Discussion and Choice in the Classroom

Engaging students in reading is an important daily task for any English educator. Several factors must fall into place for this to occur. First, a student must find the piece interesting. I think we can all remember suffering through a novel or story that bored us to tears! A text must also meet a student's reading level in order for the reader to be engaged. If a student is unable to read and understand a piece of writing, an English teacher can only expect half-hearted effort and unsatisfactory connections. Finally, students must find relevance and personal meaning in their reading. Students need to find something they can hold onto. Everyone needs an idea, an event, a setting, or a character that encourages them to keep reading. When students are engaged in reading, their understanding expands, their attention is focused, and their comprehension improves.

Several writers this week discussed how English teachers can engage students through discussion and choice. In Adolescent Literacy, Probst stresses the importance of talking in the English classroom. When I began reading this chapter, I began to think about debates. In my classroom experiences, debate was the most common discussion-oriented exercise. When speaking of debates, Probst notes, "Conversation should lead to something better for both parties" (BPR 47). This passage really made me begin thinking about the type of discussions that I want to take place in my classroom, and how talking should be beneficial for all students. Among the ideas in Probst's chapter, I think freewriting and the dialogue booklet can be quite effective in the classroom because both activities give students more control over their learning. Freewriting allows students to read a passage (or hear one read aloud), jot down their thoughts, and work through their own questions, rather than the teacher's. The thoughts that students have recorded will facilitate group work that follows. Similarly, the dialogue booklet, as Probst puts it, "begins to move the teacher out of the middle" (BPR 55). Although the English teacher generates the questions to provide structure for the conversation, the students in each group have complete control over what is discussed and when. While the activities in Probst's chapter focused on smaller group discussion, Milner and Milner, in Bridging English, suggest that small-group discussion is a way for students to develop a confident voice and prepare themselves for whole-class discussions.

Giving students choices will be also be an important element of my English classroom. In her chapter in Adolescent Literacy, Lesesne discusses the various ways that adolescent literature is changing. As a result, so too will our decisions as teachers change. For example, she explains how students may identify with and engage themselves more fully in graphic novels, as opposed to the standard dramatic novel. More and more, students are reading stories that blur the lines that exist between genres. Students are increasingly embracing novels told through multiple perspectives. Lesesne notes this shift, "This explosion...means that more and more teens have the opportunity to use books both as a mirror...or as a window" (BPR 72). As teachers, we must give students options to explore the books that speak to them. In Mini-lessons for Literature Circles, Daniels and Steineke suggest book pass stations as a way of bringing choices into the classroom. At each station, teachers give students a chance to look at a few different titles. For two minutes, students read as far as they can in each of the books, and jot down notes on a sheet provided or in their journals about what they liked and what they didn't like. The cycle continues until all of the books at the station have been sampled, and all of the stations have been visited. This activity familiarizes students with different genres and different authors in an intimate way.