Summary of Our First Literature Circle
Our group had a great discussion today of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time. I was personally really impressed with everyone’s contributions, friendly discussions, and respectful dissents or expansions. We had a very productive hour in which every group member contributed usefully multiple times, and it never seemed like anyone was dominating the conversation or was fully removed from it. In part that was Chris’ great leadership as Discussion Facilitator, and the entire group’s willingness to cooperate and enthusiasm over the book.
The discussion comprised larger philosophical questions, mostly posed by Lisa and Chris, but reflected upon by all. We discussed the autistic perspective, the family members’ tribulations and the book’s focus on “Truth” as opposed to lies, the literal as opposed to the metaphorical, and the empirically observable as opposed to the spiritual or intuitive. We spent a lot of time pondering the nature of the characters, whether or not their actions were justifiable, forgivable, and rational. We found that all of us had strong feelings about the father, either of sympathy or dislike. Jessie, as Literary Luminary, continuously drew our attention to passages to which she had great insight, and provided reflections which led to some great discussions. Jessie brought up how nicely the descriptions provide information about the characters without outright saying so: such as the socio-economic class of the family.
As far as we saw this book relating to our students and our curriculum, I think our discussions produced some very practical ideas. The vocabulary in the book could offer support for several lessons on code-switching, if we were to compare the British English with our own commonly used American English (comparing “take-away chips” to “french-fries” and “housecoat” to “bathrobe” and so on.) We also thought the book might be used as a scaffold for Sherlock Holmes novels or excerpts. We liked the use of pictures, text features, and graphic organizers in the novel itself. Lisa also brought up the insightful point that the book was also strongly about how to write – Christopher is after-all reflecting on writing the book as we read it. Some useful reflections that may lend to writing mini-lessons are his use of text features, commentary on descriptions, rhetorical questions, and how to leave out insignificant details, etc. Mike also suggested that the book serve as a reminder that we as educators strive to make our instructions as explicit as possible, because so often what seems obvious to us is not to our students.
We also saw some great drawings from Lance and Tonya that served as multi-modal expressions of understandings of the text.
Overall, I was very impressed with our group’s caliber of discussion which I believed pushed our thinking and reinforced positive professional relationships among us. Great job, all!
The discussion comprised larger philosophical questions, mostly posed by Lisa and Chris, but reflected upon by all. We discussed the autistic perspective, the family members’ tribulations and the book’s focus on “Truth” as opposed to lies, the literal as opposed to the metaphorical, and the empirically observable as opposed to the spiritual or intuitive. We spent a lot of time pondering the nature of the characters, whether or not their actions were justifiable, forgivable, and rational. We found that all of us had strong feelings about the father, either of sympathy or dislike. Jessie, as Literary Luminary, continuously drew our attention to passages to which she had great insight, and provided reflections which led to some great discussions. Jessie brought up how nicely the descriptions provide information about the characters without outright saying so: such as the socio-economic class of the family.
As far as we saw this book relating to our students and our curriculum, I think our discussions produced some very practical ideas. The vocabulary in the book could offer support for several lessons on code-switching, if we were to compare the British English with our own commonly used American English (comparing “take-away chips” to “french-fries” and “housecoat” to “bathrobe” and so on.) We also thought the book might be used as a scaffold for Sherlock Holmes novels or excerpts. We liked the use of pictures, text features, and graphic organizers in the novel itself. Lisa also brought up the insightful point that the book was also strongly about how to write – Christopher is after-all reflecting on writing the book as we read it. Some useful reflections that may lend to writing mini-lessons are his use of text features, commentary on descriptions, rhetorical questions, and how to leave out insignificant details, etc. Mike also suggested that the book serve as a reminder that we as educators strive to make our instructions as explicit as possible, because so often what seems obvious to us is not to our students.
We also saw some great drawings from Lance and Tonya that served as multi-modal expressions of understandings of the text.
Overall, I was very impressed with our group’s caliber of discussion which I believed pushed our thinking and reinforced positive professional relationships among us. Great job, all!
posted by Sarah Yost | 11:47 AM
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