September 18, 2014

Learning Targets:

Using questions generated by me and my classmates, I can have a sustained conversation about a novel.

I can observe and evaluate a literary conversation. 

Activity 1: Word Rants...pair and share

Activity 2: Fishbowl Discussion - chptrs 14-15

Period 9 comments/suggestions for improvement of yesterday's discussion

More voluntary participation
More building off of one another's comments
Probably should add their own thoughts and questions to the main person's questions.
Not many people talked
(It would have been better)..if they had done the reading.
They did a good job of letting everyone speak, but I wish they (had) delved deeper into each topic instead of talking on the surface about it.
...not be afraid to share their opinions
more evaluation and less plot summary
...if anyone read and there was a little less stage fright
they could have been a little more ready with textual evidence to respond to their questions
I think more people should have added more of their own ideas as opposed to jst agreeing
Colleen will lead off period 9 discussion

Period 10 comments/suggestions for improvement of yesterday's discussion

Good question...
Thomas Lombardo's question seemed to gather the most responses

Insightful comment...
Tommy Sopic's comment Chillingsworth being the devil, and how his "friendship" with Dimmesdale will have one prevail over the other

Comments for improvement...

I think it would be better if everyone shared their ideas in a conversational way rather than waiting to be called upon.
The participants could have paid closet attention to the questions so they could remember them and produce sufficient responses
They looked not interested, not engaged. I feel it directly impacted the energy of the group. They did a good job of keeping conversation going though.
More group participation from EVERYONE in the group.
Maybe add more comments and go more in depth with their opinions.  If more people participated it would have been better.


Talya will lead off for period 10 discussion

Strategies in Touchscreen?

HW: Read, annotate, and write two inferential questions, total, for chapters 16 & 17

"He was familiar with that hollow feeling. He remembered it from the nights after they had buried his mother....the empty space of loss, regret for things which could not be changed." (73) How has this hollow feeling from Tayo's past returned to him? What do you think caused it? Do you believe that the empty feeling described is worse now than it was in the past? Why would this be?

‘When we gaze at the night sky’ he says, ’we are looking at fragments of the past.’  What does Stephen mean by this? Also, could that phrase (and some of what follows it) be relevant in some way to Elaine’s life as well?

1.  “After he has gone back, to wherever he’s going next, I think of getting him a star named after himself, for his birthday.  I have seen an advertisement for these: you send in your money, and you get a certificate with a star map, your own marked on it.  Possibly he would find this amusing.  But I’m not sure the word birthday, for him, would still have meaning (363).”  What might Elaine mean with this cryptic comment about the word “birthday”?  Is this comment connected to his speech on the universe?  Is the “star” as a “birthday” present significant in a symbolic way, or just something a theoretical physicist might like?