Readings 2/7

Almasi article

I like the thought of literacy being considered as a “social endeavor” especially when looking at the discussions because I think that discussing the things we have read help people reach a better understanding of what they have absorbed and also see things from different views. Based off of some of the topics in this article, I feel like I have seen a lot of Initiate-Response-Evaluate type of “discussion” in my classroom. I think that I may have been guilty of doing it as well because it is what I have been programmed in to doing based on past schooling experiences. This article helped me see that this type of recitation was not beneficial for students because it did not allow them to go in depth with what they were learning and just let them stay on the surface. I also completely agree with the article when they talk about the recitation style seeming like more of an assessment than an actual teacher lead conversation. I think that students will catch on to this and become less and less involved. I would like to see more of an interaction that was described on page 8 in my classroom first of all to see how the students would interact with each other and secondly to see if it would help them understand the text any better.

McGee article

This idea of response-centered talk was interesting to me because at first I was a little confused when it was introduced because it sounded like a little bit of the IRE talk that was portrayed very negatively in the previous article, yet also held a bit of the actual discussion type of talk that was mentioned in the Almasi article. This response-centered talk seemed like a happy medium for the previous styles of discussion that were brought up. The one red flag that I had when evaluating these discussion approaches was when it had been mentioned that the talks help students agree upon interpretations. My concern with this would be that some students might just nod along and agree with the other students without actually forming their own opinion, where I personally think it is important for all students to hold their own opinion, even if they do not all agree because that is how they interpreted it and in the long run it might be another thought to bring to the table for other students to consider. I think a way to go about this could be having students write about their opinions and what kind of interpretations they came up with before doing a group discussion. This way the teacher could see all the different views even if the student did not feel like going against the grain in class.