Discussion Questions

 

This week, I started book circles (literature circles) with the seventh graders.  They are doing a great job reading their books, but the first discussion was painful.  Groups had roles and discussion questions to guide them, but it was still difficult for them to choose a few questions and actually discuss them.  Most groups tended to ask a question and then move quickly to the next.  Even though I tried to ask them to formulate a plan with a narrowed set of questions and page numbers to support and show evidence.  As I listened to and watched the groups, I decided that perhaps they needed more ownership of the questions.  

I asked a couple groups what pages they were reading for the next discussion and started typing in Grammarly.  discussion questions Dear Martin pages 45-70.  It gave eight to ten discussion questions for each group.  I asked them to choose three and write them on their discussion forms for the next discussion.  They were much more involved in this process than they were in picking questions from my document.  Plus, the questions were fit to their specific book and pages.  I learned this by trying different pages to see if the questions would change.  Plus, I watched them look up terms such as societal issues to help them understand the question.  Much more learning took place.  I'm hoping it evolves into better discussions.