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The
American Federation of Teachers rates JGB as one of seven
"promising programs" in reading and language arts
I just took Basic Leaders Training for the Junior
Great Books program. I was
very impressed by the quality of the readings and the training, and their
discussion method of "shared inquiry." I am going to be leading
discussion
groups for 2nd graders but I also have a 7th grader and the program goes
up
through 9th grade. I was curious whether any of you have used it in your
classrooms and what you thought of it. Some of the teachers who took it
with
me were saying they thought it worked better than Literature Circles because
the groups are larger, there is a trained leader and a procedure to follow,
and the readings and questions have been chosen to provoke fruitful discussion
(though it is possible to choose your own readings and write your own
questions). Thanks,
Theano Petersen
I don't know much about Great Books. I only know what I learned at their
website. I have
heard some good things. But I don't know that working with
larger groups would be an advantage. Many of the benefits of Lit. Circles
come about because of the intimacy of the group. Also, leaders of Lit
Circles are often trained leaders having attended training sessions in their
use. Lit Circles if done properly do require a procedure, as does anything
else you do in your classroom. These are two different approaches. I don't
know that they should be compared as one being better than the other. I
think
you have to look at what exactly it is that you are trying to do, and then
decided what techniques will accomplish your goal/s.
Pam Chandler
I used [Junior Great Books] in the fifth grade and what convinced my principal
to buy me a
new set of books was the discussion that ensued after a very short (page
and a half) story. They discussed it for an hour and still weren't done
when the lunch bell rang....the quality of questions they asked and their
responses were very high level... I have now moved to the 7&8th grade
levels
and will be using it in those classes.
nancy b
Shared the conversation about Junior Great Books with a friend who's been
doing some research on how teachers use the program, etc. These were her
comments which I thought some on the list would find of interest:
John
----
Thanks for the emails on Junior Great Books. As you know, I think it's a
great program, and now have seen it used in urban schools will kids K-8
school wide. The school wide piece really helps, I think, because it
creates a common instructional strategy that crosses the grades. As a
result, the teachers feel it works better and better over time, as
third-graders enter 4th, 5th, and so on and have real experience reading
stories, looking at text for evidence, and engaged in shared inquiry. The
kids love it, and they feel that teachers really respect their opinions.
Junior Great Books is especially suitable for schools using a
literature-based approach to instruction and adds a reflective, thinking
skills component to such an approach. "Comprehension" with Junior
Great
Books goes way beyond what passes for comprehension in textbooks where
students read a story, then answer recall questions. In the context of a
focus on literature, some schools do Junior Great Books AND literature
circles. The two are not mutually exclusive. The training in urban
districts for school wide use conforms to the criteria for effective
professional development identified by Joyce and Showers. Teachers get to
be real professional -- learners themselves. And finally what I loved
almost more than anything else I saw was a change in teachers' expectations
about what students could learn. Sometimes they worried that the
vocabulary was too hard, but if they could get over that (which they could
in a couple different ways), they started to see that kids they thought
were "slow" were great thinkers. They said this over and over.
Anne Wheelock
The point I was trying to make regarding Lit Circles and Junior Great Books
is
one that can be generalized to techniques which are used across the
curriculum. There is an endless number of excellent techniques out there.
Each has their strengths and their weaknesses. The mistake often made in
education is that one technique or philosophy is the only solution to teaching
a particular subject matter. Unfortunately that means that whatever
weaknesses of the particular technique leaves holes in kids learning. As
professionals we need to be able to choose the best or most appropriate
use of
the techniques available to us in order to best meet the needs of our
students. A combination of different techniques/philosophies will produce
a
more balanced education program.
This idea is magnified in situations such as the current one in CA where
a few
years back Whole Language was the approach "that would cure the ills"
of
literacy education. Now as a result of low statewide test results it has
been
"determined" that the Whole Language approach is the culprit in
dropping
scores. The pendulum has swung and now skills are becoming the focus. When
are we ever going to learn that we must balance the approach we use in
teaching reading, or anything else for that matter?
Pam Chandler
Re: Junior Great Books.
Thanks for your responses so far to my queries about
using JGB in the middle grades. I would love to hear more experiences. I
notice so far that those who have experience with the program seem unanimously
positive toward it. Criticisms seem directed toward the danger of using
any
one program as a panacea or a replacement for basic skills. As I understand
it
JGB is intended as a very discrete program and is used primarily for
enrichment. I would not compare it to an overall instructional strategy
such
as whole language. However, several people in my training class did say
they
found themselves changing their teaching method and their interactions with
people in general to ask more questions rather than always coming up with
answers -- the JGB trainer called it the "Jeopardy" method of
leading
discussions -- and wasn't that the Socratic method, after all?
Theano Petersen