As part of the Greater Madison Writing Project, University of Wisconsin students enrolled in English 100 will switch roles Wednesday morning to lead discussions covering this year’s Go Big Read book for Middleton high school students.
UW English professor and project leader Lauren Gatti said the goal of the project is to create an environment where students felt comfortable participating in deep group discussion. Having the students themselves facilitate these discussions is the most effective route, she said.
Gatti added that after she began organizing the project in August, it quickly turned into a collaboration between three Middleton high school teachers and two additional English 100 professors.
The project was able to grow quickly because of the benefits it affords to students of differing ages, Gatti said. She also mentioned leading these discussions allows her students to gain a broader understanding of learning processes.
“After this Go Big Read event, our students will not only see themselves as capable facilitators of a text, but [they] will also have a deeper sense of why we read and write,” she said. “[This allows us to] connect, think and converse with each other in meaningful and fun ways.”
Pam Anderson, a Middleton High School teacher and leader with the project, agreed.
“Students are just beginning to realize that as you analyze a text with a group there are no right or wrong answers, but [that] there are ideas, perspectives and, most likely, more questions,” Anderson said.
Susan Treiber of The Greater Madison Writing Project said these are important attributes of the program. She also said these benefits are what helped the program initially succeed and will help it continue into the future.
“Right now, teachers are focusing on making tomorrow the best learning experience they can for their English students,” Treiber said. “If teacher leaders with the Greater Madison Writing Project want to do this again next year, we will certainly support them to make it happen.”
Fifty English 100 students will lead the discussions on this year’s Go Big Read novel, “Enrique’s Journey,” from 9 a.m. to 11 a.m. in The Wisconsin Institutes for Discovery today, according to a UW statement.
The novel narrates the quest of a young Honduran boy to find his mother who left for the U.S. in an effort to provide her children with a better life and highlights a current immigration issue faced by children in Latin American countries.
Go Big Read was established three years ago by former Chancellor Biddy Martin and is also known as the UW’s Common Reading Program. The program was designed to engage the UW community in a collective, academically focused learning experience.
Gatti said she hopes this engagement carries through to her students.
“We all hope that by reading and discussing an account of one family’s immigration story, our students will walk away with a more humanized and nuanced understanding of this complicated topic,” Gatti said.
