So has it helped.....

So now I am trying to tie things together and see where my thinking is at and has my project done what I hoped it would. Are my children thinking more deeply in response to what others are saying? YES!! And then I guess I have to ask "How do I know?" and "Why?" and "Would it have happened anyway?"

With the e-fellows we have been constantly looking at and asking "How are the literacy skills, knowledge and dispositions needed for the 21st century supported through e-learning contexts?" The answer for me to this question and for how and why do I think my project has worked is because it involved - collaboration, ownership, interaction with a global community, authentic audiences, making connections and being able to review, adapt and modify thinking. You need to be able to communicate and process thinking clearly to succeed. The e-learning context is the world our children (and us) live in - it is the real world now. It provides so many more real and relevant experiences in my opinion that you just don't get using and doing things the way we used to.

I have really embraced we need to help children develop their thinking, process their thinking, show their thinking, transfer their thinking........ We need to give them the necessary tools. We need to find whatever way works for them..... We need to find what ever way will develop global learning communities......We need to......... I saw something that said we need to change everything!!! I disagree, we need to enhance what we are doing, look at the core curriculum, work with the tools that are out there....above all, be adapt and challenge ourselves. We can't just teach children one way is right, we have to give them the tools to challenge and find out for themselves.

Goodness, did I answer my question. Will reflect on it and hopefully someone out there will reflect with me and challenge my thinking.... :)

We're Expanding

I started expanding our Literacy Circles to my next reading group down and it is working out great. They are learning about the roles from the original group and I have 2 of them adding to the wiki after a week. It is great because they are reading a book the original group read and put on our wiki. They have been reading what they said about it and are getting ready to add comments and their own contributions. It will be good to see them challenge and ask questions of the original group (if they are brave enough).

Even have a mum who came along and learnt how to use it so she can be helping her child at home. Said it was great because she can come in to the wiki and see so much more of what he is doing each day and can talk about it with him and it will make the work they do at home so much more meaningful and relevant to what he is doing at school.

A funny, neat thing, I have one of my group who every week has been going back to our original book and is adding new things to an argument (discussion) she had right back in May. She is not convinced and wants to keep it going. If this had been just an oral discussion or in our reading book, she would not have been able to keep going back to it, rereading it, and adding to it. It is still live, still current in an on-line environment. Not 'done', put away and moved on from.

We are in a global community!!!!

How great is this!!!!!! Way back in May when we were reading Tomorrow is a Great Word by Janeen Brian we found her website and guest book and a couple of us signed in and posted comments to her. Here we are in August and we got replies from her. This is very exciting. It showed the children they really are part of a global community and that the world is so small. To add to the mix, Janeen lives in Australia but in 2005/6 she lived across the lake from us in Rotorua!!!!! If only we had known.....but then we hadn't discovered how much we liked her books then. If we'd met her, she might have been just another person we met.....we now have a connection to her through her books. Making connections is taking on so much more meaning to us....how often are we asking children to have a deep and meaningful relationship with books and words and speakers they feel no connection with....do we push them to make those connections...just a thought. If you want to see our posts and replies (humble as they are) go to room8.wikispaces.com and go to Tomorrow is A Great Word and then you will find a link to our page of her comments.

Success

I am excited by the success we are having with the children choosing their own books to read. I have had 2 parents comment about how their children are reading, reading and reading (boys!!!) and discussing the progress of their story. They have chosen lengthier books and we decided it would be easier to write a 1-2 sentence summary after each chapter. They race to tell me each day what has happened in the story. They are eager to read each others book next. I am seeing a growing love of books - what more can I ask for, a teacher's dream.

Children's Choice

Today the children decided whether they were ready to go it alone and choose their own book. 4 chose to and 4 decided they wanted to work with the new book I had. I have given them the choice of exploring new roles or if they wish to, keep working with the package of 4 roles we have been using. Interesting for me, when we have discussion groups and interviews with the group I had split them into 4 and 4 (profilic discussers and quieter contributors). This is how they have split today. Not sure what it means, but I guess confidence levels come into play with going it alone. It feels like we are moving to a new dimension now. Probably closer to the truer form of Literature Circles as Harvey Daniels sees it. 

Life will be interesting in our blog/discussions as the children will not have read the same books. The children commented today that they would have to do great summaries so the others would know what their story was about. They also commented that they would probably have more questions to ask each other as they would have to explain more things to each other. Again - the authentic audience and knowing others are interested in what you are writing has come into play and given meaning to the tasks. Quite an exciting direction for us.

Neat to have the children working out with me how me would put their choice of books on our wiki. We think we've got a workable plan - we'll have to see.

Spreading the Word

Ran a workshop at our itpd cluster conference on the first Saturday of the holidays along with the 2 other teachers from school who have been working with Literacy Circles. Was really good as one teaches new entrants, I teach Year 4 and the other has Year 5 and 6. We could show how it can be adapted and used for all ages and the different ways we have been using Literacy Circles and the different ways we record our thinking. We had video, blogging, audio recording, writing etc. Was good for me in seeing how I need to organise what I want to share before the Ulearn conference. Was great having the others and the questions they were asking and seeing how they have developed thinking in their children.

Had some good feedback from the session, a couple of teachers from other schools are now having a go and one from an intermediate has taken the idea of creating a wiki and having discussions online as she could see how the children's thinking is developing.

Am running a staffmeeting in a couple of weeks at another school so have a chance to try out things there too.

Am being asked again and again if this is like Reciprocal Reading. I have never used that so am reading up on it. Can see some similarities, but my gut is saying the Literacy Circles go further. Maybe someone else out there can help me become clearer about the similarities and differences.

Connections to Learning

We have continued using the Literacy Circles package which has focussed on the 4 key roles. We are having more natural conversations when we have face to face conversations so feel we are moving more towards what Literacy Circles are really about. Our latest story is Kids Alone in a Cyclone which has been really interesting. Lots of elements within the story that the children could relate to (after school care, walking home, stormy weather...) and also lots of avenues for further exploration. Some great conversations about stranger danger and we are having a good debate on our wiki about what they would do in the same situation.

We have been spending some time talking about Literacy Circles in general and the children are seeing lots of value for them with other learning. We had the summariser connection previously with how this would help them to pick out main points and put into their own words, they are seeing value with the illustrator role as it is helping them to picture a scene and focus on detail (yeah!) and the word detective is a role they are feeling really secure with now. They are prepared to have a go at working out what a word means and then feel able to check using the context of the story (double yeah!!).

The children have also been discussing what sort of books they would choose to read. They trust my selections (have found the stories  really interesting and can't wait for the next one) but some are ready now to go it alone. Again we have headed towards the true spirit of Literacy Circles. I am going to have the next story for them but let some choose own story. Might encourage others. 

We have also got some different roles that we have discussed and so need to move from the packaged to trying out some of them. Really loving it all still. Was so pleased in the holidays that some of the children returned to an earlier discussion and added some thoughts. They have really shown they have ownership of the discussions.