I Read It, But I Don't Get It by Cris Tovani

        Cris Tovani’s pedagogical book “I Read It, But I Don’t Get It” provides the reader with several strategies for helping students develop their reading comprehension skills. Her strategies help readers with a variety of issues; reluctant readers, those who quit when they get stuck in a passage, and the ones who can decode the words, but miss the meaning. I was glad that Tovani didn’t only include students with obvious reading struggles, but also readers who seem like strong readers. Tovani provides techniques that don’t allow students to slip through the cracks like the perceived “good readers” she mentioned had; her students couldn’t simply SparkNote the novel and pass a quiz, they had to think in order to complete the activities she assigned. In order to ensure all of her students got the most out of their reading, Tovani worked to help them develop their independent thinking skills. This is something I want to ensure I do as a teacher; it doesn’t matter how much content you feed into your students if they don’t have the ability to make sense of it. Tovani writes: “We can choose to cover the curriculum or we can choose to teach students to inquire. If we choose to cover the curriculum, our students will fail. If we teach our students to inquire, we will have a well of information from which to teach and our students will have a purpose (93). I think it will be difficult to find a proper balance between teaching content and teaching learning strategies, but Tovani provided a lot of helpful information for breaking from the “teaching to the test/book” that can consume teachers.

        Tovani emphasized having students make personal knowledge and experience connections to their reading. I love this idea and would use it in my classroom. In my unit plan, I have been trying to find ways for my students to make personal knowledge connections between the texts, but I did not think to incorporate personal experience connections to the reading. I will now be using Tovani’s “Text-to-Self Connections” sheet on page 125 to encourage students to make personal experience connections when they read the assigned texts for my unit plan. I not only want my students to understand their reading, but I want them to understand why it can and should matter to them.

I was really intrigued about the section on crafting “pondering questions;” Tovani dedicated an entire class period for having her students think about questions they had about anything. I think this is an awesome way to inspire students to start thinking about what they wonder in the text they are reading. If they can create good questions about their observations in life, they can create good questions about texts they struggle to understand. I also think this activity would boost student’s confidence in their independent ideas. In her implementation, Tovani made sure that each student's question was valued and important. She emphasized that the questions didn’t need to be answered right then or ever, but they should inspire reflection. In being able to form good questions about life in general, Tovani’s students were better equipped with the skills to make questions that helped them better understand their reading.

        I enjoyed reading Tovani’s book and found it really helpful. There is no single way to get students to understanding their reading, therefore it is important for teachers to provide their students with a register of methods for working through difficult texts. Once students begin to feel more confident in their ability to use reading comprehension strategies, they will begin developing the independent thinking skills necessary for being a good reader.

"Critical Literacy and Popular Culture in Urban Education" by Ernest Morrell

             In his article “Critical Literacy and Popular Culture in Urban Education,” Ernest Morell explores the role pop culture plays in education. He acknowledges that there are more literacies than just those in the classroom and explores how literacy can be used to combat social injustice. Unfortunately, simply being literate doesn’t prevent one from being unjust; there must be more to one's level of literacy than just being able to read and write in order to make it purposeful. The importance of literacy, especially for marginalized, oppressed and underrepresented groups, lies in what they can do with their literacy.

            Morell works to provide his students with the tools to expand the abilities within their literacy. I loved the mock-trial Morell wrote about using with his students and I would definitely use that in the classroom. He successfully integrates classical literary texts into a debate, thus teaching students how to successfully argue their point of view. Not only is Morell helping the students meet common core standards, but he’s helping them to build important skills they can use outside of the classroom. His literary text debate unit teaches students how to form a thesis, how to write a persuasive argument, how to find and use credible sources, familiarity with complex classical texts and speaking and listening skills. The students can then use those skills to fight for topics that interest them outside of the classroom. When students can see how their school work translates to the real word, they are more likely to become engaged.

            I agree with Morell that it is important to acknowledge the importance of pop culture in education and teachers should use it to their advantage. Not all students will feel as passionately about reading as us English majors will, so as teachers it is our job to help students become engaged in their schoolwork with nontraditional methods. 

Pedagogy of the Oppressed by Paulo Freire

In his book, Pedagogy of the Oppressed, Paulo Freire elaborates on systemic oppression and how it has become ingrained in society. Freire explores a unique way of looking at oppression: both the oppressors and the oppressed are responsible for the perpetuation of oppression, but only the oppressed can begin the process of diminishing an oppressive reality. The oppressive reality creates a polar reality in which one either needs to the oppressed or the oppressor. The oppressed who are able to escape their position are no longer equals of their former peers, rather they have unintentionally immersed themselves into the position of the oppressor. Oppression can be masked under the guise of charity: "false charity" stems from paternalistic instinct and allows oppressors to rationalize their behavior. It emphasizes the hierarchy of the superior and the inferior. In order for the oppressive reality to diminish, the oppressed must unveil the oppressive reality and then the humanistic pedagogy will belong to everyone once the reality of oppression has been transformed. I enjoyed reading this perspective on oppression. Rather than simply blaming the oppressor and demanding a change, Freire breaks down the system and states why the oppressors cannot effectively break down the oppressive reality.

                His relating of his philosophy to the current education system was very interesting. He describes the traditional educational instruction as “banking education” in which the teacher is the oppressor and the student is the oppressed. In place, Freire suggests “problem-posing education” which requires students to think critically and participate in dialogue to work through their problems. I fully support this method of teaching that allows the teacher and student to have a more equal relationship and learn together. I do think there needs to be more guidance than is suggested in the second chapter, but the shift to teaching students how to learn is significant for a system notorious for teaching students to memorize a single answer. If I have a classroom of my own someday, I would like it to be largely discussion based. I think there is too much emphasis on learning only from teachers when classmates can learn from and with one another through discussion. This also promotes students having to think deeper about the problems presented rather than simply filling in a single answer.

                I liked reading Freire’s perception of teachers; students view them as the all-knowing sources who hold the answers to their questions. The reality is that teachers do not know everything and students should not look at them in that way. The habitual “collecting of answers” from teachers does not create eager learners, it creates students who memorize answers for tests and do not retain knowledge. This system oppresses students from genuine thinking despite well-intentioned teachers attempts to teach students in the way they were taught how to. It requires students to feed the teacher what they want rather than encouraging the students to think in an equal way. It is easier for teachers to teach to a test rather than engaging students in discussion and assignments that are also relevant outside of that single lecture, test or book. This is why I really enjoy Freire’s philosophy of oppression and its relationship to education; it doesn’t only promote equality amongst the students, but amongst the students and the teacher. As modeled in his philosophy of oppression in chapter one, the cycle cannot be broken by the oppressor. Students must acknowledge the oppressive education system and work toward a system that recognizes the potential of the students and teachers as equal. 

Spokane Pubic Schools "Secondary Standards-Based Grading and Reporting Handbook"

I enjoyed reading about how schools in Spokane are implementing the common core standards into their curriculum. I was surprised by the suggestions for grading, particularly to omit grades from early in the semester. Section four goes over the negative impact of zeros, stating that zeros can have a debilitating effects on a student’s motivation, especially when that will be averaged into other scores. I think it’s an interesting concept that I would not have considered before. On one hand, it allows students to get away with not doing their work early in the quarter. On the other hand, if at the end of the quarter the student can prove that they have met standards what does it matter? I like that the district has found a way to incentivize students to focus on learning instead of grade. It takes away the question of whether or not a student can do busy work and replaces it with “can the student meet the standards?” Averaging a 0 into a student’s grade does irreparable damage; if a student knows they have a limit on the grade they can get, it is easy for them to get discouraged from trying in their future work.

                I was also intrigued by the section on homework. The section states that homework should not be counted as part of the student’s grade, which goes back to the thinking about the negative impact of zeros. The district believes that homework should function as practice for the standards rather than homework for the sake of doing homework. The way that the school models homework is more similar to a college; students can study at home as needed, but the bulk of learning should be done in class when the teacher is there to provide guidance.

                I really like the philosophy of the Spokane schools; they have acknowledged that students who make progress will be more motivated to continue progressing. In order to ensure the majority of students stay motivate they are straying from the traditional norms of the classroom and adopting new homework and grading policies.

                

"Assignment Template Aligned to California’s Common Core State Standards for English Language Arts and Literacy"

The Template given in this article is designed to help students be able to better understand what they read and is designed for students in grades 11 and 12. I am most interested in teaching those grades, so this article was helpful for me to see how I can help my own students become stronger readers and writers. The author of the article breaks down the component of the rhetorical process into three parts: Reading rhetorically, connection reading to writing and writing rhetorically. From there, rhetorical reading is further broken down into pre-reading, reading, and post-reading. The connecting process is broken into methods to help discover what the students think. The rhetorical writing portion is broken down into entering the conversation and revising and editing. From there, each sub-component is broken down to explain how the tasks can be accomplished and the purpose of doing so. As someone who is just now being introduced to education courses, this template is not only helpful for giving an example of how to teach rhetorical reading and writing, but also to see how much work goes into helping students build these skills.

                I am glad that this template gave an example of how to incorporate a writing exercise into a literature lesson so that students can work toward multiple standards in a given unit. Teaching students how to rhetorically read is important, and the process outlined here is very helpful to prepare for a writing assignment. By having students do pre-reading work such as surveying the text, making predictions and familiarizing themselves with new vocabulary, they can then use their reading time more efficiently and practice rhetorical reading. The notes and responses students will write during the reading process simplify the writing process and help the students begin to form clear ideas before the writing process begins.

                As part of the reading portion the author discusses how to implement annotations into a student’s reading process. My own experiences with forced annotations in high school have left me skeptical of rigidly assigning annotations. As a secondary student, there were too many regulations about what we had to label or respond to and as a result it felt too scripted. Comparing the texts I annotated in high school and the annotations that I have done independently, there is a very noticeable difference. A former professor of mine would assign study questions for the reading, but there was no requirement to actually submit answers for them. The study questions provided helpful guidelines of what to annotate in the book without forcing students to annotate their book in a set way. Each student could highlight and write whatever helped them best as an individual instead of spending their time writing in their book for a grade. It was heavily encouraged to have a marked up book, but not required. What I disagreed with in this template is that it assigns the student different aspects of the novel that the student must label or respond to. As a student, I dreaded annotating books because it felt like a chore and many times useless; I did not know what purpose it would serve me outside of getting a grade for it. I feel conflicted about grading and/or assigning annotations with strict guidelines for this reason.  

                I mostly enjoyed this article because it did a great job of showing how complex the learning process is for students building their reading and writing skills. I learned that I need to work on how I view reading and writing for teaching; simply stating that you will be working on reading or writing skills is too broad and can be overwhelming for many students. Breaking each category down and showing the process shows the complexity of each of those skills and gives students a clear path of how to build onto their own skills.