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The very rare high school reading class

8/10/2017

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I was fortunate enough to teach at a school that supported and encouraged failure amongst its teachers. So when I pitched the idea that our 10th graders needed a reading class in addition to their English class and was given a $5,000 budget, I was only partially freaking out when it did not work.
Actually, I was covered in hives. But that motivated me to hit the books and talk with the kids to come up with something that was amazing. I will save you the pain of my failure and just get to my success! So after asking the kids what they wanted and after reading I Read It But I Don’t Get It by Chris Tovani and The Reading Zone by Nancy Atwell this is what we ended up with.

Here is what it takes:
Tons of books (you can procure these at thrift shops, yard sales and Donors Choose Projects)


Tons of post its
List of what good readers do
List of what to do when I am stuck/lost
Honesty about your reading habits
Benchmarking system to produce data
A healthy reading habit of your own
Computers (optional)

First- fill the classroom with books. Invite colleagues and students to bring books in. When you get a large batch of books-- pretend it is Christmas. I taught 6 classes/day. When a box of books came in from our Donors Choose Projects, I had to repack them 6 times so the next class thought they were opening the books. That’s how excited my students, inner city below reading level 10th graders, got when they got to dig through the books.

Second-explain to the students the point of the class. Here are some key points I hit
  • Reading is fundamental
  • We only get better at reading by reading
  • We know what good readers do, so we will study it and practice it
  • Even the best readers can get better at reading
  • It’s not that you don’t like reading, it is that you have not found the right types of books
  • If you know how to read, you can learn anything you want

Third- things to teach
  • What good readers do
  • See here: http://www.schoolimprovement.com/strategy-of-the-week/qualities-of-a-good-reader/
  • What real readers do
  • We don’t read books we do not like
  • We talk about what we are reading
  • We reread passages we do not get
  • We skim parts we find boring or  (thus the option for computers-- we would post on Goodreads!)
  • We bail on a book even if we are halfway through if we lost interest
  • We reread some books
(Check out the Reader’s Bill of RIghts by Daniel Pennac” https://www.fantasticfiction.com/p/daniel-pennac/rights-of-reader.htm)

  • Teach annotation- POST IT NOTES!
  • I had students annotate any time the related to something they read to something they experienced or read before or something they learned about, any time they questioned something or figured something out. Eventually, they were not allowed to question without guessing a possible answer or reason (inferencing….and this went for vocab too!)
  • Literary forms and  literary terms, the state’s reading standards
  • MINI LESSONS- this is how each class started- 10 minutes mini lesson on an important skill
  • Each class ended with students reflecting on what they read that day that related to the mini lesson
  • How to discuss and write about books
  • When are summaries what people want
  • When is analysis and critique what they want


Eventually when I returned to the English classroom, I was able to incorporate so much of this beauty into that class. Future blogs will highlight what I did there.

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What Good readers Do- High School

5/24/2017

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Teaching English in inner city North Philadelphia has probably taught me more than any college classroom. In fact, sometimes I fear that I have learned more from my students than they have from me. 

 As an undergraduate, I dreamed of sitting in a circle in my inner city school (it wasn’t haphazardly that I ended up in the inner city, it was my goal) introducing the students to Thoreau and Wordsworth, discussing their impact on literature and society and pondering with the students how they are still relevant today. I quickly learned that in order to get students to that hippie circle they would have to learn to read and then learn to enjoy reading.
 
And it was not as hard as it sounds!
 
But first I had to fail miserably, fight a bout of stress induced hives, consult my students and read a few books!
I mostly relied on my students’ opinions, Cris Tovani’s I Read It but I Don’t Get It and The Reading Zone by Nancy Atwell.

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What I learned and what I profess.
  • Teach students what good readers do.
  • Give students choice (coming soon to a blog near you)
  • Teach students what real readers (coming soon to a blog near you)
  • Teach students how to “unstuck” themselves. (coming soon to a blog near you)
 
First off, let’s look at how people learn according to the National . While I did not know this when I was teaching reading, looking back it is clear that what good readers already do fits into the framework on how people learn:
People learn by participating in 3 activities:
  1. They address pre/misconceptions
  2. They learn the framework/basics of a concept
  3. They engage in metacognition (National Institute for School Leadership)
    Below is the list of what good readers do. These come from page 51 in Chris Tovani’s I Read It But I Don’t Get It and next to it is the learning activity it supports. As teachers of new or struggling readers it is important to remember, they are learning a new skill. One that you probably do not remember learning or being didactically taught, but a skill nonetheless. We must apply what we know about the brain and learning to the teaching of reading.


  •   Make predictions (activity 1)
  •  Ask yourself a question and try to answer it (inferencing) (activity 1/2)
  • Make connections- Text to text, text to self, text to world (activity 1) 
  • Stop and think about what you have read- reread if you have to (activity 3)
  •  Reflect on what you have read (activity 3)
  • Visualize (activity 1,3)
  • Use print conventions/patterns (activity 2)
  • Slow down- Reading fast is a different skill for a different time.
   
This is what good readers do. You must teach this skills to students. Give them guided practice and then individual practice for each skill. And talk about each of the experiences; metacognition is a huge part of the learning process.
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    AuthorS

    Kate Jaworski
    Your go-to gal for Elementary topics. Literacy Coach & former 4th grade teacher. Loves the workshop model & Responsive Classroom.

    Angela Smith
    ​
    Your go-to gal for High School topics. Former principal & 9-12 English teacher. Loves incorporating reading and writing skills into all content area classrooms.

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