One thing that is very important to me is having an interactive classroom. As I have previously mentioned, the subject matter that I am studying to teach is English. I believe that having a classroom where the students are interacting with each other is extremely important when being in an English setting. Students learn a lot from discussing ideas and the class material with each other. In an English classroom the material is going to be different passages and books. I am currently in the class EDU 245 (Children's Literature), and one great thing that I have taken away from it so far, that I will use in my classroom, is literature circles.
Every time that we read a book in my EDU 245 class we have a literature circle where we discuss the book. Each member of the circle has a different role that they need to fulfill. These roles are discussion director, literary luminary, vocab enricher, investigator, travel tracker, connector, and illustrator. I think that this is a great way to get students talking to each other while also being extremely productive and gaining a deeper understanding of the assigned novels. The roles help the students really dig into the book and having discussions help the students see the novels from different points of views. Overall, I just think that students communicating with each other plays an essential part to their learning.
Hey Molly,
ReplyDeleteVery interesting post you have here. We have all taken many English classes over the course of our school careers, and I would have to agree that literature circles are a great way to stimulate student interaction. Not only that, but it also is great because in the professional world not everyone does the same job and sharing different experiences is important. I think literature circles are a great way to introduce the idea of peer-to-peer learning.