Transcriptions – Read to Learn interviews, Fall 2009
Focus Group – Monday, December14, 2 p.m.
Facilitator: In general, how do you feel about your college class reading assignments?
Student 1: I guess I feel like they’re fairly necessary because for most classes, there’s a lot of
material that really time just doesn’t permit the professor going over in class completely. I’d say
that they’re fairly necessary.
Student 2: I agree and also want to say that if it matches up, if the professor thinks it’s good for
the course, it’s relevant or up-to-date, would make a difference as well.
Student 3: I feel they’re really important. I feel that, um, reading by myself, I can grasp a certain
amount of the concepts and the materials in the text, but I feel that in general, I’m sort of a social
study-er, and that I appreciate other people’s input and I appreciate getting to share, I guess, my
opinions and my thoughts on readings and concepts with other people, ah, especially my peers
and so to get the opportunity to share, share insights and information with other people in class
that I respect is a really good opportunity, I think.
Facilitator: In general, how do you feel about your journalism reading assignments?
Student 1: I really enjoyed the textbook I had for the class I was in, I thought it was, it was fairly
basic, kind of surface, but it hit a lot of points and it provided good examples in the reading and
it did seem fairly up-to-date and very relevant to the coursework.
Student 2: The, for (CJ) 323, our textbook covered part of what we need to know but, it didn’t
cover some of the, it covered part of the design part, not the editing part so. It was good, as far as
it went but we could use another textbook to go with it.
Student 3: For the most part, I feel good about the textbook readings although I feel that they’re
slightly antiquated now that things are changing as rapidly as they are. That being said, I’m not
sure what the best solution to a textbook reading would be since probably we would need to
reassign books every single year, if not every semester as we go through the curriculum. I agree
with student two who said that the News Editing and Design textbook was partially relevant and
partially irrelevant in that it did talk about newspaper design but the class itself didn’t focus on
any newspaper design, so I guess that one, I would have to argue needs to be upgraded and
updated because it should focus on online design and it should also focus on line-editing and
things like that to complement the lectures. But as far as other textbooks we’ve read in the
journalism department, um, I feel like they’re pretty good.
Facilitator: What percentage of your college class reading assignments to you complete and
why?
Student 1: I would say probably close to three-quarters, 75 percent. I feel that it really kind of
depends on the class. There are certain classes that if I feel the textbook is just a repetition of
what the professor goes over in class almost verbatim, I tend not to read nearly as much. I’m a
much more, I think, I guess I learn a lot better through hearing than through reading on my own,
but I would say if the textbook is presenting new material, I try to do all the reading that is
assigned.
Student 2: I read a hundred percent, just because I don’t know what parts in there aren’t the same
as what the lecture was on. Plus, it reinforces and I can go over it fast if I need to.
Student 3: I guess it depends on the class. For my journalism reading assignments, since we’ve
been doing the reading discussion activities and assignments, I’ve read absolutely everything.
For other courses that are more reading intensive, well, let me rephrase, not reading intensive but
have less relevant reading assignment than I don’t so much, but I would say I read 80 percent of
all the reading assignments.
Facilitator: What percentage of your journalism reading assignments do you complete and why?
Student 1: I would say most, I’d say, if I had to put a percentage, like 90, 95 percent just I mean,
obviously, assignments are for grades, which matters and I feel that most of the assignments that
we did for the class I was in, 222, were relevant though there were certain assignments such as
the NewsU online courses that were not relevant which made it, I guess, tougher to do the
assignments after I realized that they didn’t really apply to the class as well. But yeah, I would
say, most of the assignments.
Student 2: I do a hundred percent of the assignments because I want to get an A. I just feel like I
have to. I’m that kind of person, I guess.
Student 3: To the best of my ability, I complete all of my course assignments and the primary
reason for that is because they’re graded. I guess that’s why.
Facilitator: Please describe how reading circles affect your participation in small group
discussion.
Student 1: I think they help to an extent but it’s very, tough, because obviously, classes are very
constricted on time, and so usually, at least in 222, we were only given maybe five minutes at the
most to discuss full chapters, which in 222 being an intro class, enveloped like huge, huge
aspects of journalism. And so, they helped to kind of get the discussion going, but I almost wish
that there was time to discuss, which I understand is almost impossible, given the amount that a
professor has to go over. I feel that maybe a solution would be to make some online discussion
because I feel like that kind of opens, gets rid of that time constraint. But I would say that in
general, they’re quite beneficial.
Student 2: I think the discussions are helpful and help reinforce and help people who have
different kinds of learning styles.
Student 3: They definitely help me participate in small group discussions. Sometimes, I feel like
I talk to much in small group discussions for better for worse. I guess, I like it because it’s sort of
a level playing field I think everyone has an opportunity to share their input in a non-threatening
and non-judgmental way since we’re kind of in it together. And so I definitely think it promotes
discussion in small groups.
Facilitator: Please describe how reading circles affect your participation in class discussions
Student 1: I think they greatly affect class discussions for me and for other students. I’ve always,
I’ve never really had trouble participating in class. I feel like I’m not, I’ve never been like too
timid to raise my hand in class, but I feel like it does, as I’ve said previously, kind of, it sparks
something and it gets a conversation going about something that maybe the professor hadn’t
have thought of and one of the students came up with in their reading circles and having the
specific roles as well, really lets you kind of delve into whether you’re looking for an example or
you’re looking for a quotation and really kind of helps you, helps you focus in on what you’re
looking for in the text.
Student 2: I agree with what he said and also sometimes it’s really interesting to hear what
another student is thinking of that maybe I agree with and, in their role, they gave an answer and
it might be an online discussion and they, it’s exactly what I had thought and, if we didn’t have
the questions to focus on we might not have come up with those insights about other people’s
views.
Student 3: I think it greatly promotes discussions in the class, large class setting. First because I
guess you get to read the textbook in your own personal time and you get to synthesize that
information within a smaller group. I think that sort of helps build a sense of community and a
team within the group; also a sense of confidence because when you go to share what you’ve
discussed with a larger group, you kind of have a group of students that are sort of within your
team and kind of and it’s sort of an encouraging, enforcing sort of effect, I guess.
Facilitator: If applicable, please provide an example of how reading circles contribute to your
learning.
Student 1: I guess, kind of what I’ve mentioned, like, I always felt that there was stuff that
maybe I would have glossed over but because I was focused on looking for specific locations or I
was looking for specific connects, I kind of picked up on things better. I guess I can’t think of,
off-the-top-of-my-head, a specific example but in general, it was beneficial.
Student 2: I think it’s helped with critical thinking and for me, because of sometimes, I think of
an answer or I think of a topic in a certain way, but someone else gives a whole different angle
on it, including sometimes the instructor but something I had never even thought of would
pointed out to me.
Student 3: I think it’s helped my learning by reinforcing things that I already thought or believed
from the text. I don’t know if I had any sort of groundbreaking learning revelations during a
small group discussion but I think it does sort of help, I guess it helps reinforce the concepts.
Facilitator: If applicable, please provide an example of how reading circles inhibit to your
learning.
Student 1: I guess this isn’t necessarily the reading circles, but, as I mentioned, I feel a lot of
times that the discussion times are just too short to get through everyone and kind of for all the
students to say what they’d like to say about the reading and so there are multiple times when
one of, or sometimes, even two of the team members would be able to speak there, us, speak
with their section, was kind of just it really doesn’t inhibit everything, because then you just get
one voice out of the group, and if you only get one voice out of the group, then you, the whole
point of the reading circles is lost because, I mean, you could get one voice obviously from
reading it yourself.
Student 2: I can’t think of any examples, just the case where maybe the textbook doesn’t quite
match up to what we need to have for the course, but that’s sort of a different topic.
Student 3: I think the only way that it actually would inhibit learning is in the case where each of
the group members don’t totally understand the concepts of the reading text and were left sort of
to their own devices to kind of work through the material and I guess that’s sort of a, sort of a
blessing and a curse in a way because it forces us to really kind of decide and process what’s
really going on. But I think sometimes it’s nice to have a prompt or sort of an introduction from a
professor who is somewhat of a master of the concepts or the reading and to have something like
that to go off of when we’re actually kind of breaking up into our small groups. So the only thing
I would say is that if we’re dealing with really complicated subjects and none of the group
members understand it themselves then it can be almost more confusing and chaotic when you
get into sort of a group setting and no one really knows exactly what’s going on.
Facilitator: What else would you like to tell us about using reading circles in the classroom?
Student 1: I feel like most of what I wanted to say has already been said, but just to reiterate, I
think that the reading circles are very helpful but I feel something should be looked at with the
time requirements.
Student 2: I pretty much agree with that. I think they’re valuable. I’m not sure if they should be
used throughout the semester or part of the semester, but a maybe a little more than they were,
than sometimes we have had.
Student 3: For the most part, I support the reading discussions. I think it’s a good way to kind of
reinforce the readings. I think it should be said that the textbooks that are chosen with the reading
circles should be the absolutely the best texts available and they should maybe even be focus
grouped before they’re introduced to a large sort of classroom setting because if we’re going to
spend so much time discussing the readings, then we should absolutely make sure that they’re
quality readings and that they’re relevant readings and not something that has been used for the
last five years or so and that we just keep continuing to use because that’s sort of what’s
available. So I guess, what I would like to add is that we should make sure, make certain that the
text that we’re using are the best ones that, the best ones for this sort of method for learning and
discussion.