Chapter 3 Discussion: Are Teachers Ruining Great Books?

[Kelly Gallagher]

Greetings from Indianapolis. I am posting this Sunday evening because tomorrow I will be giving a workshop and and I won't arrive home until late evening. Once this is posted, I probably will not respond until Tuesday. Based on our first week’s discussion, I have no doubt the conversation will start just fine without me. Thank you to all who joined in. I was floored by the depth of the conversation.

It is now time to begin part two of our three-part conversation—Chapter 3 of Readicide. In this chapter I focus specifically on academic reading, and I wonder if the over-teaching of books is a factor in killing the love of reading.

Don’t get me wrong— students need support from their teachers if they are going to make deep meaning from difficult texts. This is why the district pays me—and you—to be in the room. If my students could meaningfully read Julius Caesar on their own, I would hand them the text and meet them when test day rolled around. We, their teachers, play an essential part in developing their ability to tackle classic books. There is a difference between assigning reading and teaching reading. We are that difference (or should be).

That said, has the pendulum swung too far in the opposite direction? Are books being sliced and diced so much that the books themselves are being ruined?(see the graphic on page 62). I wrote this chapter because I know that if I were a student asked to do all the things we ask our students to do while reading a great book, I would hate the reading as well.

So what are your thoughts? Do you agree? Disagree? How do we address the delicate balance between giving them enough support to handle the reading, but avoid chopping it up so much as to ruin the book?


Kelly

[glenda funk]

"Read Huck Finn and annotate the entire novel." Forgive me, but I'm very saddened whenever I hear that Huck Finn has been assigned as summer reading given the complex history of Twain's novel. Even though Twain once said he wished that people would just leave poor Huck alone, I don't think teachers should leave students alone w/ Huck.

[David Lee Finkle]

A number of posts have been about the balance between lecture and discussion, teacher focused and student focused discussion. I know I tend to talk too much, but I also tend to get the same 6 or 7 students in a class . I came up with a system this year to encourage everyone to participate, and even lead the discussion. I taught AVID for three years, which made me aware of the importance of questioning, which also played into the changes I made in my classroom.

When I taught Fahrenheit 451 to my son's 8th grade Gifted class this year, the reading was done at home, and I did "dice it up" into nightly readings for three weeks. But their homework was to write a quick summary of the main events, then to note two or three things they particularly noticed or thought were interesting, and then they had to write one or two discussion questions. Over the course of each week, each student needed to earn, I think, 20 points. Comments were worth 1 point, but questions were worth 2. Questions needed to be discussion questions, not "Yes or no" questions. The remarkable thing about this was that the discussion took off in directions I hadn't expected, people who usually didn't participate began to speak up, and I still got to guide the discussion and put my two cents in.

I made notes to myself-- points I would squeeze in during the last five minutes because I thought they needed to be made. Often I didn't need to make them-- the kids did.

I threw these kids into Bradbury, sink or swim, from the get-go-- the budget tour. I started reading Readicide about halfway through and decided I should have given them more assistance at the beginning. Those metaphors really freaked them out. The point is, making discussion a grade really worked for my class-- best student-focused discussion I've had.

[Lee Corey]

Balance does seem to be the key - and sometimes we don't get it until we're forced to. I can relate to Michael's earlier story about teaching Gatsby to remedial and regular and getting better results with the remedial kids. When I teach the "regular" kids we do most of our reading in class because I know they won't do it at home. Because we spend so much time reading in class, and I know they're very reluctant to do homework, I don't feel like I have time to assign a lot of study guide questions and activities. We do a lot more questioning and discussing.

In the honors classes, on the other hand, the students will do homework so I have time to kill the book with activities and, even though we have more class time, we actually discuss less because I can give all of those other "fun" things for them to do. Yikes!

In reflecting on this, I (and I think students) enjoy the "regular" approach to books much more than the honors, but as a tenth grade teacher, I don't know that I'm adequately preparing them for their exit exam. I think I do a good job of luring more students to become readers, which I think is a big accomplishment. But many of them don't pass the exam. On one hand, I think I'm starting them on their way and they will pass that exam later (I'm sure my principal would cringe at this philosophy), but is there a better way to teach kids in the "reader's death spiral" and get them up to grade level, while still instilling a love of reading?

[Tan Huynh]

Excellent idea of messaging that questioning is where the learning happens! If you are familiar with the Junior Great Book's approach to text discussion, it all starts with one perplexing question and asks that everyone tackle the question. Now I have a tool to get everyone to participate using your idea! Thanks!

[Ramona Lowe]

Great post, Glenda, as are the other postings on this strand. Your question at the end is one near to my heart.
For my two cents, no, it doesn't matter. We fail if kids leave our classes determined to never read again because we unintentionally made reading so unpleasant. My professional signature has a quote I extrapolated from Soldier's Heart: the most important book kids read in your class is the first book they read after your class.

[glenda funk]

I agree w/ Samet's line about books. And I love "Soldier's Heart."

[Phil Dignan]

Kelly-

So nice to finally jump into the dialogue here. I just received the book Friday and have finally caught up. Great read thus far- nice to have thoughts to consider going into the summer. We at Freedom HS in Loudoun County, Virginia say hello!

I certainly agree with everything you provide in Chapter Three. Mainly, I sense a need to balance reading instruction and experience. I feel validated with the guided tour/budget tour approach. In teaching To Kill a Mockingbird, this is so effective. What I have found is that by guiding them through Part One and establishing framework- students tend to gain appreciation and many feel immersed as Part Two really allows the characters to encounter the themes of prejudice and racism in the novel.

I am big on the use of a documentary supplement to literary study. Do you use this approach with some of your novels? If so, what strategies do you use?

[Marie G.]

I read Readicide early enough to be able to try out the concept Kelly mentions in the book of "starting out with the guided tour and ending with the budget tour". I set them up for the novel with background information, documentaries, poetry, and short stories (the topic was the Holocaust). We started the novel together as I guided them through the first few chapters. The releasing of responsibility to the students was the hard part. They enjoyed reading and discussing the novel together and at the end of a chapter jumped in with their comments as I was prepared to continue reading a larger "chunk". Also, my higher level students eased into the "budget" tour more easily. I continued the "guided tour" with my classes of struggling readers for the entire novel, which they enjoyed. I know that some of them would not have finished the novel otherwise.

So...I'm still getting a feel for the transition teacher to student directed reading of academic texts. Can anyone offer some suggestions? What are your strategies for scaffolding students to read the novel more independently? Also, some people in this discussion have "confessed" teaching a single book for what seems like a long time, but what IS a good time frame for teaching an academic novel to a whole class?

[TJ Pogue]

I'm reading Carol Jago's Classics in the Classroom just after finishing Readicide. She claims to have her students reading 20 novels per year...I'm reading on to discover exactly what she is doing. Apparently not "slicing and dicing"! But yes, I wonder how much time is reasonable for a novel.

[Mindy J]

I have a question that I'm hoping you all will answer for me. That goes along with supporting them as readers.

I'm stuck on teaching "reading" vs. teaching the "story". What I mean is...it's my job to help them become better readers. And therefore, when I asses, I should be assessing whether they are doing the readerly things necessary to become better readers (what that really means is a different topic entirely).

So when I give quizzes on the story, aren't I really then just teaching the story? And how is that helping my students be better readers of any text that they pick up without me? When they give me reflections on what they read, shouldn't I be assessing whether they are giving deeper and deeper, more connected reflections as time goes on through the year? Instead of assessing whether they got the symbolism that I was hoping they'd get (because that's the symbolism I got or the symbolism from the teacher's guide).

Hopefully this made sense. Does anyone else have this concern?

[Jim Burke]

please post any responses to this strand of the discussion in the Chapter 3 Part 2 discussion.

Thanks,

Jim