Chapter 5: Behind the Times

I was a little shocked to see that countries like China are modeling their educational systems in order to compete with the United States. Our students are not prepared for the world. I see this everyday. Most are not truly aware of the hard work it takes to be successful, nor the creativity.

I am glad Gallagher addressed the slump in reading around 13 years old. This happened to me. I read and read in elementary and middle school, but when I reached high school all of a sudden it was a heavy chore to complete. By my senior year I was exhausted. My teacher saw this in all of my fellow students as well. She decided to introduce us to a novel at the end of the year. I was groaning....WHY?!? We had already taken the AP exam, why did we have to start a novel?! She chose The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner. I was in awe. After 20 pages I was sucked into the story, I finished the book ahead of schedule. Instead of drilling and killing Mrs. Ray held discussion based classes and we talked about the reading everyday. I walked away from that class ready for college and a passionate appreciation for Literature. I know this experience is rare but, with a good teacher and a good book, I believe all students can walk away from high school with an appreciation for reading as well as all the pleasures and knowledge it provides.

The best critically thinking skills come from reading and looking for meaning within a text. With good critical thinking skills, a fostered creative nature, and an ambitious spirit anyone can succeed. Instead of testing our students to death we need to take them in our hands and give them the tools for success.

Big Chunk/Little Chunk Chapter Four

I really enjoyed this chapter. In my placement my host teacher lectures primarily; there is very little student centered learning. This seems to be an issue. The students are spending too much time listening to her talk about the subject at hand instead of working collaboratively in order to develop those crucial critical thinking skills. I love that Gallagher talked about Nancy Atwell's roles of a teacher: "mentor, mediator, and model." I hope to be all three to my students in the future. I do not want to be that talking head at the front of the classroom; I want to be in the trenches of learning with my students. Gallagher also discusses "framing" and giving a lense to students before they start a reading assignment. By framing the text you are giving the students a purpose for reading it and guiding them down a particular path, especially when working with those difficult texts. "By the nature of their difficulty, they require a teacher's presence, and if readicide is to be avoided, this presence should be asserted before students encounter page one. (Just one of the reasons I do not like hard/difficult texts assigned for summer reading.) Give a lense for students like, "pay attention to symbolism," so that they can place their efforts of understanding to one particular literary aspect instead of trying to find every little thing or not paying attention at all.

I also enjoyed the tips he gave for close reading:
1. Read with a pencil in hand to annotate the text (I write in books all the time)
2. Look for patterns--repetitions, contradictions, and similarities.
3. Ask questions about the patterns you noticed--especially how and why.

I will be using the tips with the 9th graders, who are now doing a close reading of certain sections of To Kill a Mockingbird.

The best way to teach these BIG novels or canonical texts is BIG chuck/little chunk: look at the text as whole...what meaning get you glean? and then look at some of the most important little parts to see how they relate to the whole!

I LOVE LITERATURE! and Kelly Gallagher gives very realistic and useful tips!

Chapter 3

Chapter 3 of Kelly Gallagher's Readicide is really good. He discusses some more causes of readicide one of which is the "intense overanalysis of literature and nonfiction," basically beating a book to death. I experienced this process as a student myself in high school. I remember being so exhausted and exasperated while reading To Kill A Mockingbird in the 9th grade. My teacher chopped, diced, and obliterated the novel. Until I read it again two years ago did I appreciate one of the best American novels.

Gallagher also discusses the reading flow, how it is important to introduce it to students and that chopping up great books interrupts this process. Reading flow is rare. I would consider myself well read however I rarely achieve a reading flow in which EVERYTHING floats away. I think it is unrealistic to expect all students to achieve a reading flow.

I also agree that a Big Unit like the one Gallagher discusses on To Kill A Mockingbird bogs the students down as well as the teacher. And that it only accomplishes two goals: Good state test takers and beating the novel to death. Using canned lessons and units only hinders us as teachers and does not allow for creative planning and implementation.

Gallagher offers a few solutions one of which is augmenting books do not FLOG them! not only do I love the word flog but by augmenting books you are only adding to their meaning not taking it away. He also suggests to teach students the value of academic texts. I am not sure how one would do this but it sounds like a great idea.

Chapter 2

In the second chapter Gallagher outlines three major contributors of readicide and possible solutions. I really enjoyed this chapter it confirmed many of my own thoughts and feelings. I value reading so much in my own life and I want my students to see the benefits of reading themselves. Gallagher intelligently outlines these 3 points which endanger our student's minds a dearth of interesting reading materials, removing challenging novels, and not enough reading in school.

I do not remember ever stepping foot into my high school media center to check out a book. I think I only went there to go to the poetry jam they held once a year. Some media centers are not full of interesting materials for students. I think by having a classroom library I can combat this issue. I have already begun to collect books; library fairs, yard sales, and stores like Goodwill all have books at greatly reduced prices. Collecting magazines and newspapers is also something I want to do for my students so they have a variety of reading materials to turn to. I also found summer reading rather tedious while in school. I usually had to make myself read the novel and didn't understand the book. Summer reading should be fun and interesting yet still applicable to what the students will be doing during the school year. By removing these more challenging novels during the summer time hopefully students will at least be able to tolerate summer reading instead of dismissing it outright.

When Gallagher states that removing challenging novels from curriculum he does not mean all of them. He makes the point of liking a text versus gleaning meaning from it. Not everyone is going to like the same novel. However in order to cover certain literary styles and mite periods I will, as a English teacher, have to prepare my students for a difficult text. All students should be challenged to a certain degree yet some will not be able to understand, or relate to, a novel like Moby Dick. To prevent readicide I want to use novels like House on Mango Street and The Brothers Torres, both of which touch on many aspects of literature while still remaining relevant to many students's lives.

Not enough reading in school is the final contributor of readicide Gallagher points out. I personally read very little during school hours, only if we had to read a short story during Literature. Gallagher has a great idea of conducting a survey at your own school to understand how much reading is actually going on at school. I think there is very little reading done outside of the English Language Arts classroom. Many schools are conducting sustained silent reading or SSR I think that is a great idea. However there needs to be more reading in the other courses as well; it is easy to include a novel or short story within a history or biology course.

By providing more interesting reading material form a variety of sources, removing some of the irrelevant and challenging texts, and providing more time for reading in school hopefully we can help to prevent readicide. I know that I will try to do this.

Chapter One Readicide

Chapter one of Readicide is great. Gallagher places emphasis on the origins of No Child Left Behind as well as teaching towards a "shallow" test. I did not realize that No Child Left Behind's origins were from a Texas program of "high-stakes" testing. The program does not have any validity, so why are we using a model of it to base our Nation's education program? I really liked the "Paige Paradox," it is something I have seen in practice. While working in the front office and media center of a high school I saw an emphasis placed upon test prep. Many teachers pulled out study books and practice tests in order to get the juniors ready for the GHSGT. Is this what our students need?

Gallagher provides a wonderful argument as to why teaching to a "shallow" test does not work. There is evidence that high school students are now less prepared for college as well as the workforce. Only ONE THIRD of students read at grade level. I believe this can be attributed to the emphasis on these "shallow" tests. There is so much pressure on administration, faculty, and students to perform well on these tests so they will not lose their jobs or graduate. Students are not able to study a topic in depth or develop critically thinking skills instead they are pushed to focus on practice tests, multiple choice quizzes, and simple coverage of the material. Students would better benefit from reading and studying a topic they are interested in and working on projects that develop and deepen their knowledge of the content. Gallagher also mentions the achievement gap between low-income and minority students.

Many of these students do not have the resources available to them in order to become life long readers and learners. Our teachers are forced to shove these students through years worth of material in a short time so that MAYBE they will pass THE test. There is no longer a focus place upon the whole student; the focus is placed on whether or not they will be able to cover all of the content within the allotted time frame. We are setting these students up for failure and thusly ourselves as well. These students are our future and we are not appropriately preparing them for it. Their are no realistic expectations; our only expectation is for them to pace this infamous test. We are stuck within this awful "Paige Paradox." But how are we to break free?

Perhaps our government should reform the No Child Left Behind Act; it does not work. For the past 5 years their as been no viable improvement in student performance. If anything students are falling behind at an even faster pace. We as teachers need to be developing our students into life long learners as well as readers. By introducing motivating methods, material related to the real-world, and focusing instruction on metacognition hopefully we as teachers can help to solve this problem of readicide.