Student Roles

For this week’s reading, “Student Roles” from “A New View of Discussion” by Janice F. Almasi, I learned about four different roles that students can play during a discussion versus during a recitation. These roles are inquisitor, facilitator, evaluator, and respondent. Prior to reading the description of these individual roles, I was quite apprehensive that these roles may not be as unique in a discussion versus a recitation as the introductory paragraph suggested. However, subsequent to reading the descriptions of the respective roles, I realized that there really are four potential roles that students can play during a discussion among peers.

After reading about the roles, I began to analyze my prior experience observing Elementary School students during discussions and recitations. As stated in the text, respondent is a role that students have traditionally played; it is also a role that I have frequently observed in both discussions and recitations. Inquisitor is a role that I have seen some students play during a recitation, though I have seen this role played much more frequently during discussions. For example, I recently observed a discussion amongst several of the second graders at my field placement asking each other to explain the rational behind each other’s interpretation of a poem. Facilitator is a role that I had a more difficult time racking my brain to think of a personal example. However, there is a girl in my field placement who, when working with groups or having a group discussion about a topic, always tries her best to incorporate other children in her group by asking their opinions about previous statements. Finally, the role of evaluator is one that, for me, seems to go hand in hand with inquisitor. This is because many times, by being inquisitive, the children begin to challenge each other’s ideas.

I have realized, after reading this particular section, that students can gain a plethora of knowledge through participating in a discussion. By this I mean that students are able to learn how to act as an inquisitor, facilitator, evaluator, and respondent; all of which are roles that are frequently played in real-life discussions. Through learning these roles in a familiar and safe context (school), children can then eventually feel comfortable using the roles in their everyday lives.

Week 5

The second article, “Understanding Literature” Judith Langer, talked about four major ways students can understand and interpret a text. These four ways of understanding a text had to do with processes that the readers needed to go through in order to see the deeper and broader pictures of a text. The four ways included Being Out and Stepping In, Being In and Moving Through, Being In and Stepping Out, Stepping Out and Objectifying the Experience. While reading through the four different ways of viewing and understanding literature, it reminded me of last week’s reading by Gibbons about the different roles of a reader; readers as a text decoder, text participant, text user, and text analyst. The four ways and the four roles of readers seem intertwined together and are parallel to each other. Both Langer’s four ways and Gibbons’ four roles are what the readers need to be and need to do in order to understand the inner side of literature rather than just the outside, reading through words where readers do not find any meaning. Students need to be able to play these roles when they are reading, and it is also important that students are not just doing it in class with the teacher but also when independently reading.
While reading through the first article, “Instructional Conversations: Promoting Comprehension through Discussion”, classroom management was a topic that came to mind. This is because when teachers are not able to manage students’ behavior and keep them focused, especially during the discussions, it becomes impossible to carry on a “serious” and in-depth discussion with the class. This can be seen in my first grade field placement class. It is really difficult to do a class discussion, and even though the teacher does one, she has to end quickly by asking some simple questions. Although there is always an excuse of saying “they’re first graders…”, I feel that it is important to talk with students in depth about what they have just read, regardless of grade level. It is an opportunity for both students and teacher to listen to each other’s opinion and learn from it. For me, it is also a chance for students to talk about various perspectives and how each individual understood the text.

Almasi Article

I read the section on student’s roles and figure three of Janice F. Almasi’s article, "A New View of Discussion” and I particularly enjoyed the two diagrams that described students and teachers roles in both a recitation and a discussion setting. As teachers it is important for us to know how to fulfill each role when it is appropriate. We should keep in mind that during a discussion, the main focus is on students’ thoughts and collaboration. During discussions, the student’s roles as inquisitor, facilitator (of both interaction and interpretation), the respondent and the evaluator are highlighted while the teacher sits back making observations and intervening only when absolutely necessary. This is the chance for the students to interpret the reading, share their thoughts in the reading and have their questions answered and analyzed by their own peers. I love the idea of student-led discussion because I think it fosters self-efficacy and allows students to share ideas in a comfortable setting. Students who might normally, feel intimidated to share might be more open to the idea knowing that their peers are asking the questions and participating as well.

In my field placement I see many recitations take place where my CT has large role as the inquisitor, facilitator, respondent and evaluator, and I have yet to see a discussion take place like those mentioned in the article. Since I am currently placed in a first and second grade split class, I think the recitation works well because my CT is able to ask questions that guide students in a certain direction and assess comprehension and test to self-connections. The students in my class love sharing their opinions, but when asked open-ended questions they easily get off task and will begin to share any story whether or not it is relevant to the initial question or the reading. I think the students in my class might struggle with a student- led discussion at this point, but with scaffolding, I think it is something they would be able to do in small groups. After reading the roles students take on during discussions, I can picture certain students in my class who would do well in each specific role and I look forward to planning and teaching my literacy lessons, so I can try some of these discussion ideas with them.

Gibbons Ch. 5

Through reading Chapter 5 of the Gibbons text, I learned that there are not only different theories that are related to literacy pedagogy, but that it is incredibly important to plan before-reading, during-reading, and after-reading activities. I had never thought about the importance of modeling the manner in which effective readers read prior to reading this chapter. Previously, when I thought about teaching reading, I solely thought about the importance of teaching the students to read for comprehension. For some reason, I had completely forgotten about the fact that many young readers as well as English Language Learners may not have a grasp on the techniques required to become an effective reader.

While reading this chapter, I began to think about my own elementary school years, and I cannot remember a single time where I took place in a before-reading activity. Similarly, in my current field placement, I have never seen my CT incorporate any before-reading activities into her lessons. I cannot help but wonder if my lack of experience with before-reading activities is due to the fact that there were very few (if any) English Language Learners in my Elementary School, and there are no ELLs in my current field placement. However, I think that before-reading activities can be useful to any level of reader, no matter if they are reading in their first language or not. One of my favorite examples of a before-reading activity was "Predicting from Title or First Sentence" (85). I thought that particular activity would be especially helpful because it allows the children to model hypothesising about the content of a book/reading prior to reading it. Additionally, if the predictions are given in a group setting, it would be fairly easy for the teacher to "guide the class in a way that will best help them deal with the major concepts or events in the text to be read." (85)

I hope to incorporate the concepts I learned from this reading into my future classroom as well as my current field placement. Although there are no ELLs in my current placement, I hope to still incorporate before, during, and after reading activities into my lesson I teach. In my past as both a learner as well as my time spent as a "teacher" in a classroom, I have seen during and after reading activities modeled, so hopefully I will be able to incorporate my prior knowledge of those types of activities with my new-found knowledge I gained from this reading.

Gibbons, Chapter 5

As quoted on top of page 77, literacy develops “in a variety of rich contexts”, regardless of whether the learner is an English language learner or a native English speaker. Being able to read does not stop after a student finishes reading a particular text. There are many factors that affect reading skills for the English Language Learners and even those who are not. Providing students with the opportunity to explore with reading, aside from just literally reading a text, is giving students a chance to experience literacy in a rich context.

The readers’ role does not stop as a code breaker, where students simply have knowledge on letters and how they sound. As Gibbons mentions in this chapter, readers are “text participant”, “text user”, and also “text analyst” (81-82). These four roles showed the importance of teachers and their role as leading and guiding students into reading. The four roles of a reader and the three steps for planning for reading are what struck me. Especially the last part of the chapter where Gibbons mentions about three steps for planning for reading, it made me think about my school years in elementary and middle school. Reading was one of the subjects in elementary and in middle school, and I was thinking that I would have enjoyed reading if my teachers had planned out before-reading activities, during-reading activities, and after-reading activities. Reading was not my favorite subject, and it was difficult for me to understand texts if enough reading time was not given to me. Also, almost all the reading we did in class, especially in middle school, was timed, and then we had to take a comprehension quiz after reading. So, reading was not a fun subject for me. When we were taking the comprehension quizzes, I was frustrated about reading and even taking the quiz, because some stories were difficult to understand, trying to understand a text under limited time was terrifying, and trying to take the quiz without understanding the text was discouraging. It is extremely important for teachers to find ways to engage students into reading, so that reading will not become simply reading a text or even a frustrating subject.

Gibbons Chapter 5

One thing Form this chapter that rally struck me was when Gibbons wrote, “ When you are unable to bring personal knowledge and understanding of a topic to a text, you are effectively robbed of the ability to make use of a key resource for reading: what you already know” (Gibbons 78). Despite the passages obvious statement of the importance of prior knowledge over a variety of different scopes, Gibbons said, “Effectively robbed” which just reiterates the important relationship between prior knowledge or understanding and meaning and comprehension. This is so true, and the example of the restaurant schema proved that this prior knowledge and meaning connection doesn’t just take place in literacy. After reading this chapter I gained an appreciation for the importance of reading, and I now can see how being able to read in his or her native language will benefit an ESL student, because in any language, readers will learn how to decode, analyze, participate within and use the text.

Another example from the text that showcased the importance of prior knowledge, was the paragraph about doing laundry. Although the paragraph is easy to read, it becomes a guessing game to figure out what the purpose of the text is, without knowledge of its title. This just goes to show that everyone can have trouble decoding text and finding meaning, even in their own native language.

Although, I already saw a great importance for bringing culture into the classroom and celebrating children's similarities and differences, this chapter showed me how important cultural texts can be as well. By reading texts from a variety of different cultural backgrounds, students are not only being exposed to different traditions and ways of life, but it will also be more comforting to the ESL students who can feel confident reading a text that they can relate to using their prior knowledge. In turn, this will help to enhance the learning community as a whole, and it will serve as meaningful learning for all students.