Response to Breanne

I also do not see much of students talking in my placement in English Language Arts classes because of the MEAP test. For our ELA lessons, students are doing MEAP prep booklet since school started. Each day, students have an hour to work on their MEAP prep booklet. In the first two weeks of school, my MT read the passages to the class and gave students about 25 minutes to answer questions by themselves. Then, as a class, MT will go over the questions and ask students to support their answers such as why the other choices were wrong or where can you find answer in the passage etc. So, this would be inquire into text talk that The Book Club Plus! Mentioned in the book that I have observed in my classroom. However, the conversation did not last long enough to push students’ thinking. And now, students are not allow to talk when they are doing their MEAP prep because they need to also practice how to take the test by themselves without teacher read to them or help from their classmates. Although there was a lot sharing when they were doing their quote. Once a week, my MT teaches one quote and have students write it in their composition book and write one short paragraph about how it is related to their own life. Today’s was a quote from Henry David Thoreau, “Nothing is so much to be feared as fear.” At first, MT talked about her experience doing bungee jump when she was young and she said that she was scared to death but after she jumped she glad that she has done it. Then, everyone started to raise their hand to share their fear and how they have overcome with it. This was a good opportunity to relate the students to the quote for the week and every student was eager to share their fear.