Reading in the Disciplines

What really struck a chord with me was the brief excerpt from a 9th grader's thoughts on reading, found on page 17. She outlines a method she and her classmates would use to complete work without actually doing any of the work; reading without reading. Paradoxical as it sounds, I am sure most of us can relate to this. Even I, as much as I love to read, have done the same in certain classes I did not feel engaged with (I'm looking at you, 10th grade chemistry). Instead of working through a text and understanding the subject, I would merely use small "tricks" and find answers, copy them down, and turn in the work, without ever having to think or comprehend anything. While a case may be made for the value of this kind of craftiness, the point is that the education I needed was not given. Whether it was the fault of the educator on engaging me, my own lack of initiative, negative peer pressure, or any other factor does not matter. I propose two main problems in the situation outlined above for our class to think about; the assignment itself, and the text.

The first problem I described, the assignment, can be ameliorated easily enough, in my opinion. As teachers the temptation to merely assign a passage of reading and the questions that came with it can be tempting; it's easy, the work is already done, and we can assume the students are comprehending the text if they are answering the questions specifically designed for the text. But we should know better. This is not always the case. As educators we need not only to engage our students in interesting ways unique to every class (which means more work than merely a blanket assignment for all classes, but teaching isn't easy as people like to pretend), but hold our forms of assessment up to the same standard. I will never use questions that come in a textbook or are presdesigned; my forms of assessment will vary from class to class for what is best for the students in them. Otherwise, situations like the one outlined above are bound to occur.

Secondly, I'd like to discuss the problem of text. The reading mentions more disciplines than English, such as mathematics and the sciences. I feel in those areas texts are less flexible (though, to be fair, my environmental science teacher did assign a companion text, a historical novel, to our class which was very interesting and generated much more fruitful education than the textbook). But as instructors in the Language Arts, we have a wealth of rich texts to choose from. We've discussed this before in class, but it bears repeating; choose texts you know your class will be engaged by, benefit from, and you know well. Don't be content with what is merely suggested or assigned to you, do more for your students. I also like the idea of multiple forms of literacy the reading discusses, specifically film literacy. English classes are the perfect opportunity to develop both reading and film literacy in students, and can be great ways to engage and connect students to the subject matter.