Readicide

So I agree with what Gallagher says in this book. I think that kids are being taught that they don’t have to read because there are other ways of learning or more important things they could be doing. I have met so many people in my life that don’t necessarily hate reading but they don’t read in their spare time. Reading should be something fun. It can take you to new and exciting places. Media has skewed the perception of reading. Kids can watch TV and movies or play video games now. It is more fun and requires no work. My brother told me that watching TV stimulates less brain activity than sleeping. Watching TV has created bad habits for our students.

I also liked what he said about standardized testing. Multiple choice tests are making students and teachers just skim the top of learning. I hate standardized tests. They are not creating the society that we want. They make teachers teach to a test. Teachers are being fired if their kids don’t pass these tests. So teachers are trying to save their own asses rather than teach meaningful curriculum. So because teachers are teaching to the tests, they are not able to delve into the material that might be really beneficial and help students love to read. 

Students are not becoming better readers because they are not being held to a higher standard. They are scraping the top of meaningful text but avoiding reading and not becoming better at reading. I love to read. Almost all of my siblings love to read. My mom is the one that taught us to love reading. I don’t ever remember reading a book I liked for school. I am very behind in my knowledge of classic texts because my teachers never made us read. We would just watch the movies and call it good. As an English teacher, I want to teach my students to love to read.  

TPA Lesson Plan

TPA lesson plan

So… TPA’s. I actually hate them. They stress me out and I don’t ever know if I am doing them correctly. I am not excited to have to do a whole bunch of these for our unit plan. I am trying to accept the fact that I have to do them in order to graduate. I like the format that was given though because all you have to do is answer the questions. That is actually way more helpful than just filling it out and having no idea what I am supposed to be doing.

It helps us reflect on our plans for the lesson and what we plan to accomplish and how to do it. It helps to lay out the lesson step by step. I feel like the TPA is kind of redundant. It makes you repeat what you want to do and your reasoning over and over. It is helpful to argue your reasoning once but over and over is just a little ridiculous. 

I think this is helpful overall for a beginning teachers because it helps us to reflect and think through what we want to do. I want to be the best teacher I can be and I know that this is part of the process of getting there. I have been exposed to this a few times before but now that I am placed in a school and actually having to do this all the time, I think it would be more helpful to have like a class for the TPA. How to write them and preparing us to do them correctly. Just looking at it and answering questions is not going to make us successful teachers. We have to know that what we are planning to do is right and we are on the right path. I am really nervous that when I start students teaching, my process for the TPA is going to be wrong and I am going to fail.

I read it but I dont get it

I Read It, But I Don’t Get It

I really liked what she was saying about self-generating questions. If students think of their own questions, they will probably like what they are reading better and understand it more. I have found that when I read, if I ask myself why the character acted a certain way or did something that might have been questionable, it helps me remember what I read. I can think back on it and try to reason through the characters actions. In Shakespeare, Dr. Agriss made us come to class with a question about the text and we would all share our questions. I loved this form of discussion because it helped me understand some of the part I didn’t quite get and also helped me think of other things from the text. This way of discussion made class way more fun to participate in and I didn’t hate going to class everyday like some of my other classes. 

            In my education class we have been talking about making use of students’ prior knowledge. It is really important to use prior knowledge because it helps students relate the material with something they already know about. They can store the new information with the old and can relate things much easier. Tovani suggests doing this when reading. Demonstrate how to relate things to prior knowledge and then utilize that skill. All students have different backgrounds are a good at things. If you can find some way for them to use what they already know and like, it makes learning new things so much easier. I really like to read so but sometimes I have a really hard time comprehending what I am reading. When I am tired my mind wanders and if I am reading something I don’t enjoy, I usually don’t retain the information very well. Hopefully, I can use some of the techniques Tovani uses in the classroom.