Setting up the ground rules and expectations clearly with rationalisation and even some examples/modeling.

Teacher's enthusiasm about the book and humour engaged and got the students excited.

Book, converse, journal - use of these catchy words helped students remember

Relating RC rules to diving and gears required made it immersive and exciting for students.

Clear expectations and rules

Make connections across disciplines and books they had read

Recap on thinking routine

Animated and less threatening environment

Clear examples as she went through the points

Appropriate metaphor of scuba-diving to start talking about the text (idea of going deep and discovering treasures in the text)

Good TSR and more informal way of communicating to put students at ease with each other and with her

Distinguishing between class voice and group voice with accompanying demonstration

Good establishment of rules, yet not top-down but based on mutual respect and trust; set the correct tone for the RC

Every student should have a chance to speak - everyone matters

Seating arrangement to be in circles

Propose to have students come out with rules on their own if this is not the first time they are doing reading circles

Seating arrangement should have been in a circle for students to establish eye contact (video was probably filmed during SMM period)

Teacher could co-construct rules with students to enhance ownership of the rules and make use of the book, converse and journal phases.

Listing of too many rules might be overwhelming for students.

Students may be tasked to rationalise these rules on their own.

Too much teacher talk. More time for students to participate in discussion of rules.

Share the expectations of the class

Provide examples to the class

CARE approach

Providing negative behaviours not to be exhibited

Animated and engaging

Prepare the students to read the text and dive deep into the text

Involve the students in setting rules and expectations (if the video shown is their first session).

Students not seated in a circle. Perhaps, teacher explaining & going through the rules/ expectations.

Teacher could 'slow' down a little. Talking too fast.

Involve the students in establishing rules. Perhaps this is not the first session for them. Hence, we did not see any co-construction.

Give sentence starters to encourage students to voice out their opinions

recommended to sit in a circle as they carry on in future sessions

get students involved in setting their own rules and expectations

get them to experience communicating with one another and create their own norms / expectations with each other

Co-creating expectations with the students

Asking the students for more suggestions and encouraging them to add on to what she mentioned (providing space for students to own this process)

Prior knowledge of learners? - Is this the first time they were talking about making connections? Have they gone through RC before?

Were the students seated in a circle or in circles? They seemed to be seated in rows. Perhaps that was just the beginning of the lesson.

Book, Converse and Journal - Perhaps we could use "norms" for RC.

Suggestions (though it's hard to comment much as there was not enough context provided): could have icebreakers to get to know the students, could have been seated in a more inclusive manner to facilitate discussion

Questions: Were the students new to RC? Was there a mix of students with unequal levels of prior knowledge?

She set the tone right for the lesson by reminding the students on her expectations like class/group voice; being constructive in their feedback; how not to criticise

She used good strategies to prep the students on how they think through the lesson/discussions (Making Connections/See-Think-Wonder)

Her enthusiasm was good as it livened up the lesson and got students excited