Literacy for the New Millennium First International Conference Australian Reading Association Melbourne Australia — July 199

Jacobsson, Maritha

Wahlin, Lottie

English

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Medling vid brott : en enhetlig svensk modell?

Academic Archive On-line (Umeå University, Sweden)

Jacobson, Jeanne M.

ScholarWorks at WMU

Reading Horizons: A Journal of Literacy andLanguage ArtsVolume 34Issue 1 September/October 1993 Article 710-1-1993READING: THE CONFERENCESJeanne M. JacobsonNot ListedFollow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.wmich.edu/reading_horizonsPart of the Education CommonsThis Article is brought to you for free and open access by the SpecialEducation and Literacy Studies at ScholarWorks at WMU. It has beenaccepted for inclusion in Reading Horizons: A Journal of Literacy andLanguage Arts by an authorized editor of ScholarWorks at WMU. For moreinformation, please contact maira.bundza@wmich.edu.Recommended CitationJacobson, J. M. (1993). READING: THE CONFERENCES. Reading Horizons: A Journal of Literacy and Language Arts, 34 (1).Retrieved from https://scholarworks.wmich.edu/reading_horizons/vol34/iss1/7M^READING:THE CONFERENCESJeanne M. JacobsonLiteracy for the New MillenniumFirst International ConferenceAustralian Reading AssociationMelbourne Australia — July 1993The role of writing in literacy development was highlighted at the first international, and nineteenth national,Australian Reading Conference, held from July 5-9 at theWorld Congress Centre in Melbourne Australia. LucyMcCormick-Calkins, in her plenary address on "The writingworkshop: A place for thoughtfulness" urged flexibility inwriting instruction (moving away from an unending cycle ofplan-write-revise-plan-write-revise). Offering her audienceguidance on ways to encourage young writers, she suggestedavoiding the stock phrase, "Tell me more about this," and instead using some form of the statement, "This is very important, isn't it?" — recognizing that a child's choice of a particular piece for the topic of a writing conference signals its importance to the young writer, even though the value of the piecemay not be immediately apparent to an adult."Literature circles: Children talking and writing abouttheir reading" was the topic of a presentation by two educatorswho collaborated in research: Paula Willson, teacher of a sixthREADING HORIZONS, 1992, volume 33, #1 83grade class in a suburb of Adelaide, and Anne Simpson,professor of literacy and language education at the Universityof South Australia, who observed in Willson's classroom regularly for a year. Willson's interest in engaging her studentsin collaborative reading stemmed from her dissatisfactionwith the individualized language arts instruction she hadbeen providing, with students self-selecting the books theyread, conferring with her, and completing a book review oranother agreed-upon culminating project. Students, she said,enjoyed this, but she had come to believe that their text-basedmeaning making was narrowed because participation in eachconversation was limited to two people (teacher and one student). Another motivation for change was her desire tobroaden students' reading interests.Literature Circles became the basis for a new languagearts program. Following a month of individual conferencingand assessing students' reading ability and interests, Willsongrouped her 31 students into five Literature Circles (to allowfor one conference with each group per week), and presentedeach group with a choice of novels for their first reading assignment. Literature Circles met for half an hour, as the firstactivity of the day; the group's primary role was to discusstheir reading, but had also to agree how much was to be readfor the next week.Students' written responses to their reading were madein two forms: a weekly entry in their individual ReadingResponse Books (into which Willson had glued the guidelines for their responding), and "stickums" — post-it noteswhich students attached to the pages of the novel as they read,or reread. These notes served as the basis for Literature Circlediscussions, and as one method Willson used to documentstudent effort. After the notes were used in discussion, students pasted them into their Reading Response Books.Both Willson, the teacher, and Simpson, the observer,stressed the importance of the post-it notes. Students were84 READING HORIZONS, 1992, volume 33, #1told to use them to note interesting descriptions, unfamiliarwords or puzzling events, questions, predictions, feelings andopinions. Students came to value the notes as an aid in discussions — a source for comments to make to the group, anda documentation for points they wished to make.Simpson commented on the extent and effectiveness ofWillson's written responses to students' weekly entries in theReading Response Books, citing these examples: "I'd also liketo read what you think about certain characters in the story sofar," "It's great when you put yourself and your family intothe story. You certainly would know how he feels," "I like tohear about your feelings, especially, Craig," "It's good howyou're talking to me on paper" and "It's good when you giveme an example to back up your comment." Responding tostudents in writing was time-consuming, but productive.After Literature Circles had been a class activity for manymonths, Simpson noted that the students' comments, andtheir teacher's responses, focused increasingly on the author'srole as shaper of the story, and not solely on the events andcharacters within the novel. In evaluating the LiteratureCircles, all students said they enjoyed this method of learningand all but two of the students said they were reading morethan they used to, and thought their reading had improved.Books which Willson recommended for use inLiterature Circles with 11- and 12-year-olds included ThisPlace Has No Atmosphere (P. Danziger), Misery Guts andWorry Worts (M. Gleitzman), From the Mixed-Up Files ofMrs. Basil E. Frankweiler (E. L. Konigsburg), Mama's Going toBuy You a Mockingbird and The Whispering Knights (J.Lively), Toby's Millions (M. Laurie), Clancy's Cabin (M.Mahey), Creeps (T. Schoch), and The Return of the Nimbin (J.Wagner).