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?

[Tim Ruoff]

Jim,

Thank you for sharing this. My son is in kindergarten and my daughter is in preschool; being a teacher and having children in school has opened my eyes to issues of reading and writing development, interest and excitement in school, and the power of teacher-student interactions. Above all, it has consistently reminded me of the importance of looking at each individual student in class and not just at "classes" of students. I feel I've already learned a lot from watching them in their classrooms, what they talk about, what they like reading, how they write, what they talk about when they get home from school; I can only imagine how much more I'll learn as they move into grade school and high school. I also know that, like what you shared, I'll also learn from their struggles too. As for the alternate assignment your son was given, I've also found success with that. I had a colleague who recently retired after teaching for 38 years who always looked at me between classes and said "Bend like the willow." That was her answer to all administrative mandates and changes as well as any student difficulties. Over the years, I have found that simple saying to be so meaningful and applicable to teaching day-to-day. It is the rigid teacher who develops a set curriculum and then complains that certain students are not working up to the high expectations...but maybe sometimes it is that set curriculum that gets in the way...and for some students, if the teacher just pulls them aside or speaks with them after school, the real issues come to light...some students are avid readers of their own choosing, but falter and refuse to read school material...okay, says the flexible teacher, I'll meet you on your own terms but you'll have to complete assignments and projects (such as making text-to-text connections between the novel you're reading and the songs of an artist you like) that still fit my high expectations. High expectations are high expectations and rigorous work is still rigorous work regardless of the novel.

[Kelly Gallagher]

Jim, your anecdote regarding Evan speaks to the issue of choice. This sort of gets at the 50/50 approach discussed in Readicide---that students need some choice when it come to developing an appreciation for reading.

[Dave Madsen]

Jim,

I heard you speak at the Illinois Reading Council Convention in Springfield, Illinois this past spring and was inspired by your lectures. Thank you.

The story about your son's experience with a flexible, caring teacher, along with Tim's "bend like the willow" comment, helped reinforce my belief that consistent one-one-one conferencing and flexibility are very powerful and help every student succeed. It also makes me more concerned than ever with class sizes growing larger, especially in the wake of our country's financial meltdown. Our school let four teachers go this past year, and we expect larger class sizes. I'm afraid it'll be harder to conference with each student next year.

If I remember correctly, Jim, you said there is current research that shows a teacher-student conference as short as one minute can be extremely effective.

I've had to bend like a willow several times the past couple of years, and now I feel better having done that. I couldn't agree more with Kelly that providing students with a good amount of choice is an equally powerful element.

I appreciate being able to read all of these insightful comments on Ning. Also, Readicide was a book I couldn't put down, and it will be one I refer to for many years to come. Thanks for writing it, Kelly.

[kyle trott]

Hey Kelly and all true believers,

As I said before, I'm a pre-service teacher. I just finished chapter 3 and something dawned on me as I put it down. Why did you choose to write this in the way you did? Every other book on teaching, I feel, is written for a five year old. I constantly feel like I'm being spoken to in a calm and motherly voice; like I'm being explained something as a child. Mainly, I feel stupid reading these teaching books because they are written in such a dumb down voice.

I appreciate your straight forward writing and conversational tone. And, thank you for not speaking to me as if I'm in kindergarden.

So, why are so many teaching instruction self-help books written as if it is for five year olds?

And, does anyone else come across this or is it just me?



Kyle

[Michelle Montooth]

I'm curious about what you've been reading. There was a book on digital literacy I read not too long ago for my degree that drove me crazy because it read like something written for a kindergartner, so I agree there are books out there like that, but I like to think they're the exception. Gallagher, Burke, Tovani, Beers, McTighe, Wilhelm, Spandel, and several other authors out there can always be counted on for engaging texts that are clearly written for an educated, intelligent, and dedicated audience.

Since you've got me talking about great books on teaching, I'll mention Smith & Wilhelm's Reading Don't Fix No Chevys: Literacy in the Lives of Young Men. Like Readicide, the book explores why students (specifically boys in this case) are not successful in school-based literacy, and it also bases much of its advice on Csikszentmihalyi's idea of flow -- not just flow while reading, but flow while taking part in any learning experience. I think the two books compliment each other pretty well. Take, for instance, Gallagher's desire for his students to "attain something valuable from their reading" (93) during their discussions of books. I think this lines up nicely with Smith & Wilhelm's concern that boys' perceptions of school literacy associate it with "often unrecognized and ambiguous end[s]" while they find home literacy to be an "immediately satisfying end in itself" (94). When we help students wrestle with those big ideas in literature (like privacy and government control in 1984, to use Gallagher's example), we are making school literacy immediately satisfying.

I love it when the books that influence my teaching work together -- it definitely makes my decisions in the classroom easier when all the research lines up.

[Teresa Bunner]

This is a great list of must read authors! I always feel that I am being treated as a colleague when I read their stuff!

[Kelly Gallagher]

Honestly, I have never shared your concern. Like Michelle, I have been greatly influenced by books in our profession. In fact, if I have a concern about professional books it's that teachers often do not read enough of them.

[Lori]

For those who may have very reluctant high school readers, I'd like to share my experiences this year. Several teachers in my school said that they refused to fight with students who don't want to read. Even though it was my 1st year at this school (2nd year of teaching), I was determined to get them reading somehow, some way. I totally agree with Kelly's idea that slicing and dicing any work for weeks at a time can totally ruin all desire to read anything. What I'm going to say next may appall some teachers. When I read Of Mice and Men with my 9th graders and To Kill a Mockingbird with my 10th graders, I would say that the majority did not read the entire books. I gave them the opportunities in class, but plainly, some were never going to do it. Still, they were exposed to the entire work through a variety of means, read some, watched some, and learned about literary devices through it.

We don't have enough books to send them home, and I couldn't afford to buy them myself. In class, I read the first chapter in each novel, stopping along the way to talk, clarify, and even allow students to draw out the setting on the board. I also (gasp) skipped some parts in TKAM. We listened to recorded books for parts of the next few chapters, listened to a few students who wanted to read out loud, and watched movie clips along the way. I refuse to beat them up about reading an entire book first and then play the entire movie at the end. We read a little, watch a little, do some guided questions, journal, reflect, and discuss a brief section. Then we repeat the cycle.

I feel like I was successful with students who wouldn't have read much on their own, with those who wanted to tackle "standard/classic" stuff, and with general standards and objectives. I don't think the majority of my students grew to hate either book, as I had seen during my internship year with TKAM.

I should also mention that I allowed students to choose their first novel of the year. Then when they complained about reading a book that they didn't choose, I could remind them that they did choose one before it, and they were going to choose another one afterward.

[TJ Pogue]

I am reading so much in these posts about the problem of not having enough books. I teach in a Catholic school, and I have spent my career in private schools, so I don't know a lot about the public school situation (except to be thankful that I don't have to teach to state-mandated tests!). I have taught the children of very wealthy people, but I've also taught many children from middle and lower economic levels. I've never had a student who couldn't obtain his or her own paperback copy of, say, To Kill a Mockingbird. In public schools, are you not allowed to ask students to buy (or borrow) their own individual copies of a novel? If so, is it because of true poverty--the kids are really not able to spend four or five dollars for a book? Or is it reluctance on the part of parents who just don't want to spend any money beyond the taxes they pay? I'm just curious...

[Lori]

My students come from a high poverty urban area. The elementaries post a 70% poverty level based on their free lunch applications. In HS, because so many are too embarrassed to continue applying, they post a 50% poverty level. Many do not have computers. Out of 6 classes, more than 50% did not have working computers availabe to them at home. Some students still do not have cell phones or I-pods. (This, it seems, is our modern barometer of wealth; yet, often even the poor manage to have cell phones.)

In this environment, people truly cannot affort to buy a $7 or $8 book. Also, many wouldn't because they don't value reading novels.

I tried to incorporate technology as much as possible, but with a lab of constantly crashing MACs, and the majority of my students lacking flash drives, it was difficult, to put it mildly. I bought flash drives at Odd/Big Lots for $6.00, and a few students purchased them from me to back up their projects. Most just complained that they couldn't afford such things, and I manually backed up their projects on one 2 gig flash drive of my own. Of course, I allowed their projects to be PowerPoints, Word, or paper format.

I really wanted to read more books, real books, not the 300-lb. literature book, but we simply did not have them, and I couldn't afford to buy class sets. I do buy used novels for 69 cents at Goodwill and often for 50 cents at library sales, but I personally don't have class sets of anything. This is public education for many students--not all, but many. We deal with what we have and dream of better approaches.

[Denee Tyler]

We are not allowed to ask students to supply their own books.

[RHE]

TJ,

It depends on the district and teacher folklore. In my second year of teaching in a rural district, the students were expected to buy a copy of the four novels we read (Outsiders, A Christmas Carol, White Lilacs, and Where the Broken Heart Still Bleed). In my 3rd - 5th year, I taught in a suburban district. The first two years we read the novel in class and provided the books. This past year, we provided The Outsiders, and made our Pre-AP students buy The Lightning Thief. It is a belief (unfounded in my opinion) that our poor students can't afford the books. These same students have all the designer label tee-shirts, so I really don't get it. The idea is passed down from teachers that have been in the district longer than I. I sort of think it is folklore. But it does happen for real!