Forward Movements
After completing Phase II, if I were able to continue working with my students and conduct Phase III, I would focus my attention on extending academic conversations among my students. As I've seen their willingness to speak with each other grow, I still feel that there is a lot of room to specifically teach students specific skills in communication. Peer feedback and trust grew, and I would want to continue working with my students to build a classroom that values all student voices.
I was introduced to a different body of research about extending academic conversation at about the time my research was ending through Jeff Zwier's book Academic Conversations. Classroom Talk that Fosters Critical Thinking and Content Understandings (2011). As I began discussing and exploring the ways in which student talk can be deepened, I began to realize this fit well with the fact that I was seeing student talk peter out quickly throughout the project. It can't be ignored that although not the majority, many students often remarked that the people in their group weren't helpful or wouldn't talk to them or help them as much as they wanted.
I think this could fit nicely into the work I've been doing, as I want to focus not only on giving peer feedback, but the ability to have the kind of conversation that helps peers deepen their understanding of the reading/writing process. This could help me to focus on the explicit teaching of these skills that I felt I was missing in my research, and help students practice the way in which they ask questions and respond to each other.
In the future, I would also like to build in more opportunities to allow students a little more creative freedom in what they are doing. This was a very specific, very guided creative writing task, and in asking students to write novels, we expected dedication to writing novels. While I fully support the NaNoWriMo project in terms of goal-setting, time-management, and practicing the narrative process, I think it would be great for these students if, in their next year of English, they were able to build on these skills by scaling it down and doing very specific projects that allow even more choice and autonomy in how they present their skills. This is something that I want to start building in, so that students complete projects collaboratively, taking on roles or new mediums together as they expand their communication skills and deepen their own sense of community.
I was introduced to a different body of research about extending academic conversation at about the time my research was ending through Jeff Zwier's book Academic Conversations. Classroom Talk that Fosters Critical Thinking and Content Understandings (2011). As I began discussing and exploring the ways in which student talk can be deepened, I began to realize this fit well with the fact that I was seeing student talk peter out quickly throughout the project. It can't be ignored that although not the majority, many students often remarked that the people in their group weren't helpful or wouldn't talk to them or help them as much as they wanted.
I think this could fit nicely into the work I've been doing, as I want to focus not only on giving peer feedback, but the ability to have the kind of conversation that helps peers deepen their understanding of the reading/writing process. This could help me to focus on the explicit teaching of these skills that I felt I was missing in my research, and help students practice the way in which they ask questions and respond to each other.
In the future, I would also like to build in more opportunities to allow students a little more creative freedom in what they are doing. This was a very specific, very guided creative writing task, and in asking students to write novels, we expected dedication to writing novels. While I fully support the NaNoWriMo project in terms of goal-setting, time-management, and practicing the narrative process, I think it would be great for these students if, in their next year of English, they were able to build on these skills by scaling it down and doing very specific projects that allow even more choice and autonomy in how they present their skills. This is something that I want to start building in, so that students complete projects collaboratively, taking on roles or new mediums together as they expand their communication skills and deepen their own sense of community.