Coral Reading/ Environments

I am writing about the coral reading I did with my partner Jennivieve in our last class session. We performed a poem called “Water Boatmen” from Paul Fleischman’s “Joyful Noise: Poems for Two Voices”. In the process of preparing to present this poem to the class we covered all the speaking conventions and speaking discourse GLCE’s outlined on the ditto we received. Speaking conventions came into play when we divided up the lines and then began to talk about a possible overarching tone for the piece. Once we had an idea of the tone we went through and tried emphasizing different words and even using some facial expressions to round out our performance. We covered speaking discourse through the whole process through our continued conversation of different way to interpret the poem and make that interpretation visible to the audience.

I have had many classes with Jennivieve and feel very comfortable working with her and openly sharing my ideas with her. We get along very well and have a common respect for each other which is a good addition to any learning environment. Therefore, doing a coral reading assignment together was a good way to learn a lot of fun as well. I also feel I was supported by the class as a whole. The majority of my classmates are people I have spent a lot of time working with in my other TE courses over the last couple semesters. So even though it is close to the beginning of the semester I feel I have a solid relationship with my classmates. We understand how to work with one another and try our best to always be respectful towards one another. So when I presented my poem with my partner at my side I was excited more than nervous about performing. Regardless of what mistakes I might make I knew that both my partner and my other classmates wouldn’t be overly critical of me. If I hadn’t had that knowledge and support I wouldn’t have been able to enjoy myself much less try to give a good performance.

I can see through activities like the coral reading assignment, our weekly blogs, our personal poems, and even the small and large group discussions we have that we are being encouraged to continue to strengthen our bonds as a class. It is easy to be anti-social sometimes in college courses but it seems especially in our TE courses we are constantly being asked to work together in a variety of grouping situations. As a result we are more comfortable working together and sharing our ideas which makes it easier to learn. I see myself trying to do much the same thing in my own classroom someday. I like the idea of giving students the chance to talk to different classmates and giving them experience working in a variety of group sizes. Initially it can be kind of scary and uncomfortable for some students but those feelings should quickly pass and be replaced by a sense of comfort and community. Of course not everyone responds to this kind of interaction in the same way. Therefore I plan to monitor my students in a variety of settings and see how each effects their performance. Some people work best in small groups while others are perfectly comfortable addressing the class as a whole. To make sure that everyone has a chance to be in their comfort zone I will try my best to mix up the activities so that not every day will be a small group discussion day. Everyone should be pushed out of their comfort zone little so that they grow but it is also important to give them some security as well.