Why Am I Reading This?
I think most students wonder this about most assignments. I remember thinking it about a book called The Story Bible by Pearl Buck that was assigned over the summer between 8th and 9th grade. It made no sense--why would we be reading religious stories, rewritten by some lady, in English class?
Tovani drives home the point that recognizing the purpose for reading is vitally important for students to engage. It's also extremely important when teachers teach a text that they have read many times over. For the student, it's the first read. It may overwhelm them and they aren't even sure what they should be selectively attending to (as Rosenblatt would say) because they are experiencing plot, characters, theme, vocabulary, etc, all at once. Or if it's a science text, they are trying to decipher methods, hypotheses, vocabulary, results, conclusions.... The same is true for math or social studies or even art--the first exposure to the text is a lot to swallow!
Teachers forget this--they have read the material so many times that the purpose or purposes for reading have become internal to them. They may even struggle to articulate what those purposes are. They may try to cover so much of the text that they fail to connect the students with the most important points.
Tovani recommends an approach in which the teacher clearly instructs the students on what they should look for in their initial reading. Her example is this:
"A U.S. history teacher may say to his students, 'By the time you finish reading tonight, I want you to be able to discuss three causes of the Civil War.' The teacher is not telling his students the causes; he is merely giving them a sense of what will be important for tomorrow's discussion." (p. 59)
Is this "dumbing it down" for the students? Tovani says it's not, and I agree with her. She goes on to discuss how adults learning a new skill or preparing to enter a new profession are told what they need to know. Doctors, lawyers, stockbrokers, and others are "given a lens through which to learn about their fields." (p. 60) It makes just as much sense to give secondary students a little direction in which to proceed when reading something for the first time.
She says when she has to read something and is not sure of the purpose immediately, she starts with the title and goes through, noting interesting details, the opinion of the author, new information, or ways she can connect with it personally. She also considers who the author is and their style of writing. She says it helps to think about how you can use what you're reading once you're done. When choosing texts for her students, she tries to consider what their difficulties with it might be and how she can model negotiating those difficulties for them.
When students are unsure of their purpose in reading, she says their minds wander and they lose their "interactive voice" of conversation in their minds that keeps them engaged in the reading. Having a purpose to the reading keeps that "interactive voice" in charge and suppresses the "distracting voice" that interrupts their connection with the meaning of the text. This is a practiced skill, one that still gives me trouble from time to time with my own reading.
So why was I assigned The Story Bible? Well, the purpose was to be familiar with the characters and most well-known stories from the Bible, so that when I read a biblical allusion in literature, I would understand it. Of course, the teacher didn't tell us this until we started the course that fall. And of course, I had not really read it over the summer as I was supposed to have done. A little direction and purpose expressed by my teacher when making the assignment would have gone a long way to helping me find a reason to read it.
Hhm, I wish I would have picked the book that you're reading! I really agree with what you had to say about that book. I really agree that it is helpful for the students to have something to focus on comprehending. Like in the example you quoted about the Civil War: there is so much information about the Civil War. If a student was just asked to read about it and be ready to talk about it the next day, it would be very hard. However, having something to look for and summarize gives the students a chance to use learning strategies such as note-taking.
ReplyDeleteHi Amy, I like the way you linked your background and history to the book you are currently reading. When we learn something new we always reflect on our own life.
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ReplyDeleteInteresting book! Even now I don't get what some teachers want when I read a text. They assign something and then you need to figure it out and come up with some answers. Like you said the teachers know the purpose but they forget that students are trying to understand many things at the same time. I think if teachers could remind students of what is the purpose that will be very helpful when reading a text.
ReplyDeleteI have always wondered the same thing. Every semester we get a section of readings to try to comprehend and dissect, but what's the purpose? It is hard to understand why the instructor assigned the reading for a student, we just read it and hope we get it right. But looking at it through the instructors eyes we must understand that it is there for a reason and that is to gather information and regurgitate it on paper.
ReplyDeleteIt is very intersting to think about how we, as teachers, have lost sight of what is important in the readings. I always try my hardest to get out the way of discussions and let my students decide what is importanta and not. Sometimes they need a little guidance but often times they are able to bring up things i never thought of. I like the idea of collaborative learning so that students can feed off of each other and find what is important to them. Some things are not important to me while other things are not important to others it is in the community of learning that we can sometimes find the important things.
ReplyDeleteI agree there should be some sort of objective when a reading starts. But for big topics like the Civil War, I would not be so specific for all students. I would let students choose different aspects of the war and then do their research. The reading research would be along the guidelines stated by New Mexico history standards.
ReplyDeleteThe advantage of giving students different parts of the civil war is in the presentation. Each student(or students) will present something different to the class. In this way, a large section of the civil war can be covered while each student did her or his little part.
Otherwise giving specific questions to answers does not really lead to much learning.
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