A note from Mary...
Thanks B-C for having me as a guest in your Study Group.
I feel as though I have gotten to know you all through your Blog site,
and it was great to meet you in person. But who the heck is Big
Daddy:)
Your postings in response to such a wide variety of readings are
honest, personal, thoughtful, and reflective.
You connect with one another through the sharing of ideas and
selves--don't you wish our students could feel the same power of
response to class reading?
It is apparant you have a learning community here--thanks for lettting
me join you for a little while--
Keep reading, learning, and growing--
Mary
5 comments:
I find it very difficult time-wise to incorporate some of the wonderful ideas we have been reading about in this text. For years I have done silent reading ( SSR) and we have shared our thoughts on different texts. In that regard, I guess I am on target with the reading being self-motivated and student selected. I am sometimes very frustrated by all I would LIKE to do, but we no longer have the "luxury" of a year-long course. Writing,literature, speaking, vocabulary building, research, listening skills, and film critiques are all addressed in our strands. I am trying to find new and varied ways to address all these and maintain a "no fluff" classroom. I'm looking forward to hearing what will be shared at our session. Being the last bastion between high school and college with my Senior classes, I feel stressed to cover what I know will be expected by the universities.
Chapter 8 discusses independent reading in content areas. There are 2 main kinds of independent reading that lifelong readers engage in; individual and small groups. People choose what to read that are interesting and accessible. It is suggested that part of every school day be devoted to independent reading. I agree and do this with my classes. The argument is that independent reading should be devoted to every school subject.
One way to accomplish this is with an independent reading workshop. It is not necessarily a piece of content or a unit. It provides structure for real-world reading. There are many benefits to this. Students can interact with each other, and it can be done in small increments of time and does not have to involve intensive assessment. These are just a few of the benefits mentioned.
Strategies must be used however to make sure these workshops work. Time should be provided in class, students should select what they want to read, and assessment should be brief and simple. Also, reading material should be used wisely, and students should be kept on task. Our reading in my class has been effective and the students seem to enjoy reading.
The main thing that always strikes me about independent reading is: Why didn't I do it sooner? It seems like such a simple idea--and especially one that would (one would think!) come naturally to an English teacher. But it wasn't until I came to BC that it even struck me as a possibility. I don't think it was ever presented to me in my college instruction (personal journals were all the rage way back then)...
But IR has so many benefits--and not just instructional, but behavioral, getting to know interests.....
I don't think I use the time to all of its possibilities--esp. using IR for conferences--if I'm talking to one student, there is inevitably a disruption or possibility to distract others; so I just let them read and then have little "so, what's going on?" quick responses.
I found that I don't (can't) use the same assessment for very long--sometimes a journal, sometimes the w/s with the boxes, sometimes an exit slip, sometimes just a particiapation/observation grade.
I will keep using IR and will still marvel that it took me until my (what was it?) 5th or 6th year of teaching to 'discover' it!
Chapter 8 was a cluster of different approaches to teaching reading. When you have a student excited about reading you must keep that interest by offering other books or articles on what they like to read. Let them present to the class what they have learned; I call it the EXPERT.
I tried this with my Strategies for Success because I have the flexiblility. The other day during their Private Reading time we had a guest speaker come in early and we had stop reading. They were not happy, so I was surprised & proud then one student even said if we have time at the end of the period can we finish. The guest speaker even commented they like to read. YEH WHO WOULD HAVE THUNK IT!!!!!!
Chapter 9 Book Clubs
The author may have something here to help our summer reading issues! Have the students suggest books for summer reading in the various grade levels. The classes could make arguments for or against recommended books not for this coming summer but the next summer. That would give the adults in charge time to go over the student recommendations. This would give students a voice in the choice of books. Talk about reading with a purpose! At the end of the year when all of the testing is done like “end of course,” HSAP, AP, and MAP, teachers are look for purposeful activities for students. This would be a great way to get student input. Book clubs could be formed so that there is reading, discussions of books and writing of reviews up until the end of school.
Of course, there is the problem of lack of sets of books. The media center usually only has two or three copies of the same book, so books would need to be borrowed from the public library or the English department in order to give groups of students the same books. I think these details could somehow be worked out. We may even have a vendor who would be willing to send numerous copies of books if they knew that we were going to purchase sets for grade levels to read over the summer. We could purchase some copies and have other copies available for students to purchase. It could be a summer reading book fair if we had a smaller list to choose from, not all of the South Carolina Book Award lists, all of the Coretta Scott King winners, and all of the 100 Best Reads from the South Carolina State Department of Education.
I haven’t tried a regular book club at BC in a long time. I mentioned starting a book club to some girls in the media center one day last week and they seemed very excited. But when I asked them to give me some titles that we could consider, I heard titles that I would not ever put in the media center collection. Some of them I would be ashamed to read in front of other people, therefore, my enthusiasm waned. The girls left the media center saying things like “you know we can’t be readin’ stuff like that in the library.” “But it sho’ would make a interesting book club!”
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