Grand Conversations (Reading)
The term Grand Conversations in reading denotes the deep discussions that arise during or after reading the text, focusing on its themes, characters, and messages. These conversations stimulate critical thinking, improve the comprehension, and promote a better relationship between the readers and the text.
Diving into Grand Conversations while reading is a very good way to develop collaborative learning where the students can express their views and perceptions contributing to understanding. An illustration of this is talking about a character's motives in a novel that will bring the reader to a deeper level of understanding; besides, the student will be encouraged to think critically about moral questions that are posed in the text.
A method that teachers can use to make it happen is to set up a risk-free and a friendly atmosphere for the talk, present the questions that making students think and persuade them to listen actively. a means is to have the literature circles or the Socratic seminars where the students would talk about some specific parts of the text and explain the author7s viewpoint to each other and in this way boost their understanding.
Grand Conversations are best done with texts that consist of intricate characters, abundant themes, and moral dilemmas. Books like 'To Kill a Mockingbird' or even current ones like 'The Hate U Give' are examples of the traditional novels that not only provoke students to think critically about the topics related to society, ethics, and humanity, that they should read but also make the sharing of ideas through literature more interesting.
Grand Conversations not only enable students to share their thoughts and questions about a text but also empower them to enhance their reading comprehension skills, which leads to a better reinforcement of their understanding. In the example of students interacting to publish the symbolism in a poem, they not only reveal their interpretations but also gain knowledge from their colleagues, which can influences their comprehensive understanding greatly.