A Teacher's Courage

The courage in teaching seems to be Gallagher's biggest emphasis here, and for once he got to the point quickly.  He says that "If we are to find our way again--if students are to become avid readers again--we, as language arts teachers, must find our courage to recognize the difference between the political worlds and the authentic worlds in which we teach to swim against those current educational practices that are killing young readers, and to step up and do what is right for our students" (118). I couldn't agree with him more.  We as teachers must advocate for our students and their learning needs and have to find the balance between the politics in education and the realities of the classroom.

I am going into the language arts classroom, and I often hear others in our classroom ask, "how would this be applicable to my classroom?".  This statement that Gallagher makes is applicable across all contents.  All educators must advocate for their students between the balance of the politics of education and the fights that come from policies that are implemented and the crucial realities that we as educators face every day.  We are these students' voice and more often than not their needs are silenced through our inability to stand up and deal with this.  I'm not saying that we have to be some superhero teachers, but I am saying that we must pick our battles within our classrooms and what we think is effective for the students that are in them. 

The Delicate Balance in Teaching Reading

Finding the "sweet spot" in teaching reading to me seems to be the most delicate balance that a literature teacher can have.  As Gallagher points out over and over again within this chapter there is a balance that is necessary between underteaching and overteaching of text within the language arts classroom.  I find that often many of the books that we read about problems in the classroom or schools point out the problems but do not give solutions, but in this chapter Gallagher gives definite solutions.  

Gallagher starts out by discussing the importance of framing a text before reading it.  This is an awesome solution; however, I have found that often teachers will do this, but with no end result in mind.  They may frame a text through historical context (which may be important) or focusing on a particular aspect of a book, such as symbolism, but if that is not what is ultimately important, especially when it comes time for assessment, then why give them this framework? I think that students need a specific framework, but only one that has a specific end result in mind.  Gallagher touches on this, by commenting that he uses this with an end result in mind, but does not discuss how vital this is to this process.

I have also always found it very important to re-read text, and Gallagher also comments on this.  I like that he gives specific way to do this within a classroom though.  I think that it would be beneficial.  And he also talks about the need to do adopt a big chunk/little chunk philosophy in your classroom.  By this he means that you should allow your students to achieve reading flow with some aspects of it, but when you get to a more difficult passage or chapter then you need to stop and re-read here. This philosophy should really help with the overteaching issue.  This is a format that several of my college professors used, which is when I developed my love for reading.  We would be assigned text to read on our own, and then we would come in and discuss.  If we were at a place that was confusing or even complicated without us admitting to confusion, we would go over this aspect of the novel during class time.  I could see because of my own experiences with literature why this philosophy would work when applied to any classroom.

There has to be a balance when teaching literature...you do not want to KILL the reading for the students, but as Gallagher points out, you also do not want to leave them to difficult text to grapple with the difficulties on their own either.  There needs to be a balance, and I love that he offers real solutions within this chapter that seem really applicable to the language arts classroom.

Tsunami = Overteaching

I love Gallagher's analogy of the tsunami in this chapter.  The idea that teacher's are stifling learning by continuously overteaching and interrupting in the midst of great books.  By doing this, teachers are interrupting the flow of good reading.  No wonder student's do not develop a passion or love for reading if they never are allowed to engage with the texts that they are given.  I would get upset if someone stopped me in the midst of reading to tell me something about it (I also like his analogy of stopping someone in the middle of movies-but film critics do this).  Part of why I developed my love for reading was the way college classrooms were set up.  The ability to read books by myself uninterrupted and then come to the classroom to discuss them in an open forum appealed to me and developed my love for reading.  Unfortunately, in the secondary classroom setting this seems to be impossible for many reasons.  I agree with a lot of what Gallagher says here, but again, I wish he gave more examples of how to effectively avoid this.  Any suggestions?

Need for Independent Reading

Gallagher focuses a lot on the need for independent reading in their instructional classes.  I completely agree with this!  Students should be given the opportunities to read independently in order to become life-long readers.  Without the opportunity for independent and a multiple range of readings students will not connect to reading in any way whatsoever.  

The school that I just finished my first practicum at was very good at this through their RC program. I was given the privilege of working with two host teachers and was able to compare their two different  teaching styles.  One teacher taught 7th grade and kept reading logs on her students and their only requirement of their RC reading was to read 50 pages a week for her higher level classes and 30 pages for her lower level classes.  The other teacher taught 8th grade and didn't keep up with reading logs at all, and her only requirement of their RC aspect of the class was that they met their goals that were agreed upon between her and the student.  The seventh grade teachers also allowed her students 10 minutes every single day to read a book of their choice.  The eighth grade teacher did not give them a set time every single day, but would give them more time (like 20-30 minutes) during class once or twice a week.  

Although I hope to teach on a high school level and the implementation of a program such as RC is not something that will likely be used in this setting, I will use the idea of SSR in my classroom.  I think that allowing students the opportunity to read for their own pleasure and through their own choice is crucial to developing true readers.

I also have thought about implementing the use of newspaper articles in my classroom, and really appreciated Gallagher's example of his article of the week.  I wish that he had given more information about how he used this and why they were given the entire week for the assignment.  I like the idea of giving them opportunities to chose articles themselves at times too though in something that they may be interested in.  This may make them more intrigued in actually reading newspapers for an attempt to make them life-long advocates for this type of literature.  Does anyone have any ideas about how else to implement other types of reading into your language arts classroom that will help them become the life-long readers that we hope that they will become?

Developing Test-Takers at the Expense of Readers

This chapter's emphasis was about how to begin to recognize readicide in schools.  Kelly Gallagher introduces his ideas about what readicide is, how he feels it has become this way, and also about other problematic ideas within the schools surrounding this concept, such as testing and standards.

I loved how Gallagher delved into the concept of standards and testing, but also makes claims that he is not against those things.  He isn't against standards and even claims that they, "are necessary, and have made me a better teacher", but he goes on to say that, "there is one big problem concerning the state and local standards in this country: there are far too many of them" (9).  He also claims that teaching to the test isn't the issue, but that, "the problem occurs when we spend most of our time teaching to a shallow test" (12).  I agree with most of his ideas here.  There are too many standards, and the expectations for teachers to truly teach in a meaningful way is unrealistic in the amount of time that they are given.  I think that standards are helpful when they are thoughtful and useful themselves.  I also agree that teaching to a test, meaning that you have a clear idea of where you will be assessing your students from the beginning is a meaningful way to teach them because their expectations are then clear from the beginning.  

I think that too often teachers give in to the high unrealistic demands that are set for them from the politics surrounding them rather than trying to teach in a truly meaningful way.  It is clear that something needs to change in the educational world.  There are many who are speaking up, but is anyone listening?