Comments on: Read What You Love

By: Call Me E.D. Hirsch… | Everyone Read It!

Call Me E.D. Hirsch… | Everyone Read It! — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 01:13:30 +0000

[...] Carey stakes out something of an extreme position here. He’s right about the first mover advantage of some books now commonly used, but [...]

By: Read What You Want To Read « Matt Zeitlin: Impetuous Young Whippersnapper

Read What You Want To Read « Matt Zeitlin: Impetuous Young Whippersnapper — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 00:57:26 +0000

[...] – Drum, Yglesias and Kevin Carey all have good stuff. Possibly related posts: (automatically generated)Books from the High School [...]

By: Megan

Megan — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 19:10:51 +0000

Both sides here have a point– there is value in reading a shared text, and there is value in students having a choice in what they read. However, as a former teacher and professional developer in NYC, I have to disagree with what many reviewers either imply or state– that reading workshop is ineffective and/or that in order to be a good teacher of literature, you must be skilled at getting students to enjoy reading a certain set of books, many of which they wouldn’t be inclined to pick up on their own. So, to that point, two admittedly anecdotal observations from my classroom:
- Most of the students I taught in New York would not have improved in reading nearly as much as they did if we’d read class novels– period. There is just less time with eyes on text if you read a class novel, because more time is devoted to interpretation. Research is clear that more reading time with texts on your reading level= improved fluency and comprehension. I was an English major at an Ivy League college, and I deeply value literary conversations. But for kids who read 3- 5 grade levels behind, I value improved reading fluency, vocabulary and comprehension more. Teaching is about making choices– I was comfortable with that one.
- Good teaching in reading workshop requires that teachers have read a lot of the books in their classroom– but this isn’t a crazy expectation. These are middle or elementary level books, and we’re adults. They don’t take that long to read. Once you’ve invested that time, you can actually be conversant with students on a range of books and have deep and meaningful conversations about how these readers “observed what their characters say and do”. And if a 7th grader reads at a 2nd grade level, you have that conversation about Captain Underpants, and you shouldn’t have to apologize for not forcing him to read a book that he has no shot of really reading, even if you could engage him in the plot with a lot of scaffolding, paired reading, class discussions, etc..

By: Rodolfo Torres

Rodolfo Torres — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 12:22:00 +0000

Having just completed my student teaching and observations at he middle school level, I must say that I was not impressed by current approaches to literacy. Teachers did not seem textually competent and students mostly reported how they did not like reading. Class discussions of literature were almost completely non-existent. It is no wonder students do not like reading.
Irrespective of what is read in a class, the teacher must be able to lead literate discussions. Too often, this was not the case.
I just did see any evidence of students being turned on to the world of literature and reading. Nor did I see students being led deeper into texts and thought. Whatever starting point one chooses is fine, so long as how you read is emphasized. You can eventually get to better books. Teachers that think Harry Potter is good stuff are by definition idiots and really should be teaching.

By: Catherine Johnson

Catherine Johnson — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 23:30:50 +0000

To Ms. McNeill’s chagrin, several students, most of them boys, stubbornly refused to read more challenging fare.

[snip]

“I keep trying to get you to read things other than James Patterson,” Ms. Atwell said, tapping the book’s cover. “But if you are going to write a book review of substance, you are going to have to find substance in the book.”

This is not good teaching.

By: Catherine Johnson

Catherine Johnson — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 22:45:31 +0000

Yet again, “guru” Nancie Atwell and her colleagues on the workshop circuit determine what America’s children will read. Not English professors, not taxpayers, and certainly not parents.

Suppose I want my child to read Huckleberry Finn?

Suppose I’ve taken a look at the College Board’s 101 Great Books Recommended for College-Bound Readers and I’d like my child to have read 1 or 2 books from that list by the time he’s spent 13 years in the public school system?

Suppose I want my school system to hire teachers with degrees in English literature who can teach my child **how** to read a classic work of literature?

Parents need a vote and a veto.

So do taxpayers.

By: Reader’s Workshop Mashup at The Core Knowledge Blog

Reader’s Workshop Mashup at The Core Knowledge Blog — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 20:35:50 +0000

[...] sensible center. But you can’t spell “contrarian” without C-A-R-E-Y, and the Quick and the Ed’s main man jumps into the fray, unable to resist taking swinging at his personal pinata, Diane Ravitch, who [...]

By: Marvi Hagopian

Marvi Hagopian — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 20:35:38 +0000

Wide reading is important and students should be expected to read beyond assigned in-class reading of classic works of fiction and nonfiction. Given their own devices short chapter books and comic books could become the texts of choice. There’s not much critical thinking required of those choices. Children are capable of so much more than you give them credit.

By: Robert Pondiscio

Robert Pondiscio — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 20:11:21 +0000

And by the way, to suggest this is a “new” approach to teaching reading is a jaw-dropper. This approach has roots that are 80 years deep, and really took off 20 years ago. It’s certainly the standard approach in elementary school and seems to be have reached critical mass in middle school too.

Whole class reading of novels — the sacrosanct teacher-led “read aloud” notwithstanding — is a custom more honored in the breach than the observance.

By: Robert Pondiscio

Robert Pondiscio — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 20:00:40 +0000

I could go on about this ad nauseum, but I’ll restrict myself to a couple of points. People in education don’t like to make these choices. Fine. But choice works both ways. If you refuse to say what’s worth knowing, you inevitably choose “nothing’s worth knowing.” Huckleberry Finn? “Kids can live without it.” Shakespeare? “They’ll get that in college.” Langston Hughes? James Baldwin? Maya Angelou? No single work is indispensible, but it’s like pulling a loose thread from a sweater. Keep pulling things out, and eventually all that’s left is “Read whatever you want!”

It’s a formula for illiteracy.

We also forget — everyone does — that there are valid technical reasons for common knowledge. The point is not to enshrine a canon, but to understand that language proficiency requires being familiar with an broad range of knowledge in science, history, the arts and other areas that speakers and writers assume readers and listeners already know. Poor readers suddenly look like good readers when they’re reading about familiar subjects. It stands to reason that we should be doing everything we can to make them familiar with more subjects, and shared knowledge, including well-known works of literature and literary allusions (so yes, I’d agree that while it may not be important for eveyone to read Moby-Dick, being familiar is important. Sometimes a little knowledge is just fine).

Lastly, there’s the question of how valuable the 30 different books for 30 different kids approach really is. I was trained in Readers Workshop and had to use it in my classroom. It wasn’t effective, or satisfying. It becomes almost impossible to have deep, rich conversations about books. You can’t possible be familiar with every book every kid is reading, so you’re encouraged to ask questions that are not terribly deep or interesting: Can you describe the setting? Which character are you most like? Are there any questions you wish you could ask the author? It’s a kind of cookie-cutter, paint-by-numbers way to teach literature. If today’s mini-lesson is “good readers pay attention to what characters say and do” it doesn’t matter if we’re talking about War and Peace or Captain Underpants. At one level, that’s true. At another, it’s just plain silly.

You can easily say “not every child participates in those rich, whole-class discussions.” But not every child is engrossed in reading in the reader’s workshop either. A lot of them are just going through the motions.

Robert