Children’s Literature Midterm

 

     Children’s literature is a field in which (as opposed to science) I already felt comfortable.  I knew I had more than average knowledge content coming into class.  I read to my own children, then to nieces and nephews and I taught for six years in the 1970s, all of which expanded my content knowledge and served to periodically update me. I have my nephews to thank for my introduction to Harry Potter, Redwall, Manga, and Captain Underpants.  This class is pushing me to read in areas that I normally do not.  In the last year I have realized that many children are turned onto reading by nonfiction rather than by stories, so I am making an effort to read more nonfiction. I have always completely overlooked children’s poetry, but I am about to leap into that.  Literature Circle causes me to frequently reflect upon my writing class with Vickie Holmsten.  That class experience is valuable to this class.  My time helping a wide variety of students “workshop” papers in the Student Success Center Writing Lab gives me a much broader background for understanding different responses to the same reading.  That is helpful, too.

     I have no previous experience of literature circles so the described methods of working within one are new and I am very happy to be getting this now as I am going to want to use it.  It occurs to me that, in many classes where I see teachers reading to the whole class, they could spend some time discussing the reading before moving on to another activity. They could have established small groups, with the same roles we have, and break into their groups after a couple of chapters of  The Wind in the Willows or whatever it is.  This could be a way to introduce lit circles at the beginning of the year.  I think that many of the books that are read in class don’t have the impact they should because they are not discussed at all.  Sorry, I digress.  Anyway, developing the ability to help the children run their own lit circle is a challenge, but I am sure well worth it.

     There is no time to process or reflect during class, and with the rush of being a student it is easy to keep doing rather than stop to reflect.  However, since I have a great deal of trouble going to sleep at night I have a built in reflection period whether I like it or not. I lie in bed daydreaming about putting it all together in my own classroom. I have observed in and worked in a variety of classrooms and I know what I prefer.  I can see so many things we are learning that could be implemented right this minute in classes I am in and so improve outcomes.  Then I try to picture my own class with only me and no volunteer or student teacher to help.  Now, can I still implement these activities?  Some yes and some no. I come to know myself better and better all the time as I try to picture how to do this and that.

 

     There is not really as much time for communication in this class as in some others.  But it is great to hear what others think about the topics we get to discuss.  I feel overall that this program does give lots of opportunity for communication and collaboration.  This is something I really needed to learn because I went to school so long ago that students all worked completely separately and I am comfortable working that way.  The real collaboration in this class will come through preparing for, evaluating, and monitoring the lit circles. We are only just beginning on that.  I do feel that I am far more comfortable thinking about material and assignments and decision making in terms of group process.  It helps that the people with whom I am working are ready and willing to work with me in a friendly and considerate, but efficient way.

     The technology involved in this class is pretty much limited to the websites.  Learning to set one up is a good exercise for me.  I know that many teachers have their own website for student and parent access and I will certainly want to know how to set one up and maintain it.  I can see that some things can be done better in word, some in excel, some on a website.  Obviously, being able to communicate back and forth about a topic is great.  Actually, I have the least facility with that part of this website.

     The class has called for a little bit of research, but everything I research leads to another question, so I sometimes find myself far afield but learning something new and valuable.  It may not be needed at the moment, but every bit of it ties into educating. Research is fun and easy, also addictive.

 

     In my estimation I have a B in this class so far as I am lagging a little behind in my reading and logging in and I have done nothing outstanding.  Now that I have quit my second job to give myself an additional 12 hours a week to devote to my studies I expect to catch up and broaden my reading and get to a place where I feel like I am on top of it.

     I would just like to have some time in class to process among ourselves a bit. There is a lot of material presented but I feel like I have to walk out the door and sit down and sort it out and process and write about it and go find someone to talk to about it, to brainstorm with and extend it so that later I can put it into practice.  I would like to be doing some of that in class with the people who are studying the topic with me.  I would prefer to be reading the text on our own outside class and coming in to discuss our questions and reactions to it and how we have seen this applied in classes or how we would apply this in class.  I would like more time to brainstorm together.  It takes the understanding to another level when we discuss it in depth as opposed to simply presenting the facts to one another.  We do get into groups, but with barely enough time to do the things we must do.

     A suggestion for the future would be rather than to have us pass around one copy of a book, choose three books that you can get five or six copies of and do a four week lit circle in our class before we hit the school.  Hand each of us a book (you could probably get enough copies of three books from Charlotte or any other grammar school teacher, what they call a classroom set) and assign us one quarter of the book before the second class and we come prepared to run our lit circle while you circulate and coach all three groups.  We take turns in different roles and finish up in four weeks with some experience not of coaching a lit circle, but of experiencing one.

 

P.S.   I need to learn how to use fewer words!