ELLEN
BERG
Diary #31
A
Successful 'Gallery Walk' Draws
My Students Deeper into Novel Study
What is the difference between answering discussion questions on a Gallery Walk and answering those same questions on a worksheet?
A Gallery Walk includes movement, markers, chart paper, and collaboration. I held a second "Gallery Walk" on Friday, nearly two weeks after the first one. I wondered whether this one would be as successful as the first since it was not a new activity any more. It was not only as successful, it was wildly successful!The noise level was lower. Students were responding verbally and on paper to each other's comments. Nary an inch of white space remained on any one of the papers because each piece was jam-packed with comments, questions, and observations. More importantly, the content of the answers demonstrated better thinking.
How a Gallery Walk works
For those who do not know what it is, a Gallery Walk is a structure where you spread pieces of chart paper with questions or quotes written on them around the room and have your participants write their answers on the sheet. In a professional development session, adults are able to wander from sheet to sheet at will. However, my sixth graders need more structure, so they travel in a group from table to table when I announce it is time to switch. That has worked well. Anyone who has read my diaries for very long knows I love the Jigsaw strategy because the structure itself encourages higher-level constructivist thinking. I use it often, especially when I want to introduce a major concept or need to expose my students to a lot of information fairly quickly. The Gallery Walk structure, though very different, has now officially joined Jigsaw as one of my "Structures That Work."Gallery Walk encourages students to share their ideas in a non-threatening environment. When questions posed are at the higher end of Bloom's, the opportunity for critical thinking is present. I also believe Gallery Walk provides a built-in scaffold for students, as they can read and learn from the comments of others and talk with their group members before writing their responses. Even my most reluctant learners wrote answers, and I know if I had presented them with a worksheet with the very same questions on them, most of them would not have turned them in.
The Walk improves class discussion
Gallery Walk had another benefit I had not anticipated. We have all been in those situations where we are having a class discussion and three, maybe four people are actually contributing and paying attention. The rest of the class is socializing, writing notes, even sleeping, but definitely not paying attention to what the others are saying. It is a learning experience for four people. What I noticed when holding class discussions after a Gallery Walk is that most of the class actively participates, both in offering their ideas and in listening to others. I do less talking and prying while students respond directly to one another and even pose questions of their own. It ratchets up the conversation.A reader asked me to share the questions I have used during this unit. Before I do that, however, I would like to share the main objectives of my Just Ella unit. These are concepts and skills my students practice daily as they read the book either independently or with a partner:
*Summarize the chapter set (usually two chapters) in two to fourAs I reread the text with my students and completed all the work I assigned them, I tried to write down questions that naturally occurred to me for use in class discussions. When I had to decide which questions to use in the Gallery Walk, I tried to choose questions that matched the skills from my objectives. Gallery Walk Questions: Session One Do you think Ella will marry Prince Charming? What makes you think that?
sentences.
*Vocabulary: Collect and define unknown, strange, cool, or unusual
words.
*Make predictions using evidence from the text to support your
viewpoint.
*Interact with the text: Write down the thoughts, questions,
comments and ideas you have as you read.
Do you think Ella should marry Prince Charming? What makes you think that?
Choose one word you included in your vocabulary section from your reading and define it. Include the page number.
Write at least one question, comment, observation, connection or idea you have had about the text so far.
What do you think about Jed? What do you think Ella feels about Jed? What makes you think that?
Ella is very different from the women around her. She is strong-willed, outspoken, and intelligent, and she constantly gets in trouble with Madame Bisset for her actions. Do you think women like Ella existed in the Middle Ages? What makes you think that? Session Two
Do you think
Ella should have told Prince Charming she would not marry him? What makes
you think that?
Prince Charming and Madame Bisset put Ella in the dungeon when she refuses
to marry the prince, telling her she can leave when she agrees to marry
him. Why do they put her in the dungeon instead of simply letting her
leave? What makes you think that?
Ella decides to escape from the dungeon by digging her way out through
the toilet (called a "craphole" in the novel). What does this decision
demonstrate about her personality and her feelings about marrying the
prince? What makes you think that?
What did you think about the chapters we recently read as opposed to the
earlier chapters? What makes you think that?
Write at least one question, comment, observation, connection or idea
you have had about the text so far.
Choose one word you included in your vocabulary section from your reading
and define it. Include the page number.
About my Gallery Walk questions...
Most of the questions address my objectives, and I have been pleased to note my students' skills in those areas are getting stronger. The question about women in the Middle Ages is the attempt to link the text with their concurrent unit in Social Studies. I found they really did not understand much about what life was like for women at that time, so I tried to fill in some of the gaps.
The question about how our recent chapters compared with the beginning chapters was in response to the comments I heard during reading. At the beginning of the book, students groaned and told me this was the most boring book they had ever read. However, as we got to the middle of the book, their feelings seemed to change.
Granted, the beginning gives a lot of background information and there isn't much action, but all of that is necessary to really appreciate the parts we've just read. With very few exceptions, students stated they were starting to really enjoy the book. One of my more difficult students wrote, "This is the best chapter book I have read in a long time."
In an earlier diary entry I expressed apprehension about trying to teach a novel. I no longer feel that way. I think deciding what my objectives were and gearing everything else towards the instruction and practice of those objectives was the most important thing I did.
Could I have chosen different skills? Sure. Theme, plot, a character study, more on the Middle Ages‹all of these would have been good choices. The temptation is to try to cover it all. Unfortunately, when we try to do that, everything might get covered, but the learning might not be lasting.
Maintaining a focus has helped my students as they have read this novel, and it has helped me zero in on those passages and events that will best help them own the skills I've chosen to emphasize.
I left all my papers at school today in my hurry to leave our very hot building, but I promise I will share some of their answers with you at a future time.
NOTE: See Ellen's answers to a reader's questions about the Gallery Walk
