Examples of Junior Great Books work

One of my favorite parts of teaching GATE is being able to integrate Junior Great Books.  Bringing in high quality literature and engaging the students in a complex discussion of the books challenges their minds and always leads to deep discussion and understanding.  Sometimes their answers go in a direction that I could never have predicted!  Another reason I love Junior Great Books discussions is it give students who may not have the highest writing skills the opportunity to shine through their contributions to class discussions.  My role as the teacher is to pose questions and facilitate the discussion, but never to provide answers.  For our most recent Junior Great Books discussion the scholars recorded their ideas so we could see if our answers changed after listening to our peers' ideas during the discussion.  I'll let their work show you the kind of high level thinking these first graders are engaging it:

I'm so proud to see that we have reached the point where the scholars feel very comfortable changing their answer OR keeping their original answer, depending on their OWN thinking.  They are no longer as concerned with finding the "one right answer" but are comfortable with the understanding that different people can answer a question different ways, as long as they can justify their thinking and explain it by referring to the text.  This is a HUGE and very IMPORTANT step!!  At such a young age they are taking ownership for their own ideas and learning.