In Chapter 3, the book covers "over teaching books". According to the book, this limits readers, creates a barrier for true meaning, and damages recreational reading.
The only issue I have with this is "Time". With the structure of standards in Georgia Georgia
Some schools give teachers a calendar with detailed info, info when their students should be ready for testing on certain subjects. Therefore, this calendar limits over teaching any subject.
The point I do agree with is, “text based reading damages recreational reading”. But then again, how do you encourage a student to read something that they do not care about. In additions, students will not spend the time if the reading is not on a test?
All great questions, Bill. I think Gallagher is referring to the extent of teaching that goes into any one book, rather than the time spent with the book. Perhaps the amount of teaching would affect the amount of time. So his "chop-chop" and "over-analyzing" make a good read more like busy work.
ReplyDeleteI see your point about the shallowness of instruction going on in the schools. I wondered the same thing -I don't see any over teaching either. In fact one of my host teacher's said "Now we teach 1 inch deep and 300 feet wide." This was the response when I asked about some rather difficult words on their vocabulary lists- like Epicureanism, which shocked me actually. When I voiced my surprise at what they were expected to know, the teacher said, "We don't actually teach these harder terms. We just expose them to it."
ReplyDeleteBill, I understand exactly where you are coming from when you mentioned that your concern is Time. Yes most teachers are pushed for time when it comes to fulfilling the GPS. However, if time were the case, it is our responsibility as a teacher to find better ways to teach a specific topic in those limited amount of days. Will it be considered lazy to allow the students to watch a movie on the books we are required to read? As a matter of fact, would it be a problem if we divided the class up into groups and assigned the class different parts of the text and we discuss as a whole in the order of the text.
ReplyDeleteI love the idea that aumhoops24 proposes about reading a text in groups. I think in the day and age of the educational 'time crunch' this could be a very creative way to expose kids to great literature, but at the same time do so in a quick way.
ReplyDeleteIf you ever try to use this in the classroom, I would be very interested to see how well it goes. I'm in middle schools right now and I would bet that the kids would eat it up. They seem to love group work and artistically sharing what they have learned. I can see this going very well.
I also agree with Brittany and the previous person who wrote about reading text in groups. In Science there are many terms throughout a reading that would justify stopping for an explanation. In fact, so many that it could cause the "chop-chop" to occur rather easily. I just feel that as educators we must use our best judgements when it comes to classroom readings so we can find that good balance.
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