Wednesday, April 29, 2009
Installment 3: Instructional Conversation
Claire shared what I will call a hybrid Instructional Conversation with our group: part explaining and teaching, part conversation about Frost's poem The Road Not Taken. Based on this and any other experiences you've had with IC, what are your thoughts? How will you use it in your classroom? How have you used it since we met? What did you think? How did your students react?
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I use instructional conversation. I find with reluctant readers that is can be challenging to help them engage in the conversation. I think part of the problem is the history of not being engaged as a reader; of not being skilled in generating questions before, during and after reading; and in general avoiding reading. I'm willing to wait for responses and can draw out information from students. And I find that this also has be be preceded by direct instruction in comprehension strategies. Students in their second year of direct instruction in reading and more skilled in reading and can be more involved in instructional conversation. It still takes planned frontloading and text at the individual's instructional level of reading.
ReplyDeleteI still have concerns about students with slow processing speed who need more time to think and respond. There is a strong possibility that these students will not be a part of the conversation without a strategy for involving them. I'm interested in ideas for involving all while following Claire's suggestions to not call on students for their input.
I agree Margot! I have used a different Frost poem called "A TIME TO TALK" for about ten years, where I read the poem aloud 3 times while kids listen. Then I ask students to draw what they hear while I read it three more times.
ReplyDeleteThen we discuss key words, phrases, actions, unknown words, verb tenses etc. and the kids erase, draw and we discuss as we go on. It takes at least 40 minutes to an hour with my 6th graders. They all have various interpretation of this poem as we had various interpretations of Frost's "THE ROAD NOT TAKEN" in our class. We too fall into deep discussion on verses that take on more than one meaning after several readings.
The kids always blow my mind with what they come up with! Once we all discuss the poem and welcome ALL views, the kids paint their unique perspectives of the poem and they share their interpretations verbally.
THIS is where that extra time has naturally come in for those who needed time to process the poem over many readings and clarifications on tough vocabulary words. You often see those kids erase a little more of their page than others perhaps, but ultimately, I think this is a successful activity for them because they are usually comfortably sharing their piece too! Going back to Merideth's lesson, all kids have indeed CONNECTED with the text by the time we are done. :-)
Excellent ideas Margot & Jen!
ReplyDeleteI use instructional conversation with my Gifted & Talented students all the time - I just didn't realize it had a formal name. : )
I'm just beginning to practice it with some reluctant and/or struggling readers however. I chose a group of sixth graders who are reading "Dear Mr. Henshaw". We had a conversation about why the author chose to write the book in letter format, what the author's purpose was in choosing this format, and how his purpose extends into the actual story of that author getting the main character to actually write too. Although the book has a few illustrations I did ask the students to visualize on several letters in the story and they all commented on how helpful that was to them in understanding the story better. Just as an aside - they told me that helped them do better on the AR quiz. : )
So.... since I already do this strategy with my G/T students I continued it with the book "I Know What You Did Last Summer". We did a nice conversation on "responsibility" and extended this them to not only the main characters but also the supporting characters. I also asked these students to try the visualization aspect. They loved it - but their comment was "I always do this anyway. Reading a book is like watching a movie in my head". I guess that's why they're such good readers and hence are in the G/T classes. : )
I enjoyed the discussion of "The Road Not Taken" and Claire's modeling of Instrutional Conversation. However, I must admit I am at a loss as to how to use this technique in 6th grade mathematics. Any suggestions, anyone? Marion
ReplyDeleteIn general, I like to build student thinking
ReplyDeletebefore discussion as a whole class; I have had the most success with the
Think-Pair-Share strategy. First, students use writing to think about a topic;
I usually ask students to respond to a prompt and use a fast-write (3 or so
minutes of writing) to capture their thoughts, ideas, and/or opinions. After
writing for a few minutes, students share their writing; I encourage students to
avoid reading word-for-word their written responses. Instead, I ask them to
share the important ideas; while pairs talk, I circulate the room - to scan
their fast-writes and to listen to the conversations. Finally, I ask one person
in each pair to share their ideas and thoughts; typically, I jot key ideas and
points on chart paper for the class to see. The chart becomes a focal point so
that we, as a class, can review the list, adding any important ideas or points
missed; also, we can revisit the chart list later in a unit or lesson. I tend
to use the Think-Pair-Share more in the beginning of the year to establish
routines of conversation and discussion; later in the year, full-class
discussions tend to run more smoothly and more students willingly participate,
often those students who, earlier in the year, were reticent to share
information with the whole class.
So, after last class I returned to school to teach my Adult Ed English class. I thought, as "The Road Not Taken" was still fresh in my mind, what a good time to give it a test drive. (Besides, with the year winding down....I wasn't sure when I could squeeze Frost into any other class.)
ReplyDeleteSo, we took a look at Frost. I had my doubts. Like probably many others, I saw Frost's "Road" as an overdone greeting card; a poem that surfaces every graduation season. What more could we gain from looking at this poem? Don't kids already understand that this poem is about choosing a path in life?
It took my students about 20 minutes to really start talking. I think we've talked about this before...how difficult it is to get kids to start honest conversations. However, after about 20 minutes my students began really getting into this poem. More than I had expected. What really surprised me was that these students actually picked up on about 90% of the things WE had discussed when we went through this in class.
I have used similar techniques in the past--especially with my higher level students. I got two things from last month's lesson. To try more Instructional Conversations with my lower level classes--they really like d it and raised a lot of astute points. Second, and most amazingly, I gained an appreciation for "The Road Not Taken." Never did I think that I would find so much to 'converse.' And I still surprised at how many different 'roads' folks keep pulling out of that poem. "Road Not Taken" has made it to my curriculum list for next year.