Chapter 3 Discussion Part 2: Are Teachers Ruining Great Books?

[Kelly Gallagher]

I am back from my quick jaunt to Indiana. The weirdest part of the trip? Running into Jim Burke in the Denver airport as he was heading to the conference I had just left.

I am really moved by the depth of the responses. It is obvious that this is a very difficult issue—one that we all grapple with daily in our classrooms. I’d like to start a new strand with some thoughts that came from reading through the previous 50+ postings:

• There was some talk about the importance of lecturing. Let me say for the record that I, too, see a real value in lecturing. I agree that the lectures are more effective when they are delivered in shorter bites (15-20 minutes). However, like any strategy, lecturing can be harmful if overdone. Generally, I find lecturing more of value when used before students begin reading the text— a tool used to help frame and shore up weak background knowledge.

• I like Glenda’s notion that she does not assign daily reading; rather, she assigns weekly reading. I have also gravitated toward this approach and would like to hear from others. Have you tried this? Are you thinking of trying this? Advantages? Disadvantages?

• I wonder if we are spending too much time having students actually reading the books. How can flow be achieved if the class is taking two months to read one work? I understand the dangers that come from covering too much curriculum, but when it comes to books, I think our students should be reading many more books—including academic texts. The pace needs to be quickened. Less slice and dice.

• I heard from some teachers in Indiana yesterday that ALL of the reading done by students is done in class. This is because they do not have enough books for every child to take one home. I have heard this concern in numerous other places as well. Some of you have also indicated that your students do all the reading in school because they won’t do the reading at home. Let me stir the pot by saying something I strongly believe: if the only reading students do is the reading that is done within the school walls—if students never read at home—they will not develop into the kind of readers we want them to be. We must not give up the fight to put a book in every child’s hands, and we must never accept that students will never read on their own time.

Response?

[Julie Pennabaker]

I struggle with this issue. I also do not have nearly enough copies of the books to sign one out to each student, and struggle with getting students to complete reading outside of class. However, I do think that it would be very helpful if there were enough copies for each student.

How do you build accountability for students to read the text outside of class? What do you mean by weekly reading? Do you require that students complete a certain section by the end of the week, and there stop for discussion? Do students complete any sort of discussion notes or work to "prove" that they did the reading? Do you build close readings (like you described in your book) throughout the whole week?

Are your assessments for novels mainly final essays (which seemed to be the case in your book)? If so, do you also use any sort of check-in quizzes to build accountability, or do you consider that distracting from your purpose?

Sorry to keep asking a million questions...

[Alesha M N Stucki]

I've noticed that a couple of other teachers have mentioned the lack of textbooks to send reading home; one thing that may work (depending on the literature you are studying) are online full-text versions of books that are past their copyright date. Good websites to find these at are: the Gutenberg project (gutenberg.org) and MIT's website, which I found especially useful for finding Shakespearean plays; I have added the classics site as well (shakespeare.mit.edu, classics.mit.edu). There are several more databases to find this, but these have been trustworthy and useful to me. Newer works that are still under copyright are harder, if not impossible to find, but hopefully this helps.

[Gayle K. Hobbs]

Bravo Kelly!!!!

"We must not give up the fight to put a book in every child’s hands, and we must never accept that students will never read on their own time."

I so agree with you.However, I do not think that most students actually give up reading at home. The reading they do at home becomes more... functional... I am not sure if that would be the right word for it or not. Most of my experience comes from observing my own children. They read at home, but they read non-fiction type stuff. How to magazines and stuff like that. Most of my own kids are computer fiends also. So they read the internet and I would venture to say that a lot of students read that way.

I have assigned novels that were completed within the parameters of a class assignment. I am not sure if I actually delved too deep into the pieces as to think that I was "slicing and dicing" I do know that I approached different standards with each novel, hoping to achieve mastery of those standards by then end of the school year.

I have been toying with the idea that those who do not appreciate the tactile feel of a book might also be into the idea of an e-reader. I don't really know where that might go. Just an idea at this time. I understand and have a tendency to want to share with all others the idea that I am a bibliophile and love the smell and touch of a well made book. Heck, I even like the cheap ones.

So did that answer question or two? I will not give up the fight, but adjust my battle strategies a little to accommodate new technology. I am thinking about buying a kindle for my self and see if it brings out the same feelings.

[Carla Mayfield]

~I don't lecture for more than 15-20 minutes because it's hard for even me to pay attention for much longer than that.

~This year I assigned 100 pages a week, 9-12, in a fiction book chosen by the student but approved by me. I think I will up that to 125 pages next year, I just think 100 was too easy. I want it to be achievable, but not overwhelming. Some of my kids read five or six thousand pages, so this was a cake walk for them.

The advantages to this is that it does actually get kids reading, and they really like being able to choose their own books. I call this Outside Reading, but I allow any fiction we read for class to count as well.

The disadvantage is that it can be time consuming to interview and make sure they have read the book. I have had a couple of students lie to me. These bad liars are easily caught. The craftier ones can slip through. I just make it my business to read as many of the books they are reading as I can. Yes, some of it's drivel, but they like it when I read their books.

~I never know if I am giving too many pages or not enough when we are reading a novel. I generally go with 25 pages a night, depending on how weighty the novel is and how well the class reads overall.

~I've never had a problem with enough books. Last year my largest class had seven kids. Yes, I teach at a very small school. OK is VERY good about giving free classroom sets when you adopt new texts every five years or so. I will be back in CO next year, and do not know how many copies of novels my new school has.

I think I would just flat out die of boredom if my students had to read their entire novels in class. How many minutes every day are teachers who do this giving their students? Then do they have a lot of homework? I can only sit and grade papers for so long...

[Denee Tyler]

I'm one of those who has to read everything at school because we don't have enough books to take home. With the way the economy is going, this is not likely to change soon.

[Tan Huynh]

Hi Kelly,

Reading is a huge task to accomplish for many of my students whose families don't provide resources, structures, or an environment that supports home reading. So I make students have three books at a time. One book is for in-class pleasure reading (student selected), one is for whole-class instruction (teacher selected), and one for pleasure reading at home (student selected). I use the two in-class books to develop a reading passion, stamina, and content skills. Once this passion emerges, they more readily pick up their at-home books and read for pleasure. I had a sophomore tell me that he brought his book to read on the bus going to work and reads it during breaks. He also said that his co-workers ask to borrow his book during their breaks. This student would not have read his "at-home" book if he didn't have the experience of enjoying reading in my class first. This same student used to sleep after reading the first paragraph in a text.

Does this provide a possible model for the balance we seek?

[Dave Madsen]

I agree with Kelly, who stated, "We must not give up the fight to put a book in every child’s hands, and we must never accept that students will never read on their own time."

For the past two years I have adapted Nancy Atwell's The Reading Zone and other ideas from her book In the Middle into my 6th-Grade Language Arts course. Next year, I will be teaching 7th-Grade Language Arts and will do the same. We have had great success in getting students excited about reading at school and at home. Regarding my students' reading, I have never had as much positive feedback from parents, administrators, and students. Students have made great strides in improving as readers due to implementing Atwell's strategies. I have never worked so hard at teaching in my life, but it has been so fulfilling that I can't ever go back to slicing and dicing the work of authors.

Why has Atwell's approach worked? According to Jim Trelease in The Read Aloud Handbook, there are "two basic reading facts of life:

* Reading Fact No. 1: Human beings are pleasure centered.
* Reading Fact No. 2: Reading is an accrued skill.

Trelease goes on to say, "The more you read, the better you get at it; the better you get at it, the more you like it, the more you like it, the more you do it."

As teachers, we need to be matchmakers, helping students connect with "just right" books they will find pleasurable to read. Kelly gives great advice on how to create a "book flood zone" and how to build a classroom library. That is so very important.

In response to Julie Pennabaker...

Our language arts classes at Kennedy Junior High in Lisle are scheduled in two 40-minute blocks per day. I give students at least twenty minutes per day to read books of their choice. As they read, I conference with them one-on-one while keeping track of what book they are reading and what page number they are on. Students keep track of their reading on a reading log, signed each week by a parent or guardian and due at the end of each week. This reading log includes a 75-100 word response to what they are reading. I call home and talk with parents when it seems students aren't doing their thirty minutes of reading at home per night.

Once a month, we use the "fishbowl" technique. Students share one of the books they read by giving a twenty-word summary, reading aloud a 1/2-page passage, explaining why they chose that passage, and then answering questions from their peers. I assess them as they give the presentation and ask questions.

This approach is not SSR since it involves me being the teacher in the room, answering questions, helping clarify confusion, guiding each student individually, and guiding the class as a whole. I also give a 10-15 minute reading/literature minilesson per day. Regularly, students volunteer to give impromptu one-minute book talks.

In order to address academic texts, we have been reading literature from Junior Great Books and using the Shared Inquiry method of discussion. The kids love it, and as has been noted so far in this discussion, when you give students the opportunity to discover the important elements of a story, they will impress you.

[Chris Carroll]

Dave,

I recently finished reading Atwell's The Reading Zone and liked a lot of her thoughts and methods; they seem to fit nicely with Readicide in a lot of cases.

I was wondering if you could briefly talk about how your students go on to fare in high school. The problems in the high school chapter really concerned me and I'd appreciate hearing your experience. I know Atwell mentions how some (if not most) of her students tend to stop reading in high school, in some cases due to the tedious workload of high school English classes and in other cases just due to not having time to enter the reading zone. Do you get a sense of this from your former students, if they've moved on to high school yet? And if so, is there anything you have changed that might be able to help this situation?

[Dave Madsen]

Chris,

My first batch of students will be in eighth grade next year, so I’ll have to wait and see. This is something we need to track, if possible.

Dave

[Carla Watts]

I teach a multiage 6-8 class at a small school and use many of Atwell's ideas, including homework of 30 minutes each of reading and writing per night. My students have done very well in high school. They do complain that they don't have as much time to read or write as they would like in high school though. Three of my students went to college instead of high school for various reasons and also did very well. Many have gone on to work on advanced degrees and won scholarships and attended stellar universities. I guess you can tell that I am pretty attached to and proud of all my students.

One other note, I also prefer to assign weekly reading, etc. I always give my students their assignments a week in advance to plan but I do break it down by what should be accomplished by day to help those students who aren't as adept at breaking their work down into small goals.

[Chris Carroll]

I completely agree with you Kelly on your thoughts of the importance of students reading outside of class. If students don't read at home they aren't going to become lifelong readers. They can't just rely on class time because eventually that time won't exist. In the other thread it was noted that we are teaching in the age of the hurried child, but really we are teaching in a hurried world. Students (and, well, people of all ages) are always going to be busy with school, activities, jobs, and the like. Are there any strategies we can use to help students find that time on their own to read and get into the reading flow? Of course putting good books that they can connect to will definitely help this, but what can we do beyond this?

I mention this question because I just finished my first semester teaching (college) Freshman English; on the first day of class I asked my new freshmen their favorite books as one of my community building questions. I was shocked to find out that about a third of my class of twenty-one students couldn't name a favorite book, or a book they recently read (or even a magazine they read for that matter).

However, in reflecting on the situation, if I were to go back five years when I was a freshman, I don't think I could name a novel I read and enjoyed, and it certainly wouldn't be an assigned novel from high school. In essence, my students (AND my younger self) were a prime example of Kelly's readicide factor of overteaching academic texts to the extent that it damaged their chances to be lifelong readers. Now I never benefited from some of Kelly's ideas such as augmenting texts and creating "topic floods," but as a new teacher they seem to be great ideas that could make complex whole-class novels more accessible, and enjoyable, to students. Does anyone have any advice of how they have augmented academic texts to make them more accessible, and arguably more interesting, to students?

[Emily Kirby]

I really like Glenda's idea to assign weekly reading instead of daily reading, mostly because that would have worked perfectly for me when I was in high school. Just like lots of students these days, I was involved in every possible thing, and I didn't always have time to read each night and sometimes preferred to do all the reading at once. So yes, like Chris said, we do live in a hurried world, so assigning weekly reading assignments would be great for these hurried students of today.

However, I don't see this working for everyone. I just finished undergrad and am now working on my master's, so I don't know this from experience, but I think struggling readers should probably be reading every night, even if it's just 15 minutes at a time. Struggling readers probably need a daily assignment because if they waited until one time to complete all the reading, they may not and probably won't get anywhere close to reading it all.

How do you balance that? It could help if teachers simply gave a weekly assignment, but then also broke it down by each day. However, I think that could pose problems because the ones who need the daily assignment probably wouldn't do it if they know they don't have to. Suggestions?