Working With Others

Not strictly an example from class - I used the following method at a Book Club meeting. The club consists of 12 members - a mixture of first and second years. I planned a quiz in advance on the plot of the book we had read. 12 students were organised into 4 groups - each group had to have 1 first year, 1 second year and at least 1 boy and 1 girl. Then each group had a large sheet on which to record anwers to questions such as "fill in 10 significant points on the plot line of the novel". I knew many students hadn't completed reading the book (which is completely voluntary) and wanted to encourage reading to the end for future meetings. The technique was successful because we quickly got an overview of the plot; it pushed students out of friendship groups and led to greater integration On the level of critical thinking by the end of the meeting we'd really worked towards quite a deep appreciation of the issues raised in the novel: how a child adjusts to the death of a parent; denial; the difficulties of adjusting to a step-parent and the meaning of the symbol which gave the book its title: "Blue Like Friday". Also I suspect that next time more members will persist and finish the book.