On Reading

"If there is no struggle there can be no progress." -Fredrick Douglass

This quote that I found in the appendix of In the Middle and it made me think about the students in my class at Normandy. I am supposed to teach my unit on short stories and today I found out that most of the students I will be teaching do not have the best reading skills. In fact, I learned that most of them refuse to read. According to my teacher, the students will not read for homework and in class they prefer to listen to the recording of the story rather than reading aloud. I feel like this is going to be very challenging for me when I teach the short stories unit because there are quite a few stories we need to get through that are mandatory for the school curriculum. How am I going to get through all of the material and teach the standards that I need to teach if we spend so much class time reading, or listening rather, to the stories? 8

Atwell comments on page 214, "Some students won't trust that there is such a thing as a good book; their experiences of literature are so limited they don't yet know what they like to read. And I know that for some, inexperience with books will mean a delay in fluency; their reading will be slow and awkward." I am afraid that this is what has happened to most of the students I will be teaching. I think that because they are not used to reading and haven't been expected to do it outside of class, they are afraid to try. I am hesitant to have them read aloud in class because I don't want anyone to feel embarrassed. If it is OK with my teacher, I think I will try to have them read something very small for homework and then possibly give them an informal assessment the next day to see who actually read.

Narratives

Today when I was in my school observing, I was able to see something that really got me thinking. We were working on narratives and my teacher decided to start the lesson by telling the class her own narrative. Her story was really emotional and powerful. I was actually really surprised that she shared the story of her rough childhood and alcoholic father, but I think I understand why she did. After the class was over, one of the students came up to my cooperating teacher and was crying. The story had really touched him because he said his parents are going through a divorce. My teacher asked him to come to her room during his lunch period to talk. Seeing this 16 year old boy cry in the classroom made me get teary myself.

This incident made me realize that I can prepare great lessons and use many awesome strategies, but I can't always anticipate what will happen with my students and how they will react. This incident really brought me back to my health and learning: strategies for teachers course that I took last year at Kent State. My instructor taught us about the different issues that students will have going on in their lives and how those personal issues can affect their performance in the classroom.

In chapter 11, Atwell discusses teaching narratives. She discusses how her students seemed to phase out narrative writing from their repertoires (372). She comments on how her students had trouble thinking about an experience to write that had meaning or why it was worth writing at all. Atwell shares a genre that she and her students found more fun and interesting: memoirs. She says, "Memoir is how writers look for the past and make sense of it" (372). I personally don't see much of a difference between a personal narrative and a memoir. Atwell says that memoirs allow writers to discover and tell their own truths (372).

Myers Article

While reading the Myers article, one of the quotes on page 76 really stuck out to me:

"Reading as a school exercise has almost always been thought of as reading aloud...The consequent attention to reading as an exercise in speaking... has been heavily at the expense of reading as the art of thought-getting..."(Huey [1908], 1968, 359).

I feel like reading as a school exercise should be a little bit of both. Students should be practicing speech while reading, as well as inferring meaning. Today's exercises in reading are definitely more geared towards reading comprehension, rather than diction and speech. Rather than memorization and repetition, today's teachers focus on meaning and interpretation.

I also found it very interesting to read that post Civil War teachers contributed to the sorting function in schools (69). I definitely think that sorting students by achievement contributed to the decline in school attendance of the lower class students. I was not surprised to read that the majority of children who remained in schools were white males from wealthy, professional families (69). I am so glad that schools today are more discreet about the socioeconomic status and achievement level of the students. At my school, my teacher is extremely careful to speak with the students who are on IEPs in private or letters or emails. My cooperating teacher told me that she uses discretion because she doesn't want the students on IEPs to feel embarrassed or apart from the rest of the class.

Mini lessons

I think mini lessons are a good idea to use in the classroom because they seem like a good way to begin class and keep focus. I've found in some of my observations that students get bored with lengthy lectures. I think short mini lessons are a great way to keep students' attention. I found it interesting that Nancie Atwell asks her students to conduct their own mini lessons to share their strategies and accomplishments with the group (152). I think it is important to highlight good writing and it is important to let students share their writing with the class. Most of the writing courses that I have taken at Kent State have been set up as writing workshops. I found the workshops very helpful in my development as a writer because not only was I getting feedback from the teacher, but also from my classmates. On that note, I think if I were to set up my class like a workshop, I would first give a mini lesson on constructive criticism!

I was just browsing for more things about Nancie Atwell and her teaching strategies, and I found this video. In this video, Atwell discusses the importance of poetry in the classroom. She has a book out called, Naming the World: A Year of Poems and Lessons. She uses poetry to teach her students how to become better writers. Atwell also incorporates a poem in her mini lessons every day. I love this idea because it exposes students to many different styles and types of writing.

Atwell Chapters 1 & 2

I found it interesting that Atwell tells us the about the word "story" and how it can be traced to the Greek eidenai, which means "to know" (3). I am doing my unit on short stories, so I thought this would be something to share with my students, as well.
When reading about Atwell's student, Jeff, I immediately thought of differentiated instruction and how that type of instruction could have benefited Jeff. I gathered that Atwell was uncomfortable with the way that Jeff was going about his writing assignments. She seemed to want him to write during class like the other students, instead of drawing. I think that Atwell should have supported Jeff's learning because he was intrinsically motivated to write his stories based on his drawings. Jeff seemed to be more of a visual learner, and differentiated instruction helps support different learning styles and minds.

I like what Atwell says on page 15: "Freedom of choice does not undercut structure." I think being flexible is part of what makes a good teacher. In my observations at Normandy High School, I've seen my teacher push back due dates, make accommodations for certain classes, and ask for student input. Atwell says that working with students is important and they have ideas, too. I also think that when students have a say in what they are learning, how they will be graded, and rules of the classroom they will be more motivated to do the work.