Edublog Reflection: Lumping and Splitting

Hello, friends. The time has come for me to reflect on a post by an edublogger. That edublogger is Bill Ferriter, his blog is The Tempered Radical, and the post is called "Activity: Helping Students Find New Books."

Ferriter's post talks about the overwhelming feeling that struggling readers get when they walk into the library looking for a book. Without a strong sense of what they are looking for or what they enjoy reading, some students might be inclined to just grab a few books off the shelf and call it a day. Although there is some merit to letting students figure this process out on their own, Ferriter argues that teachers should take a more active role in helping students find books.

What I found most interesting about the article was Ferriter's discussion of the concept of "lumping and splitting." From what I was able to derive, lumping and splitting involves organizing (lumping) a collection of information - be it songs, books, movies, quotes, etc. - based on some type of criteria such as relationships to things you know you like or recommendations by friends, and then dividing (splitting) that collection into workable groups. For the example of the struggling reader in the library, being assisted through the process of collecting a sample of books they might be interested in, and then parsing through them to pick the best ones, could be very very helpful. Ferriter also argues that students can help each other with lumping and splitting, by making recommendations and evaluating different books.

I am really intrigued by the concept of lumping and splitting, and wonder how it could be applied more generally. It got me thinking about how not that much attention is given to things like notetaking and organizing information, even though those skills are SO valuable in college and beyond. Perhaps teachers should take more time to teach students HOW to learn, rather than what.