Welcome!

Hello, everyone,
I feel as if every activity in the AI should be preceded by the old routine: "This is a test, this is only test...." I've never participated in an online book club before, and I'm guessing a lot of you haven't either, so we'll see how it goes. At this point, though, here's my thinking about how we'll operate:

Starting on April 16, we'll begin our online book club via this blog. The first article you'll read is my chapter from The Book Club Connection that you received on Saturday. As you'll see, this chapter focuses on my transition from reflective teacher to teacher researcher. You'll also see how a perennial question I had about book clubs evolved over time.

Jason will write the first post and lead the ensuing "discussion" for this chapter, and all of the rest of us will need to visit the blog often enough to participate by making AT LEAST ONE COMMENT based on what Jason and others are saying. I'm guessing we'll visit more than once and will want to comment more frequently, but that's at least enough to get us started.

Then at some point between now and the summer AI session, you'll be responsible for leading a discussion just as Jason did. I haven't written that reading/lead post schedule yet because I'm still narrowing down the chapters we'll want to use from Working toward Equity, but I'll post it early next week.

I'm sure the conversations will take on a life of their own, but some guiding questions that might help you as you read and make your lead post are the same ones we used at the orientation, plus a few more:

* What strikes you concerning the overall content of this chapter?
* What strikes you about the question the teacher researcher is asking? What difference did it make for the teacher, kids, school, or education in general?
* What did you learn from the methods s/he used to answer it?
* What connections did you make between this teacher researcher's approach and the approach you're taking?

Okay, I think that's enough to know for now. I'm eager to see where this goes, and I hope you are, too. Happy posting!
- Cindy