I’m so excited that you all wanted to continue with the professional book blog. And I’m even more excited that we’re reading more of Kelly Gallagher! Seriously, how fabulous can one person be? McDonald’s words best describes my feeling about Readicide: I’m lovin’ it! As usual, Gallagher packs so much punch into a small space that I had a hard time choosing just a couple of quotes to pull. I didn’t want to use more so I wouldn’t steal what someone else wanted to bring to light. I ran into Christy last week and she wants to get together just to talk about the book! So, keep that thought in the back of your mind…we may have to have a study group reunion and chat! It won’t have to be at school. This reading is by all choice—no grades or anything attached—so we can go somewhere fun if y’all want! On to the text…
Introduction
(Page 2) “Today, more than ever, valuable classroom time presents the best opportunity—often the only opportunity—to turn kids on to reading.”
I think I’ve told y’all before, but one of the things I miss about being in the classroom is getting to read for 90 minutes every day. (3 classes x 30 minutes of SSR each day = 90 minutes) Life outside of school is busy—for teachers AND students. How many students do we have who have to take care of siblings after school? Work to help pay the bills? Involved in extra-curricular activities? Just deal with crazy drama at home? All of that other stuff can make it difficult to have time to read. By giving students that time at school (hence school-wide SSR) we are introducing students to the world of reading just for the heck of it. My only concern about school-wide SSR is the teachers who don’t value the time, and the students don’t value the time as a result of teacher behavior. I’m not saying everyone needs to read a novel—that’s not realistic real world reading. But how can we get the teachers who are not so excited about SSR to realize that they do actually read—be it the newspaper, magazines, et cetera—so they can translate to students that reading is important?
Chapter One
(Page 21) “Less than 14 percent of low-income students are reading at grade level.”
Alright, let’s think about this for a minute in terms of Airport. We have somewhere in the neighborhood of 60% of our students on free and reduced lunch. Free and reduced lunch is an indicator of poverty. That means roughly 840 of our students are low-income students, so when going by the statistic Gallagher provides, we’ve got about 720 students who do NOT read on grade level at Airport High School. If around half of our population are not able to read on grade level, why in the world would we assign them textbook reading without any guidance? Why would we have them read classic novels—that were written for an adult audience—for homework and expect them to understand what they read? I’m not saying that we shouldn’t set high expectations for students and not utilize the resources. (Well, okay, maybe I wouldn’t mind skipping most of the classics!) What I am saying is that if we are going to use these materials, we’ve got to provide MUCH support IN class, so that students can get something from it. Are students learning how to think from the material we’re using, or are they just “playing” school? Are we just dispensers of knowledge, doling out what we think students should know, or are we letting students discuss readings with their peers and the class so they can THINK and discover new knowledge?
Introduction
(Page 2) “Today, more than ever, valuable classroom time presents the best opportunity—often the only opportunity—to turn kids on to reading.”
I think I’ve told y’all before, but one of the things I miss about being in the classroom is getting to read for 90 minutes every day. (3 classes x 30 minutes of SSR each day = 90 minutes) Life outside of school is busy—for teachers AND students. How many students do we have who have to take care of siblings after school? Work to help pay the bills? Involved in extra-curricular activities? Just deal with crazy drama at home? All of that other stuff can make it difficult to have time to read. By giving students that time at school (hence school-wide SSR) we are introducing students to the world of reading just for the heck of it. My only concern about school-wide SSR is the teachers who don’t value the time, and the students don’t value the time as a result of teacher behavior. I’m not saying everyone needs to read a novel—that’s not realistic real world reading. But how can we get the teachers who are not so excited about SSR to realize that they do actually read—be it the newspaper, magazines, et cetera—so they can translate to students that reading is important?
Chapter One
(Page 21) “Less than 14 percent of low-income students are reading at grade level.”
Alright, let’s think about this for a minute in terms of Airport. We have somewhere in the neighborhood of 60% of our students on free and reduced lunch. Free and reduced lunch is an indicator of poverty. That means roughly 840 of our students are low-income students, so when going by the statistic Gallagher provides, we’ve got about 720 students who do NOT read on grade level at Airport High School. If around half of our population are not able to read on grade level, why in the world would we assign them textbook reading without any guidance? Why would we have them read classic novels—that were written for an adult audience—for homework and expect them to understand what they read? I’m not saying that we shouldn’t set high expectations for students and not utilize the resources. (Well, okay, maybe I wouldn’t mind skipping most of the classics!) What I am saying is that if we are going to use these materials, we’ve got to provide MUCH support IN class, so that students can get something from it. Are students learning how to think from the material we’re using, or are they just “playing” school? Are we just dispensers of knowledge, doling out what we think students should know, or are we letting students discuss readings with their peers and the class so they can THINK and discover new knowledge?
7 comments:
I cannot agree more, Diane. I’m lovin’ it, too. I told Amanda the other day that I’m on my way to being the next Kelly Gallagher with my new document camera. Don’t I wish!
Let me start by writing how much I love our school’s SSR program. I wish I still had ninety-minute classes so that I could easily give twenty minutes of reading in my class each day; some things just don’t work out. However, through our SSR program, kids get to read…better yet, they get to read what they want! Since our new ninth graders don’t know the daily schedule yet (keeping our Monday/Tuesday/Thursday schedule separate from our crazy Wednesday and Friday schedules), many of them ask, “When are we having SSR?” They want it. How great is that?! And, in this case, who are we not to give them what they want and what they need?!
I underlined a number of quotes throughout these two sections. Sometimes I found myself saying, “Ouch!” out loud in response to what Gallagher wrote. But what he writes is so true…whether it steps on some toes or not.
“Simply, a curriculum driven by multiple-choice assessments creates an oxymoron: many students are drowning in shallow ‘water.’”
The problem most definitely is that our students are “drowning in shallow water.” I know the weight that is placed on standardized testing; however, I know more than that how important it is that we teach our students to develop into good readers and thinkers. How are we going to do this when we only emphasize the test? Better yet, how are we going to do this when the test is just a multiple-choice test? Just as Gallagher noted, I believe standards are important, but there are way too many to ensure good instruction. When we find ourselves rushing through the standards because we have to, what type of learning is occurring? And then, as Gallagher noted, it upsets us equally to know we didn’t get through everything we were told to get through in a year. In a way, while I see the importance of standards, I think they also make good teachers feel they’re always falling short. I would have to vote that sometimes they are more stressful than attending a wrestling match, Claire!
Random side note: I am so glad that Gallagher is an advocate for keeping novels in the classroom. I believe strongly in reading longer pieces of text. Also, I think students and teachers love thematic units…or at least we do.
Sorry, y’all. I feel like my thoughts have been random, but let me end with this: I am excited to read on in this book to learn from Gallagher. I want my classroom to be one where my students do develop as readers and thinkers…not mere test-takers.
I love me some Kelly Gallagher, that is reading his books! Yes, the nerd in me read this book the first few days after we got out of school for summer vacation. So in order to blog, I am rereading. I would suggest everyone jumping ahead to page 47 and reading about “The Article-of-the-Week.” Then go to his website. I used the article about ten things to be thankful for during the first week of school.
On page 3 there is this quote, “In addition, USA Today reported that 27 percent of adults in this country did not read a single book in 2007.” I find that to be very sad. Most of you have heard me tell my stories about how I have gotten one of our coaches here at Airport reading. I am not going to bust him out by name on this blog, but ask me sometime, and I will tell you who. Anyway, in January 2008, he asked me to recommend a book for him to read during the schoolwide independent reading time. I suggested Bleachers by John Grisham, because it was about high school football players returning to their school for their coach’s funeral. Since then, he has read 6 other books and is currently working on number 7. His favorite, so far, is The Lords of Discipline by Pat Conroy. As much as I like to get my students hooked on books, it has been just as cool to get an adult who hasn’t read in years to read for pleasure. Just like I do with my students, I am constantly looking for books that might be of interest, and I already have his next two books picked out.
On page 4, Gallagher says, “But despite these realworld obstacles, I have walked into my classroom each year convinced I could turn many of my reluctant readers around. Why have I remained optimistic? Because school is where I have the opportunity to discuss books with my students. At school, students are given both time and a place to read interesting books. And at school, educators are more interested in developing lifelong readers than in developing short-term test-takers.” There is nothing I love more than the challenge of a student who says you won’t get me to like books. I don’t know if any of you taught Christian Lear, 2008 graduate of Airport. I had him in eighth grade language arts at Fulmer, and he pretty much told me at the beginning of the year that I wouldn’t be able to find a book he would like. It took a while, but I found a series that he loved and would read. At the time, Chrisitan played baseball, and I got him hooked on a series by Dan Gutman where the main character time travels back to when a former professional baseball player was in his prime. The main character is then faced with deciding if he wants to change the course of history by altering what that player does in his career. One title in the series is Shoeless Joe and Me. To get to Christian, I used Teri Lesesne’s practice of “the right book for the right reader at the right time.” For more information on this, you might want to read her professional book, Making the Match.
I am always up for dinner and talking about books, Readicide or any others. So count me in on any plans to take this discussion outside the confines of my classroom and this blog!
READICIDE: Introduction and Chapter 1
First, I would like to thank Diane for the deciding to continue with the professional book blog. It’s nice having the opportunity to read others’ perspective on different topics and any other material. I’m game when you all decide to have the reunion that should fun.
Introduction and Chapter 1
I’m thankful that at AHS, our administrative staff and the majority of the staff support and endorse our school wide SSR time. I agree with the author and Diane that this is sometimes the only opportunity that some of our students have to read for enjoyment. I have seen first hand how providing the opportunities for reading in my class have benefited my students in a lot ways especially with their journal entries.
Gallagher is such a prolific writer and pacts a great deal of wisdom. I wish that it was mandatory for government officials or powers to be to have to read his books and just maybe our education system would be better off.
A statement that stood out for me, page 10—“There is a big difference between memorizing facts and understanding history, between teachers simply being information dispensers versus teachers turning students into deep thinkers. Unfortunately, I was exposed to the sprint through-the-book philosophy, and as a result, it was nearly twenty years after high school before I started reading history again. I fear many of my students, in this rush to cover all material for the spring tests, will leave our schools uninterested in history, in science, in literature, and in reading.” I can relate with this statement, because I often remember cramming for tests and doing well on the tests and afterwards remembering nothing. Only thing you’re concerned about as a student is passing the test, and not what you can gain from the experiences. As you get older things become more meaningful to you, but if we can get our students excited about history, literature, and other things while they are in school they could appreciate their education and become deeper thinkers.
Readicide Intro & Chapter 1:
I’m fairly certain I could be motivated at any point in time or any place by Kelly Gallagher. He’s just such an open realist that it’s hard for me to think of people who couldn’t agree with his point of view or at least find meaning in it.
In the introduction, Gallagher wrote how when he asked one of his students about reading, she replied “I’m not really interested in books, pages, and words.” Although it killed me then and continues to with some now, Pam can vouch that when I did Myth of the Boring Topic” last year, my students’ consensus for the boring topic was reading. Like Gallagher, I loath the idea that any of my students would leave high school not interested in books, pages, and words, but I can see how it happens. Most don’t have the time, resources, or confidence to read for pleasure outside of school. I had a big battle with one of mine last year about SSR. I require mine to participate in SSR every day and he knew his friends only did it 3 days a week. The interesting thing about this student is that he’d come in daily (and still does) bursting to tell me what the latest political comments are on Fox News or what’s happening in sports that he saw on ESPN. So I ordered Newsweek and Sports Illustrated for him thinking those would be good motivators, not realizing the levels are too difficult. He’d glance at the pictures, captions and titles in both for a few minutes and then ultimately still put his head down. Once I figured out that it’s not a lack of interest as much as it is confidence in his reading, I went and bought some interesting fact books that are chopped up into small sentences and it turned out that all my kids loved those and gab back and forth constantly about them. I agree that it’s much more important for educators to develop life long readers than it is short term test takers.
While I’m certain we all could go on for days about NCLB and it’s wonders for education, my last thought on these sections is that Gallagher and Sternberg really hit it on the nose with the idea of training our students to be expert citizens rather than filling them with factoids and memorization. What a novel idea! :O)
First of all, let me apologize for being such a slacker.
I read the first chapter at the beginning of the school year and then needed to reread before coming to write this blog. Since that time, I have gone online to put my class profile together for SAT/ACT prep. I have also daily been faced with the challenge of teaching vocabulary and grammar skills. And never have these issues of literacy in school been as prominent in my mind as they are now. Some of you may have seen my facebook status. It was funny and it was tragic at the same time. I honestly had a student who didn't know what "incompetent" meant.
I was also struck by acheivement gaps demonstrated in the charts on pp. 15-16. But there again, it just emphasizes how important reading is.
Many of my students in SAT/ACT prep are struggling with their writing (or even speaking proper English). When I correct their speech/writing, it's not uncommon for the student to look at me blankly, as if they've never heard sentences structured that way before. It just goes to show, the less students are exposed to proper English outside of school, the more they NEED to be reading inside of school.
On a side note, building vocabulary by rote memorization is neither beneficial (long-term) nor fun. Still, my students cleary need help in developing their vocabulary. If any of you happen to have some fun things that you do with your students, I would certainly appreciate hearing about them!
Looking forward to reading/discussing this book with all of you!
Nicole, you are so on the money about building vocabulary is not effective if taught through rote memorization. Students/people need to hear a word 13-15 IN CONTEXT to make it a part of their regular vocabulary. So, if you want students to learn new words, then those words have to become something they hear on a regular basis. You may want to introduce a word and explain its meaning with something y'all are reading then continue to use that word in your own speech so they have repeated exposure to it being used correctly!
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