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Junior Great Books in Action

Shared Inquiry Discussion is the heart of each Junior Great Books unit, or set of activities on a selection. The video segment on this page (or audio, if you prefer) will give you a taste of Shared Inquiry Discussion in a classroom.
In Shared Inquiry Discussion, students share their own ideas and answers to an open-ended, interpretive question posed by the leader. The goal is not for the group to arrive at a consensus, but for each student to develop an interpretation that he or she finds personally satisfying. The video clip (02:53) is an edited reproduction of a live discussion of the story Jack and the Beanstalk by second and third graders in a Chicago school.	Discussion of Jack and the Beanstalk (2:53 minutes) Click below for your preferred media type: RealPlayer Video 760 kb | Audio 356 kb Windows Media Player Video 881 kb | Audio 881 kb QuickTime Video 4.0 mb | Audio 156k Transcript
Sublessons: Four Rules of Shared Inquiry Discussion Worksheet: Features of Shared Inquiry Discussion Checklist for Conducting Shared Inquiry Discussion Learning Objectives of Junior Great Books Role of the Leader

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Copyright 2005 - The Great Books Foundation
Getting Started with Great Books in the Classroom

Click here to read the JGB text for Jack and the Beanstalk.

The best introduction to Shared Inquiry and using Junior Great Books is the Basic Leader Training Course.
More on JGB training...