Readicide

          When I was in elementary school I was taught to the test. As I grew up I realized I realized I knew exactly how to write the typical five paragraph essay, but that is about where my writing skills took a halt. As teachers it is our job to teach our students how to think deeply and how to explain themselves well. "I am not against teaching students how to take a test. Indeed, we want all of our students to have test-taking knowledge" (Gallagher). The students do, however, need to have knowledge about how to take a test, as Kelly Gallagher said.

The Texas Miracle or Texas Mirage topic in the book I had heard of before, but it is still interesting that a state would try to cheat on their test results just so they can have higher state tests scores. The Montessori class that was in my middle school actually gave the parents of their class the test scores and the correct answers for the WASL their students took. Now that I’m grown up I realize how wrong it was for the teacher to give the parents the correct answers to the WASL their child had just taken. It is also unfair for the students who didn’t get the answers to the WASL they had taken. This is an example of how “cheating” is going on within school districts even in District 81. Just like the Texas Miracle there was some cheating going on.

            Preventing Readicide can be done by allowing the students to read interesting pieces of text that engage them as students. The part about giving each students a copy of Newsweek having them read it and give an assignment that isn’t necessarily hard, but assures the teachers that the students read it is a good way to have the students reading frequently. It will also have the students think about what they had just read, which is a valuable skill for the students to have.

 

Differentiated Instruction

          In the article I read I agreed that the use of creative thinking is helpful when it comes to differentiated thinking. Integrating creative thinking into the lesson the students are learning can target more students than assigning just a paper or just taking a test to determine the students mastery of the material. Letting students use their own creativity won't only target their own learning style better it will allow for the students voice to be one of the main points in the lesson.
          To engage students in the lesson they are learning about teachers can allow students to self select some pieces to the material they are studying. When students can choose their own book to study or if they can choose a piece of the 1920's that they want to focus on they will be more inclined to thoroughly learn the material. When students can self select material they have added their own voice in the lesson and students will have some interest in the material they chose, which is better than assigning something they have no interest in.
          As the article I read quoted "one size does not fit all," that is why teachers should have many teaching strategies to use with the students. Not all students are going to comprehend the lesson with just one learning strategy. Using multiple strategies across the span of the lesson is more likely to help the students understand the whole lesson more thoroughly.
          Utilizing three teaching styles to vary instruction will help the "one size does not fit all" dilemma. Teachers who use direct instruction, inquiry based instruction, and cooperative instruction in the classroom are shown to have more success in the classroom. These teaching strategies are all vastly different, this is why they can aid in helping more students understand the material that was taught in class. If students don't comprehend the material using the direct instruction strategy they will likely understand the material using one of the other two strategies. That is why using all three teaching strategies in the classroom can benefit the students.

I Read it, but I Don't Get it

          I Read it, but I Don't Get it has a lot of good ideas about how to teach students who don't catch on to the tricks to reading right away. This book draws the reader into reading the book by resenting her own story about how she was really able to read and understand material until she was well into her life.
          One of the points that I thought was really helpful in this book was in chapter six. It was important for the students to understand that English has many other subjects tied into it. History for example a lot of reading is about historical events. It is important for the students to know about what ever event the book is about so they can comprehend the text they are reading the best they possibly can. Creating connections for the students to relate previous topics to a current topic they are studying can be beneficial so the students don't have to make the connections themselves. If the teacher assumes that the students already know information about the topic they are learning about that can leave students in the dust and they will fall behind. So making connections for the students is important before starting a new lesson with the students.
          I like the idea of making a poem consisting of I wonder questions. It can be really eye opening, if students are prompted to dig deeper than just surface I wonders. The poems that were put into the book were really good and I would really like to try using the I wonder poem with the students.
          When teachers say to read between the lines, if they are asked how they figured out a piece of the text that is on of the worst things a teacher can say to a student. That isn't teaching the students how to learn the text it is giving the students this cliché line isn't helping the students at all. Students should be taught how to look at what the text is really saying and to use textual evidence to figure out what is going on in the text.

A Response-Based Approach to Reading Literature

          When I was reading this article the piece on people reading a text and applying it to their own life. This reminded me of quotes most of the time people like quotes, because they can be related to their life. A quote might hold a totally different meaning from person to person, but they can still relate it to their life and make a special meaning out of it.
          I really liked the part about including both purposes in writing, literary and discursive. When people are constructing a piece of their own writing if that person only included one or the other the paper wouldn't reach its full potential. I like the way Judith Langer put it, she says "it is the interplay of the two (literary and discursive) that can add richness to the understanding." I definitely agree with this quote. If the literary piece wasn't included in a paper the reader wouldn't get a lot of the detail that could be included as if it were included in the paper.
          In one of my management classes we went over inquiry based learning. The teacher would give the students a question and the students would work towards developing questions until the students had a solid grasp on what the possible answer to the question was. The part in the article by Langer about how students sometimes departed from the lesson plan for the day grabbed my attention, because of the inquiry based teaching I just learned about. The teacher in the video that I watched on inquiry based learning had a clear vision for where he wanted to students to go, if the students were straying away from that he would form questions that lead the students back on the right track. That is a way to not loose the point to the lesson, but to inconspicuously lead the students back to the point of the lesson. I don't think when the students react in a way that the teacher didn't expect that the whole lesson should be thrown out the door, but if there is a teachable moment to what that student brought up it wouldn't hurt to investigate that students idea a bit.