We’re working on finishing The Crucible in English 11. I am trying to step back and not interrupt to provide extra information or clarity while reading. Sometimes I think stopping to clarify and ask questions is beneficial because students may be just “listening” not actually “reading” and they therefore are missing key content ideas. Other times, it is a distraction to stop them while reading aloud, so I’ve been trying to balance this and it seems to be going fine. However, they have plenty of questions on their packets, so I think some may not be so good at paying attention while reading and also looking for answers to questions. It requires multi-tasking skills and attentiveness.
We had our second discussion of Speak in CE9 on Monday. Students do a fairly good job of contributing to whole class discussion. Some are not reading though, and actually admitting it. I’m not sure why. One student really needs a talking to, and I just have to find the time to do that. He does not pay attention in class at all, nor does he have anything to contribute in online or class discussion of the book. He’s just not with it, and he seems like a pretty good kid besides his inattentiveness and incompletion of assignments. On Tuesday, students began the vocabulary assignment that accompanies Speak. This entails defining 15 words from the book with synonyms and then using 10 of those in a paragraph.
