Chapter 5 made me feel lots of things. Interested, excited, hesitant, slightly bored at times. . .but I think the main idea of the students learning good conversation skills is an idea that is not only completely underused within a classroom but has been blatantly ignored by administration and faculty alike. Because I'm an English major and an Education major, my class schedule layout is different than most El. Ed. majors. I have a lot of classes that are discussion based and as soon as I started getting into those upper division classes I was shocked that all we did was talk and I learned so, so much more than just lecture from the professor. Conversation skills need to be developed at a young age so students may know that they need these skills to be a professional and to be taken seriously. I was very fortunate to grow up in a home that used professional talk so I was submerged in that 'culture' as a very small child. Well, I haven't grown much since then but still. The idea of conversation within a classroom is one that I am particularly fond of. I was astonished that professors lead these discussions within the classroom and that's the activity for the day. That's the whole day-discussion. That's it! Have a nice day! And for me, it IS a nice day. My hand isn't cramped from writing a billion miles an hour and I get to hear my peers' stance on the literature, or novel, or even an article. I think that this tool within a classroom is absolutely marvelous. The student is able to participate in a discussion and reveal what he took away from the reading and his classmates are able to do the same thing and in unpacking the topic being discussed they are able to understand it so much better because it is in terms that the students may better understand.
Page 47 outlines activities teachers may use to spark that conversation creativity. There were some that I liked and some that I wasn't too fond of. I'll go in order. Storytelling is a concept that I was fond of but would not use in a constant manner. I think the students could get really off track with this idea and lose focus of the task at hand. I like that it sparks the imagination but dislike the amount of time it would use. I like the agenda setting but would also tweak this idea. I like the notion of addressing a student's behavior with the parent but would have to use it in a more friendly manner. I consider this idea to be like an outline of a research paper. I put down really good ideas to reinforce my flowing ideas within the paragraph. I like the problem solving idea-with parents or with students. I would like to treat my students with the utmost respect and expect the same in return, that being said I think the student can handle his workload and can handle a conversation with me if we need to discuss homework or behavior situations. I would also reinforce that idea with parents. I really, really liked the idea of brainstorming within the classroom. This is a concept that one of my professors used and I really, really like it and came to respect her more because of the free reign we had within the discussion. She would toss out an idea or concept from the literature and would create this reader response type setting in which we talked amongst ourselves but also discussed it with her again. We were able to get each other's views and then she would intercede with another thought-provoking idea. I know without a doubt that I will use this method within my own classroom. I also liked the idea of decision making but would tweak it too. I think the students should want to come to my class and I sincerely hope that I am the teacher whose class they can't wait to get to within the school day. I would allow the students to pick from various methods of learning about a particular unit for the day. We could choose from discussion, an activity, a worksheet, hopefully a SMART program would be another opportunity....I would like for my students to come to a consensus on how they would want to learn that day. I feel like students should receive that opportunity.
There are infinite other ideas I liked throughout this chapter and various others that I could tweak for my own use but the other idea I liked was the poem finding activity. Personally, as a student, that would get on my nerves because I'm not a huge fan of poetry. Maybe we could do song lyrics to a song that tied into a particular unit or something else that would be related. This chapter got my creative juices flowing and I seriously cannot wait to mold the young minds of this country.
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