Indicators of Success: 3/5/13

My area of Inquiry/Inquiry Question is:

How can I raise the level of discourse in students’ talk about reading?

My routine data source is: recordings and field notes from book club conversations

Demonstrating Success: Reflect on what evidence you see in the routine data source that tells you how your student is or is not progressing on the indicators.

Indicators	“ANAG” Book Club; 3/5/12 __________________	Student Name __________________
I: Students stayed on one idea and built on it by responding, agreeing, disagreeing and adding on.	☐ Met ☐Not met  X Partially Evidence/How can you tell? Students stayed on one idea, even when it wasn’t leading to any big revelations (like Sounder being healed by the leaves). I wonder whether it’s worth talking about which ideas are worth really digging into, and which ideas can be discussed briefly and then left? It goes back to the issue of deep vs. clarifying questions.	☐Met ☐Not met  ☐ Partially Evidence/How can you tell?
II: Students asked deep questions that sparked good conversation.	☐Met ☐Not met  X Partially Evidence/How can you tell?  They seem very close. They were definitely making an effort to ask deep questions, like “What if the mom’s humming isn’t a signal anymore?” and “Why did they have to shoot Sounder?” These questions weren’t leading them to very rich places though—mainly to a recounting of the details. The conversation really got deeper when someone brought up the recurring story of David and Joseph. I started prompting them with questions, and that seemed to help a lot.	☐Met ☐Not met  ☐ Partially Evidence/How can you tell?
III: Students asked clarifying questions when they were confused.	XMet ☐Not met  ☐ Partially Evidence/How can you tell? They did this a lot, and were quick to respond to each other with details that clarified confusions.	☐Met ☐Not met  ☐ Partially Evidence/How can you tell?
IV: Students challenged each other to support their ideas with evidence.	☐Met ☐Not met  X Partially Evidence/How can you tell? They didn’t do this explicitly, but their conversation was definitely based in the text—I don’t think that anyone could have gotten away with saying something unsubstantiated in the text. What would it look like to do this explicitly, yet still have a natural conversation?	☐Met ☐Not met  ☐ Partially Evidence/How can you tell?
III: Students developed theories about the book together.	☐Met ☐Not met  X Partially Evidence/How can you tell? They were getting there by the end, as I helped them steer their conversation toward some richer themes. They started moving toward the metaphor of the David story, and the theme of racism in the South in the 1930s…it seemed like their ability to develop theories was going to be limited by their lack of background knowledge. It would be interesting to build up their background knowledge about both of those ideas, and see how that enriches their book club discussion.	☐Met ☐Not met  ☐ Partially Evidence/How can you tell?

Notes:

Compared to the previous set of data that I analyzed (from a different book club), this group got much closer to exploring big ideas and themes. It seemed to help them a lot when I recast some of their statements, or pushed them to say a little more about something. What would it take to teach students to do this for themselves? The issue of background knowledge seems really relevant here as another limiting factor. I’d love to collect some data about what happens to their discussion when their equipped with more background information about references and historical context.