Subject Matters: Chapter 13 – What Our Students Tell Us

This is a short chapter that tells us what our students want out of reading- in their own voices. Some useful quotes by students tell us what not to do. “I don’t like being read to. You can understand things better when your read, yourself (pg. 268).” Referring to textbooks, “I try to remember what I’ve read as long as I need to, until the test. And then, I let it go (pg. 269).” And students also tell us exactly what they want out of books: “A book needs to be interesting to catch my eye- like sports, or something to do with real life (pg. 269),” and “We teens like reading things that are filled with action and real life (pg. 270).”

So there’s our answer. Students want relevance. As does everyone when they read a text. So let’s start listening to them.

Subject Matters: Chapter 12 – Recommendations from Reading Research

One quote from this chapter struck me as particularly powerful: “In an earlier survey, three-fourths of fourth graders were found to read for fun each week, compared to only half of 12^th graders. (Daniels and Zemelman, 2004, pg. 250)”

This made me wonder, “What are we doing to students to make them hate reading so much?” It’s not as if teachers say to themselves, “Students may love reading when they start the school year, but by golly I am going to make sure they won’t want to open another book for fun for the rest of their lives, damn it.” Of course we don’t think that. But we don’t use a lot of common sense when it comes to teaching reading to our students. Do we read textbooks for fun? No. Do we feel the need pull out our scientific peer-reviewed journal articles from our Biology class and read the crap out of them when we are bored? Never. Do we go back to Shakespeare’s “Othello” when we have a free day? Not likely. Do we fondly reminisce on the more current novels we read as high schoolers? More likely. So maybe some English teachers are doing something right. We need to remember what we read or still read for fun and incorporate that into our curriculum. Not everything has to be easy or enjoyable, but it is our job as teacher to make the miserable material not so miserable. If that wasn’t our job, schools would be run by robots that made kids sit at a desk all day and read nothing but textbooks.

Subject Matters: Chapter 10 – Inquiry Units: Exploring Big Ideas

Inquiry is a topic particularly close to my heart due to my science content area. Science is best learned with hands-on exploration and demonstration. In the classes I have observed, the lab seems to be by far the most favorite part of science classes. Daniels and Zemelman (2004) say that this is because inquiry provides immediate gratification, unlike a lecture. Inquiry starts with an unanswered question which students solve mostly on their own. Inquiry activities tend to be more relevant to student’s lives, making them more enjoyable. I would like to bring inquiry into my classroom as much as possible, because it is a more creative approach to learning and better satiates students that are kinesthetic learners or have a short attention span. I feel that vocational schools are so successful because they allow students real-world experience and exploration through inquiry.

Organized Inquiry: Teaching Students to Read Like Writers

This is a book chapter from Wondrous Words by Katie Wood Ray, written in 1999. I love the ideas of teaching reading as inquiry in this chapter. My favorite part was when Wood mentioned that she has her students make lists of "noticings." This reminds me very much of what I did in my writing classes as a writing minor. We would all sit in a circle and read a text aloud or have a text read to talk about. We would break the text down, bit by bit, finding hidden meanings or discuss different interpretations of the text. We would also talk about sentences, phrases or marked collocations that really stood out, had a very powerful meaning, or just plain annoyed the crap out of us.

I would love to have my students discuss interesting science articles and other texts this way. I also love the idea that this is helpful and they are learning something whether or not they do their homework. They can hear other students' summaries and perspectives about a text, which will get them thinking and walking out of class with something useful in their heads, rather than being unable to progress or understand the lesson because they didn't complete their homework. Plus, it will get them talking as a group and answering to their peers and not just me. When I can sit in a desk in a circle with them, it will help them to see me more as a person they can talk openly to rather than a dictator.

Subjects Matter: Chapter 9 - Book Clubs

Book clubs are a great way to get students more involved. They also promote teamwork, responsibility and higher-order thinking. I would have liked to see this type of thing implemented in my 12th grade English class. I loved how the students metioned throwing out Toni Morrison's book, Beloved because it was too hard and too boring. I had to read this during my senior year and felt the exact same way. I got the Cliff's notes and watched the movie twice, as well as read the book. I still have no idea what in the hell that book was about. Had my teacher provided us with some key ideas about the book and helped us scaffold our way through it, it may have been a better experience. Another problem with our project was that we all had to read our books indiviually. A book club utilizing multiple reading strategies would have been particularly useful in breaking down a difficult text like Beloved. My peers and I could have talked our way through the text, looked up big words together and explained the ideas to each other when someone was lost. If we were all lost, we could have called the teacher over for a little extra help. Had this happened, I would have been more likely to remember something about the book other than, "It should be burned."

Subjects Matter: Chapter 4 - Toward a balanced diet of reading

On the first questionnair we had to turn in for Reading in the Content Ares, I was asked, "What is the most recent book you have read?" My AD/HD prevents me from the monogamy of reading only one book at a time, so I wrote down the last two I had read. One of them was Michio Kaku's Physics of the Future, a non-fiction book written by one of the most brilliant physicists of out time, about technology that will completely change the way we live our lives over the next century. The second book was a novel from the Sweet Valley High (SVH) series written in 1985 about an orphaned girl who was envied by the most popular girl in school. The popular girl spread vicious rumors about the orphaned girl who was Now, at first glance, someone might tink, "Wow, those are at completely opposite ends of the spectrum." But let's explore why I read them.

First, both books are actually fairly easy reads. Kaku assumes that he is writing for the non-scientist, and does an excellent job at explaining technical jargon in the simplest terms. The SVH book is obviously written at a high school level, so it also easy to digest. Second, I can relate to both books. Kaku's book talks a lot about things I want, or have in my life, cell phones, cures for life- threating diseases, safer cars, and better ways to interact with my friends and family. The SVH book discusses things I have gone through and am going through now- the pressures of school, balancing school and social aspects of my life, and social interactions with the people most important to me. In each book, I find things relevant to my life, what I value most, and stories that are engaging.

No matter what type of text is read, it can be incorporated into the classroom as long as it is relevant to the student. Some texts just take a little more scaffolding than others.

Online Lit Circles Rock!

Personally, I am not a huge fan of this idea. I like the face to face interactions and heated debate that form during group discussions. It is much easier to read someone when you can see their facial expressions and hear their tone of voice. Plus, there is no lag in conversation.

However, I feel that this option is a great idea for my students. I am a very outgoing person, so I have no problem talking in class, answering questions, speaking up when I don't know what's going on, and being blatantly honest when I disagree with an opinion. But I realize the majority of students may not feel that way. This is a great idea for the quieter students to shine in a discussion and feel more comfortable.  I feel that alternation group discussions with online literature circles, and written discussions such as the reading strategy, written conversation, can allow a class to cater to most everyone's strengths.