During the 45 minutes of group work, it was apparent that the students were highly engaged in performing the task. Each of the students performed their designated roles diligently and collaborated with one another to achieve the objectives of the task. Occasionally, one student from the group would get up to obtain paper and markers from the cupboard or a dictionary from the class library. Some students even asked permission to use the computer to do research on the book.
At the end of the group activity, each group of students presented their analyses of the themes and characters from selected scenes. In one group presentation, one of the students provided a verbal presentation of the students' ideas, while another student fast-forwarded and paused the tape at appropriate moments. Another student was responsible for pointing out the ideas that were written on a big piece of paper. The second group offered a dramatic re-enactment of the scene with exaggerated mannerisms, which demonstrated their analysis of the characters. After their presentation, each of the members explained their re-enactment to the rest of the class. As with the first group, the third group also did a verbal presentation. However, they illustrated their discussion of the themes in a visual organizer by inserting their ideas in boxes and illustrating their inter-relationships with arrows.
Throughout the presentations, the teacher simply recorded her observations, asked prompting questions to guide the students in their presentation and suggested changes to their writings.
In re-examining the lesson within the context of various teaching strategies, it was evident that it incorporated the strategies of multiple intelligences, brain-based learning and cooperative learning. Recognizing that her students had diverse cognitive strengths and the existence of multiple intelligences as identified by Howard Gardner (2005) in...