Blog Post #9: “Readicide: How Schools are Killing Reading and What You Can Do About It” by Kelly Gallagher

I’m appalled, shocked, afraid, and angry. Kelly Gallagher has created a revolutionizing book that outs teachers, administrators, and students as the causes of reading being dead. I absolutely loved this book. Gallagher is flat out one of the most brilliant teachers that have ever taught on this planet.  His ideas are new and edgy and it’s all backed by classroom experience and research. I think that his research is so valid because he is actually in the classroom to observe what is really going on. He gets to see first hand what works and what doesn’t. As I read further into this book, I realized how much is wrong with the educational system. It has virtually cut reading out of curriculum whether it was intentional or not. Readers are struggling, yet we do little to protect them. It’s interesting to see the reasoning behind why we struggle to read as a culture, and what we can do to counteract those problems.

When I was reading, I was horrified with the content of this. Not because it was bad information, but because of the statistics, experiences, and research that was being put on display for the world to see. Pretty much throughout the whole book, I was halfway in shock. I couldn’t believe how poorly we were doing as teachers to promote reading in and out of the classroom. A lot of the problems aren’t even due to how or what the teacher wants to teach, but to what the end goals of educators and administrators actually are. Every chapter provided me with a new shock, but Gallagher miraculously had an answer or at least some way of offsetting the given problem.

One of the biggest problems that I ran into was when Gallagher was talking about testing. He stated, “Students are reading fewer books to make more room for test prep.” I couldn’t believe what I just read. More test prep? I understand that we need to be prepping our kids for the end of year testing, but not at the expense of that actual learning.

Gallagher also said that we should be teaching to the test. Again, I scratched my head in awe of what I was reading. Gallagher retracted and stated that we need to be teaching to the good test, not the shallow test. What he means is that it’s okay for us to be teaching to the test, but it has to be in a deep and meaningful way. This is a concept I’d never heard of and was extremely interested in as I read further on. Teachers must be able to reach the academic standards, but create a deep level of learning so students are challenged.

 The last area that really caught my eye was how teachers are supposed to fight against summer loss. I’ve always been interested in this idea because of how test scores drop, knowledge levels drop, and overall academic achievement drops. Gallagher didn’t dive very deep into the strategies that are helpful when trying to fight against summer loss, but he inferred that there are many out there. I believe that Gallagher was write when he talked about developing reading programs over the summer that isn’t too intense, but will allow students to maintain the level of reading of which they had before summer. I remember in high school when I had summer reading plans with different books that challenged me as a reader. I’m not going to lie and say that this summer reading list changed my life and made me a better reader, but I came back to school with more awareness of the texts than Johnny across the room who decided that playing Xbox was the better choice.

I really enjoyed reading this book. I think that out of all of the articles and pedagogy books that we’ve read, this has to top the list as my favorite one. I think that this is one of those books that are near and dear to my heart because of the relevance it has in our culture. I plan on going back to this book when I’m in need of answers and in need of inspiration.

Blog Post #8: “I Read It, But I Don’t Get It: Comprehension Strategies for Adolescent Readers” by Cris Tovani

            First, I loved this book. Second, Cris Tovani is brilliant. Third, this book had the most useful information out of any of the texts and articles we’ve read thus far.

            Each chapter had it’s own little nuggets of wisdom, strategies, and experiences that shaped Tovani as a teacher. One of the very first things that I noticed about her writing style was her tendency to lack formality. I loved it. It was like I was hearing a person speak in real life when I read through each chapter.

Another thing I noticed was how real she was with her students and herself. She questioned students and had students question her. She was self-reflective throughout the entire book making it easier to see her as a colleague/mentor rather than some professional book writer that is write a “how to be a better______” novel. She would call students out when they were just being lazy and she would call herself out when she was doing the same.

I connected with this book because I was one of the readers who didn’t get it for a really long time. Throughout high school I would pick the books I wanted to read and do only that. I would ‘read’ through textbooks and other materials from different classes only to pass the test and wipe it clean from my memory an hour later. I hated reading. I thought I hated reading at least. Tovani opened my eyes to a whole new world of reading and what I was really missing. I continued on throughout my first two years at college with this misunderstanding of what reading really was. I did great with a lot of classes because almost all of them were multiple-choice tests. All I had to was memorize the information and copy it down on a piece of paper. Once I realized I wanted to be an English teacher, I knew that this technique wouldn’t fly. I had to change something. I went the long and bumpy route of becoming a better reader. I truly wish I would have know about this book two years ago because it would of changed my life.

Another section that caught my eye was when she talked about books that shape us as readers. Her examples were hilarious. The idea of having a children’s book shape the type of reader you will be in the future is outlandish, but her connection that she made was unbreakable. It made complete sense. It’s so important for us as teachers to make sure students know what type of reader they are and what shaped them to be that way.

A new area that I never thought about before was the two ways to improve reader comprehension. The first is to become a more passionate reader of what you teach. The second is to model how good readers read. I thought this was interesting because for me, being passionate is easy because I love English and I love reading. She gave examples of how it’s pretty tough to get students passionate about subject-verb agreement and present participles. It makes sense that for students to become passionate, we must first become passionate. Second, we must model. The amount of strategies in the book about how to become a stronger reader is innumerable. I couldn’t even count half as high as I would need to reach that number. Teachers must model all types of reading strategies in order to create solid foundations in their students.

The last section that I will talk about (even though I could write a book on this) that really caught my eye was the principle of purpose. Purpose is everything to students. Why do this? What are we learning from that? What good will reading do for me if I’m going to be a math major? If I work on a farm my whole life, reading will do nothing for me, right? These are all questions of purpose. Teachers have to find that purpose. They have to recognize that not all students will see reading as a productive and fruitful activity. One of my favorite stories out of this book is when the two boys go to the house. They walk through the house and the writer provides many descriptions of their surroundings. As a student reads through this story for the first time, they don’t know why they are being told all of these things. They don’t have a purpose, so why is it important. Then the teacher tells the students to look at as if they were a robber or a house buyer. The teacher asks what perks were there for the robber and for the house buyer and the students respond with a variety of things that the house has to offer. The best part of this entire story is when the students finally realize that when they read with a purpose, they learn and remember the evidence in the story. It’s amazing how little things like finding the purpose of reading and finding the purpose of a text can change you from being a mediocre reader to an astounding reader.

Blog Post #7: Individual Exploration, "Teaching Social Justice in Theory and Practice"

What is Social Justice? Why is it important for our classrooms? As I thought about these questions, I found it difficult to pin down exactly what the definition of social justice is and what it isn't. The problem with defining social justice is that it's not one singular thing that a teacher or anyone else can do by themselves in the classroom. It's a collaborative effort that takes the entire populace of the classroom to build a strong basis for social justice. The blog that I'm basing my blog post on provides insight to a variety of different characteristics of social justice what it really means to have it in the classroom. The blog speaks of the goals of social justice, how to add social justice to the classroom, fostering a conscious community, using diverse material, applying social justice in the classroom to real world contexts, and how students are able to take what they've learned into an actual attack plan for the real world. For the sake of this blog, I will define social justice as field that students can study in order to find the cracks and faults of our culture relating to injustices of the social realm. To find social justice, one has to locate the injustices and start mending the brokenness from the bottom. Though this blog isn't scholarly based, I do believe that what the author is saying has quite a bit of validity. 

The first section talks about the goals of social justice. Just like how teachers are supposed to explain their goals and learning expectations, they should also be explaining their clear-cut expectations for their goals of social justice in their classroom. The article talks about how teachers should enable students to voice their concerns and develop constructive conversations in order to create a socially just atmosphere. The blogger also stated that through conversation, “students can start to recognize injustice existing at the micro and macro levels.” This is an awesome way for students to see that there aren’t just monstrous problems in the classroom, but also smaller areas of concern.

Another sections talked about adding the given philosophy to the classroom. Like stated before, creating a socially just classroom will give students the chance to see the type of society that is possible to live in and how they can positively make a difference.

The education system is being propelled towards student-centered curriculum. As teachers, we must adapt to how students learn best. One of the ways is engaging them with issues and material that is directly affecting them. Students are the center of our world because of their connection to technology. They see more in one hour on the Internet than we adults do in one week. They are exposed to racism, gender issues, politics, moralistic concerns, and other social injustices, so why would we not adhere to their wants? They love to express their own opinions and if we can teach them to critically engage in the treatment of any social injustices, then we are doing our job. As students begin to develop their own views on social injustices, they can turn around to their community and start to make true changes in the areas around them. It’s cliché to say that the youth is our future, which may or not be the case, but we have to start with the people who have the most driving force in our society, which happens to be the youth.

http://education.cu-portland.edu/blog/news/teaching-social-justice/

Blog Post #6: Duncan-Andrade and Morrell's "Critical Pedagogy and Popular Culture in an Urban Secondary English Classroom"

I had a lot of mixed feelings as I read through this article. They could have split this article into 3 different articles to make their point, but I gained a lot of good insight to the injustices that students are facing in the classroom. I also learned quite a few new teaching methods that I will definitely be able to utilize in my classroom.

The first section that caught my eye was talking about critical pedagogy that teachers are attempting to find. Teachers are looking to motivate students, develop literacies, and engage their students in finding a fix for educational justices. Motivation for students is always something I'm interested in. I hate being in a classroom where students sit in the very back and talk and are distracted and have no motivation. It's partially on the teacher to figure out what motivates their students and what they can do to improve their teaching. Students also must be engaged in their own learning and teachers can hone in on what it takes to reach that point.

Another section talked about assignments that these teachers used in the classroom. When talking about one of their final assignments, the students were assigned to to present information and take ownership of the knowledge production process. The students that were not presenting were asked to basically interrogate the presenters with positive questions. To pair with the questions, the students were also asked to take a massive amount of notes during the presentations. I loved each of these assignments. It provides a chance for students to take ownership of their work and may actually propel them to take their work more seriously. To coincide with the motivational aspect, taking a large amount of notes can help with deeper understanding. I don't see it as a mindless note taking activity, but more of an interactive knowledge building activity.

Stand and Deliver is one of my favorite movies. The article states that, "we wanted our students to envision themselves as having academic potential, and we wanted to create a curriculum that enabled our students to compete on equal academic footing with their counterparts who were attending the nation's elite schools." I look at this statement as a building block for students who don't find themselves in the best learning conditions.

It's funny that a part of this article talked about a seven week long lesson plan on relating poetry to rap songs because that is similar to what Sarah and I will be doing our three week lesson plan on. I'm definitely going to utilize some of the techniques in this article for our plan.

The last section that I found intriguing was the end section in Race and Justice in Society section. Regardless of the information that was being taught, the authors stated that relevance "leads to a deeper understanding that, in turn, facilitates a more personal and deeper analysis of the themes of race and justice found in the text." The more relevant information that students can interconnect with, the easier it will be for the teacher to get the students engaged and motivated to learn. "As they begin to relate the characters to their own lives, they bring their daily life experiences into their critical interpretation of this text. This idea of creating a relevant curriculum is vital for student involvement. I also really liked the idea of having students connect with new texts and information and using that as a bridge to learn the older canonical texts. There is always room for older texts in my curriculum, but if it takes using newer texts to make the connection, then so be it.

Overall, this article was interesting and useful to me as a student and as a teacher. I plan to use some of the methods and techniques that the teachers and researchers spoke about.

Blog Post #5: Paulo Freire’s “Pedagogy of the Oppressed” Chapter 2

I’ve observed many lessons in the last two years of my college career. I’ve seen a wide range of teachers teach different subjects. I’m not an expert in the educational field, but I’ve been around enough teachers to see how this concept of constructing their teaching styles around this banking method is detrimental to students and teachers. Freire used quite a few complex notions in regard to how students are being oppressed, but I think his most valid and logical point was when he was talking about the banking method. I loved the comparison between how banking works and how a student’s mind works. Freire stated, “Education thus becomes an act of depositing, in which the students are the depositories and the teacher is the depositor.” Thinking back to my observations, I can definitely see instances where teachers relayed information to students only for it to go in the bank. Students gained little knowledge from this way teaching and it created more separation from the end goal of being able to apply information to abstract concepts. Students are just putting throwing this information into the back filing cabinet of their minds. Just like in prior articles that we’ve read for class, students aren’t gaining any valuable learning skills if they are just depositing random nuggets of information.

            Another section that I found interesting was when Freire spoke about the passive characteristic that all students have. At a young age, students are taught to be passive in order for teachers to get information across as fast and painless as possible. Freire stated, “The more completely they accept the passive role imposed on them, the more they tend simply to adapt to the world as it is and to the fragmented view of reality deposited in them.”  Students lie down to authority, which poses a lot of problems. It may make a teachers classroom management much easier to handle, but it has the potential of taking away from discussion, less engagement, and possible failure. If you teach and treat students like they are babies, they will learn like babies. You cannot spoon feed students facts and information and expect them to grow. You have to teach them how to eat for themselves and then learn on their own through outside sources. Overall, I found this article to be beneficial for all teachers.

Blog Post #4: “Assessing and Evaluating Students’ Learning: How Do You Know What They Have Learned?” and "Secondary Standards-Based Grading and Reporting Handbook"

This chapter had some very innovative teaching methods that I will probably utilize in my classroom. There was a lot of good information on how and when to assess students. One of the sections that I thought posed some really great insight was the limitations section. The author talked about a very serious problem that teachers are bound to see sometime in their career. The problem is that students have been groomed their entire schooling life to thinking that knowing information is the main focus of learning. The author spoke about how a student can know the difference between first person and third person, but they may not know how to apply that knowledge to texts. What is the point of knowing information if they don’t know how to apply it to anything? That’s like having a person know everything about Michael Jordan’s free throw shot technique, yet they can’t even go out and shoot a basket for themselves. Students need to learn how to apply knowledge to actual texts. This idea of just knowing information also puts students at risk to aim to get the right answer in every situation rather than to learn about underlying meanings, themes, messages, and other important contextual information.

            I’m always looking for alternatives to traditional testing. I’m not really sure if it’s because of how much I was drilled in high school with multiple-choice tests, traditional essays, and formal assessments, but I look to stray away from those types of testing as much as I can. So naturally the section about alternative testing methods was one of the first areas that sparked my interest. The ones that intrigued me the most were journals/blogs, student centered formal written essays, and classroom discussion. Recently I’ve noticed how productive and insightful journals can be. Giving students the chance to voice their opinion, as an assessment can be extremely fruitful. Students will see the purpose in the writing because it’s something that they can engage themselves in. You can utilize journals as a formative assessment throughout the entire year. This will help their writing skills and it connects standards at the same time. The student-centered formal written assignments can play off of the journals. I think having an open ended topic for students to choose from can lead to some of the students best writing. I also thought having classroom discussion as an assessment was interesting. I like the idea of students being assessed based on their conversation in class.

            The Secondary Standards-Based Grading and Reporting Handbook also provided some great insight to a newly developed way of grading students. I thought that the author made some really valid points when he went through each principle. Principle 1 and 2 talked about being graded on specified goals and how evidence used for grading should be valid. I think that telling our students about our clear expectations and goals that we for them is going to provide students with an end goal in mind and motivation to learn the material better. I also agree that grading needs to have valid evidence. This keeps us as teachers in check to help students fix their mistakes and learn what needs to be learned. Principle 4 was also something that I really enjoyed reading into. Not everything should be included in grades. We can’t scrutinize students for every piece of homework that they turn in. If we are writing a paper and we ask for a first draft, we shouldn’t expect it to be anywhere near perfect. Why would we grade something that we expected would have mistakes?  I think that we have to look at what should be graded and what shouldn’t be graded based on what will help the student increase their knowledge and ability to apply that knowledge to other texts the most. The last thing that I found interesting was the idea of not having zeros in your grading system. I’m not sure how I feel about this concept and would love to hear others opinions on this method.

Blog Post #3: California State Universities Expository Reading and Writing Course Assignment Template

This entire packet had some really useful tools, tips, and teaching methods that I plan to use in my future classroom. I also found some information that I found to be a little too traditional for my liking. The fact that this whole assignment template has a creative new age use of writing and reading skills made me really excited to see how some of these methods actually work in the classroom.

             Reading is imperative to become a good writer. You can learn from other writers by looking at their style, diving into their vocabulary, and improving your creativity in a variety of ways.  One section talked about “Exploring Key Concepts.” I think that this is so basic, but so important for students to master. Students need to learn the difference between essential and non-essential information in order to find the key concepts. When students reach the point where they can decipher between information that is important and the things that are not, then they are able to start building a stronger understanding of the material. Along with reading comes the idea of “Making Predictions and Asking Questions.” Students need to start learning to make inferences on their own. They also need to start asking questions that will lead them to making more inferences. I find that having students ask their own questions while they are reading a text can lead to deeper understanding as well. They read a text, ask a question, and then they can refer back to the question and answer it. I completely agree that this process helps readers develop a purpose and a plan for what they are reading. Students will feel more engaged and develop a stronger understanding for material.

            Postreading is an extremely simple, yet effective way of helping students understand the information being given to them. One of the main reasons why I liked this so much was due to the focus on central ideas of the text. I like this because the more and more I’m in the classroom teaching students different texts, the more I recognize that they really struggle with finding the central idea. This leads to students not understanding characters, reasoning behind certain actions, and other small, but key details. One method they said this could be effective is if students are given the chance to summarize. I love the idea of students having the opportunity to really grasp onto the information that they are reading by jotting down what they think about it in their own words. This also gives students the chance to respond to a text, which is great if your students lack in the engagement category.

            I really liked this packet because of how many useful tips, methods, and strategies they had for students. I don’t think that they went into enough detail regarding specifics in each of the categories. I do think they did a good job building a big enough umbrella to encompass the amount of generalized information given. You could write a book on each of these sections and develop more specific strategies for writers and readers.