This article appeared in the Sunday 08/30/09 NY Times.
This article is mostly about one teacher's application of writing workshop a la Nancy Atwell's In The Middle.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/30/books/30reading.html?_r=2&em
I was fortunate enough to hear Nancy Atwell speak in like 1991 at a Capital Region Reading Association Conference at the Desmond Americana. She had really long hair then and she was all Portlandy and cool. I loved her descriptions of her students' writing development during her writing workshop.
The way she taught writing workshop was so good for creating a healthy community in the classroom. She loved the writers and the writers loved her back. She created that community in so many ways. She was wonderful and inspiring and I read and reread In the Middle. You can borrow my copy if you ever want to check it out if you haven't already read it. I should pick up some of her newer published material. I can see why this teacher was willing to challenge the routines in her district in order to do this. What amazes me is that it is 20 years later and this article pops up in the NY Times like it is new stuff.
Thank You for sending me the link to this article Tim,
L
Resistance
Tim,
Thanks for passing along this article. I had quite an interesting interaction from my graduate class when I brought this up on the screen, seemlingly as a quick interlude between topics. I am still amazed that, despite the contemporary teaching of literacy in colleges, how resistant student teachers seem to feel about allowing students to make their own reading choices. It's not a blatant protest, but just an insecurity of allowing this freedom. This is probably something that needs to be worked out once they are in the classroom, but just an observation!
TR
choosing books
For the most part, I am against a whole class book that everyone reads. Some texts work for shared reading, but they cannot be to many steps beyond most students reading level or they cannot even follow along with their fingers. It might as well be read as a read aloud or read on the projector with the teacher pointing and students looking. At Kate Roberts's, the TC trainer, reader's workshop training she said having one book for all readers is like telling the higher readers, "Oh, it's too easy, well deal with it," and you're telling the struggling readers, "oh, it's too hard, deal with it," and for the kids it's just right for, "good for you." I believe this kind of teaching causes kids to dislike reading, avoid reading at all costs and fake reading...oh and it keeps them from improving in their reading.
However, students often don't know how to choose just right books. And if students don't read just right books, they don't become better readers. To ensure that students are reading just right books we MUST assess their reading levels (I'll post about this soon.) As teachers we need to make our libraries accessible to readers with level bins and interest bins (I'll explain in another post).
One strategy is to tell students their just right level and tell them to read in that zone or at that level. This must be followed up with their reading logs and we must look at their reading logs for accountability, especially at the beginning of the year. Another option, which helps students at the library is to rpovide them with a list of books that are at their level which they can read. This will help them get an idea of what a just right book feels like and help them use the library because so many cannot.
TR, Commenting on your
TR,
Commenting on your students' reactions to the article, I think someof the reluctance of new teachers (and others) to let students choose their reading material comes from our tendency to emulate certain teachers that we had, and teach our students the way our teachers taught us. Also, of course, the cooperating teacher makes a difference as well, because if they're not into a certain way of doing things, then (most times, not all) they certainly won't be encouraging their student teacher to do it, will they?
Maura
Hurray for Reader's Workshop!
Working in Seattle, I am enjoying the excitement of watching our students turn into writers and readers in a way unlike before. They are really starting to see themselves as readers and writers. Unfortunately, the implimentation is not at all our schools across the district, but my elementary school is now in it's second year of writer's workshop and the transformation is amazing. We have second graders who are in their second year and who now write these amazing small moments. Oh, and I work at a title one school where a full third (1/3) of our students are bilingual.
(The article above mentioned that Seattle Middle Schools are starting reader's workshop. They are ahead of the elementary schools...for the most part. But our elementary schools are catching up too.)
Before we were a writer's school. Our more skilled, bilingual first graders might write, "I like chocolate ice cream." But they won't tell a story of any kind. They would color a pretty picture though. Now even our lowest, IEP, bilingual students write stories about going fishing and catching a fish showing feeling and using dialogue and show not tell. I'm convinced that we will have more writer's in the coming years because of writer's workshop.
Many of us are trying to implement Reader's as well, even though we haven't had much training. (Although, I just got a training, from the amazing Kate Roberts of Columbia's Teacher's College, on beginning reader's workshop. It was only an afternoon; I could have used the whole week, but we have to go through two years of writer's before they will train us in readers.) Check out my blogs and forum posts to see my notes from other trainings.
ONE CAVEAT THAT THE ARTICLE DIDN'T SEEM TO HAVE: READERS MUST READ VOLUMES OF BOOKS AT THEIR LEVEL. On Monday, I want to promise each and every one of my students that if they read volumes/lots of their just right books, they will become better readers. We can promise that to each and every reader! And must to increase the sense of urgency! The just right books should feel easy! Their accuracy (reading the right words) should be almost 100%. The harder books are to be read with shared or guided reading.
We need to teach readers that expression and fluency is important too. If students don't hear the characters voice when they're reading Junie B. Jones. They aren't really reading the book!!! They're just reading some words.