Besides the reiteration of the “I say” format, I really enjoyed tonight’s lesson. I think I am the one person in the world who LOVES being given information and completing worksheets from it. I found the format of the assignment incredibly straight forward and I think the lesson did a great job of connecting a seemingly simple concept to primary sourced evidence. Nevertheless, I wish we had spent more time delving into other instructional methods. And although the sources were interesting, I think too much time was spent on one way of doing things. On a side note, I was surprised to learn how many people did not know what a primary and secondary source were before this class. When we did the formative assessment vocabulary lesson weeks ago, several of my friends noted that they could not give a definition of either. I think that just goes to show that sources were not an “important” or stressed part of our history lessons.
Regarding my reading group, I am pleasantly surprised. The book was easy to follow and quick to read. Like Mercedes mentioned, our group too stopped on a cliffhanger and I am excited to read more. I do not think that reading groups need to be 30 minutes. I am a big advocate for moving quickly and efficiently through things and I believe that if everyone talks and listens it can be done in 20 minutes. I definitely want to implement reading groups into my classroom but also make each role not as in depth as some of the activities are repetitive.
The two take aways that I want to incorporate into my classroom are stressing the importance of sources and highlighting reading groups.