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We introduce
student teachers to practice of conducting literature circles
over two weeks. First, student teachers conduct a discussion
about a children’s book that addresses a controversial
theme in small groups. As a whole class we have conversations
about setting guidelines. These conversations complicate
notions of safety and risk and draw connections to their elementary
classrooms. Next, they conduct more structured literature circles
with young adult novels. Each of these classes is linked to
investigations of Yvonne Hutchinson’s website. For
instance, they reflect on the ways she created norms for
discussion in her classroom and the strategies she uses to
build community through literature. |
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Connecting to
Yvonne's website |
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Planning
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Discussion of
The Wall
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Discussion
of
safety
and risk |
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It is a common practice to try out K12 practices in teacher
education classrooms and then to use these opportunities to reflect
on how they might be adapted to particular contexts and students.
Student teachers have an opportunity to practice new activities
in a relatively safe setting and to reflect with their peers
on what happened. Each time after student teachers participated
in a literature circle, we turned to their investigations of
Yvonne Divan Hutchinson’s website to deepen our conversations.
Students introduced several different ideas they learned from
this website such as the way Yvonne established classroom norms,
the importance of knowing students well when leading class discussions
about difficult issues such as race and racism, and the ways
that Yvonne used space in her classroom to facilitate discussions.
Students drew on the images and ideas from Yvonne’s website
translating them to practices they might adapt for their current
and future classrooms. This did not always prove to be easy for
some student teachers who explained that they would have preferred
to see sites more similar to their own classrooms. Student teachers
often want to see activities and ideas that they can immediately
transport to their own setting. The necessity of translating
ideas across multiple contexts was both useful and difficult
for students. |
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