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[Alyssa Bruecken]

I’m wondering if a reflection point along the Heroic journey during the investigate and construct phases (in light of the information situation we are in at the moment) might be useful to students. I wonder this because I initially thought students would be turn toward each other during Connect and Wonder. But, in fact, it seems we actually reach out to each other most when we are in the throes of wrestling (metamorphosizing?). And rather than cocoon as a butterfly does – the success of our quest often relies on the connections we have (be it someone to reflect with during the construct phase or access to a particular database during the investigate stage…). Are these days of the journey important for teachers to be aware of how to facilitate students turning toward one another.

Currently reading “Holding Change” by adrienne maree brown and she has some wonderful and simple assessments that break down the health of a room to prepare for facilitation. Additionally, I’m reading “The Sacred Art of Teaching” by Lisa Delpit and Christopher Emdin and just am continually struck by the need for our students to learn how to turn toward each other.

Often, I enter classrooms and students have no idea the names much less inquiry question that the student is wrestling with next to them (we are talking like 3 months into a term and at least 2 weeks into a individual inquiry project). Sometimes my role is connecting one student with another who are working on searching for similar resources. And, since, we are all working against Cognitive Surrender, I’m wondering how intentional dialogue (even if just reflection) with each other on their inquiry process could build connection, empathy, general classroom safety. I’m aware it’s not going to be easy but I do argue… it might be necessary.

Thank you for sharing Gorden Well’s work. I will be annotating that soon – it is absolutely emboldening.

I wanted to ask your role with the inquiry process in your school – is it mostly for the signature work? The closest thing we have my high school is those who participate in an Extended Essay through the IB program. This is an extremely small percentage of our school. My work mostly consists of helping teachers refine their units through the inquiry lens. I  REALLY enjoyed seeing your scope and sequence for your high school and post hearing the conversation between you and Hutchinson – I am curious how a focus on annotation will go this year. Similarly, I have set forth with a goal to advocate for note taking and annotating in our classrooms on “research days” as a start. It is a skill and expectation we have somewhat lost. . . conversations with the text and conversations with each other..

I saw this in one of your posts and thought about how it might look if we thought of it through the lens of dialogue. Literacy as communication:

<li style=”list-style-type: none;”>

| Reading to engage with the text intellectually and emotionally Dialogue embedded

Wonder| Reading to enter into dialogue with the text Dialoging utilzing Hiliary Janks critical literacy questions (Can post later)

Investigate | Reading to make sense of/ know the text (what is the text saying to me?) Dialoging to make sense

Construct| Reading to find meaning in/ understand the text (what does the text mean to me?) Dialoguing to find meaning

Express| Reading to communicate personal knowledge and understanding Dialogue embedded

Reflect| Reading to reflect on learning dialogue embedded

Truly just reflecting at this point – on the safe spaces I’ve entered – classrooms created for vulnerability and relationship and ones I’ve entered that centered around the “right answer” and “getting it done”.  Something is there in the way we encourage students to engage in discourse with each other and the teacher…

[Alyssa Bruecken]

Ah! Postman and Weingartner! I have not read that book since my early teaching years and it was. so. formative – combined with with Universal Design for Learning (Rose and Gordon) it is often hard for me to recalibrate that what happens in the classroom can sometimes be so disconnected from the humans in the classroom (especially at the high school level) that we forget what we are even doing all together in this school. Thank you for sharing this layout from Barb. It is very helpful in the looking at reshaping our units.

One question I thought of posing this year to help shift from “information problem solving” to “inquiry” in light of the time crunch we are all under – is – “what skills are your students engaging in that are transferrable to any other content area?”

Thank you also for the initial definition from Callison and Levitov.

[Alyssa Bruecken]

I’ve been thinking a lot about the connection of the Heroic Journey to the FOSIL inquiry stages and I would like to pose a question that has perhaps already been wrestled with elsewhere (if so, forgive me).

I am wondering if there are any iterations of the stages highlighted here (especially but could be any of the stages) that are recommended to be done in dialogue with other (peers, specifically). One thing I notice about both the heroic journey and how we talk about inquiry in general is that it is typically done in ones own mind. But, in fact, most of wrestling with information is done with others. How do we/can we highlight practices that amplify the idea of “you are not alone in your search..” especially in the face of Artificial Intelligence? How can these stages call us to move intentionally toward each other?

Perhaps this is too big of a question for this forum, but all the elements of this post reminded me of this query I’ve had for awhile. Thank you!

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