My blog is designed to give my insights on reading and literacy in the classroom. All of my opinions were developed over time from my vantage point as a student and an educator. I welcome all to share their perspectives and opinions: )
Sunday, October 24, 2010
Chapter 4 Readicide thoughts
In chapter 4 Gallagher has down something that I have seen often throughout my journey with this book. He is constantly overstating the problem without giving any real concrete solutions. At times Gallagher may provide an anecdote here and there such as with his Big chunk/little chunk idea and his Article of the week that he discussed in chapter 2. However most of the chapter is just repetitive of the rest of the book. He gives all these examples of what's wrong but never provides a clear path to what's right. With me entering the classroom soon I want as much help as I can get. I am well aware of the problems we face and with me being an English teacher chapter 4 is sure to be something I have to deal with in the near future, however after reading this chapter I don't feel anymore confident about the struggles I will face than I did before I read it. This is a constant feeling I've had throughout this book. I also feel a certain way about Gallagher's insistence that we as "teachers" must avoid these certain things so that the students can become "lifelong readers". Even as an English teacher and a lifelong reader myself even I know that is not necessary or conducive to success that all of my students become life long readers. I see it as a hobby that I choose to spend my spare money on purchasing novels for me to read for sheer enjoyment but it hasn't exactly made me more successful than my counterparts who only read for necessity. I don't want to sound so negative about the book because he does a good job at identifying and proving the problems and realities that we are facing as educators, however I am in a place right now where I'm looking for solutions. I'm done identifying the problem.
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I agree!!!!!
ReplyDeleteI started zoning out and was rather disinterested... but I had an assignment to blog about the reading so I forced my way through 20 pages that could have easily been presented in 2!
hopefully we will find the solutions somewhere, but the further I go in this masters journey, the more I think we'll be in the classrooms finding our own answers to the problems :-/
Yeah we will definitely be finding the answers to the problems on our own! I think Gallagher has written this book not to provide solutions, but to make us aware of the problems that are present and how we might want to confront them. I know neither you nor I will make lifelong readers out of our students. But I do know that I at least want my students to appreciate the art of reading and writing, because it is a wonderful art form and the way we communicate everyday. I want them to go into the big bad world able to think critically of the words and images which bombard them every day. Gallagher provides some useful hints, not tips, to the paths we might want to take.
ReplyDeleteI definitely agree that throughout this book Gallagher has done way too much overstating and not enough solutions to problems that he presents to us; however, I felt that in this chapter he gave some fairly interesting ideas on how to really help students become more engaged readers. I loved the big chunk/little chunk approach in this chapter and think that is a great concept for aiding us in the delicate balance in not overteaching or underteaching text. I agree Ashley, that he may be presenting us with some problems and then allowing us to "pick our battles" based on what is important to us and also what our class's needs will be. Whatever the case may be, I felt like he actually for once in Readicide gave us some solutions to the problems that we were presented! :)
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