Journal Entry #9 Summer Beckley March 23, 2014 For my inquiry portfolio, I am going to be thinking about the question,

How do I ensure that Im hearing the voice of every student? I want to think about what meaningful participation and engagement means from students. I want to figure out ways to acknowledge the outgoing, talkative students, while paying attention to the quieter, shy ones. I thought about these things very intentionally when planning my lesson for this past Friday, and I was very pleased with how it turned out. I made a simple recording sheet where I could mark which students had talked during the course of the class. I wanted to hear from each of the students, in some way, by the end of the class. However, I did not want to put students on the spot in ways that would make them uncomfortable. So, I made sure there were a variety of ways to hear student voices. One of these ways was simply calling on students who volunteered during the discussion; this generally draws the voices of the confident, talkative students. Another way was selecting readers when we got into the text; some students who never volunteer opinions during discussion are the first to raise their hands at this opportunity. Before I picked from the volunteers to read, I glanced at my recording sheet to see who I had not heard from yet. Another way was having students discuss at their tables before calling on them. For example, I had each table group analyze Antonys speeches to identify lines where he used irony. After giving them time to discuss, I intentionally cold called students who had not yet participated. I would say, Sara (pseudonym), give me one example that your group came up with. Although it was cold-calling, it was low-risk because they had already generated the list with their classmates. By the end of the class, I had heard the voice of every single student, which may have been the first time that happened for me. Im really interested in this issue and am excited to explore it more. Taking notes while I was teaching was a little tedious, but it definitely helped me be much more intentional in the way that I called on students. I may tweak it a little, but I definitely want to continue some form of it in the future.