Lit Circles, Audiobooks, Daily Lit
Literature Circles enhanced by technology
Literature circles in an English or literature class is a great way to have structured discussions about a text. It's like a book club, but with specifically stated roles, and, instead of just discussing events and plot, students would be directed to look for theme, vocabulary, literary devices, etc, and really dive deep into the text to understand its cultural relevance and power. Examples of the roles might be a summarizer, a vocabulary identifier, a theme identifier, a background researcher and a quote identifier, and a moderator who would keep the discussion organized and on track.
Technology could be used to enhance this activity. If the role worksheets were shared together in a Google Doc, the students could have one doc or portion of a doc set up for each chapter. The roles could rotate by chapter, and each student could add their contribution separately to the same document. This way, each student could immediately see and review the contributions of the other members. That way, they would already be familiar with the work of the group before meeting and possibly have comments or additional information ready to share. Also, if the students were using an e-reader or reading online via an e-book, they can use the devices to follow along in the text during the meeting and so look for other contextual examples and supporting evidence from the text.
I would have liked to be a part of something like that when I was in school!
Audiobook Reflection
For my audiobook, I chose The Character of Physical Law, by Physicist Richard Feynman, which is available here on Youtube. I've been very impressed with Feynman in the past so I knew I would enjoy this audiobook, even though it was ot read by him. It is a transcription of a famous series of lectures he gave at Cornell University at about the same time he was awarded the Nobel Prize. But I'm not writing to reflect upon the quality of this audiobook, but on the audiobook experience itself.
I listened in two places -- at home while doing chores and in the car while driving. I found that, while at home I could easily get distracted and tune out the audiobook. And even though I turned my stereo up loud, I would still have a hard time following if my chores took me to a distant room of the house. A better medium for this type of activity would have been headphones and an mp3 player or other such mobile device. But my experience listening in the car was much more positive. I found that, driving being a second-nature activity, I could drive automatically and focus myself well on the audiobook. It might even be that the activity of driving concentrated my mind so that it was even easier to focus on the book. For shorter drives, this effect is lessened but for longer drives I was able to actively listen to and enjoy the audiobook. I still prefer to have a book in my hand, but for long drives the audiobook is a good substitute.
Daily Lit Reflection
I signed up on dailylit.com for a daily selection of Charles Dickens' A Tale of Two Cities, and was pleasantly surprised by the experience. The site had thousands of books to choose from, is free, and sent me the text in chunks of about 900 words. It's been a long time since I've read this book, and Dickens had me laughing and marveling immediately. When my 900 words had been read, I moved on to something else and the next evening a new chunk of text appeared in my email inbox. I found that I did not need to prompt myself to remember. I looked forward to the daily chunk of text and checked it almost without fail. And I found that having the book sent in these small pieces (the whole book is 144 chunks) kept me hungry for more. I do confess that at one point, a particularly suspenseful moment in the text, I clicked the link to "Send My Next Installment" and read a few chunks ahead. So overall is was a good experience. My only complaint is that just recently the chunks of text stopped coming, and clicking the "Send My Next Installment" link doesn't help. I will need to go back to the website and see what might be the problem.
Literature circles in an English or literature class is a great way to have structured discussions about a text. It's like a book club, but with specifically stated roles, and, instead of just discussing events and plot, students would be directed to look for theme, vocabulary, literary devices, etc, and really dive deep into the text to understand its cultural relevance and power. Examples of the roles might be a summarizer, a vocabulary identifier, a theme identifier, a background researcher and a quote identifier, and a moderator who would keep the discussion organized and on track.
Technology could be used to enhance this activity. If the role worksheets were shared together in a Google Doc, the students could have one doc or portion of a doc set up for each chapter. The roles could rotate by chapter, and each student could add their contribution separately to the same document. This way, each student could immediately see and review the contributions of the other members. That way, they would already be familiar with the work of the group before meeting and possibly have comments or additional information ready to share. Also, if the students were using an e-reader or reading online via an e-book, they can use the devices to follow along in the text during the meeting and so look for other contextual examples and supporting evidence from the text.
I would have liked to be a part of something like that when I was in school!
Audiobook Reflection
For my audiobook, I chose The Character of Physical Law, by Physicist Richard Feynman, which is available here on Youtube. I've been very impressed with Feynman in the past so I knew I would enjoy this audiobook, even though it was ot read by him. It is a transcription of a famous series of lectures he gave at Cornell University at about the same time he was awarded the Nobel Prize. But I'm not writing to reflect upon the quality of this audiobook, but on the audiobook experience itself.
I listened in two places -- at home while doing chores and in the car while driving. I found that, while at home I could easily get distracted and tune out the audiobook. And even though I turned my stereo up loud, I would still have a hard time following if my chores took me to a distant room of the house. A better medium for this type of activity would have been headphones and an mp3 player or other such mobile device. But my experience listening in the car was much more positive. I found that, driving being a second-nature activity, I could drive automatically and focus myself well on the audiobook. It might even be that the activity of driving concentrated my mind so that it was even easier to focus on the book. For shorter drives, this effect is lessened but for longer drives I was able to actively listen to and enjoy the audiobook. I still prefer to have a book in my hand, but for long drives the audiobook is a good substitute.
Daily Lit Reflection
I signed up on dailylit.com for a daily selection of Charles Dickens' A Tale of Two Cities, and was pleasantly surprised by the experience. The site had thousands of books to choose from, is free, and sent me the text in chunks of about 900 words. It's been a long time since I've read this book, and Dickens had me laughing and marveling immediately. When my 900 words had been read, I moved on to something else and the next evening a new chunk of text appeared in my email inbox. I found that I did not need to prompt myself to remember. I looked forward to the daily chunk of text and checked it almost without fail. And I found that having the book sent in these small pieces (the whole book is 144 chunks) kept me hungry for more. I do confess that at one point, a particularly suspenseful moment in the text, I clicked the link to "Send My Next Installment" and read a few chunks ahead. So overall is was a good experience. My only complaint is that just recently the chunks of text stopped coming, and clicking the "Send My Next Installment" link doesn't help. I will need to go back to the website and see what might be the problem.
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