In the cases of Mr. Wade and Mr. Gow the most salient difference between the two of them is the amount of time they spoke during the class period. Mr. Wade talks 72% of the time, while Mr. Gow talks 9% of the time. In Mr. Gow’s case, students have the advantage of talking more in small groups and in class than Mr. Wade’s students. Mr. Wade’s practice is familiar to me, but as I remember my college and high school courses where teachers talked for the majority of the class time, I remember wanting to fall asleep, tuning out, and not listening to what they were saying. Therefore, I feel that Mr. Wade’s students would have done the same thing. The students are not soaking up the information he is saying because they are not actively participating in the discussion. In Mr. Gow’s discussion he has students look at he gives students a visual aid and asks them to study it and explain what is in the pictures. It says, “…it is interesting that it begins with students’ simply noting what they see but that within a dozen lines they begin to interpret what they see” (15). Students’ interpret the images and then start forming a conclusion about the relationship of the two pictures. In Mr. Wade’s discussion he asks students to break apart an essay and have the students fill in a chicken foot outline for the main idea, thesis, and categories. Mr. Wade says, “Show me you see its structure.”
“Irene: Show you?” A student is obviously confused at what he means but then he just repeats himself, when he says, “Show the structure of the piece, the outline. You’re familiar with the chicken foot, right?” Mr. Wade then continues to talk at the students, and not allowing the students to ask questions, or tell him what they think. He just tells them what they were supposed to find, and he tells them what the problems are in the piece. He thinks for the student and doesn’t make the