This post is written and shared by my friend Cindy Dixon who could not stop raving about how amazing her class discussions are. I begged her to share with me – with us – her method and she generously agreed. Thanks, Cindy! – SB
I’ve always had big hopes for my students to discuss texts deeply and meaningfully. However, at times the reality has been awkward stretches of silence as I stand before the class posing questions about symbolism or dramatic irony. That’s not how I envisioned my classroom as I aspired to be a literature teacher, I’ve always wanted my students to do all the thinking and to evolve into engaged readers–a part of a reading community. I became more anfrustrated with students “fake reading” and scouring the internet for Spark Notes and reading guides to pass a reading quiz. I also found that students were not engaged when I was assigning or asking all the questions and they were not reading either.
Enter the TQE aka Thoughts, Questions, and Epiphanies method of discussing texts. Marissa Thompson from Unlimited Teacher created the perfect way to help me facilitate the deep discussions I longed for in my classroom. Students meet in small groups to discuss and record TQE’s for the assigned reading, record their thoughts, lingering questions, and realizations and generate questions they would like the whole class to discuss. Together the students and I choose from the submitted questions and the discussion begins. Students run the conversation by posing the questions and calling on each other. For the self-conscious or shy, participation is simple, low risk. They participate at least once by asking a question or responding to a fellow student’s idea. Over time, their contributions only continue to grow. As an observer and guide, I reel them back in from occasional tangents. They can’t wait to do the next reading assignment because they are making connections that resonate for them. They do all the thinking, and I am astounded by their insights. They need only slight nudges from me to steer them toward the required standards for the course. They may not realize it, but they are building their critical thinking and literacy skills, thus enabling them to learn about any subject further on their own. For me, it’s a dream come true and for my students it’s a skill that will serve them well far beyond the walls of our classroom.
But what about requirements I am obligated to meet in my district? I have to put grades in the gradebook and I have to teach skills and standards. Yet, I want this type of engaging discussion and deep reading to be the heart of learning for my students, not an extra task added on to the mundane set of questions or writing prompt. So, I’ve taken this discussion method with a twist and added a few twists of my own and from other great educators who share their work so generously.
Here’s how I ensure skills and standards are a part of the mix. By adding in the skills for my course, in this case AP Literature, to their prep sheets I set the stage for them to develop questions in their small group discussions that incorporate the skills from the current unit. Below is an example of a typical prep sheet and then one with the standards/skills. For this discussion students will zero in on the specific skill while continuing to clear their confusions and and build their interpretations. These discussions have helped my students navigate complex and challenging texts as they submit questions for the whole class to discuss.
In teaching a longer work such as Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre, I combined lessons I learned from none other than Bryan Stzabnick of Much Ado About Teaching. His Six Scenes to Themes and his list of 50 Common Topics in Literature and Poetry which are not new to my students now become a part of our TQE discussions. A next lesson will be to write a complete statement of theme relating to one of the topics for the novel we are reading. As students participate in the whole class discussion and take notes they are making a study guide of sorts to review for the exam.
I started small with the TQE, mainly due to fear of failure. Nothing screams failure like thirty silent students seated in a large circle. My first TQE of the year begins with a short story and then we progress to a novel. For my most recent discussions, I had a student type a list of the whole class discussion questions from the board to keep as a reference. You can see those here. I’m so glad I did! I love how students begin to see the patterns in literature and make comparisons in structure, characterization, and setting.
Our next literary work will be Fences by August Wilson and I’m looking forward to those conversations. I’m so thankful for Marissa Thompson and her approach to engaging students in close reading of texts. It has truly opened doors for my students’ understanding of literature and life.
Cindy Dixon lives on Isle of Hope in coastal Georgia and teaches AP Lit, AP Lang, and British Literature at Richmond Hill High School. She was the coordinator for EdCamp Savannah and has served as department chair, as an AP Reader, and attended the 2019 Folger Summer Academy in Washington DC. @cdixonedu (The App Formerly Known As Twitter) @cindytdixon (Instagram)
