The Readers Circle II

The SJS English Room is now a Memory Palace.

[Reminder, I'm a volunteer coach, not a teacher in this school, so I spend less time in the room than the students]. We started by assigning each of the 12 books to an arbitrary letter from A-L. I have also assigned a child to each letter-book-author. But there will be some fiddling around there.  Some kids don't want the book assigned to them (too sad, too hard) and also, there are 14 kids. I'll either have to move the kid or talk them into the book in the next few sessions. 

During the second Readers Circle session there were only 10 of the 14 kids. (A session is about an hour and at least 15 min is taken with recording who has read what and who's ready to swap books). I asked them to talk about a character in their books and something that had happened and I took notes. Then I quizzed them using the 'In which book...' format and the kids who HADN'T read the book had to answer based on having listened to their team mates. Some are very fast and remembered things I'd told them last week when introducing the books. Others were struggling to know what their book was about so we swapped around a few books. 

The next session unfortunately won't be until mid-February as we have Christmas Hols and Lunar New Year Hols and various school events on Saturdays. 

After the end of yesterday's session, I sketched out the room, and assigned each book (again in the arbitrary A-L order) to 12 locations in the room. Then I took photos of the room so that I can practise at home before taking the kids on a tour to populate their English room with books characters. 

As I went around the room which is replete with potentially salient features, certain logics popped out at me. Others might take more work. 

Note: I have a concern that I should not do too much devising without the kids. But I figure even if I do my own devising, they don't have to take it all on. And it's better if I can really make it work for myself, I'll be more confident in telling them it's a worthy system to put energy into. As Kalamata (I'm editing as I used her real name before) is the Reader's Circle, I will test it all out on her first. (Kalamata is the online ID of my eight year old daughter and reading imp and partner in crime). 

One thing I noticed is how open the kids are to these methods. I told them I was assigning an arbitrary and beautiful letter-animal to each book to help remember things and they said 'ok'. And just did it, and started referring to the letter-animals along with the titles.  I don't think they'll have a problem with the memory palace locations, they seem to have imagination to burn. I think I'll give them colour pictures of the locations. 

Here are the locations around the room (Column 5) and my narratives linking them to each place (Column 6) and to one another. I'm not sure there's still much need for the letters, but they gave us the initial order so I'm leaving them there (Columns 1&2). I haven't read all the books yet so some of the actions are thin, but as I went through a second time to add linkages, I found that extra content clumped on nicely. Let's see what it's like to transfer that knowledge. This is fun. 

Here are panorama photos of the room. The order goes counter-clockwise.

Update: I just talked Kalamata through the linked images using the photos and she approves. "Amazing. Full of activity".

Another update: a day or 2 later, I was talking to my friend Jessica (another teacher-mother interested in enlivening learning) and I asked Olive to look at the photos and tell Jessica what she remembered from my one-time run through. She could reproduce 7 of the 12 book titles without prompting beyond the photo. I helped her fill in the gaps afterwards.

And then today, another week later after no in-between review, she joined this blog herself and again went through the photos with the letters drawn on (by me) and remembered 10 of the 12 titles, and for the missing 2, she remembered something about the imagery and emotion. You can see her entry above. And made the delicious comment that she felt Varjak Paw brush past her. 

Alphabet Animals		Book	Author	Action	Transition
A	Arachne is throwing out umbrella shaped webs that become an umbrella.	The Umbrella Mouse	Anna Fargher	The Door into the room. The mouse on her yellow umbrella is flying out the door off to an adventure.	She flies past a light house and a bird of paradise who's carrying a letter, Harry Potter style.
B	Bird of Paradise in flying around and around the light house, singing carols	Letters from the Lighthouse	Emma Carroll	The red fire alarm siren-light is above the light-switches to the right of the door. It's the light at the top of the Lighthouse when someone is writing letter to stick on the pin board.	The red flashing light of the siren reminds head-kid that the OFFHEAD inspectors are coming. DANGER.
C	Cat is giving baddiel advice to the kid.	Head Kid	David Baddiel	Up on the podium in front of the white board. The Head kid is leading a class, drawing naughty things on the white board.	The head kid notices Ottoline behind the yellow easel with the dragon but winks and  says nothing.
D	Dragon is throwing riddles at Ottoline to help her with the quest	Ottoline and the Yellow Cat	Chris Riddell	There is a yellow easel in the corner for holding up huge books. Ottoline is hiding behind it, observing the goings-on and solving mysteries.	The yellow cat leaps up onto the window sill and stalks past Charlie Reese who's gazing intently.
E	An eagle flying past outside passed the o'corner. That's a lucky sign.	Wish	Barbara O’Connor	A wall of windows along the next wall are where our Charlie gazes and makes a wish to see her parents	Later while hunting for her dog in the woods by the lake (by the cupboards), Charlie and Howard see the three brothers and the frog and hear guns in the distance.
F	They are sitting so quietly they don't frighten a frog by the lake.	Private Peaceful	Michael Morpurgo	A closet in the corner is a private peaceful place for Tommo to hide with his brothers.	The brothers would love to have a pet unicorn so they can escape the horrors of the front.
G	The Goat and the unicorn both have their horns caught in the green netting and are making a huge mess trying to get out before an adult sees them.   The goat is leeeaning down (Linda.. gettit?)	My Secret Unicorn: Rising Star	Linda Chapman	The next wall is covered in a green fishing net (with various displays pegged on).  The silly young unicorn's horn is stuck in the netting and her owner is trying to help her out. The older unicorn is watching, giving advice. A star is stuck in the netting trying to rise.	The unicorns are unnaturally silent in their struggle, like the students struggling with their No Talking competition nearby.
H	The hydra expressed how the principal feels, every time she tries to control the kids, they do something else weird and unexpected. One head is humming 'oranges and lemons say the bells of St Clements'	No Talking	Andrew Clements	Below the netting is a long bookshelf and a pile of boxes with the ER books. There is a group divided into boys and girls, sitting on the floor distracting themselves with books so they won't chat.	They are so quiet that Chopsticks the mouse walks right past them to snack on fallen food in the restaurant.
I	The imp is making funny faces and being a real berk.	Chopsticks	Jon Berkeley	The phonics faces on the cupboard are also like people singing the magic song that Old Fu taught the mouse to free the wooden dragon.	The dragon and his mouse friend fly over the highway where Louisiana is driving her Grandmother in search of a dentist.
J	The Joker has kidnapped Louisiana's Grandmother, like he messes with every part of Louisiana's life.	Louisiana’s Way Home	Kate DiCamillo	A second door that is never normally used is the secretive way that Louisiana's grandmother has snuck her out to find a way home.	Louisiana has learnt secret ways to survive and scavenge and charm people that she can share with Varjak Paw as they pass near the secret door.
K	The kitten called Saïd Paw is following Varjak Paw and learning the Way.	Varjak Paw	S F Said	Varjak Paw uses the 7 tricks of The Way of Jalal to shadow-walk along the string crossing the room.	Varjak Paw whispers a greeting to the dog under the green table with Cally, as he knows dog-language.
L	A Lion is leaning on Sarah as she writing this book about a special dog.	A Dog Called Homeless	Sarah Lean	Cally is hiding under the green table with the silver wolfhound (who may really be Aslan the Lion) so she can think about her mother in peace.	Cally is watching as the mouse flies out the first door on her umbrella.

All Readers Circle Posts
 https://memorycrafthk.blogspot.com/2019/12/the-readers-circle.html

https://memorycrafthk.blogspot.com/2019/12/the-readers-circle-ii.html
https://memorycrafthk.blogspot.com/2019/12/reader-circle-by-kalamata.html