the students got really into it, bringing in their own personal perspective.  They had a lot of great ideas, and I heard from students who do not speak up very often in class, giving me suggestions for how they would respond to this article.

On the third and final day of my multi-day teaching I heavily scaffolded students into a class discussion around heritage and the different ways of valuing it.  I had students fill out a discussion web that forced them to examine both sides of an argument.  I used this graphic organizer as a way for students to gather their ideas together in a group before we moved into the discussion.  I was not sure how they would do speaking on the fly, so I gave them something they could fill out and reference throughout the discussion.  The discussion web worked well, but there was some tension in the classroom at first when I had the student get into pairs, they did not want to work with only one other person, and then when the pairs formed groups of four, some pairs did not want to mix again.  The group mixing was an important aspect of the activity because it allowed the pairs to hear differing perspective and gain new insights into the text.  I tried to be firm with the groups about mixing into groups of four, but in some instances it was not worth the fight because they were doing the work, so I let them form bigger groups than I had originally planned.

We then came together for a whole class discussion and used the points they came up with to support the side of the argument they agreed with, while I challenged them with points from the opposing side.  This decision to challenge them on their points came as a result of the fact that there were only about 3 or 4 different points the class came up with and shared, so I threw those points back into the discussion, rephrasing them and asking students to refute them.  Often times, students had a good point to refute my argument on their discussion web (see Appendix G), and just had not shared it with the class.  This argumentative format allowed for more students to share what they had written and more viewpoints to be heard.  At the end of the discussion for my post-test, I again asked students what they thought heritage meant, and to tell me one new thing they would learned during the lesson (see Appendix F).

I think overall that this was an effective discussion as a beginning discussion with this group of students.  I think students got some good ideas from it, and learned at least that there are differing viewpoints, if not how to argue them quite yet.  When talking to students after my teaching they felt that they would learned something more about heritage, what it means, and the differing ways of appreciating it (see Appendix D).  They also said I did good job of making them feel like their opinion was beneficial to the class, and they felt safe sharing it.  One of the students mentioned that she was frustrated with the amount of talking happening in the room during the discussion.  Another student admitted that the story was boring, and that he slept through part of it, but enjoyed the discussion format (Students).

Analysis of the Video

I chose to use the whole class discussion section of my lesson for the video analysis session because it is a good sampling of how the all the mini discussions had a tendency to go.  There was great potential for students to explore their envisionment of the text, but due to the excessive amount of chattering I tried to push through the discussion because it seemed like a waste of time.  This was because the good ideas that were being voiced by the students were not being heard by their peers in the class, as so I tried to keep everyone as on task as possible, and as a result ended up short-changing the discussion (see Appendix H).

My teaching focused strongly on the assumption that multiple perspectives are useful.  I was trying to get students to consider how they might argue the other side of an argument.  This lesson, with more time, could easily have moved into a lesson on writing an argumentative paper, as students were learning to consider how someone might find fault with their argument.   I also tried to focus on putting questions at the center of the literary experience, but I found when I went back through my transcriptions, because I had given the students a question to begin with and had them focusing more on multiple perspectives, and how they could answer that question, they did not focus nearly as much on voicing their own questions about the text.  These are good examples of how I attempting to guide the discussion through a demonstration of Langer’s principles of envisionment (Langer 56-60)

The video analysis session with my peers was helpful in validating my own observations about my teaching.  Some helpful suggestions were provided, such as for the whole class discussion I may have found it more beneficial to put the students back in rows before discussing, rather than letting them stay in their groups.  This would have made it so there would no longer be any students who had their backs to me.  This problem of students not respecting each other or me with their talking could also have been mediated by outlining some guidelines before beginning the discussion.  This was something my peers pointed out to me that I had not even considered, but probably should have because I knew that the students were new to class discussions, and so would not already know what some guidelines should be.  Another improvement that I could make in regards to the talking that was suggested by my peers was to strive not to talk over students.  I am not sure how the discussion would have gone had I not talked over the students because the majority of them when talking were not discussing the assignment, rather their personal lives outside of school.  I suspect just standing at the front and waiting for the students to stop talking and pay attention would not have worked.  I think if I ad tried this strategy they would have been fine just continuing to talk amongst themselves.

One observation that both my peers and I made about my discussion was that I moved through it too quickly. There were instances where I could have asked students to elaborate on a point that they made, rather than moving onto the next group and asking for their opinion.  I am not sure how this would have played out because I had to do a lot of prompting to get the responses I did.  I am not sure students would have understood what I meant had I asked them to tell me more about their point.  I did a good job of taking in what my students were saying and responding accordingly to their points, as well as doing a good job staying on track with my lesson despite the distractions that my class was creating.

Analysis of Student Responses to Your Pre- and Post-Assessment

In order to make sense of and see patterns in my data, I conducted a series of analyses that began with looking at the differences in the responses in the pre- and post-tests that I gave (see Appendix B).  This test was just the one question asking students to tell me what they thought heritage meant.  For the pre-test I got a huge range of responses: some students already had a really good grasp of some of the meanings of heritage, and others simply had no idea, probably had never heard the word before I asked that question, and took a wild guess.

For the post-test I asked students to add or change one thing form their original definition of heritage, to show me what they had learned during the lessons.  I ended up having to disregard the responses form the first period class because I asked them to make the changes on their paper that I had handed back to them, and I only got back about 4 responses from the class of 30 students.  For the second period class I got many more responses back because I instead asked them to flip over the sheet they would already been working on and to write me a new definition for what they thought heritage meant, including any changes they thought they had from their previous definition.  I found that asking students to find a paper I had passed back early that class was one step to many for most of the students, and that they responded much better when I asked them to simply write on the piece of paper they already had in their hands.

Another method I used to analyze and make sense of my data was to examine the responses that students wrote down in their discussion webs.  I was specifically interested in seeing if students had nay points written in their discussion webs that had not been presented and discussed as a class.  I found that about half the students had additional responses that had not been shared with the class at large.  While this was disappointing in the sense that some students did not participate as much as they could have in the discussion by contributing some more viewpoints, it was also heartening in the sense that some students clearly were able to respond to the question without the support of the class.  The had ideas that differed from what the class talked about, and thus made some connections to the text on their own without my specific prompting.

A General Description of Findings

This report has been significant in helping me to identify where I am still struggling in my teaching and communication with students.  I have been able to focus, through my findings, on what areas need improvement because I have seen where students met or missed the mark on my expectations.  The purpose of my study becomes clearer and more significant when read in the light of other work (Langer; McCann et al.; Beach et al.)  I worked to facilitate an authentic discussion during out whole class discussion of the text.  Unfortunately the discussion fell a little short due to both the students lack of experience discussing, and my lack of experience facilitating a discussion by asking students to elaborate on the points that they were making.  I moved to quickly through the discussion and ended up cutting off what could have been an excellent authentic conversation about heritage.

My lesson centered around the concept of heritage: what it is, how to define it, and how to appreciate it.  I attempted to measure this in my pre- and post-tests when I asked students what heritage meant to them, and what they thought it was.  After my lesson students were better able to narrow down or augment their definition of heritage.  For example, Matt took ideas from the Dear Abby article and expanded his original definition to include the idea of inheritance.  Another student, Jessica, had originally described heritage by listing some of her family’s traditions, but then for the post-test narrowed her focus down to include the idea of inheritance (see Appendix G).

When I interviewed a sampling of the students about how they felt about my lesson, one of them said she felt like she learned more about what heritage means, and that there are “all different kinds of ways of valuing [it]” (Students).  I had hoped that they would get this out of the lesson.  I also hoped that would learn about valuing differing perspectives, as Langer mentions in his principles of envisionment, but in the interview the students did not explicitly mention that, though they did demonstrate it when filling out their discussion webs.  They did fairly well coming up with ideas for both sides of the question (see Appendix G).

Most of the students who completed both the pre- and post-test made some clarification or specification in their definition; however, there were many students, especially in the first period class, who did not complete the post-test.  I do not know if this was because they did not feel like completing the work, or if they did not know what to write down to expand or modify their definition.  Every group turned in a discussion and about three quarters of the class did not have anymore written down than what we had discussed in class, about a fourth of the class had a discussion with additional points that had not been brought up in class.  This shows that at least some were really giving thought to the multiple perspectives about appreciating heritage that are out there.

Reflection and Analysis

I think the most challenging thing about the two classes during my multi-day teach was the motivation.  It was hard to convince the students to do the work because they just were not interested and did not want to be at school.  I did not know them that well so I could not really cater to their interests, the best I can do is take what they gave me during a discussion, and run with it.

Getting the class to read and have on topic discussions was also difficult due to classroom management problems.  There were a lot of kids sleeping or with their heads down, and there were lots of side conversations going on.    My mentor teacher suggested that I start off class by warning the students that if they get too chatty, I may move them, or if they are sleeping that I may have them stand for the rest of the class.  It sounds like an excellent idea, but I do not know if I could follow through on those threats because I had never seen my mentor teacher follow through on any.  It is also hard to do much classroom management because I only know the names of a few students in the class.  I decided to use popsicle sticks with names on them for the second day of teaching to get students to participate, and that helped a little bit on that front.  My peers during the video analysis section suggested that when I have a discussion after doing group work to have the students arrange themselves back in their rows.  This way they would not have their backs to me and would be in the set-up they were used to for whole class time.

Another thing that I noticed while teaching was my level of comfort between first and second period.  I did not experience this last quarter during my multi-day teach because my mentor teacher last quarter only taught one of each class, so there was no opportunity to double up.  I found that after having done the lesson during first period, I was able to make some minor adjustments to what I was doing second period, and because I had already taught the lesson once, I was much more confident in my teaching during second period.  I asked slightly different questions, and asked the students to write down slightly different things between the two periods.

The students did seem to have a better grasp of the definition of heritage, what it meant to them, and the different ways of appreciating it after the lesson.  One of the student’s I interviewed after the lesson said she felt like she knew more about heritage now than she did before the lesson began (Students).  I also think the students learned about arguing an idea from both sides.  This was not something that I explicitly taught, but the further we moved into the discussion and the more I asked students to refute a point that I had made with appoint of their own, the more comfortable they got with the practice, and the quicker they were to argue with me and provide counter examples.

My mentor teacher thought I did fairly well with the lesson I had prepared, but that I need to know more about the students so that I can choose an adequate text for the class as a whole.  “Everyday Use” was a little long for the inclusion class, and I realized this after the first day of reading, but could not change my plans to incorporate a different text at that point due to school copy policies.  She also thought that I seemed a little uncomfortable during the lesson: I did not walk around much, and was hesitant to really get on students about not paying attention.  She also thought that I was really professional, prepared, and flexible when dealing with changing schedules due to the snow days (see Appendix I).

My cohort colleague noticed the same thing I did about my class being excessively chatty.  She thought I did well dealing with the noise level, and being firm about staying on track with my lesson and my expectations.  She noted that I could be explicit about instructions regarding group work than I was.  Mainly the issue revolved around the amount of extraneous chatter in the room (see Appendix K).

My university supervisor thought that my lesson went well overall.  She noted that I did well in providing a space for every student to have a voice and make connections to their own lives, but that I should think of strategies to actively engage students.  She thought I did good job picking an appropriate text for the students and grade level, as well as providing opportunities for students with multiple intelligences to excel, which is especially evidenced by some of the student work (see Appendix G).  I was also reflective in my teaching, and willing to make necessary changes between lessons (see Appendix J).

Implications of the Study

Given the opportunity to re-teach this lesson I would first have to better consider my students.  One of the main problems I found with my lesson was that the students had no interest in the story, and so discussion became difficult because students either did not pay attention during the reading of the story or could find almost no connections to their personal lives in the story.  If I were to teach a lesson again using this story and focusing on heritage, I would want to precede the unit with some knowledge of the Civil Rights Movement, and use that as a basis for discussing some of what happens in the story.

However, if I were to again teach a lesson focusing on multiple viewpoints, I would change the story I used all together.  One of the things my mentor teacher mentions in her evaluation was that “Everyday Use” was a little bit long for the inclusion class to be reading in that short amount of time (see Appendix I).  I need to work on remembering that not all students are at the expected reading level, and that event he reading level within the class varies.  Therefore, I need to work on overcoming the assumption that students should all be able to read and understand a text I am presenting, and find ways to better support them in their learning.  I would probably use a text such as “All of Summer in a Day” by Ray Bradbury instead.  It has the same opportunities for students to examine multiple viewpoints and debate various aspects of the story, but it is also short and at a lower reading level, which would probably cater more to the students in the class.  It also is a story about students, and presented in such a way that students would be able to better relate to it.

The students did seem to learn about heritage from my teaching, as is evidenced by their pre- and post-tests.  They also came up with many good points from both Dee’s and Maggie’s points of view regarding heritage and appreciating them, and thus were learning how to see an argument from multiple points of view.  One of the things that I found difficult about this lesson was what to do about absentee students.  Because we were reading the story aloud in class, and students are not required to reading at home, I did not know how to involve a student in discussion who had not read the story, or how to include them in the class beyond summarizing the story, or having them read silently while the rest of the class worked.

I found doing teacher inquiry in my classroom for this field experience to be a beneficial learning experience because I was able to carefully analyze where my teaching fell short, and where I succeeded in helping students to learn.  I was able to support and supplement my examination of my own teaching by analyzing it through the frameworks and lenses provided by Langer, McCann et al., and Beach et al.  This helped me not only to see where I need improvement, but ways in which I can focus and guide my improvement to better help and support students in their learning.

References

“Central Crossing High School.” Southwestern City Schools. 22 Sep 2008. Southwestern

City Schools, Web. 25 Feb 2010. <http://www.swcs.k12.oh.us/Schools/High

%20schools/central_crossing__high_school.htm>.

Barnes, Heather. Personal interview.  14 Jan. 2010.

Beach, Richard et. al., Teaching Literature to Adolescents. New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum

Associates Inc., 2006.

Langer, Judith A., Envisioning Literature. Columbus University: Teachers College Press,

1995.

McCann, Thomas M., et. al., Talking in Class: Using Discussion to Enhance Teaching and

Learning. National Council of Teachers of English, 2006.

Students, MDT focal class.  Personal interview.  18 Feb. 2010.

Appendices

Appendix A: Student Survey

Appendix B: Pre- and Post-Test

Appendix C: Interview Questions for Mentor Teacher

Appendix D: Interview Questions for Case Study Students

Appendix E: Materials and Handouts

Appendix F: Lesson Plans for Multi-Day Teaching

Appendix G: Student Work Samples

Appendix H: Analytic Memo

Appendix I: Written Response from Mentor-Teacher

Appendix J: Written Response form University Supervisor

Appendix K: Written Response from Cohort Colleague

Analytical Memo for Video Analysis Session

Part I: The Big Picture

High School High is part of the South Western City School District.  It opened in 2002, as the district continued to expand with an influx of immigrants.  The district is the sixth largest district in the state, covering a huge diversity of students.  My focal class is an inclusion level class of freshman English.  The students are middle to lower socio-economic class, from a variety of different cultural and linguistic backgrounds.  The students in my class don’t all speak English at home, and in general, would rather not have to go to school at all.   They most don’t enjoy reading, but most do see that it will have some value in their future.

For my lesson I taught “Everyday Use” by Alice Walker, and had the classes focus on the term heritage and what it means in general, and what it means to them.  My lessons hit a bit of road bump due to the snow days, because I taught my first day, then had a 3 day break, then my second day, then had a 4 day break, then finally taught my last day.  I began my multi-day teaching with an introductory activity about what the students’ names are, what they mean, and if they would change them.  We had a brief discussion around this introductory activity, leading into the concept of family names.  I then wrote the word ‘heritage’ on the board and as my pre-test, as students to write down what they thought heritage meant, or any guesses that they had about the meaning of it.  We then went on to read the story aloud.  The class has been set up by my mentor-teacher so that all reading for class is done in class and out loud by students.

As we read the story, I would stop them students occasionally to ask them questions about what they’d read, or to clarify different points.  The first day I had the students do most of the reading, but the second day I decided to change my plans a little and I read the last part of the story out loud.  The students seemed to have a better comprehension of the story when I read aloud, versus when they read aloud.  On the second day, after having read the story I had time left over.  I had originally planned to engage students in a discussion, but changed my plans due to their inexperience having class discussions.  I instead had the class respond to a Dear Abby article regarding family heirlooms that related to the story.  We then talked about what they written as their response to this letter.  On the third and final day of my multi-day teaching I heavily scaffolded students into a class discussion around heritage and the different ways of valuing it.  I had students fill out a discussion web that forced them to examine both sides of an argument.  We then came together and used the points they came up with to support the side of the argument they agreed with, while I challenged them with points from the opposing side.

Part II: Two Different Analyses of A Significant Event in the Classroom Discussion

First Analysis: Developing an Envisionment Classroom

I chose to use this section of my lesson because it is a good sampling of how the all the mini discussions had a tendency to go.  There was great potential for students to explore their envisionment of the text, but due to the excessive amount of chattering I tried to push through the discussion because it seemed like a waste of time.  This was because the good ideas that were being voiced by the students weren’t being heard by their peers in the class, as so I tried to keep everyone as on task as possible, and as a result ended up short-changing the discussion.

Langer outlines four points that are essential in an envisionment-based classroom.  My teaching focused strongly on the assumption that multiple perspectives are useful.  There are several examples of this through the transcript, where I am focusing the students on developing counter arguments for what they believe.  Take, for example, the following exchange beginning at line 136:

T:  If I’m arguing as Dee, and I say “Well Dee refused the quilts the first time so she shouldn’t get them this time.”  What would you say to argue with me? (19)

S₅:  I wouldn’t, because I agree with you.

T:  But if you had to.  If you had to argue that point.

S₄:  Wait.  What point? (20) Like…

T:  Okay, so I’m saying that for example “Dee refused to have the quilts the first time, because she said they’re old-fashioned, but now she wants them.  So I don’t think she appreciates her heritage.”  How would you argue with me? (21)

S₄:  She wanted to hang it up to show her Grandma’s quilting skills.

T:  Okay, so did you guys see how we just did that? (22) I argued a point, and as a response, we found a point for the other side.  Because she wanted to protect the quilts.  She wanted to hang them.

During this exchange I am just beginning to get students to think about how someone else might view the same situation from a different point of view than them.  I was trying to get them to consider how they might argue the other side.  This lesson, with more time, could easily have moved into a lesson on writing an argumentative paper, as students were learning to consider how someone may find fault with their argument.

The other three principles that Langer presents as essential for an envisionment-based classroom weren’t as prevalent in my lessons, and some not at all in this section of the transcript.  I tried to focus on putting questions at the center of the literary experience, but I found when I went back through my transcriptions, because I had given the students a question to begin with and had them focusing more on multiple perspectives, and how they could answer that question, they didn’t focus nearly as much on voicing their own questions about the text.  There was an instance at line 189 where a student posed a question to the class, but because the class was talking they didn’t hear her question, and so even though I reposed it for her after the class quieted a bit, it seemed as though the question came from me, and we fell back into the IRE discussion pattern.

During this same portion of the discussion the student who asked the question is working to develop and expand her understanding.  There are other moments such as the student in line 105 pointing out that Dee wore the orange dress.  Here, if I had asked her to explain this reasoning, rather than doing it myself, I could have pushed her expand on her understanding and have let her help the other students in the class to expand on theirs as well.  Also, by letting her explain, I could have treated her as a life-long envisionment builder by allowing her to take more ownership of her idea by putting it at the center of the class discussion, and letting her build on and explain it.

Through out the discussion I neglect to give students the opportunity to expand on their ideas, I simply take them, and move on, asking for another student response.  This is especially evident at the beginning of the transcription.  For example, beginning at line 53 I zoom through 2 sets of responses that I could have asked students to elaborate on:

T:  Okay, let’s move to this group here.  What did you guys pick?  What is your side? (6)

S₅:  *inaudible*

T:  Alright, what is your reason for no? (7)

S₅:  Because she can get whatever she wants.  And…yeah…

T:  Okay, so you think because she’s selfish maybe? (8)

S₅: Mmhmm.

MT: Shh… Guys!

T:  Okay, let’s go to the group in the back.  What did you guys pick as your side? (9)

S₆:  No.

T:  You picked no.  Why did you pick no?  Give me a reason. (10)

S₆:  Because she had the same name as her grandma, but she changed it.

T: Guys! Okay, so she changed her name? (11)

S₆:  And it was the same name as her grandma.

T:  Okay, so… Not only did she change her name, but it was her heritage name.  It was a family name.  Okay, group up front here.  What did you guys have?  What was your side? (12)

I think the reason that I initially did this was because I knew my students hadn’t ever really gotten the opportunity to voice there opinions to the class, so I wanted to make sure that every group got a chance to speak and have something to contribute.  I think this could have gone better had I given them an opportunity to elaborate on their point, or explain why they’d chosen it before moving on to the next group.

The strong presence of the fourth principle, students and teachers assume that multiple perspectives are useful, and the slightly lesser presence of the second principle, questions are at the center of the literary experience, suggests that I am comfortable pushing my students to expand their thinking, and that I see the value, and expect my students to as well, in questioning assumptions about a text or its interpretation.

Because there was only a slight presence of the first principle, students are treated as life-long envisionment builders, and third principle, students are expected to develop and expand their understandings, I can begin to infer that I am not yet comfortable turning over the classroom to the students for discussion.  I think that because I am concerned that they’re struggling to comprehend the text, that I’m not letting them build their envisionment and take the time to explore their understandings, much less vocalize and build on them in front of the class.  I think my lack of pushing students to elaborate and not allowing them to expand on their ideas led to a rather superficial discussion, despite the potential it had to be authentic.

Second Analysis: Questioning

During the video segment I chose to share a total of 29 questions were asked that related to the discussion or clarification of the points being made.  Only 4 of the 29 questions asked were from students.  Three of those were clarification questions and the other I had to repeat for the class due to excessive talking.  I think the lack of questions posed by students stemmed a lot due to me not prompting them to pose questions directed at their classmates.  Most, if not all, of these students have never participated in a class discussion of this sort, and while I provided scaffolding for them to use for ideas throughout the discussion, I didn’t model or instruct students on how to ask questions of their classmates.  I didn’t even give them the sense that they were allowed or should challenge their classmates.

Of the 29 questions that were asked all but 3 received a response.  I think I got such a good student response because I had students write down responses to the questions before we began the discussion.  Allowing students, especially those who are inexperienced at discussing, the time to think about their responses ahead of time was immensely beneficial.

All but 2 of the questions asked were authentic, and I used uptake on about 75% of the responses, and nearly half had some elaboration that followed the uptake of the response.  I think there was a high percentage of authentic questions because the way I structured the discussion, I wasn’t looking for any specific answers, rather I was looking for students to provide me with examples to back up their opinion.  Because I first asked students what side they agreed with, I was able to use a lot of uptake when I asked them to give me a reason why they chose that side.  For example:

T:  Okay, let’s move to this group here.  What did you guys pick?  What is your side? (6)

S₅:  *inaudible*

T:  Alright, what is your reason for no? (7)

S₅:  Because she can get whatever she wants.  And…yeah…

T:  Okay, so you think because she’s selfish maybe? (8)

S₅: Mmhmm.

I took the response the student gave me, and then based on that response asked him for his reasoning.  Then I summarizes what I thought I was hearing, and asked him if I was correctly interpreting his response.  This little bit of elaboration could have gone further had I allowed the student, or prompted the student, to expand his thinking and tell me more about why he chose that reasoning to back up his opinion.  Because I quickly moved on to the next group I tended to thwart expanded responses from students.

I think overall that this was an effective discussion as a beginning discussion with this group of students.  I think students got some good ideas from it, and learned at least that there are differing viewpoints, if not how to argue them quite yet.  I think I need more practice at facilitating a discussion, and this particular group of students needs more practice at participating in a discussion.  I need to work more on not moving on so quickly, and taking the time to prompt my students to explain their thinking more.  I need to work on strategies to get more students involved in the discussion, and how to push the ones that are involved to extend their thinking even more by encouraging them to ask their own questions and respond directly to their classmates, and not just to me.

Question Analysis

MDT Discussion Transcript

Paired Analysis of Yvonne Hutchinson’s Approach to Discussion

Yvonne Hutchinson is an African-American high school language arts teacher in the King Drew Medical magnet school in LA, California.  She was born in 1943 in Little Rock, Arkansas and was taught a love of words early on by her mother and early teachers, and has maintained an awe of readings since then.  Yvonne is a National Board Certified teacher, who focuses her class around social consciousness and drawing on her students oral traditions.

Yvonne’s school is a lottery system magnet school, and thus draws on a wide range of students with varying backgrounds.  The King/Drew Magnet High School student body consists of a majority Black population (72%) including students from Africa and the Caribbean Islands, a smaller group of Latinos (22%) and a small mix of others, (6%), including students of Native American, Indian, Asian, Mid Eastern, and European descent (Where I Began/Where I Begin).  The school also has a socio-economically diverse population.

This diverse population that is present in the classroom provides Yvonne an excellent context for one of her goals.  This goal is to help her students understand what people have in common, in addition to celebrating their own differences.  The idea behind this goal is to promote a diversified and respectful learning community where students draw on their own backgrounds and oral traditions to develop their envisionment of texts that they are experiencing.

Another goal she establishes that draws on the diversity of her classroom is Yvonne’s objective to have her students engage in meaningful discussions about controversial and complex issues, where they can draw on their rich cultural background and make connections to relevant literature.  The reasoning behind this goal is to help her students become engaged citizens who understand the consequences of their actions and inactions, as referenced in their discussion on the use of the “N” word.  She uses a variety of strategies to prepare her students for authentic participation in these discussions.

Early in the year Yvonne uses an anticipation guide to focus students on universal truths.  This allows them to acknowledge their differences so they can focus on their commonalities.  She hopes her students will make their own meaning that is rich enough to engage in a discussion about the text itself, what the text syas about them, and about larger social issues.  This kind of thinking and discussion prepares students to develop habits of mind that encourage critical thinking about similar issues as they confront them in their own lives.

In order to establish a democratic way of participating, Yvonne has established some norms that guide the classroom discussions.  These include: a one sentence minimum response, if only to defer the question; mandatory cogent response when called on by another student; open ended discussion questions; allowing use of stock responses; patience with classmates so that everyone gets a chance to think and respond completely.  These norms reinforce the idea that the class is heterogeneous learning community where the students must learn to work together to construct meaning.  This constructing of meaning begins with students constructing meaning on their own, which they augment with a variety of reading comprehension strategies.

One such strategy is called metacognitive marking.  By marking significant passages, passages that are liked/disliked or agreed with /disagreed with, and passages that prompt questions readers have the opportunity to identify important passages and record their initial reaction.  This pulls each student’s envisionment of the text into class discussion, and gives legitimacy to each student’s response to the text.  In addition, marking up the text allows them to be able to reference these passages in a group discussion, and bring up any questions or thoughts they may have had while reading.  By marking texts students are engaging more deeply with the text because they are consciously interspersing response to the text during reading.  These closer readings prepare students to offer their own interpretations in class, contributing to an authentic discussion.

Yvonne uses authentic discussion in her classroom (in video 3) when she allows students to engage in a conversation-like atmosphere with their peers.   They talk about the issues that resonate with them, without Yvonne butting in to push her own agenda and have students guessing for the “right” answer.  Students are encouraged to exchange ideas and ask questions of each other.  Prior to the discussion students prepare questions that require them to engage with texts at varying levels.  This both requires students to think metacognitively about the ways they respond to literature, and allows for differentiated discussion for students who may struggle with higher levels of engagement.

One strategy she uses to encourage everyone’s participation is having the students work in small groups in which each member is required to contribute to the small group discussion.  Small groups help to relieve the pressure of speaking in front of the whole class, allowing more shy members to participate comfortably.  She also encourages students to work with students who aren’t in their clique, exposing them to a variety of perspective and viewpoints.

Another strategy that Yvonne uses in her classroom to encourage everyone’s participation is the anticipation guide.  By using the anticipation guide she is providing the students with a pre-discussion activity that allows them to collect their thoughts before asking them to engage and speak with their peers.  This allows students who don’t think as quickly on their feet to prepare for participation, and ensures that student responses will be more thoughtful.  Students can also build off these pre-thoughts to ask direct questions of each other, positively utilizing peer pressure in a class discussion.  The discussion that results from these thoughts and questions leads students into the continuing revision of their envisionment of the text.

Envisionment allows for students to make their own meaning of a text based on their own life experiences and to constantly rethink and revise their envisionment as it interacts with other students’ envisionments.  One way this occurs in the classroom is through incorporating students individual reactions to literature, as shown with their +, -, ?, and * metacognative marking, which inherently legitimates each students individual reaction to the text.  The following discussion allows students to constantly revise their initial envisionments and build new understandings of the text as they consider other students envisionments.  They can actually solicit their peers understanding or reactions by calling on them in discussion, a practice Yvonne encourages.

One aspect of her teaching that stands out is her explicit and direct way of approaching and talking about differences in race, ethnicity, and gender.  From the first class, where Yvonne asks students to consider how they arranged themselves in relation to each other in the classroom, she brings the concept of race out into the open.  They notice that they’ve segregated the room along the lines of race.  She then asks them to rearrange themselves so that the class in more integrated.  She acknowledges their tendency as human nature, and then begins to promote one of her overarching goals for the class that we are all human and have more commonalities than may be apparent on the surface.  This approach immediately draws on student background and identity, making this relevant issue a topic of the class.  Students see that this class is a safe place to talk about race, and that they’ll be talking not only about literature, but also the text of their own lives.