Whole Class Book Discussion

I shifted my lesson plan today at the last minute and instead of continuing peer conferencing, classes began with focused freewriting over any questions, comments, powerful passages they noticed in their reading of Mockingbird. (We have not discussed the book in the last two class periods and instead were setting up writing workshop, working on drafting and conferencing.) Several kids in each class said things like - but we've already been doing this on the blog- but they were asked to take note anyway today about anything in their own Mockingbird reading or blog reading that they might like to discuss. In the earlier discussion (Monday) I noticed that some students made reference to things they read on the blog. Also on Monday I handed out a "debriefing" survey with questions I wondered about after Friday's first lab day. I was anticipating that today's book discussion might be facilitated by the blog - at least for the majority who are blogging. With my own homework crashing in on me this week, I had not read the blog last night and had only skimmed it the day before - which is a disadvantage I felt very uncomfortable with - enough so I almost called in sick. At any rate, discussions grew from the freewriting and I noticed that 2nd block has my fewest number of avid bloggers and perhaps also had the largest number of nonparticipants in the discussion. Third block I had quite a few participants and I noticed that the bloggers were the talkers. Jessics and Derek didn't talk, but they are also behind in their reading and in the class. Sean Duncan participated and is also way behind in his reading. Trevor has been out sick a whole week and hasn't read, so I wasn't surprised that he just listened. Robert, Samantha, David (who blogs, but didn't say much), Colin, Beth Ann, Krystal, Celeste (blogs a lot but was absent), and Cody had a lot to say. Dylan typed out great questions on his own, but doesn't blog, but is a leader in discussion. I'm dying to find out what that's about. Fourth block had a great discussion and also has my highest number of bloggers, for whatever that's worth. Going down the roll sheet, there are only a handful - Tessa, Clint, Taylor, Kody, who haven't gotten on the blog. (Taylor doesn't have access to Internet at home. Although he'll have opportunity in class, we weren't able to get his email invitation, so the whole thing needs to be ironed out for him. I feel he's at a loss.) I'll be curious to read the blogs after this discussion - I'm wondering if there will be any reference to class, just as I wondered if there'd be reference to the blog, which there was. Most kids wrote (as I collected their freewrites on the subject) that the blog helped for their own questioning and also to get other opinions. Stay tuned.