I Think I'll Try

The information in Boice’s 2^nd Chapter on “Imagination” will be useful to me as I complete planning for Unit II.  After reading Carol Rodger’s paper on “Defining Reflection: Another Look at John Dewey and Reflective Thinking,” I had decided to incorporate daily journaling in my lesson plan.  Boice’s scheme for note taking fits nicely into my concept of journaling with a purpose.  It also will give my students a structured way to integrate writing into their daily lives and to organize the stages of explorative writing.  

In the 10 weeks or so remaining in the semester, I plan to devote 6 of them to “Invention: Finding & Exploring a Question Worth Asking.”  Boice’s exercises for ‘facilitating imagination,’ are an excellent approach.  My plan is to start the Unit with actually making a “pamphlet style” journal to record their notes.  I will ask them to as they are collecting text material to also collect images that they would collage to the cover of their journal.  On the 1^st page I will ask them to write their question, purpose and audience. 

Borrowing from Boice’s, “Step 1: a scheme for depth and economy at note taking,” I will ask them to begin with a reading list.  (They will be asked to expand on this list mid-way their project.)  I will jump-start their list with a reading that models the kind of material that exists in answering their question.  Prior to this stage, we will take a list one guided field trip to the library to look for source material.

Also borrowing from Boice, on the facing pages of their journal, I will ask them to write notes from their reading/sources on the left side and their reflections on the right side.  I will follow pretty much all the sub-steps  (1-10) to Step 1 that Boice has outlined except I will not impose a limit on how much time they devote to ‘reading and capsulizing a resource.’  Each of us read and absorb information at a different spend.  I will however ask them to limit the length of their notes.  Reading for the most essential ideas and information will be good practice and beneficial to them in

the future. 

I am especially interested to incorporate the “list and gist” method in work groups and will probably work this process into class time weekly.  I will also incorporate some of the sub-steps in Boice’s, “Step 2: Shaping ideas into imagination; and Step 3 Preparing useful outlines.”  More specifically, periodically they will be asked to go “public” with their exploration and to revise their outlines.  I’m sure I will modify the process as we go along but I am excited to try this approach in my classroom.

Response to Carol Rodger’s paper on “Defining Reflection: Another Look at John Dewey and Reflective Thinking”

“Through interaction with the world we both change it and are changed by it.”

It is difficult for me to read this statement without being struck by its political implications.  I believe its core meaning but feel some indignation for the truth that all Americans, all people to not have equal access to quality educative experiences.  Some of us are so deeply involved in mundane survival we don’t have time for reflection.  What then?  In a lot of ways this paper (although it does not deal with it directly) supports the elitism of the intellectual class.