Week+7

During today's class, we discussed the novel //To Kill a Mockingbird// by participating in a fishbowl discussion. We then turned our attention to the writing assignments we designed for this novel, providing time in class to respond to a classmate's writing assignment and then giving feedback on how to improve the writing assignment.
 * __Week 7__**

__**Fishbowl Discussion**__ We had two groups for our discussion (Swedish Fish and Goldfish). The following is a list of the topics discussed.
 * Personal reactions to the novel -- likes and dislikes
 * The theme of growing up and a coming of age novel -- How do Scout and Jem change throughout the novel?
 * Trial
 * Stereotyping
 * Class dynamics
 * Gender issues
 * Prominence of racism
 * Rape
 * Harper Lee and the autobiographical nature of the text
 * Scout's relationship with her father, Jem, Boo Radley, her classmates, and the townspeople

We briefly discussed the pros and cons of using a fishbowl in our own classrooms with our secondary students. Some students in the class expressed a concern about how to hold students accountable, especially those who are outside of the fishbowl and are expected to listen. Ideas included (a) allowing students to use their notes from the fishbowl on a future test, (b) having a quiz at the end of the fishbowl, (c) requiring students to build connections to what was already said once they are in the fishbowl, and/or (d) using a freeze-frame approach where the fishbowl discussion is frozen for a few seconds and a student on the outside has to jump into the fishbowl, picking up on the speaking student's train of thought.
 * __Step Back -- The Place of a Fishbowl Discussion in Our Classrooms__**

Some students expressed what they thought was beneficial about a fishbowl discussion including (a) a good tool to scaffold students into shared inquiry discussions, (b) a chance to have those students who may not usually speak in class an opportunity to speak, and (c) an opportunity for students to express personal reactions and responses to literature.