Response-Centered Talk and My Field Placement

In my field placement, I do not see a lot of response-centered talk. Most of the talk about literature occurs in the form of recitations, often following the I-R-E model that Weinstein describes in Ch. 10. For example, if Mrs. T does a read-aloud, she asks a few questions before beginning the story, such as "Based on the cover and the title, what do you think this book might be about?" She then reads the story, pointing out some of the features of the text and illustrations and sometimes asking students to summarize what has happened in the story so far. Then, at the end of the story she asks one child to summarize the story and then calls on a few more children to fill in some details. This is understandable because lately they have been working on their summarizing skills -- they summarize what they read both verbally and in writing. Sometimes she will ask them to recall certain events, characters, or facts from their reading,which fits with what Almasi refers to as "traditional discussion" --
"The questions asked during these interactions generally require students to recall what they already know about the literature they have read," (Almasi, 4). I think students would definitely need some scaffolding for response-centered talk to take place, because I don't know that they have ever taken part in the type of discussion we have been reading about and discussing in class. As our readings said and as we talked about in class on Wednesday, this type of talk is not natural -- students must learn the "rules" of discussion, including what kind of behavior and language is appropriate (i.e. "I agree, and I would like to add..." or "I disagree, because..."). Students in my class would need scaffolding to learn how discussions work and how to participate in them, as well as guidance in terms of asking probing questions and making connections to each other, which are things that a teacher could facilitate. It would certainly take time and scaffolding, but I think my students have a lot of great ideas about what they read, and they just need a chance to develop those ideas in a social context like a discussion.