Read-Around Activity Management

This session introduces two important workshop components, and requires a slightly longer session (two class periods?) when initially introduced.

1. All papers are read using Read-Around Activity
   • Review process (overhead) with students.
2. Small group Response Activity in 4-person small groups
   • Review Response To Your Peers
3. Students prepare their revision of the draft using information from read around and small-group response activities

Read-Around Activity

Use short pieces for this activity when you're starting out. Picture a class of children organized into groups of 3 or 4. All children in the group place printouts of their writing in a folder (identified with the group's number / name).

The activity begins when the folders are passed clockwise to the next group. The papers are distributed to the four students in the next group. Everyone begins reading silently, passing each paper clockwise within the group when they're finished. So, everybody reads. (In groups where there are three papers and four readers, someone sits out or reads along.)

I ask the children how much time they think they'll need to read, and depending on the length of the assignment, 3-4 minutes is usually enough time for each child to read each of the 4 papers in the folder. Classroom helpers may read softly to those children unable to read for themselves. When all four papers have been read, they're returned to the folder. When there's a closed folder at each group, it's time to pass the folders to the next group. 4 minutes later, each child has read 8 papers. Repeat five more times (comprising about 30 minutes of focused reading) and every paper has been read by every person in the class. No evaluating, no responding, no marking; simply critical reading and exposure to how classmates address the lesson’s instructional criteria.

top