Data Story
I decided to interview my students as a focus group. I ended up meeting with a smaller group of students than I had originally planned for due to not being able to get the signed forms back. We met first thing in the morning over several days. This is the same group I had been working with since last spring. They had worked very well together and I expected no less from them this time.
The responses I received at first were exactly what I had expected. They enjoyed reading, but they knew they still struggled with comprehension. They had all enjoyed the latest literature circle they were involved in. When the students began to discuss how they wanted to set up their own reading activities, they became very interested, and actually had a lot of input. I was very surprised! They actually wanted to do another literature circle with a different book. They were interested in reading a funny book and picked out Diary of a Wimpy Kid. They decided that they wanted to create a model of the book using play doh. This has caused so much excitement in my classroom that the whole class is asking questions.
Barbara Cloninger