C4T #3

For this first post I was assigned to Pernille Ripp's blog Blogging Through the Fourth Dimension. This week I will summarize her blog "For the Love of Book Clubs- Creating Meaningful Conversations." In this she is breaking away from conventional classroom reading and creating a new style that puts the reading and interpretation in the students' hands. Through a series of steps she says that you should begin your class by reading a book, and instead of asking questions you should ask the students what they thought of the book, and let them go with it with you as their coach to keep them on track. As they read, she says that the discussions should become deeper and deeper depending on their grade level. One point she makes that I absolutly agree with is that if a group does not like the book that they are reading, they should be able to abandon it and pick a new one. Forcing students to read a book they hate is going to make them hate reading, and eventually hate learning. Education should not work thta way.

In Pernille Ripp's most recent blog post, "Passionate Learners-Giving our Classroom Back to Our Students," she introduced us to her book which she had just written and was published. The title of this book is, "Passionate Learners- Giving the Classroom back to our Students." In this book Mrs. Ripp talks about what she has done to change her classroom and her student's education, and what they have done to change her. The essential idea behind her book is that as teachers, we have to trust ourseleves when we know change is needed. She found that "the smallest change can have monumental differences." Overall it is about trusting your insticts for change, and not conforming to cookie-cutter plans for how education should work placed on you by the state and your fellow teachers. She even includes a coupon for her book so we may buy it online.