Agree Before You Read
| These introductory questions are a great way to break the ice on the first day of English class. But, do they honestly make our students excited for the next batch of literature cookies? Well in reality, such questions only encourage the common, annoyed sigh of here we go again. Therefore, what can we do to avoid this unwanted attitude? Simple – ask the questions that will make them complain, babble with pure joy, or that will encourage the students to give you (as the teacher) suggestions:
“Do you like reading? Why or why not?” “Do you have an example of a negative or positive (or both) reading experience from a previous English class? Please explain.” “What do you do to personally have a better understanding of a text?” “What would you like to do as an entire class to make a text more meaningful?” “What can I, as the teacher, do to make our readings be more exciting and meaningful?” By asking these types of questions, this allows the students to, “…have a greater voice in determining which… problem areas to solve involving the process of reading,” (Marlow, 10). No longer would the first day of class be another horrendously boring “this is what we’re going to read and this is how I want the reading to be done,” type of spiel. Instead, the students have a say right from the start. Not to mention that the students receive a confession from the teacher as well – I understand very well that for many of you school reading is never very much fun. Well, that is going to change right now; and what does this do for the students’ negative attitude towards reading? Well, it lightens the negativity just a bit – gives them the first glimpse of how enjoyable reading can be. Thus, how does an English teacher plan on living up to his or her confession? By giving students more choice in choosing the literature, of course! |
Week One: Safe Read Method
During the first week of class, I would hand out the list of required texts to all of the students. Secondly, I would have the students circle all of the books that seem to have some appeal to their title. Thirdly, I would name off each book and have the students raise their hands every time I mention a title that they have circled; and with this survey, I would tally the marks up on the board. After have doing so, I would go ahead and read the back covers of the three books that had the most tally marks; and with these three most wanted reads, I’d let the students chose which one suited their literary fancy the most. I would like to call this method the Safe Read Method. I call this method safe because it allows for the teacher to still have the control, but enables the students to have their input as well –allowing the three top picks to be chosen allows for minimal disappointment amongst the students and, “…it moves our students towards independence, towards agency, towards exercising their will, finding and loving their own questions, interests, answers, and pathways,” (Wilhelm, 41). As teachers, we all know that once we allow our students to have just a little bit of choice, they will be urging to know what they’ll be reading next. Plus, the opportunity for very strong in – class discussions would be a gift that comes from student and teacher choice. Week One: Understanding the text In order to encourage our students to want to read on a regular basis, we as teachers must make sure that all students understand the text. Therefore, I would suggest that when there are three different books or even one book being read by the class at the same time, an open discussion should be incorporated about the text; and a perfect example would have to be from | Michael Blau. This master of the English world does a wonderful job in creating very deep conversations about specific texts. The way in which he uses students’ own thoughts and ideas to ask questions is just a work of motivational reading art. Most importantly, the conversation doesn’t stop until all parties
are satisfied (Blau, 38 – 49). Thus, by enabling the students to freely talk about their feelings towards the different texts will only make them want to read all the more. As all of you English nerds can see, the different methods that I have compiled provide an interesting perspective on how to get our English students more motivated to read. If we give them more opportunities to have their say, give them more opportunities to decide what shall be read, and give them the opportunity to feel like a true asset of a classroom discussion, reading will become a weapon of mass success for all students. Most importantly, the more our students want to read the better writers they will become – a win- win situation of the English world. |