Literacy - C14 - Winter Quarter - Week 6

Tovani is concerned about the comprehension abilities of adolescent readers. Why does Tovani talk about "fake reading"? How does this relate to the expectations and purposes for reading that he goes on to discuss? What do these have to do with comprehension?

There is probably not a literate person alive who has never engaged in the art of "fake reading," and that certainly includes me. If we are going to be completely honest, I have occasionally engaged in the practice during the Teacher Certification Program (but of course, not in either of my brilliantly taught literacy courses). But I can't really claim that this is a holdover from any practices learned in my adolescence. Sometimes it is as simple a matter as being unengaged and/or uninspired by an assigned reading (if somebody is engaging in fake reading for non-assigned reading then that may be indicative of a more serious social problem; it would be like reading Cliff Notes for pleasure, rather than reading actual literary works).

I know from experience that the first times (in junior high or high school) that I was assigned books that (at that point in time) really didn't connect with me (e.g. The Scarlet Letter, Moby Dick) I ran right for the Cliff Notes. Could those books have been taught in a way that would have made me want to read the actual books instead of a synopsis? Perhaps, although I tend to doubt it. I had no trouble with the vocabulary, or even the diverse literary devices Melville employs. It just bored the crap out of me, and the effort of teachers to portray it as some sort of adventure novel about whaling didn't help matters. Sometimes it is simply a matter of age and readiness. When I eventually did read Moby Dick, in graduate school, I was mesmerized and fascinated by it, but only because I then possessed the knowledge and experience to appreciate the vastness and complexity of the book.

What I liked about Tovani is that she confronts the issue of "fake reading" head on, and has an open and honest discussion about it with her students, rather than just telling them that she knows all the so-called tricks and dodges. As she implies, it is in the choice of powerful and meaningful texts that we can begin to break students of this habit. Thankfully, many school districts no longer REQUIRE that third or sixth or eighth graders read a specific book, and that the discretion can often rest with the teacher, and, even more importantly, with the students themselves.

For instance, if a class is about to read Jack London's Call of the Wild, it may be a great strategy to introduce the book through an interesting newspaper or magazine article, or perhaps even a music video(!), and then to have a class discussion about it. Reading the first chapter out loud, as a group read, with lots of pauses for questions and discussion would also help. I think many of the strategies that Tovani puts forward, such as thinking aloud or annotating a text makes wonderful sense (mere highlighting, in my experience, can often be either a distraction or yet another way of shortcutting, i.e., skimming a text until you find something that you think is important - this may be OK in a history textbook, but would really hinder the enjoyment of a novel).

Part of the issue, for me, is that in my main placement, because it is a class of gifted children, nearly all of whom not only are above-average readers, but who, for the most part, also genuinely love to read, I don't have much day to day experience observing fake reading in practice. That is why it is so refreshing to read other people's experiences, especially those in lower grades, where fake reading is undoubedly more prevalent.

In the final analysis, comprehension has to do with deep, thoughtful thinking, and while it may seem counterintuitive to "teach" somebody how to think (which is another way of saying "comprehend"), Tovani's strategies allow students to connect their already active thinking processes into reading and comprehending a text. In other words, they need to be made aware of the thinking process itself, rather than to merely be told or admonished that they "need to think."

Literacy - C14 - Winter Quarter - Week 5

Cooper and Routman 8 (both chapters are required reading):
How are these two readings similar to each other and how are they different? You might explore this question in a global sense or you might consider a few specific points of comparison. Additionally, what aspects of the Optimal Learning Model are evident in the readings? Why are think alouds so important in comprehension strategy instruction? Have you seen this type of instruction in your placement? What is similar or dissimilar? Please consider these questions and focus on an element of the readings that is of particular interest to you.

The obvious similarity in these two readings is that they both deal with constructing meaning and reading comprehension, but interestingly, Cooper talks a lot about the various strategies that teachers use in order to get students to construct meaning, while Routman's chapter emphasizes that comprehension strategies and exercises, in isolation, can have a negative effect and that, in fact, the strategies often become synonomous with comprehension, something I doubt Cooper would disagree with, although there did seem to be a difference in emphasis.

I found some of Cooper's enumerated strategies to be of interest (particularly those that I have seen being utilized in my placements), although by the end of the chapter I couldn't help but remember Routman's cautionary words that "so much emphasis on comprehension strategies can actually make reading harder." I think there are some really valid and exciting strategies, such as "Making Connections," which both my main placement teacher and DYAD teachers put a lot of stock in, but I have also seen this strategy, like others, become rather laborious and boring to students. A student who is struggling in reading for comprehension is likely to struggle when utilizing the various strategies, so ironically, I guess what is needed is a strategy for teaching strategies for teaching comprehension!

As I understand it, comprehension relies on mastery of decoding and that students who struggle to decode find it difficult to understand and remember what has been read. Because these efforts to grasp individual words prove so exhausting, they have few if any resources left for constructing meaning. These problems can ran the gamut, from confusion about the meaning of words and sentences or the inability to connect ideas in a passage to glossing over detail or a lack of concentration during reading. The first challenge facing a teacher who is dealing with a student with reading comprehension problems is to diagonese the specific problem(s), or else any or all of those strategies could be a collosal waste of time. And yet I have found, in my observations, that this is not such an easy problem to diagnose, and certainly by the time students get into the later elementary or middle school grades, it will become even more difficult, because of the resulting frustration and disappointment that the student is probably feeling.

The guided practice that Routman recommends seems vital and necessary. My only concern (as always) is the amount of time and patience it takes to zero in on a particular student's comprehension problems, both in terms of its roots, and then, by extension, the strategy necessary to correct the problem, and finally, the strategy needed to put the needed strategy into play. Not only can this be exhausting, but I wonder, realistically, how a single teacher deals with this, assuming that there are several readers in a class struggling with this issue. Without trying to be too cynical, I find that while Routman and Cooper expertly diagnose problems, strategies, and yes, even solutions, they seeem to operate in a neverneverland of one-on-one teacher/student instruction. Even in my experiences at Juanita, working with a sixth grader who has some comprehension issues (thankfully not major) demonstrates how much time a teacher needs to analyze and strategize a solution to comprehension problems.

In any event, there is much good information in these articles. I just worry how much individualized attention can be paid to those students who most desperately need to read for meaning, while at the same time not leveling your assigned readings to the point where it no longer proves challenging to students who have mastered the necessary skills of proficient reading.

Literacy - C14 - Winter Quarter - Week 3

Routman lists five things she does to ensure students become excellent readers (p. 43). Choose one of these five. Support it with examples from Routman chapters 1-4, the optimal learning model, Cambourne?s conditions of learning, and/or examples from your placement (or non-examples if applicable). In other words, make a case for this point's importance.

Of the five things Routman lists as important to ensure students become excellent readers, I was most struck by #3: "Let students choose books they want to read and give them time to read them." For the most part I wholeheartedly concur with this point (with a couple of caveats mentioned below) because I think anything that fosters a child's sense of independence and freedom, especially when it comes to choosing reading matter, yields great results. When I was "interviewing" my sixth grader at Juanita last week, I asked him what his least favorite part of reading was, and he quickly said "the Houghton book," referring to the literature anthology that serves as the class' textbook for reading. He found most of the selections in the book to be boring and uninspiring, and much preferred to make his own reading list. This seems to fit in perfectly with Routman's emphasis on working towards independence and promoting a joy in learning (p. 48).

Having said that, I think it is important to stress that allowing students to choose the books they want to read becomes much more important in the higher elementary grades (4th grade and above), since my own observations have led me to believe that younger students require a bit more structure and guidance, both in reading skills AND reading choices (which is not to say that younger kids should also have some say in what they want to read). However, for example, last quarter, I was a bit bothered by my Juanita's second grader's choice of books, specifically, DIARY OF A WIMPY KID, which I think she was reading because of their popularity more than their appropriateness for her own interests (I was not only NOT convinced that she got much of the humor or substance of the book, or that she was retaining much of anything, but I also thought she was way too young for some of the book's dicier adolescent situations).

I was somewhat surprised in my DYAD placement, which was an 8th/9th grade language arts class at a junior high school, how little "choice" the students were given in terms of what was being read as a "class," and that most of the literature work were books that were being read by the class as a whole, rather than allow students to write about and explore the books they were reading on their own. While I understand it on a "practical" basis (imagine trying to assess 300 book reports on 300 different books), it seemed that the kids detested the literature anthology textbook as much as the Juanita sixth grader. As for myself, I have no recollection of being able to read books of my own choosing for any English course until perhaps being a senior in high school.

I think in the younger grades, a "structured" list of reading choices may be more appropriate, which is not to say that even a sixth grade teacher shouldn't "approve" selected books. I have noticed in my main placement that some kids will also choose inappropriate books, as well as books that are too easy or juvenile for them. A teacher has to walk a difficult path in granting kids freedom of choice while at the same time ensuring that they are making good and productive choices.

I also think that letting students "choose" their books is an excellent way of getting to know your students as readers (Routman, p. 20), since you can tell so much about a child based on those choices, and the interests that they reflect. Sometimes, even if they are making ill-informed or inappropriate choices, you can at least ascertain subject matter interests, and possibly steer the student to similar yet more appropriate books that would grab their interest, as well as helping students to become more diverse and well-rounded readers. For instance, in my main placement, there are still a few students obsessed with either Calvin & Hobbes or Pokemon, neither of which are really acceptable choices for book reports or "literature circles," but both of which can be used as springboards to try and lead the kids to more "literary" choices that they may be likely to respond to.

Of course the challenge remains for the teacher to be as well-informed and well-versed in an extraordinary number of books if they are to give thoughtful and productive assessments of the students' comprehension and choice of reading matter, and this is no easy task, as I discovered while trying to grade 30 book reports on 30different books, none of which I had the least familiarity with.

Literacy - C14 - Winter Quarter - Week 2

Templeton and Morris: What aspects of spelling instruction mentioned in this article do you see playing out in your placement? Pick one aspect to describe and discuss how it works with kids.

One of the disadvantages of having my main placement in an upper elementary class (5th/6th), as well as in a gifted student program, is that I see relatively little spelling being taught in the classroom, since the assumption is that gifted kids at that level already should be pretty good spellers, and for the most part this assumption is true. However, I do notice that there are several students who could use some of the instruction set forth in the Templeton/Morris article.

One of the problems I have noticed is that some of the more gifted kids seem to rely more heavily on computers to do their assignments, and of course they have grown accustomed to defaulting to spellcheck on their word documents. This becomes most evident in a comparison to students' handwritten work and their "typed" work. What I find interesting is that many of the more difficult words are spelled correctly on their typed work, but that certain "easy" words are misspelled or misapplied, mainly because the words themselves aren't technically misspelled, but are used incorrectly (e.g., there for their). Also words that get spelled correctly on the computer-generated work are routinely misspelled in handwritten work for some students.

Again, the problem is that the curriculum for a 5th/6th grade advanced class doesn't really have room for spelling, and my mentor teacher has neither the time nor inclination to teach spelling (since, admittedly, it is only a fraction of the students that require it). What I would love to see happen is to have a small breakout group of the inferior spellers be given explicit teacher-directed instruction, as recommended in the article on p. 108-109, with the emphasis on
pattern, and the exploration of derivational patterns. The kids in my class generally have good vocabulary, but are constantly trying to expand and improve it, and some of the instructional activities associated with patterns, as set forth in the article, would undoubtedly prove most useful. The strategy of reasoning by analogy would also work extremely well for the majority of the class when it comes to spelling unfamiliar words, which many of them encounter daily in their readings (although they are very well trained in looking up words in a dictionary, which only gets you so far if you understand patterns in the first place).

Also, as a side note, my DYAD placement was in a language arts class at a junior high school, and by and large, their spelling was atrocious! However, they were even more reliant on computer spell checks then elementary school kids, and attempting to teach spelling after sixth grade seems to be an abandoned cause.

My Digital Story - A Life In Liner Notes

Literacy Journal - Week 9

Blog Prompt:
What are the key points you want to keep in mind as you assess students? Why?

I like the points that Elbow makes in his article, "Ranking, Evaluating and Liking," particularly as it applies to assessing students' writing skills. I think it is easier to make a case for de-emphasizing ranking and grading for the more "subjective" subjects, such as Language Arts and Social Studies, since I think it is harder to "evalutate" or "like" an incorrect math exam or science report.

I was also glad to see that Elbow doesn't rely solely on evaluation, since, as he correctly implies, there comes a point in a school term or year where there are certain expectations related to grammar, vocabulary and spelling that cannot override an otherwise valid piece of writing. The notion of "evaluation free" zones struck me as highly original and inspiring. One of the frustrations I have had as a teacher intern in my main placement is where I see very original writing skills on display, only to be undermined by poor spelling and grammar, and have always wished that there was a better way to delineate between style and substance, so to speak. (I have also definitely seen the reverse, where a student turns in a good, solid piece of writing that is unforgivably dull or uninspiring).

I really liked some of Elbow's suggestions, such as a ten minute nonstop freewrite or the single unevaluated assignment, which has the benefit of instilling a certain degree of freedom and unrestrained creativity, as long as it is tempered with some solid structure and the notion that good writing is not only about good ideas and creativity, but also in effectively conveying and communicating that writing to an audience. I think it is possible to go overboard on the other side of the equation and give TOO much credit and credibility to creativity if the piece doesn't hold together structurally or fails to connect with the reader.

As a teacher, I would like to follow Elbow's model, perhaps even giving separate "evaluations" or "likability" scores for a student's substance and style, which could provide a good guidepost to let a student know how to make the overall piece stronger and "better," subjective as that may sound. The important thing is to build on a student's strengths to bolster his or her weaknesses, and this is especially true in writing, although it doesn't do much to solve the problem of the student who is extremely weak and deficient in both structure and style.

Literacy Journal - Week 10

Blog Prompt: Select a quote from Au that resonates with your experience. Why is that quote meaningful to you?


I had a particular interest and connection to Au's article, "An Expanded Definition of Literacy," mainly because of my educational background. I received an M.A. in English and Comparative Literature from Columbia University in 1977, and at the time, the raging debate in literary criticism was between the deconstructivists (led by Jacques Derrida) and social relativists.

Boiled down to its essentials, deconstructivism is a philosophical movement and theory of literary criticism that questions traditional assumptions about certainty, identity, and truth; it asserts that words can only refer to other words and attempts to demonstrate how statements about any text subvert their own meanings. The whole movement always bothered me on a fundamental level, since it seemed to imply that a book (or film) was a self-contained entity, and basically existed in a social vacuum, which strikes me as a lot of high-falutin' hooey.

This is why I was gratified to read Au's article, particularly in the assertion that "meaning does not reside in the text, but in the interraction among the reader, the text, and the social context....Viewing reading and writing as constructive, creative processes takes us away from a mechanistic, skill-by-ski approach to literary instruction."

It seems to me that for both reading and wrting, constructing meaning is an essential part of literacy. By deconstructing a text, you deprive the text of meaning and ultimately dismiss the value of anything it touches. Perhaps on a college level, reading French new wave novelists like Robbe-Grillet or Duras, deconstruction can be helpful in unmasking certain contradictions present in a text, but when talking about teaching literacy to school children, the influences of background knowledge and the social context that children bring to a text are both fundamental and often profound, as evidenced by the anecdote Au relates with regard to the different perceptions by readers of letters relating to wedding ceremonies in India and America.

While deconstructionists would be horrified at the idea that a student's social and personal environment could bring anything meaningful to the words contained within a particular text (even the author's own intentions and background become immaterial to deconstructionists), Au is exactly right when she writes, "when someone reads or writes, those acts of literacy are taking place in some social context."