Learning about Reading Mod 1

 One of the pressing issues is motivation of students, particularly readers in high school.  There is also a huge performance gap between ethnicities that needs to be more effectively addressed in the classroom.  Early interventions are in place, but somewhere along the transition from middle to high school, students lose the interventions, and the motivations to read. Family and community involvement is critical in all grade levels, but continued interaction between students and families in secondary education has the potential to increase learning and mastery of all subject content.  

One area tied to motivation is the methodology of teaching reading.  Teachers want to teach literature content and story, rather than the concepts.  The transition to the Common Core Standards is met with resistance from teachers due to misunderstanding and miscommunication.  Most English teachers want to teach stories that they themselves love, without grasping that teaching a love of language before concepts of audience, plot, theme, and characterization will cross content and curriculum lines.  Those students, who understand the beauty of language and the practicality of communication, will learn that mastery of word choice and sentence structure gives them power.  They will also gain the knowledge that the concepts learned will apply to any form of literature.  Teachers need to understand that teaching concepts rather than canons, especially using student chosen reading materials, will result in much greater success than if they learn the limited aspects of one work. By allowing students to branch out from the classics, they will expand their background knowledge and vocabulary more readily.  One of the articles in The English Journal, Vol. 102 No.2 from November 2012, “A Case for the Autistic Perspective in Young Adult Literature,” supports the idea of choice in reading material.  The article suggests that students will learn to accept and embrace others with varying disabilities, as well as give the student with disabilities a story to which they can relate if teachers are willing to introduce new texts.   Graphic novels and films are also discussed in articles that lobby for using student interest as a way to create an interest in learning that will go beyond the basic brush-over that takes place in most classrooms today. Student choice is a catalyst for motivation through the creation of reading material that addresses the issues that students face in their daily lives.  

One article, “Reframing Resistance in the English Classroom,” offers ways to encourage and engage reluctant learners by re-evaluating their resistance to create understanding that will disarm the fear of failure.  Students are resisting the traditional methods of teaching and rather than continuing to argue and attempting to coerce their cooperation, teachers need to open the discussion of critical literacy and find ways to affect change. If we remember that as student ourselves, classic literature of the cannon was something we were forced to read, so why do we questions the resistance of this generation of students.  Many English teachers fell in love with the classics as adults, not as teenagers, so it bear consideration that involving pop culture to teach how literature reflects society as an essential question.  

In my reading intervention class that targets struggling readers I plan to focus on personal interest (choice) and class discussion to engage the students.  I believe this strategy will offer assistance in creating motivated readers.  Today I had students read the book of their choice in the 20 minutes before lunch and had to wait on several students to finish a page or two before they wanted to put down their books.  I believe this method of teaching the love of reading before teaching the content or concepts will create a community of readers in my classroom.