Reading groups took place on Mondays and Thursdays and was a place for the students, divided into three groups, to read and learn about a book of the teacher’s choice. Twice out of the three rotations, the students were taught by a teacher other than their regular classroom teacher. Throughout the whole thing, each group was a mix of students from all three divisions. Each group would have lessons in class, read the book(s) and completed assignments. I preferred the reading group format to literacy circles. In lit circles, all you did was get into your groups, read and then go off to do your assignment. There wasn’t much discussion or debate and the assignments were only exercising the reading powers. Plus, in literacy circles, we only got to read one book where in reading groups, we get to read plenty of books from a wide range of genres. You get to be with people who are of the same reading level, so you can all relate and discuss topics from the books with people who are like – minded. In this particular reading group, we can post on the blog and see all the other postings as well. We are able to read other opinions and make cases for our own. I would say there is definitely much more student to student interaction in reading groups than there were in literacy circles. The activities we do are also very different. The assignments done in reading groups were the interesting, mind – bending kind, where we got to learn about all sorts of different things from plotlines to writing strategies to deep – thinking questions and comparisons. Probably my most favourite part about reading groups was the variety. All year we have been taught by the same teacher and worked with the same kids, but with reading groups, we have an opportunity to peek into the life of a high – schooler where you have different teachers with different expectations and different students in your class with different backgrounds and ideas. Because of this reading group experience, adapting to the high school life may be easier. Overall, I very much enjoyed reading groups this year.
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Roy(DB)
6/9/2013 11:59:00 am
I agree with the fact that we had an opportunity to peek in a life of a high - schooler. Great point.
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Roy(DB)
6/9/2013 11:57:01 am
The reading groups were great, all in different ways. I did however prefer Mr.Mohammed's reading group. Reason being that the book were both interesting and the worksheets related to the book instead of relating to different literary devices. The best part was getting to read "A Wrinkle In Time". This book has extraordinary ideas all of which where related to science. The most interesting part was the idea of a tesseract. This device was capable of teleporting a object from one point to another instantaneously. The reading group rotation was a very interesting way of getting to know about literary devices and reading five books. Overall, the experience was great and I am glad to have had the opportunity to enjoy these rotations.
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Talena
6/9/2013 02:24:11 pm
I think that having reading groups will help us in high school, so we can meet the expectations of other teachers at the same time. I do believe that reading groups will help us all in high school. Even though that reading groups will help us in high school, I did not enjoy reading groups. Out of the three classes, I enjoyed Hagrid's reading group the most. I am in Hagrid's class, so I know what Hagrid expects out of his students. I also liked how we got to do a little drama in Hagrid's class.
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Cynthia
6/10/2013 08:17:41 am
I liked the reading groups system this year. We were matched with people who are at the same level as us and make reading groups a bit more of a challenge. I found it a tricky to manage reading group homework along with my regular homework, but It was nice to work with different teachers, learn new things and read a variety of books.
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$UPERMAN
6/12/2013 12:59:44 am
I liked reading groups much better this year. Being taught by three different teachers was good because we had to adapt to the teachers teaching ways. That's a good thing because it is preparing us for high school, in high school we will have a different teacher for every class. The things i liked the best were that the groups were made with all the people in the same level in one group. I liked that because it gave me a challenge which made me want to work harder. Another thing i liked is that we read a large variety of books. Most of the books weren't boring so it was fun reading them.
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Sherlock Holmes
6/13/2013 04:54:41 am
I agree with you that we have a variety of books. At first, we read a book about WW2, (Upstairs Room) then books about Florida's environment and ecosystem, (Hoot and Flush) then a book about space travel, (A Wrinkle In Time) and then a book about what it's like to be living on a ship for 2 months, (Charlotte Doyle)
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Luno
6/12/2013 08:24:55 am
The three reading groups were a very good idea for the students cause you were able to see what every teacher in the grade 7 was like and how hard they marked. Also you get to hang out with people not in your class so i found it very good. Out of the three groups i think i like to be in Mr . colps class for reading groups cause i dint have to move to a different class room and he did not have a blog which i do not really like to answer but i do any ways to get the good mark. also mr. Findlys has a very hard marking so i do dislike his calss. Although I did really enjoy this very good program to how i saw how all the other teachers worked.
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QWERTY
6/12/2013 09:56:32 am
I really liked the way we did reading groups this year, because it allowed the three classes to mix together, creating a new work environment of new students. I found it as a way to prepare us for high school, because it was very much like the class rotation in high school, where the students mix together and go to class. I preferred the reading groups rather than literacy circles because it gave us more freedom to communicate and learn from other students and teachers. My favourite thing about reading groups was Hagrid's Charlotte Doyle scene reenactment. I enjoyed working with my group to put together a very good performance.
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Mother Paula
6/13/2013 01:39:30 pm
I really like this year comparded to the other years. The reason for this is that in literacy circles it was the same people all year and the same teacher. I think all the teacher has different skills and weaknesses in the teaching skills. For instants Mr. Findley is good with giving work and making readers explain there thinking but he doesn't really make you engage in the book like Mr. M did with the use of the blog and acting parts. Another really good thing is that you get to work with different people which not only lets you meet new people but makes you see which type of person you can work with well.
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MusicManiac44
6/15/2013 07:58:48 am
I preferred reading groups better than doing literacy circles because we go a chance to do reading groups with other students who are at the same level as one another. This was a very good way i think to read different types of books from different teachers. Every teacher had different homework to give us and different ways of explaining the book and reading it to us. What I enjoyed most of all was that everybody had different types of tests to give to us so it was not the same. It also allowed us to know hoe the teachers marked us and what their expectations were in their classes.
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Hermione Granger
6/15/2013 09:09:35 am
The reading groups this year were intriguing. We read five books in total. Each book had different themes and lessons and all the books were classified in different genres. Since the books were all different genres, it was always exciting to start a new book as it may have talked about history, the environment, or science. I preferred the reading group format, because we got different teachers and different students in our class than our daily classes with Mr.C. I learned different reading and writing skills with all of them. I enjoyed this, because this will improve my skills with reading and writing like, my grammar, punctuation, spelling, predictions, reading comprehension, and my word choice. I also enjoyed the fact that we had different students from different classes join our group, because I met new people and I got the opportunity to listen to new ideas (esp. when we had discussions and when we blogged). In Mr.C's reading group, my favorite part was when Mr.C asked questions to the class as a discussion and we got to contribute to what we thought. In Mr.F's reading group, I enjoyed learning about World War 2 (even though it was terrifying and depressing to learn about) and I enjoyed when Mr.F's mother-in-law came to talk to us about her actual experience during WW2. In Mr. M's group, I enjoyed the blog questions, class discussions, and especially the skits for the Charlotte Doyle novel.
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Cookie Monster
6/15/2013 10:27:32 am
WOW! reading groups this year have been great! We got to learn three whole different sides to books and I will definetly take this knowledge further in life. First of all, I love the fact that we got to rotate. Thankfully we weren't stuck with the same teacher all year longgg :) Secondly, it was so much fun to be with kids from different classes. Not only did we get to hear from different perspectives but we also got to get to know eachother a bit more. I also felt like I was surrounded by more kids that were at my learning, progressing and thinking level. Also, we got to participate outside of school by using blogs. That was a whole different experience for me. I think that, that was good practice for online education in high-school. All three reading groups challenged me at somepoint during the classes. The books were easy to comprehend but some of the work that was given, was a little challenging for me.- which was good:) I find that working with three different teachers who have different backrounds, experiences, expectations, beliefs and personalities really showed how teachers interput things about life and how they make connections to the book. I may not like some of the books we read this year but what was important was that I learned an important lesson from each one. Having different themes throughout different reading groups really opened kids interests in them throughout the year. There were exciting points, boring points and needs of improvment in all three reading groups. For example, in The Upstairs room, an exciting part was when Mr.Findlay's mother-in-law came in to talk about her experiences through war. It was AMAZING. In Hoot a boring part was when we had to read so many chapters every night! But an exciting part of that reading group was when we got to the movie. In Charlotte Doyle an exciting part was when we got dramatize our skits. So there are many ups and downs to each reading group, but I have to admit all three of them were well thought out and planned. Overall. I loved reading groups this year, they were unique, challenging, fun, educational and motivating. The worst part is, is that I can't choose my favourite reading group! :)