We’re doing nonfiction book clubs right now in my two Honors classes, and the kids got to choose which one they’d be in. We talked about how people discuss books, and just in case, I gave them a graphic organizer to take notes on each day. As they’ve been doing their discussions, I’ve been circulating, listening in, and occasionally contributing. Some of the groups were doing fine but some weren’t so I decided to do a “fish bowl” activity where one group would hold their discussion and the rest of us would observe and later critique.
In my first class, the group in the fish bowl stunk up the joint. There was very little I could say that was positive, and I’m the Queen of Finding Positive Things to Say. I almost scrapped the idea for the other class, but I’m so glad I didn’t.
Oliver, Stefan, and Eric are reading Woodsong by Gary Paulsen, a memoir of his time racing sled dogs, and their discussion was deep and clarifying and respectful, and I was pretty much squealing with delight in my mind as it was. And then…
Stefan: It’s like Gary Paulsen has all these “pause” moments. Like somebody presses pause and everything goes by really slowly.
Eric: Yeah, he does. Things don’t happen to me that way. They go by really fast.
Oliver: Maybe those moments happen to him like that. Or maybe they happen to him like they happen to everybody else, but he presses pause and describes it that way because that’s what writers do. For us.
Sigh.
Yay.