E pluribus unum (Out of many, one)

     This particular chapter was entitled “Meaningful Conversations,” and emphasized important and useful activities and questions to have, well, good conversations; ones that are personal to them, relevant to the lives they lead, and that will motivate them to continue to think and stay engaged throughout the unit. Burke has some pretty “big ideas” himself for these chat-sessions. He begins the chapter with a confession but also an important reminder and refresher for the teacher-audience:

“As I did in the senior unit, I want to walk through a complete unit organized around a big idea – a question we need a good chunk of time to answer or at least examine. Thus, it is important when teaching big ideas to begin with the end in mind, choosing not only a question that can sustain prolonged inquiry but also the texts, assignments, and assessments that will ensure that students learn the many different skills and gain the breadth of knowledge we expect of them during their time in our class.”

     Burke uses the classic, state-mandated novel Of Mice and Men – which I just bought from Goodwill to read next! – as an anchor book to begin this talking-emphasized unit. The running question, theme, and BIG idea of the unit is: “Am I my brother’s keeper?” The students begin with a simple free-write of the question; pick one line from their responses that they feel best sums up their opinions/thoughts; and – you guessed it! – begin the discussion by sharing their “lines” with the class. Burke continues the chapter with the various ways in which he builds up the question, amps up the activities, and conducts conversation.

Ways to help build background knowledge and establish the setting of the novel

-          Show video clips and background readings

-          Explore the title itself

-          Use programs such as Google Earth

-          Incorporate works of art by a relevant artist 

-          Have students record their thoughts and questions while looking at photos or videos

-          Conduct yet another class discussion on these findings and questions

Scaffolding (and state-aligning) thinking through questioning

-  Create “reading guides” (shown below, Figure 4.5), using leading verbs to focus the question, elicit meaningful responses, and asses one’s own teaching objectives

-  Have students write different types of questions (i.e., factual, predictive, etc.) to help practice and develop “test smarts”

-  Make sure assignments/guides elicit, invite, and prepare students for substantial discussions in the next or later class meetings – don’t let them, as Burke puts it, “run the risk of becoming ‘just homework’ and having no actual place in the daily discourse of the class about the book itself.”

-   Help students use the same skills they would use to “read” photos, art, film, etc. and apply them to textual reading; play these various forms of art off of one another to help with the “analytics” of reading (and subsequent discussion)

Using supplemental texts to extend the conversation and inquiry

-  Incorporate other texts that allow the class to consider the big question from other perspectives, and connect it back to the anchor novel

-  Use advertisements, speeches, short stories, memoirs, etc. to reinforce and also challenge the big question – the sky’s the limit!

-  Talk about it, and then write about it – allow them to connect these supplemental readings and textual connections to their own lives

Assessing and reflecting

     “The trick is to come up with some culminating work that everything prior has prepared the students to do but that is not redundant . . . At the end of a book, we all feel some need to bring it all together – assess their understanding and, in my case, reflect on the Big Question one last time.”

     Although there are a number of ways to go about this, Burke used a blog to assess what the students learned in a culminating fashion; he had them read an excerpt of a speech by President Obama, respond to it, and connect it to Of Mice and Men AND their essential, big question. He concluded the unit with feedback from the students, in which they answered several questions assessing the value of the blog assignment. Some of the blog responses, and a piece of feedback, is shown below.

:)