(Page 65) “I am not advocating that we allow students to self-select everything they read. If I did that, none of my students would read Hamlet. Every student should read Hamlet.”
I was so thrilled when I read these words from Gallagher (the first sentence, not necessarily the last) because there seems to be some sort of movement by some for teachers not to use one novel with an entire class; the proverbial they think students should be able to choose what they want to read. The thought is that we choose what we want to read as adults, and if we want to develop lifelong readers, we should have them start the practice in school. There was an article on the front page of the New York Times back in August spotlighting a teacher who allowed students complete choice. (http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/30/books/30reading.html?_r=1&emc=eta1)
Y’all know I’m all about some choice for students, but I had wondered if there wasn’t some benefit with kids reading the same text—and sometimes a text that students wouldn’t tackle otherwise. I think Gallagher makes the point when he writes that none of his students would read Hamlet if he didn’t have them read it. I read Hamlet my senior year of high school (in addition to Macbeth…I think my teacher was of the Gallagher thought that every student should read Hamlet, so we got to read two Shakespearan plays). The thing is I actually liked the play, but I certainly would not have read it otherwise. As students, we were even excited when the Mel Gibson version came out in theatres that year and we went to see it (for five bucks in the evening, I might add). And I was much better able to appreciate the Gilligan’s Island episode when producer Harold Hecuba is stranded on the island, so the castaways create and perform Hamlet: The Musical. It's absolutely one of the greatest episodes ever. (God help us all if any of you young chicks have never seen an episode of Gilligan's Island!)
I think the key to all of this (as is the key to most thing in teaching) is the delivery. If the teacher has a genuine interest in a text, I think she can get the students excited about it as well. I swear if the opportunity presented itself, my literacy coach friend Sonya could make me love The Scarlet Letter. On my own, I don’t see that happening. Was I supposed to read it in high school? Sure. Did my American Literature teacher do anything to make the text accessible or relevant to me? Absolutely not. Other than the general symbolism that “everyone” is supposed to know about the scarlet A on Hester’s chest, pretty much the only thing I remember about The Scarlet Letter is watching the movie in class and Pearl (Hester’s daughter) having a meltdown in the woods. So, if we choose to teach a difficult text (read: most classics), we must find that balance of making it understandable to students without beating it to death!
I was so thrilled when I read these words from Gallagher (the first sentence, not necessarily the last) because there seems to be some sort of movement by some for teachers not to use one novel with an entire class; the proverbial they think students should be able to choose what they want to read. The thought is that we choose what we want to read as adults, and if we want to develop lifelong readers, we should have them start the practice in school. There was an article on the front page of the New York Times back in August spotlighting a teacher who allowed students complete choice. (http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/30/books/30reading.html?_r=1&emc=eta1)
Y’all know I’m all about some choice for students, but I had wondered if there wasn’t some benefit with kids reading the same text—and sometimes a text that students wouldn’t tackle otherwise. I think Gallagher makes the point when he writes that none of his students would read Hamlet if he didn’t have them read it. I read Hamlet my senior year of high school (in addition to Macbeth…I think my teacher was of the Gallagher thought that every student should read Hamlet, so we got to read two Shakespearan plays). The thing is I actually liked the play, but I certainly would not have read it otherwise. As students, we were even excited when the Mel Gibson version came out in theatres that year and we went to see it (for five bucks in the evening, I might add). And I was much better able to appreciate the Gilligan’s Island episode when producer Harold Hecuba is stranded on the island, so the castaways create and perform Hamlet: The Musical. It's absolutely one of the greatest episodes ever. (God help us all if any of you young chicks have never seen an episode of Gilligan's Island!)
I think the key to all of this (as is the key to most thing in teaching) is the delivery. If the teacher has a genuine interest in a text, I think she can get the students excited about it as well. I swear if the opportunity presented itself, my literacy coach friend Sonya could make me love The Scarlet Letter. On my own, I don’t see that happening. Was I supposed to read it in high school? Sure. Did my American Literature teacher do anything to make the text accessible or relevant to me? Absolutely not. Other than the general symbolism that “everyone” is supposed to know about the scarlet A on Hester’s chest, pretty much the only thing I remember about The Scarlet Letter is watching the movie in class and Pearl (Hester’s daughter) having a meltdown in the woods. So, if we choose to teach a difficult text (read: most classics), we must find that balance of making it understandable to students without beating it to death!
5 comments:
This was another great chapter! I agree wholeheartedly with Gallagher. We must allow students to find “imaginative rehearsals” for the real world in literature. It’s not about the worksheets, analyzing every character to death, etc. It’s about the real-world connections students can make!
My favorite quote (although there were many) was, “We do not want our students only to read stories; we want them to read novels to make them wiser about the world. We want to take advantage of the imaginative rehearsals that great literature provides before our students reach adulthood.”
When I read a book for pleasure, it’s so very true that I don’t pause and complete a worksheet or write in a double-entry journal. I know teachers are trying to help their students become better readers and to help them develop thinking skills; however, Gallagher emphasis the value of allowing students to enjoy a book and to actually get into the flow of reading. I know when I don’t get into a flow of a book, I never end up finishing it. Is it any wonder that we find ourselves losing students in the middle of a novel study? If we take too long or if we chop the book up too much, Gallagher’s right…we’re assistants in readicide.
As always, I appreciated the strategies Gallagher offers and the ways to avoid readicide. I remember talking about the Big Idea assignment last year in SCRI. It’s great to find real-life articles that thematically connect to the literature being studied. Also, I love the idea of having groups sum up the article/illustrate the article using only ten words or less. Then, when students present work jigsaw style, they’re reporting to their classmates and opening up discussions that may very well never have popped up while simply reading through the novel. I also really like the one-pager that Gallagher has created for students’ independent reading. I would really like to use this in my class. I fear there are still kids who will try to work their way through the system without truly reading; however, I think this is a much less intimidating assignment than some teachers assign for book reports/projects. Also, Gallagher notes that this is simply used as a springboard into reading conferences.
Great chapter. Great ideas.
READICDE: How Schools Are Killing Reading and What You Can Do About It
Chapter 3
The first thought to reading this chapter was WOW! Double WOW!! This writer is truly remarkable, amazing, sensational, outstanding, magnificent, and many more adjectives that you can come up with to show how incredible I feel about this author and his books. Gallagher’s book should be mandatory for every teacher, future teacher, principal, board member, governor, representative, senator, president or any one that makes decisions for children.
The point that stood out to me the most was found on page 59, it states, “Chloe’s lament encapsulates what has gone wrong in our schools: the creation of readicide through intensive over analysis of literature and nonfiction. Young readers are drowning in a sea of sticky notes, marginalia, and double-entry journals, and as such, their love of reading is being killed in the one place where the nourishment of a reading habit should be occurring—in school. The irony, of course, is that as a young reader, Chloe was turned off to reading by the very teachers whose purpose was to turn her on to reading. Her love of reading, however, was squashed by the constant over teaching, the constant teacher-induced interruptions, the constant chopping up of great books.” I could take this paragraph and substitute my daughter’s name in the place of Chloe’s. I think back how much my daughter loved to read, and the change that took place while she was in high school. As Gallagher has mentioned that while we are reading, do we want to stop reading? I know that I have stayed up to 3:00 am to finish reading a book knowing I had to go to work the next morning. Even though, Gallagher’s teaches us how this can squashed a student’s love of reading; he doesn’t leave us hanging on a rope. He gives you strategies to make a change and a positive difference to your students. I will definitely use several of the strategies he used in this chapter. On pages 79-82, the strategies—Start with the Guided Tour; End with the Budget Tour, 2nd—Augment Books Instead of Flogging Them, 3rd—Create Topic Floods and, 4th—The One Pager.
Diane thanks again for setting this blog up so we could get acquainted with another of Gallagher’s awesome books that we can learned more new ideas to enhance our students’ learning.
I’m finally getting around to my blog about Chapter 3 of Readicide. Ruth Anne and Deb, I love what both of you had to say. I agree that this is an incredible chapter filled with wonderful ideas. Ruth Anne, I am with you on the one-pagers. I am going to implement those next semester in place of my weekly reading logs. I am going to require that my students finish two books by the end of the nine weeks and complete two different one-pagers. Since we read every day in my class for at least 30 minutes, I think this is a reasonable assignment. I am going to demo this assignment using the class novels we read this semester, so that they have a model of my expectations. Another nugget of information that I loved in this chapter was on page 84 when Gallagher listed his three ingredients that are foundational to building young readers: 1. They must have interesting books, 2. They must have time to read the books inside of school, and 3. They must have a place to read their books. In contrast to that, I had to laugh about “The Kill-a-Reader Casserole” on page 73.
The other activity in this chapter that I think has real merit is the topic floods mentioned on page 81. It seems to be an extension of his idea of the article of the week, because you could certainly build and/or strengthen prior knowledge using both ideas. I also think that it promotes the reading of more informational text which our students don’t do enough of. I will probably tackle this idea next year, but I like it, and it is marinating in my head as I continue to plan for the year.
Your blog keeps getting better and better! Your older articles are not as good as newer ones you have a lot more creativity and originality now keep it up!
Pam, let me know how the one-pagers went!
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