http://englishcompanion.ning.com/group/teachingreadinginmiddleandhighschool/forum/topics/7th-grade-read-alouds
Two Thoughts:
1) Getting students interested in specific books is great! In reality, we all read a lot more than just the most popular Young Adult Literature and the Classics. We read the news, blogs, facebook, and magazines to name just a few sources. Reading aloud to your students from a variety of sources can help them see that reading skills are important across the broad spectrum.
2) Also, there is a way you can kill a few birds with one stone. In Jeff Anderson's book "Mechanically Inclined" he talks about using a variety of texts to teach grammar. From the lists of books that have been suggested you can take passages that you think are very effective in performing various functions. You can read the passage with the students and ask them what the author does well. In the context of many passages you can address all sorts of grammar, imagery, and other topics and help students see what good writing is. As you help them see the good things in the passages they will naturally be interested in reading the books you share passages from. More importantly they will start to find the joy in experiencing books.
It was interesting to see this person who was suddenly teaching Language Arts after teaching four years of science. I think I sometimes take for granted the training I have received at BYU. There is such a wealth of knowledge that has informed me on my own hopes for teaching. While I haven't received a response at this moment, I am hoping that these ideas are helpful to this teacher. I hope that I can also clearly remember the things I have learned when I start teaching my own classes.
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ReplyDeleteGood discussion to enter into, Mark. I enjoyed the read-aloud lists and comments from the earlier discussion, but then to read all that you added to the discussion on reading different texts was excellent. These are the things that teachers always need to think about--that the world around us is a text for us to read (and learn to write from). It is fascinating to realize that not everyone receives the education that you are getting. And even though this discussion may take a while to respond to--eventually someone will read it, even if they don't respond immediately. This response shows that you have internalized the things that we have been reading and talking about. Excellent.
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