Not the Class Novel: A Different Reading Program

Simpson, Anne. "Not the Class Novel: A Different Reading Program." Journal of Reading 38.4. (1994): 290-294.

This author of this brief article is a teacher in Australia who implemented literature circles in her classroom in order to develop new reading strategies with her students. Her article defines literature circles and their purpose, how they work, how to implement and run them, and how to assess and use sticky notes. She outlines a weekly response assignment that could be useful for students while participating and easy to assess for the teacher. Instead of assessing the students on their participation, they are graded on their written responses each week, as well as their final response assignment.

One of the things this author takes into consideration in her practice of literature circles is that this method of discussion is "less threatening" for many students who are uncomfortable speaking in front of a group. Students felt they actually got to know the other students and the teacher better through the process of small group discussion.

This author is a teacher, who claims to have successfully transferred a middle level method of teaching into a high school setting, which is also what I’m aiming to do in my research. She backs up her methods with a section of student evaluations, which were all positive. I wish she would have alluded to the negatives, just for argument’s sake, because it appears that nothing went wrong for her in this process. I will use her information as a guide for the transfer of practices from middle to high school students.

Literature Circles

Lin, Cua-Hui. "Literature Circles." ERIC Digest. (2002).

This article was compiled for ERIC, the Educational Resources Information Center regarding how to put literature circles into practice, and to condense research for educators looking to study the process. Also included are the proven benefits of literature circles on student learning. It reads like a literature review, with in-text citations scattered throughout. According to this article, the three basic elements of literature circles are diversity, self-choice, and student initiative – which comes from Harvey Daniels, the creator of this method. The article then details the method of choosing books, grouping students, and how literature circles help build community in the classroom. According to the writing, "lit circles promote classroom climates which are cooperative, responsible, and enjoyable" and they also promote self-directed learning. As an added bonus, girls who would ordinarily be silenced by male-dominated conversation are given the chance to speak up in reading groups.

The author seems to be more of a compiler than a writer, including information from a variety of well-known sources. The writer quotes from Daniels and Vygotsky, who are renowned experts in their area, and includes a well-done list of references.

I’ve seen the theme in a few of these articles regarding small group discussion being less threatening to students than the traditional teaching method that utilizes large group discussion. I don’t have an issue with students who seem to be threatened by large group discussion, but this could be an interesting side note to examine in my research.

The image of engineering: The silence of the nerds? - Ron Choi ENG 574

Braham, James. "The image of engineering: The silence of the nerds?" Machine Design, Vol.64, Iss.17, 1992: 75-80.

In this article, Braham offers an editorial examination of the engineering community’s attempts to bolster the public’s perceptions of engineers.  The author uses a combination of anecdotes, interviews and survey data to underline the some of the negative and inaccurate perceptions of engineers, and discusses the attempts of engineering societies to identify and correct these misconceptions.  Braham looks at engineers in society and pop culture, examining the Dilbert comic strip, engineers in politics, TV and movies.  Braham also explores a survey on how some engineers see themselves, noting that in some cases, the public perception is aligned with self-perception.  Both the general public and electrical engineers perceived themselves as socially awkward and lacking in good communication skills.  Braham concludes with a discussion of some of the actions being taken to increase awareness and understanding of engineering.

Although this was an editorial article in an engineering trade magazine, and not a peer-reviewed academic journal piece, I still found it to be quite useful in speaking to the conventional wisdom surrounding engineers and communication skills.  The author is an engineer who has contributed to articles which have been cited by many others.  Combining the anecdotes, pop culture references, interviews and survey data provides a multi-faceted examination of the poor image of engineers’ communication skills, both publicly and self-perceived.  For my research, I would attempt to track down the original survey sources, and more importantly, find newer equivalents, since this article was written in 1992.  

The pop culture references used in the article also made me wonder how the media may have affected public perception of engineers over the past 20 years.  TV shows like “The Big Bang Theory” have capitalized on the image of the socially awkward scientists and engineers – does public exposure of this sort only re-enforce the negative image, or perhaps increase the social acceptance of engineering or “geek” behavior?