Summary of readings:
I belong to the Diamonds Book Club which happens to boast, incidentally, some shining examples of good readings. Our readings for the week were "The Four Habits of Highly Effective Librarians" by Todd Gilman, "The Nightingale and the Rose" by Oscar Wilde, "The Landlady" by Ronald Dahl, and "Hansel and Getel" by the Brothers Grimm. Oh and my cohort and I picked "A Modest Proposal" by Jonathan Swift.
How fascinating that we all picked texts of such sinisterly gruesome tones (with the exception of "The Four Habits..." of course)! From a range of genres not to mention the variety of contexts in which authors penned their works comes 4 texts that explore death, loneliness, child abuse and so much more! I am looking forward to discussing these storied works on Monday; should make for a very dark (and fun!) book club.
Summary of class:
A few interesting things to note about our last lecture. I was disappointed in the content presented by our guest lecturer from AADL. She seemed like a lovely person and I was glad to hear that her branch was trying to reach out to teenagers to hold a book club of their own; yet I felt she didn't really have a lot of experience in book clubs over all. Maybe it was how she presented? I just wanted to know more details; for example, if we could have heard "this works, this doesn't work, groups can be started in this way but if you market them in this way won't get too many people, etc." She seemed to have more knowledge of the book club she participated in. I found her answers to our questions rather confusing and vague as well. Was I the only one who felt something was lacking? I'm really interested in what you all thought.
Moving on, the modeling of the Socratic seminar was fascinating! It never occurred to me when I was doing the readings but if a teacher does a Socratic seminar with his students this is a perfect opportunity to see who has done the readings and who hasn't. You could clearly tell who had done the readings last class and who maybe, shall we say, skimmed them. Also, I don't know how students who aren't in the "inner circle" could keep their mouths closed; there were so many moments during last class that I wanted to leap down to the circle and put my 2 cents in! I had so many thoughts and I had to keep them to myself (or whisper them to Mallorie lol). This probably doesn't surprise any of you by now; clearly, I could benefit from the binder clip regulatory system.
I'm really looking forward to book club on Monday because I cannot wait to see the reactions to these texts, especially the fiction ones. Still, it will be interesting to hear the discussion on the non-fiction text. I have a feeling it might be hard to generate but could be surprising once it gets started.
Hmmm ... sounds like you're about to get a version of a thematic book club, huh? :)
ReplyDeleteI hope Monday allows for some fun moments, not just nerve-wracking ones. You guys have lots of interesting thoughts up your sleeves.
By the way, I hear you crossed paths with another SI student on the job on Friday. It's a small world!
It was interesting to read what you thought about the Socratic seminar. As someone who was on the outer circle, there were moments when I wanted to raise my hand to say something but I think a lot of that had to do with the fact that I couldn't (as in, only the inner circle could speak). While I think they're great for some people and really show how thoroughly a student has done the reading, they need to be balanced with a more participatory approach so to not intimidate.
ReplyDeleteWhat's really funny is that my cohort also picked somewhat sinister titles, with no exceptions. Shows you what we're interested in, I guess.
ReplyDeleteWhile I enjoyed the practical experience of the AADL guest speaker, I also felt like she didn't have the most experience. Particularly when she mentioned that some of the programs weren't even in place any more. With book clubs, as with anything, persistence, adaptability and patience, so a program needs to be there longer than one round to see if it's working or not.