Response-Centered Talk, McGee

This article focuses on the importance of response centered talks, what we as interns usually see as small reading groups in the classroom. It has been noted that there are two different types of discussion or talk that goes on between the teacher and the students, recitation and response-centered talks. As described on page 69 of the McGee article, recitation is "when teachers expect children to demonstrate their mastery of material or procedures by reciting facts and information they they have been taught". For example, how to locate a city on a map or asking for a definition. This is basically regurgitating information they are expected to know. However, the article is not implying that recitation is bad, it can be used well for geography facts, and so forth; but the use of recitation talk for literature is not recommended. As described in the article, (page 69, McGee) the purpose of response-centered talk "is the discovery or construction of new understandings about literature. Overall this article explains that through this type of talk students students can develop problem solving, reasoning, and interpreting skills.
I really liked this article because I strongly agree with what it is saying. Students would be restricted in learning one type of skill, reading a story and summarizing it to a teacher if all teachers did was recitation talk. My CT does an excellent job with response-centered talks in her reading groups each day. Before a new story is introduced, she takes a "picture walk" and has the students predict what will happen. She asks many questions throughout the story to get the kids thinking about different ways the story could unfold in the end. This way the students are doing more then just listening to the story, and summarizing. Definitely a type of teaching that I will strongly enforce in my future teachings. Like the articles explains, it is a could way for students to learn and explore a variety of skills.