Artifact 5
Excerpt from field notebook journal entry (1/19/14) on "Cask of Amontillado" lesson and lesson plan for the day.
My inquiry question--what does engagement look like in full class discussions--popped into my mind on Wednesday during class when I was not even consciously thinking about it. This moment arose at the start of class when I began a quick discussion, mostly teacher-centered, reviewing what we had gone over the day before (i.e. characters, setting, unreliable narrator, etc.). As I asked these questions, many hands, more than usual, popped up to answer. Additionally, three of the students with their hands raised typically never verbally participate in class. Each of these three students has an A in the course, yet are notably tacit in class discussions. They never appear to be off-task, yet they usually never participate verbally. It may also be important to note that one of these students is an ELL. Thus, I was extremely pleased with the participation, which had me reflecting beyond the class what it was about the questions I was asking or the particular circumstances that day that propelled those three students to volunteer?
The questions were a review and did not require critical thinking skills; they were simply a regurgitation of information. Therefore, all who had paid attention the prior day and had understood the background information of the story would be able to answer the questions. What was interesting to me is that I tend to stay away from these simplistic questions but for whatever reason began my class in that manner on that particular day, adjusting to the constraints of the shortened periods. As a result, many students raised hands, including the three that I have emphasized who never or almost never volunteer to verbally participate in class. Usually I do not highly regard such a set-up in which a teacher asks a question with only one correct answer in an English Language Arts class, but given the fact that the nature of such questions seemed to make more students feel comfortable speaking in class, I am beginning to re-examine this type of questioning...
...Moving forward from this incident, I want to stop steering entirely clear from such types of questions when perhaps they could be the building blocks that will lend themselves to getting more voices involved in the conversation. I do not mean to say that I want my class to be centered upon pure summary, recall questions; however, I am rethinking my approach now that perhaps there is a place for such questions in order to build towards a more complex discussion. Thus, I would like to experiment with beginning a more challenging discussion with simpler questions and then scaffold students into a more student-centered critical thinking discussion and see if verbal participation is increased. Like the three participants who spoke for the first time today, many high achieving students in the class are noticeably quiet during full class discussions of topics for which there are no right or wrong answers. During such conversations, the most dominant participants that speak all have about C-range or average grades. Is there a correlation between verbal participation and grades? Why are so many A students quiet, while students with lower grades are willing to take risks with answering higher-level, opinion-based questions? These correlations are very interesting to me. I do not view them in a causal relationship; however, I find the link between grades and participation an interesting point to study further. I'm excited to continue to reflect upon how certain students respond to certain types of questions and discussion models in the classroom.
The questions were a review and did not require critical thinking skills; they were simply a regurgitation of information. Therefore, all who had paid attention the prior day and had understood the background information of the story would be able to answer the questions. What was interesting to me is that I tend to stay away from these simplistic questions but for whatever reason began my class in that manner on that particular day, adjusting to the constraints of the shortened periods. As a result, many students raised hands, including the three that I have emphasized who never or almost never volunteer to verbally participate in class. Usually I do not highly regard such a set-up in which a teacher asks a question with only one correct answer in an English Language Arts class, but given the fact that the nature of such questions seemed to make more students feel comfortable speaking in class, I am beginning to re-examine this type of questioning...
...Moving forward from this incident, I want to stop steering entirely clear from such types of questions when perhaps they could be the building blocks that will lend themselves to getting more voices involved in the conversation. I do not mean to say that I want my class to be centered upon pure summary, recall questions; however, I am rethinking my approach now that perhaps there is a place for such questions in order to build towards a more complex discussion. Thus, I would like to experiment with beginning a more challenging discussion with simpler questions and then scaffold students into a more student-centered critical thinking discussion and see if verbal participation is increased. Like the three participants who spoke for the first time today, many high achieving students in the class are noticeably quiet during full class discussions of topics for which there are no right or wrong answers. During such conversations, the most dominant participants that speak all have about C-range or average grades. Is there a correlation between verbal participation and grades? Why are so many A students quiet, while students with lower grades are willing to take risks with answering higher-level, opinion-based questions? These correlations are very interesting to me. I do not view them in a causal relationship; however, I find the link between grades and participation an interesting point to study further. I'm excited to continue to reflect upon how certain students respond to certain types of questions and discussion models in the classroom.