Thoughts on reading chapters eight, nine, and the bibliography of Action Strategies for Deepening Comprehension by Jeffrey Wilhelm. 

Chapter eight, “Writing in Role,” focuses on the correspondence aspect of writing – that nothing is a silent, time consuming, transaction between student and teacher. As I often have students write me letters and notes, I am excited to read about these techniques. 

Wilhelm lists out the following to try: phone call (the student develops the script of what they want to ask and what they think the text will say), letter writing to peers in character, poster presentations, postcards with text and visual rhetoric, public service announcements, brochures, protest manifestos, and other ideas (pp. 155-165).  

I think I would like to try protest manifestos or some other politically based platform in the fall when my students read Just Mercy by Bryan Stevenson. I’m hoping that this will allow them to see that they can be political activists either in our small community or on a national or global scale.  

I’ve had students write letters to each other before, mostly focused around  what they read and how they connected with it. Now I would like to bring that back to them in a much more guided way where they are directly commenting on the issues and challenges surrounding equity in the judicial system that they will encounter in this text. I think they will wind up writing a lot more than they would have with my previous assignments simply because they want to express their ideas. I have already found several literacy based texts to show them in order to connect them with the text such as judicial transcripts, and interviews with the parties involved. I was thinking about having them do dialectical journals and pulling quotes, but I think I will add in letter writing too so they have time to reflect and process what they are reading.  

Chapter nine, “Discussion Dramas,” essentially highlights different strategies for you to facilitate large group discussions in the classroom. These can be framed as a consensus (lining up who agrees), a news cast, allowing students to choose roles and argue their points out, and town meetings. Wilhelm reminds us that “John Dewy once said that all learning floats on a sea of talk” (p. 169). And this chapter is designed to get your students talking about what they read, or are reading, in an accountable way.  

I think that I would use poster sessions with my students followed by a panel discussion. This would allow them to discuss a text in a deep way, but also experience the activities as something they very possibly do during their academic careers. It would be a way to foster their growth in the content but also foster their experience in tasks they may find themselves doing elsewhere in the university.  

“Bibliography” This is a section that students largely ignore, but I feel that it is very important to always read – at least skim, common – this section of a book or article. A bibliography can do two important things: give you resources to utilize in your own work, and let you know how the author is politically positioned in the field. 

It is easy to see that this teacher builds a lot of trust with his students and that he sees them in class every day for an entire academic year. I only get to see my students for 2.5 hours per week for 16 weeks, so I will choose wisely the things that I want to integrate into the classroom. 

Thank you for reading about this book. I highly recommend that you buy it and use it. The binding should be completely worn and there should be all kinds of highlights, sticky notes, coffee or tea stains, and you should consider buying a copy for a teacher friend who might enjoy it too. 

Thank you, Dr. Pence, for putting this book on your list!