Eller | 2011/11/17

I have to say, these were the types of activities I HATED when I was in high school (and still do if we wind up doing them in college). Our "small group discussions" were a few awkward and generally inane comments on the book. You're talking to your friends. It's not graded for content (or usually anything else). No one really discusses it. Making predictions would just get silly if it's a more than thirty second conversation. For third graders, it might teach something about logic. Most high schoolers can come up with plausible outcomes, so it's largely a waste of time. Choral readings might make sense if it's poetry, but for the most part you're going to have half the class spacing out and the rest of the kids mumbling boredly. Not many kids are going to take a drawing pictures assignment seriously. You might have a few art kids, but the rest of the class will either come up with something plausible to get a good grade or just think it's stupid and not do it. Writing letters to main characters is just silly... You want them to display their opinions and their knowledge of the book's subtleties and the character's personality, but they don't know that. They're trying to think of something to say to some random person that doesn't exist (and they usually don't care about). Letting them know the point of such an assignment might get rid of some of the guesswork, but I'd just see it as a less direct and more annoying way of saying what you mean. Plus usually these assignments aren't graded for quality, which means anything goes and no one cares, which means they have very little educational value. They might earn good grades without even knowing it, but they'll also get good grades without even learning anything. The reading aloud and switching off readings, though, I think are great ideas. It really helps some kids with understanding and gets them hooked without depending on their own efforts.