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.
No comments:
Post a Comment