Readicide- How schools are killing reading.

As a lover of books and an English education minor, it breaks my heart that today's students are not falling in love with reading, instead they are becoming students that avoid reading at all cost but it also doesn’t surprise me. Sadly my college experience is slowly choking my love of reading while teaching me how to save reading in our schools.  

In my English class alone this week I have two reading responses due, on top of reading for a mini-lesson presentation due in two weeks, reading so I can plan for a unit I have to create and reading for a book talk I have to present in a week. I also have to read 2-3 chapters a week for my education class. All this reading is supposed to be done in between classes, student teaching, work, sleep; other non-reading based homework, a social life, and daily life (eating, driving, exercise). I am a moderately fast reading but even I can’t fit all that into the day and still maintain a healthy balance. 

I think the biggest contributor to readicide is time. We either spend too much time reading for analysis and meaning or not enough time because of test preparation. 

I absolutely love getting “caught in the flow” of reading. I could be so absorbed in a book that I forget to eat or move for hours at a time. Yet I think the last time I read a book for pleasure was summer before I came to college, over four years ago! Between all the reading I have to do for school, work, and student teaching the last thing I want to do is pick up a book, which is really sad because I am missing out on a lot of amazing stories. 

As a teacher, I know I need to teach my students how to analyze text, how to annotate a document and how to discern meaning from an author. However, I don’t think J.K Rowling wrote Harry Potter wanting it to be analyzed for purpose and meaning. I don’t think she made Harry’s eyes green like his moms because of some deep philosophical purpose, I think they are green because J.K Rowling liked the color over brown or blue eyes. I think authors write because they want to tell a story, and in our over-teaching of analysis and obsession with standardized tests, we no longer let students read for the simple joy of reading a good story. 

However, in order for that to happen, we need to give students time to read. I could watch all 8 Harry Potter movies in less time then it would take to read one of the books. Knowing that how can I expect a student to read the book over watching the movie if I and my fellow teachers give so much homework a night that they have less than 30 minutes every day to relax? I have to remember that reading is only enjoyable when it can be done stress-free and peacefully. 

We need to bring back silent reading and encourage kids to just read with no assignment, paper or sticky-note required. 

I Read It, But I Don't Get It

This book has been on my reading list for quite some time, I have had multiple professors suggest Cris Tovani as a great resource for new teachers, and I was really fascinated by how this book related to me as a student and a teacher.

I fake read all through high school and to be honest have done it a little in college. Sometimes it was because I wasn't interested in the material, sometimes it was because I had procrastinated and needed to read it quickly and then sometimes it was because I felt overwhelmed by my workload and felt like I had to prioritize things and reading went on the back burner. Our students have the same issues. A lot of my students will tell me that they didn't complete the homework because they had to do math homework first and rang out of time to finish their other assignments. So as a teacher I need to be aware of the workload of my students and their other commitments. Obviously, extra-curricular activities or elective classes are not excuses for incomplete work but other classes are also important and we cant overwhelm our students. Reading is important but if we as teachers make it feel like a chore then our students will never love reading and they will never "get it".

I think another thing that Cris points out is that in order to get our students to read we have to model reading. We have to show them that reading is fun (as cheesy as that sounds) and we have to model how to read well. Especially now in the age of technology when students won't read the book because there is probably a T.V. show or movie about it. Students dont read by choice anymore, at least not often and as teachers, we have the opportunity to change that.

Social Justice in the Classroom.

When the assignment this week was to explore the idea of social justice in the classroom I thought the best place to start would be the actual definition of social justice which is: the distribution of advantages and disadvantages within a society. I think I am not alone in feeling this definition is extremely vague in describing social justice in reality. The next step in my discovery was to find an article or blog about social justice and I found one written by Becky Ropers-Huilman a professor at Lousiana State University, titled Social Justice in the Classroom: Understanding the Implications of Interlocking Oppressions; which explored how each of us has experienced different forms of oppression that affect us differently. 

For example, I am a caucasian, upper middle class, straight, christian, American born citizen and am not part of the oppressed groups relating to race, class, sexual orientation, religion or immigration status. However, I am also a conservative, female who looks like I am part of a minority group and am therefore a part of oppression based on gender, political opinions, and skin color. My experience with these identifiers are different then someone with all the same identifiers let alone someone who is different. 

In her, article Ropers-Huilman shares an experience she had in her classroom discussion sexual orientation. There was a situation between two students one an African-American woman who was not in support of same-sex relationships and a white male student who identified as an ally. These two students could not have been more polarized and as a white feminist professor, Ropers-Heilman's had to balance her personal opinions with treating all her students with equal respect. 

As a teacher, you have to put your students first even if that means putting your opinions aside to refined a students right to free speech and equal opportunities in the classroom. Social Justice is something that we each deal with in our own ways, and it should be discussed and taught in our classrooms. I think the best way to teach that is to model it, which means you are aware of your own advantages and disadvantages in life and help other students to become aware of their personal experiences while not negating the experiences of other students. If I had to redefine social justice I would define it as: Promoting tolerance, freedom, and equality for all people regardless of race, sex, orientation, national origin, handicap, etc... (Urban Dictionary). 

Here is a link to the article: http://www.engl.niu.edu/audience/Social%20Justice%20in%20the%20Classroom.pdf

Critical Pedagogy and Popular Culture in an Urban Secondary English Classroom

This article was really interesting to me and I want to be able to go back and re-read this when I have more time to digest the content. 

One section I loved was talking about literature as being more than taking apart of a piece of writing but is also about how that piece of writing connect to us in the 21st Century and our everyday lives. This interaction with text can help students to understand more about themselves but it is also amazing at how learning about people in the past can connect us today. This is from the article and I think there is no better way to explain the power of writing: "Nothing promotes border crossing or tolerance more than helping students to arrive at an implicit understanding of what they have in common with those they have been taught to perceive as different." 

When thinking about literature across years I think about the Broadway musical Hamilton. The creator read an autobiography about Alexander Hamilton while on vacation and his mind was able to connect this story of a founder father to that of rappers like Tupac! He then created a rap musical epic starring a diverse ethnic cast telling the life and story of an "old dead white guy". The cast recording of the musical was at one time the #1 album on the Billboard Rap Top 100! Lin-Manuel Miranda (the shows creator) was able to take the literature he read about Hamilton and transfer that to a stage musical that had the whole country talking about the creator of our national banking system. That is the power of literature and I hope one day to show that power to my students. 

 

Philosophy of Education

'The teacher talks about reality as if it were motionless, static, compartmentalized, and predictable. Or else he expounds on a topic completely alien to the existential experience of the students. His task is to "fill" the students with the contents of his narration -- contents which are detached from reality, disconnected from the totality that engendered them and could give them significance. Words are emptied of their concreteness and become a hollow, alienated, and alienating verbosity."

This is an excerpt from Paulo Freire's Pedagogy of the Oppressed, which was published two years before I was born. I include the publication information because I had to re-read this article multiple times to truly understand what Freire was saying about the teacher-student relationship, and this statement was one that puzzled me because as a student I never experienced a teacher like this and I would pray that none of my fellow teaching candidates teach like this.

However, after re-reading the article and discussing the topics with some peers I have a better understanding of what Freire is saying, which is; teaching needs to be a journey of exploration, not a list of terms to be memorized, regurgitated and forgotten. Especially for students who already face challenges to learning the "traditional" way; our students with learning disabilities, language learners, low SES or varied learning styles.

Learning should be fun. It should be enjoyable and help students relate to and understand their world. I will have failed as a teacher if my students can recite the Preamble but dont know how the Constitution shapes every part of our government and protects our rights as citizens, or if they can sing every grammar song from School House Rock but can't spell preposition.

I will have also failed as a teacher if I never take the time to learn from my students. One of the greatest things about young minds is how they perceive the world. How the simplest things still spark that glimmer of wonder in their eyes. My students make me laugh more than anyone and they are just being themselves. It is my goal to help my students learn more about the world and how it works and in turn have them teach me how to be a better part of the world. The day you stop learning from your students is probably the day you should retire, cause you will no longer be effective in the classroom.

Assessing and Evaluating Students' Learning

One questions most good teachers ask themselves daily is "How do I know what my students are learning?". The answer to this question has always been "By grading them on work and giving a test on the material in a unit or chapter.". The question that follows is almost always "Well what will you grade on?". This question is much harder to answer and will vary between teachers.

I liked how they explained that teachers will grade based on what they find important and valuable. For example, if a teacher doesn't feel spelling is important anymore because most writing is done electronically and that has spell check, then they will probably not spend time correcting grammar or spelling on assignments.

For me personally, I want to spend time focusing on multiple things. I would love to have students keep a journal and require them to write in it at least weekly, but only grade on participation so they can learn that writing is a form of expression and if they enjoy writing for personal expression is doesn't have to be polished. The other strategies for assessing student learning mentioned in the text was the use of feedback. The first time I had a teacher give me feedback on a draft was freshman year of college and it changed how I brainstormed, wrote, edited and felt about my writing. I could get feedback about how to make my writing better and still have time to change it. It was also the first time I was given the opportunity to produce multiple drafts before turning in a final draft. As a student, I wish my high school teachers had done this more because I never felt fully confident in my writing when my teachers were reading my work for the first time when I turned it in to be graded.

Writing can be used countless ways of expressing, informing, explaining and enjoying the world around us and the thoughts in us, and I think the grading of all these different forms of writing should be just as unique and beautiful.

Expository Reading and Writing Course Assignment Template

This week we could choose between writing about the edTPA Lesson Guidelines or this Assignment Template from California State Universities and since my last two posts have been fairly critical I figured I would save the edTPA for another time and talk about expository reading and writing.

I thought this article did a fantastic job and breaking down reading and writing into small pieces that could easily be applied to a middle or high school classroom. I especially liked when it talked about pre-reading exercises using graphic organizers because it's a skill that I use in my classroom at the start of every chapter. The students use THIEVES (Title, Heading, Intro, Every first sentence, Vocabulary/Visuals, End of chapter questions and summarize) to pre-read before they have to read the whole chapter and answer questions. It really works because in one handout the students are looking at most of the important parts of a historical text. This could easily be adapted to also include authors purpose and meaning for an ELA class.

I also really liked the link the article made between writing for learning and writing for an audience. When a student writes notes, answers questions or fills in a vocabulary sheet they are writing for learning, but students also need to write for an audience. They need to be able to take what they have learned in writing notes, talking with peers and participating in group discussions and produce their own original product. When first learning to write students need structure and consistency, but when they have mastered the skills of a five paragraph essay they can move on into more complex and detailed work. They can explore themselves and find the style of writing that works best for them. This is why I would like to shy away from the five-paragraph essay as much as I can in the classroom. When I got to college and discovered that the five paragraph essay was not the only model I fell in love with writing again because I could add more detail to the sections of a paper I was passionate about or had the most knowledge and make the weaker sections shorter. I wish I had discovered that voice in me sooner because I probably would be a better writing at 22 then I currently am.

Reading and writing go hand and hand. You have to read in order to learn what to write about and different styles of writing and you have to write in order to leave something new for someone to discover. We each have a unique set of eyes, a unique voice, and a unique mind. No one can write exactly the way I do and about the same stuff because no one is like me. I want my students to understand this and to realize that they have something unique to leave behind, their story!