EDSS 546B Reading Response #2

Think of a unit or lesson you taught in CPI. 

• What did students have to think about?
• Use the guide questions on p. 262 (new edition) entitled, Reflective Questions at the end of “Using questions to Help Students Think” section to reflect on that lesson or unit. 
• During reading of Ch. 9, write down all of the ways that you did support or could have supported your students’ thinking.

   Part way through The Scarlet Letter I had students do a quick write on why it is important to read the novel. Then I had them pair up, and share what they wrote together, and to the class. They came up with some great answers, even if they were just trying to say something to impress me. The fact is they landed on some great reasons why the book has applicable themes and messages for high school students today.

   My goal was to give them something they could take away from the book. It was written roughly 200 years ago, and without this explicit exploration about the timeless themes of the book, they might have blown it off. I like to this this exercise allowed the change to find in themselves or others a message from the book that they could look for in the book and take when they are done.

   Based on how the activity went, I think it was a great chance to foster critical thinking. I did not just hand them a theme and ask them to find instances of it. I let them express how they could relate to the book and characters that are in a story set in colonial America.

   I wish I would have done more of this. So often in class we were reading the book or working with grammar, that I did not make time for a thinking activity or a chance to “bond” with the book. And I wish I would have been more clear with my intent. Thinking about what Sir Ken Robinson has said about creativity, I wish I would not have been so focused on finding an answer, but rather the exercise of thinking and coming up with an original idea. I think if I stress the fact that students have to a look for a predetermined answer, it hinders their thinking.