Action Research Cycle One

Introduction
This first cycle is about discovering what it is that students are doing to prepare for book clubs. My primary goal for this cycle is to analyze what the students are doing currently to lift the level of their talk in clubs and to being initial instruction. First, I will take a more in-depth look at what kind of preparation is lifting the level of their talk and what kind of preparation is not. Next, I am interested to see what kind of preparation the students think is lifting the level of their talks and what kind seems to me be lifting the level of their talk. Finally, I will teach into what students are doing to further lift the level of their preparation using more traditional methods before moving on to use of technological tools in order to analyze their responses to instruction around preparation for book clubs. In order for this cycle to be successful, I am making the assumption that students will be able to reflect on and discuss their own discussion processes, either in written or verbal form. This type of reflection requires fairly sophisticated metacognitive analysis and may be more difficult for some of my students.

Action One

Whole-Class Discussion and Conversation Chart

We began our preparation for book clubs by having a whole-class conversation around what grows talk in discussions and what does not. I was inspired by Donna Santman's work in Shades of Meaning (2005) in which she works with students as they study their talk through fishbowl observations and group discussions in order to identify very clear conversational moves that "hinder" or "help" conversation. The chart posted here grew out of our conversation. We ended up with two sections, each section with two parts:

During Book Talks

1. Language that Grows Conversation

2. Language that Shrinks Conversation

Preparing for Book Talks

1. Ideas that Grow Conversation

2. Ideas that Shrink Conversation

Reflection

During this conversation, what really came out is the idea of authenticity in preparation. Students discussed the importance of asking genuine questions, questions they wanted help from their groups to answer. Additionally, students made positive comments about having very specific language to use that would lead to more extended conversations about books, particularly when recording ideas on post-its as part of their preparation. I recorded their responses on a chart so that we could refer to the types of talk they identified as growing or shrinking conversation throughout the unit. Stephanie Harvey and Anne Goudvais, among many other educators, stress the use of anchor charts as a vital way to record strategies and as a tool for students to use when they need support. When the students went off to prepare for their next discussions, it was interesting to see who referred to the anchor chart and who did not. One student found the organization of the chart confusing, which surprised me. I had to further differentiate between the categories, and I realized that the confusion came from recording language intended to be used during preparation (i.e. on post-its) and during the discussion. The next time I use this type of chart I might simplify it by creating two separate charts.

Because students were thinking about general language that can grow and shrink conversation, in the following action I decided to ask them to "spy on themselves" while they prepared for their book discussions and be prepared to report on how they prepared and whether their preparation had changed based on our whole-class discussion.

NB: We changed the title of this chart from "book talks" to "book conversations" because these students did written book reports called "book talks" in fourth grade and were confused by the language.

Action Two
Writing about Preparation for Book Conversations

In order to further assess what kind of reflection students are doing as they prepare for book talks, I asked students to complete a reflection with the following questions:

1. Write about what you do to prepare for book conversations.
2. Has your preparation changed since we talked about ideas that grow/shrink conversation? How?
3. Discuss a moment where preparation improved your talk. (Or where it didn’t)
4. Write any other information you have to share on how your talks have been going.



Reflection on student work

In order to compare their answers across questions, I put together a summary of key points for each question.



Then, I went through the responses to summarize each section to bring general ideas to the whole-class discussion. See notes in purple.

Finally, I shared the compiled responses and my notes with the class in a whole-class discussion.



Question One Key Points

Question: Write about what you do to prepare for book talks.

• I make sure that I talk over ideas I don't understand with a parent or I reread. Coming to clubs with ideas you don't understand can lead to excellent book talks.


• I try to do post-its on ideas that are meaningful, such as predictions, my perspective on the moment, things that are happening, or relationships between characters. This strategy is very specific in terms of what to look for or do during preparation.


• I choose a wide topic so we have more to talk about.


• As I'm writing I think, "Why am I writing this? What does it mean? How will it help me and my group to understand the book better?" This is another specific strategy.
• I choose the best ones before the talk.


• While I'm making comments I think, "OK I'll file this thought for the book talk." or sometimes I think, "This thought goes with that thought." Making connections between post-its


• I star things that are important, then after I'm finished I talk through the stars with my mom. Then I write what we talked about on post-its and stick them where the stars are. Then I erase the stars. Talking through with someone else beforehand. Is there a way to bring this strategy to the club?

Most of your comments seem to be about bringing ideas to your clubs, not necessarily questions.

Question Two Key Points

Question: Has your preparation changed since we talked about ideas that grow/shrink conversation?

• We have been talking more deeply in our conversations. We relate to other books and other things we've heard of. In life sometimes conversations can go dead, but we think of at least something related to the story or the pages we read and often the talk goes on, for at least 10 minutes.


• Yes, it has grown because I have been taking ideas that seem ridiculous into consideration.


• Yes, I started asking "why" more.


• No, because I have been thinking all along about what would lead to a conversation and what wouldn't.


• Before the talk, we would get through post-its really quickly. After the talk we said a lot more, we only got through maybe half of one.


• I don't do post-its that say "wow" or "cool."


• I ask myself is this good to share with the group. Before I was making comments like "interesting" or "cool" and now I explain why it is interesting or cool.

In this section I noticed that many of you are asking "why." I also noticed that for many of you, conversations are getting longer.

Question Three Key Points

Question: Discuss a moment where preparation improved your talk. (Or where it didn’t)

• I noticed three things about the character's parents, and I shared them, and everyone agreed and it led to a great discussion.


• When I choose my post-it carefully


• One time Danielle noticed the different font for different characters. Then we started to talk about everything inside that.


• When I wrote down, "Meg only cares about how she looks." Everyone contributed to the conversation and it led to deeper understanding for us about Meg.


• Once I asked why do you think the characters really like each other and it led to another five minutes of talk.


• We were discussing The Wanderer and I noticed all of these parts where Sophie gets dizzy. That might mean her parents drowned or died at sea.


• One moment was when all of us had a lot of post-its about one subject. I predicted that if everyone is writing a lot on their post-its and writing in a very detailed manner then it will really help us to understand the book.

In this section, many of you say that what leads to improved conversations is choosing post-its that contain observations about a character and longer post-its.

Question Four Key Points

Question: Write any other information you have to share on how your talks have been going.

• The talks are very short and most people don't share much.


• Our talks have been improving since we talked about ideas that grow/shrink conversation. Also we have been able to get the full picture of the book


• Everyone contributes and we always expand on what the post-it said.


• Before during the talks I would say too much and Julian and Danielle wouldn't understand me. No I try not to say too much. Now instead of going around and saying what we think, we just go ahead and say what we think whenever we think of something.


• They have been getting better and better. Our recent book talk was the best so far. Everyone was paying attention and everyone had good ideas.


• They have been going great. Everyone has helpful comments and we all pay attention to each others' ideas and we ask questions.

Most of you say your talks have been improving since you have been thinking about what kinds of post-its grow/shrink conversation. I am curious to hear from the group where some of you think the conversations are going well but one of you disagrees.

Reflection

I noticed during this action that it was difficult for many students to reflect on their preparation process and not on the text itself. I was asking them to separate themselves from the text and to analyze their own preparation process independently of the text. I thought that the ideas of the students who were more successful with this kind of reflection might be helpful to students for whom the reflection was more difficult. I decided to share students' reflections with each other. I included some of my own notes to point out connections in the students' reflections or to further clarify what some students were doing that others could try. I used the collection of reflections and my comments as part of the next action so that students could use it as a guide to lift the level of their preparation, specifically when they recorded ideas on post-its to bring to the discussion.

Action Three

Analyzing Post-its

For this work, I asked students to do the following:

While reading, before their book club discussion:

1. Choose a post-it that they felt would really lift the level of their talk in clubs.




2. Explain why they chose this post-it

During their discussion:

1. Write notes on how their conversation went. Include which group members said what, and how or idea changed (or didn't) from the original thought you had.

Overall, there was a wide variety of responses to this activity, but in general it did show me that students are capable of being reflective about their preparation for book talks.

Before Discussion Work

Some post its that support students' burgeoning ability for reflection and analysis of what they do to grow ideas in discussions include:

• I think my partners might have different ideas about this
  
  


• This post-it contains a big idea
  
  


• We can talk about times that something like this has happened to us




• I think this character is going to play a huge role in the story

Many students didn't list why they thought the post-it would grow conversation in terms of general strategies. Instead, their reflection was more a continuation of the post-it, containing more information about that section of the book and not really about why they thought that post-it would make for stronger book talks.

Examples include:

• Sophie lost her parents and so may find parent figures in odd places





• I think Drita will probably make a new friend like Maria Isabel
  
  
  


• At the beginning, Sophie says she has three sides. Later in the book, she compares the sea with her three sides.

After Discussion work


Again, students reflections varied from being able to step back from the conversation and the content of it to discuss conversational moves they made and how it went to not being able to step out of the content and instead just focusing on the content of their discussion. Examples include:

Discussing conversational moves:

• I talked about my post-it and it was about the sea has three sides like Sophie. Then Ben brought up his post-it because it was related but a little different. It was about how she is relating herself to the sea and the sea is almost like her parent. So it was a good talk because we sort of combined post-its.


• Gabrielle and I talked and we started talking and talking over each other, it was like we couldn't stop. We came up with one big idea and then separated it into sub ideas. We made a little chart to keep track of our conversation.

Discussing content:

• We thought Drita has a good relationship with her father but it's stronger now as if it were renewed.


• We talked about how Uncle Mo is acting a little strange lately.


• Drita is always worrying about the future.

Reflection

Having the students analyze their post-its was helpful for me to start to understand who is able to analyze their preparation and its connection to their discussions. It was also interesting to see what kinds of post-its they chose as the post-it that they thought would grow the discussion the most. It does seem that our conversations about what kinds of ideas grow conversation and what kinds of ideas shrink conversation have been lifting the level of their preparation. Most of the post-its they chose focused on growing big ideas that led to bigger ideas and divergent thinking.

The next step will be to encourage collaboration and growth of new ideas in their preparation and in their discussions.

Cycle One Reflection
Overall, it seems students are growing in their understanding of the kinds of ideas and talk that will grow conversation. Based on what I have been observing on their post-its, their preparation is becoming more targeted. What I have noticed is that in their discussions, they are really focused on sharing their ideas, and they present the ideas they came up with individually. They do talk into each other's ideas, but they aren't yet truly taking ownership of each others ideas and connecting ideas to build new thinking. The next cycles will be focused on what kinds of preparation will help them to connect ideas as they talk to build new thinking and on using technology tools to help them to make these connections.