Friday, February 10, 2012

Episode 6 - Grouping Students, (Not) Leveling Readers

Today's podcast contains some thoughts I've been tossing around regarding grouping students for reading and responding to Romeo & Juliet.  As I mention, I've got a longer post on how I'm teaching the play this year.

It's a Bud the Teacher style recording, done on my ride into work.  You can hear the mighty roar of my 4-cylinder Corolla in the background.  I'll have to play around with microphone placement for next time.

Also, I think I mentioned in the podcast that it's been two years since my last podcast.  This is incorrect.  It's actually been five years.  And what I thought was episode seven is actually episode 6.

2 comments:

  1. PODCASTS? What?? Dude, you crazy!

    Do you like the group discussion instead of the class discussion? I'm worried that some wouldn't discuss--

    We're reading The Devil's Paintbox! It's FUN.

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  2. Danielle,

    Yes, podcasts. And I'll point out this is episode 6. Episodes 3 through 5 can be found on the right sidebar (if the links still work, that is).

    I like that students have to figure it out on their own rather than 10 students discussing it as a whole class while the other 20 sit there drifting off into space. I think for some the text is really challenging, and I'm not sure when to let them go on their own. The Ashland group says focus on a few passages where you can really look at the craft, then let the students read the rest - as long as they get the general plot, they'll be okay. But I think for some students, they reach frustration level with the text before they get to the plot pieces. So I'm looking for that balance.

    I haven't read that. I'll have to see if I can find it. I just started The Golden Compass today (never read it - and I call myself a middle school language arts teacher!).

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