Online Reading Circles Role Sheet

Creative Connector
Name: Wes Williamson
Chapter 3
Group Identification Group B (Tess, Alain, Lainey, Vicki & Wes)
2015

Book Chapter:
Date: June 8,

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Your job is to find connections between your circles required readings and the world outside. This means
connecting the reading to your own life, to happenings in the place of your profession, your community,
to similar events at other times and places, or to other people or problems that you are reminded of. You
might see connections between the required readings and other writings on the same topic. You might be
able to make connections to other books by the same author or another author. There are no right or
wrong answers.
In other words, you will be responsible to make creative connections to other important ideas and or
personal or professional experiences of the members of the group.
This role can be combined with the Illustrator Role *** strongly recommended for small groups.
You should plan to spend at least a total of an hour or an hour and half in each online reading circle
meeting talking about all 5 roles.
Some connections I found between this reading and other people, places, events, authors are and
based on our discussions, more connection are . . .
1. Expertise: More than knowing a lot (suggested reading p. 50-55)
Max McMann has become the most popular local chef and his restaurant is
only able to seated with a reservation, and he has become renowned for his
ability to make adventurous beef dishes. The local community college is
offering a non-credit, 10 meeting cooking course titled, My First Flavorful
Vegan Dishes, and Max has been asked to lead a cooking demonstration for
one of the courses. Although Max is a classically trained chef, it has been a
while since he has prepared a vegan dish. He browsed through his personal
recipes and found a recipe for quinoa that can serve as a main course, and
decided to try it out at home to be sure he could still make it. He also decided
to review some information on quinoa and decided to relate it back to
cooking rice, because it is also a grain and needs to be cooked under
pressure and has a neutral taste. He also wants to be able to discuss some of
the nutritional properties of quinoa, such as the fact that its a complete
protein and can nutritionally replace meat. A few hours before the class Max
checks to make sure he is ready to teach the course. His check included
having recipe cards for the class, the correct ingredients (and enough for
everyone), memorized the recipe, recalls the information about quinoa, and

his practice batch at home tasted great! He is ready to share this culinary
experience with the class!!
2. Empathy: Connecting to the student and displaying empathy (suggested
reading p. 56-68)
Dr. Better is an internal medicine physician that has noticed his previous
attempts to encourage obese patients to loose weight have been
unsuccessful they weigh about the same at each physical. He decided to
reflect about how he has traditionally handled his conversation with his
patients . . . tell them they are overweight, exercise more, eat fewer calories.
Dr. Better is beginning to think this approach may be the problem and
decided to start taking a different approach with his patients. He has decided
that he will start to ask his patients open ended questions, offer constructive
feedback, and maintain eye contact with them during this part of their
physical. Questions he intends to start asking:
a. Do you think you are overweight?
b. Can describe what food you tend to eat? How often? How much at
one meal?
c. What are some lower calorie foods that you enjoy?
d. How often do you exercise?
e. What are your three favorite exercises?
f. Are you interested in improving your health through weight loss?
Improved diet? Increased exercise?
Dr. Better hope that this will help him connect with his patients a little more,
to understand his patients health goals, understand their challenges, and
help them learn strategies to improve their health.
3. Enthusiastic Teacher and their impact (suggested reading: p. 68-77)
Have you ever wondered what the schoolteacher was doing in the classroom?
https://youtu.be/ss2hULhXf04
She doesnt sound very enthusiastic and Peppermint Patty doesnt seem to
be learning the lesson and Charlie Brown seems to be a bit distracted as well
it doesnt seem that they are learning much form this lesson. It sounds like
the teacher is speaking in a very dry, even, monotone manner. Given that the
teacher is not responding to the students, Id say she is not moving around
the classroom very much and is probably just reading from her notes.
4. Power and the learning process (suggested reading p. 93-94)
There are a variety of ways to classify learners, age, gender, social status,
etc., which can have a profound impact on the amount of power that a
teacher is perceived to have over a group of learners. Imagine a narcotics
officer in full uniform at the local all girls elementary school talking to 5 th
graders about the illegality of drugs, what terrible things drugs can do to your
body, and the punishments such as jail time for being caught with drugs. It
would be a safe assumption to think that these learners would take the
lecture to heart, but maybe out of fear from the authoritative position of the
officer. If this same officer presents the same lecture to a group of male
felons that are incarcerated, would this lecture have the same impact?
Probably not.