When I first considered teaching English, it was, like most teachers, out of a passion for the content. I really, really like literature. I own books I've never read for the sole purpose of creating a kick-ass library I can loan books from. I mean, geez, I think libraries are "kick-ass."
Since I've started classes, though, its become painfully obvious that most of teaching English is teaching reading and writing. The eleventh-grade American Lit class I've been observing has been doing almost nothing but working on persuasive writing, and the short story they did read was barely discussed in class. It kills me a little inside - I know literature, and I can teach it well! I don't know much about teaching reading and writing, and what little I thought I knew has been constantly challenged by the classes I'm taking.
So when Tovani writes that "one of my biggest challenges is helping content teachers identify a clear instructional purpose for assigned reading" (54), I balk a little. Who needs clear instructional goals?! Can't we read books for the sake of reading good literature? Books aren't tools in an English class as they are in a science or math class; they're the things being studied!
But then, students don't read the way I do, do they? They're still beginners. So, really, its my job to teach students how to read books like I do, critically, with an eye for certain features in the text that will unfold its meaning for me, the reader. It's not so much that I have to justify the text to students, as to open up the text for students, and show them how to open up a text on their own. That activity of teaching them critical reading can be the purpose for reading a text.
Of course, this still leaves me with the question that plagues every English teacher, the question all students patronize their teacher with: "why do we have to read this?" For us teachers, its a matter of reading texts we enjoy and respect. Students, though, rarely approach books with the same reverence teachers do, and we still have to defend and justify the reasons we teach students a canon of literature. That, though, might be easier for me than teaching reading like Tovani does.
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I think, Tim, as Tovani suggested at the beginning of her book, that we all have a passion for what we are teaching. And that is great! We better - or else we shouldn't teach it! Somehow, we have to pass that passion on to the students. But, how?
ReplyDeleteIf you ever figure out a way to get every student to understand why you have to do something, let me know! For some, I've resorted to the age-old answer "Because I said so!" One day, I do want to figure out an answer that will get them to WANT to learn EVERYTHING I have to teach them.
Until then - your excitement will rub off on some. If you're excited about reading - let them know what excites you about it. Relating it to present life experiences always helps. Standards do seem to keep us from doing all we want to do, but make sure you always make time to share your passions!
Tim,
ReplyDeleteLouise Rosenblatt speaks to a continuum of aesthetic and efferent reading. Reading to enrich our lives, as the asthetic - to reading for information, the efferent. We set our purposes for reading along these lines. Tovani discusses purpose quite a bit. Perhaps one way to open up this discussion to talking about purposes for reading. I greatly admire and respect your passion for literature. I agree that the study of reading and writing has potential of killing the true love of literature. Perhaps this would be a great inquiry topic for you - where is the balance to be found? Powerful thinking in your blog!
I had to stop reading your blog simply to comment on what you said about having to teach students how to read with a critical eye. That should be taught more, I agree! It is something that I have an extremely hard time doing to this day. Well, unless it's science related but then again that subject is pretty straightforward. There is not much left for interpretation as with literature.
ReplyDeleteMy husband, who teaches honors Amer. Lit. made me read "As I Lay Dying" by Faulkner. As I was reading he would ask me if I caught some symbolic "something" about a fish flopping/dying and an emotional boy. I thought he was joking. "The fish was dying....what else was there?"
What is my husband doing that I am not doing when I read? AND I read for pleasure constantly. What else am I missing?
Tim,
ReplyDeleteI was also completely shocked at the lack of reading apparent from Tovani and my observation. I think that as people who are passionate about our content, we are going to have to stop an figure out how we managed to pull that passion out of what we were reading when we became passionate. I was looking forward to assigning different reading assignments, and had included several in the lesson plans I created this summer. My observation has demonstrated that this will be extremely difficult because students don't read and don't care to. Baby-steps may be necessary, as well as lots of in-class reading somehow squeezed into instruction time.
Tim,
ReplyDeleteI do not only find it hard that the students don't read, I also am finding out that they are not motivated to do any type of homework. They tell me that they would rather take notes than read the chapter. I already know this, so I try and give them what they need in the notes and try to get them to pull from the text with questions they can answer. But most of them will copy or just skim. There has to be some way to motivate them to read and do their work. I think that we need to find a way to translate our love for the content to the students. Also, trying to do this while teaching them the content in the little time we have in the classroom.