Week 1: Field Trips and Book Discussion

Aside from my workshop, the general responsibilities I had this week were grading, chaperoning field trips, and leading discussions on The Fifth Season, which the students are reading for this class. So far, we have gone to field trips at the art museum, the zoo, and the botanical gardens. During these field trips, the other TAs and I were asked by Rennie and Zack to ask the students questions and push their thought process into taking away ideas for their own worlds. For instance, at the zoo, I asked many students to think about the characteristics they saw on different animals and how those characteristics related to the environments that those animals were living in. The students worked on an assignment this week that involved creating a world map that includes climate and biomes, so I then told them to try and think in reverse after seeing these animals: instead of thinking why the animals are like this, imagine just the biome itself and using the knowledge gained from the zoo, picture what the animals that live there might look like. Once the students split up, I explored the zoo with the other TAs and talked about our future workshop ideas, and then we rounded up the students. For the trips to the botanical gardens and the zoo, this process was pretty much the same, although we definitely improved at asking good questions.

So far, we have split up into smaller groups to lead book discussions, and I think this has been the easiest part of the project for me. I normally have 5 or 6 students to talk to, and I find that conversation is able to flow very naturally in these small conversations. My process that I've settled into is first asking generally what the students thought of the reading and seeing where the conversation goes. Once the conversation starts to lull, I ask prepared questions about the themes of the section that they didn't cover during their discussion to try and provoke more thinking about those topics, especially since some of the topics in the book are harder to pick up on for some readers. Finally, I wrap up the discussion by asking what they have learned from this reading, both positive and negative, and how they can apply it to their worlds.