Week 3: Finding the Sweet Spot of Instruction

[Kelly Gallagher]

I have three more days of school. There is light at the end of the tunnel.

As we head into our last week of this book club, we have over 250 participants and I would like to thank all who have contributed to a very rich discussion.

I propose that we begin this section by discussing any or all of the following:

• In reading academic text, do students get enough close reading experience? How do you give your students 2nd and 3rd draft reading experiences?

• In Chapter Four, I make the assertion that there is no such thing as a lousy classic. If a book has remained in the canon, there is a reason for that. Our job is to help our students see that reason. Agree? Disagree?

• I am concerned about the teaching of metacognitive strategies. I am afraid that some schools do not teach them at all (they teach the reading; they do not teach the reader). On the other hand, I am concerned that some schools over-teach metacognitive strategies, which may become moot is students aren’t reading enough to build the proper prior knowledge needed for comprehension.

• In an attempt to raise score, are we sacrificing creativity? What are the long-term implications? Are we “fixing” the wrong things?

• So where do we go from here? If we believe these practices are killing the love of reading, how do we effect change? How do we end readicide?


Kelly

[Heather Fowler]

Kelly, In response to your first question about rereading, I find that some of the most successful second readings come in the form of a play. I ask students to act out the passages they read, and we uncover the tone and mood of the passages. Of course, this works really well with plays, but I've had a lot of success with carefully chosen passages, too.

[Gary Anderson]

Heather is absolutely right that plays lend themselves particularly well to close reading and re-reading. Now that I think about it, those approaches that we use with plays could be re-worked to apply to fiction and poetry also.

[Jim Burke]

A delicious suggestion in response to Kelly's remarks about the classics and the reasons why we teach them.

I taught for hte first three years at Castro Valley High School where Doug Rogers was my department chair. Those years and colleagues and that department were all a profound influence on me. One thing Doug did was have everyone over to dinner once a month, one a week night, to eat flank steak, drink wine, and talk about a book we taught. He argued, as Kelly does, that if we make kids read these books year in and year out that there must be something worth revisiting in them and so we should talk about these books and what they are all about. It was not a dinner seasoned with reading strategies but rather a conversation, the ultimate lit circle, about Gatsby or Lord of the Flies, or or or. It was a little like the ECN book club...except we had a great meal and wine. Still, people might find it useful to have such events on occasion, even over lunch at school. I loved those evenings.

[Steve Shann]

What a fabulous idea. And what a marker of a fine department, who walked the talk!

[James Miscavish]

It's hard for us to even meet for lunch...and we have lunch at the same time.

[Lori Jordan]

I wish we had lunch at the same time. We were told that our department is "too big" for us to all have lunch at the same time. Hogwash, I say.

[James Miscavish]

All of our departments have common lunch. That's actually how they make the lunch schedule.

Math and fine arts have first lunch, LA and foreign language have second lunch, etc.

There are only 7 of us, though.

[Lori Jordan]

We do have 18 teachers in our department. The 17 math teachers have a common lunch, however, as do the 15 science teachers. We were split into upperclass teachers and underclass teachers.

[Alan Sitomer]

At least I know what we'd serve if ever we were to have a feast like this... in my department, we eat our young!

[Debbie Barron]

We do a lot of talking in education about PLCs and the importance of working together as a community. But the biggest complaint I hear from my teachers is "there is no time." And they are right. If we try to impose PLC time during the academic day, teachers are too distracted with a hundred other things to focus on important aspects of their craft. Doug Rogers knew what he was doing when he offered his teachers time away from school to talk intellectually about something they all shared in common - their classroom experiences. The discussion was invaluable to each of them. We seem to understand the value of conversation to our students' learning curve - why, then, would the same not be applicable to us? I crave the opportunity to talk to others about books that I read.

[Teresa Bunner]

Kelly, these are some pretty big questions! But well worth considering.

In reading academic text, do students get enough close reading experience? How do you give your students 2nd and 3rd draft reading experiences?
I don't think students do get enough experience with close reading. I think that we try to teach so much in a school year that we often feel like it's a race to cover all of the material.
My students may not do a close reading of a whole novel, but when we do close reading, it focuses us in on a portion of the text. I try to give students a purpose for that close reading-something to focus on or look for, along with their own thoughts/ideas/a-has as they reread a text. I'm still working to perfect my skills in the area.

• In Chapter Four, I make the assertion that there is no such thing as a lousy classic. If a book has remained in the canon, there is a reason for that. Our job is to help our students see that reason. Agree? Disagree?

But why does something remain in the canon? Is it because it is great literature? Is it because year after year English teachers argue for it remaining in the canon because they can't imagine it not being there? Would the canon look different if the majority of those defining the canon were African American or Hispanic or Asian? I guess I'm uncomfortable teaching something just because it has been defined as a part of "the canon". I do want to expose my students to a certain amount of "classic" literature because let's face it, Shakespeare and Twain and others are referenced almost daily in our modern world. Just pick up the comics section of your local newspaper. You'd be hard pressed to find a week that doesn't go by without a reference to a piece of canonical literature.

I think there are classics that I teach better than others because somehow I have made a connection with that piece. If I absolutely hate a piece of literature, then I am probably not going to do it justice in a classroom. I also think that the classics I teach might need to change depending upon the group of students I teach. Invisible Man or Huck Finn? Why one over the other? If I teach predominantly African American males, should this influence my decision? One of those things I struggle with when dealing with the "canon">

• I am concerned about the teaching of metacognitive strategies. I am afraid that some schools do not teach them at all (they teach the reading; they do not teach the reader). On the other hand, I am concerned that some schools over-teach metacognitive strategies, which may become moot is students aren’t reading enough to build the proper prior knowledge needed for comprehension.

I taught a reading course to 9th graders. Metacognitive strategies were a big focus. I realized after the first year it was overkill. I try to balance having kids explore a piece by using a focus question or essential question with having them read to use meta stratagies. It's tough because you want them to understand what they know and don't know. If they aren't marking text and they aren't exploring their thinking about the text, then how do they (and you) know where confusion sets in? Is it a lack of meta skills or, as you say, a lack of prior knowledge? It's a balancing act.

I think I've taken up enough room for now. I need to go ponder these questions a little more. So much to consider!

[Steve Shann]

I love your thoughtfulness and openness Teresa ... qualities that seem present whenever you respond. Love the way you balance what you know from your considerable experience with your continual searching for answers to big questions.

About "I think there are classics that I teach better than others because somehow I have made a connection with that piece. If I absolutely hate a piece of literature, then I am probably not going to do it justice in a classroom." That's what I've always felt. But the constellation of two things have got me thinking some more about this.

One was Kelly writing that he didn't care if the kids liked the book, that wasn't the point, the point was that they made the effort to understand why it was considered by many to be of value. I agreed with this, and then thought, 'Well, if it's fair enough to say this to the students, shouldn't I challenge myself in the same way and make sure I at least discover what others have valued about the classics that I can't stomach?"

This was reinforced by the second thing. Dana Huff often writes about her love of Jane Austen, and I have never enjoyed Jane Austen. But, I figured, if people like Dana (who write so much sense about English teaching) can see something that I can't see, maybe I should try a bit harder. So I did. I re-read Pride and Prejudice, discovered lots that I loved about it, and am now reading Persuasion.

Mind you, having said all this, the real challenge would be if someone said that I needed to teach Jane Austen to my present classes ... all boys! Maybe I'll stick with 'The Odyssey' and 'Of Mice and Men'!