I love the overall message that both Kelly Gallagher and Leila Christenbury seem to suggest through Chapters 4 and 7 - Show students that we as teachers have the same difficulties as them when it comes to reading comprehension and writing. I remember thinking in high school that my teachers never struggled with finding the meanings to the texts we read, and that they did not have trouble composing. Now, I'm almost a teacher and I am taking great delight in the fact that I can show my students that these aspects of English are hard, and just because I am a teacher doesn't mean I have it all together (although I will make sure they understand I'm qualified to be their teacher). I think it is important to show students that reading can be confusing and raise a lot of questions, and writing is a process that can be difficult.
I like Gallagher's different techniques to help students with the reading comprehension. I like the idea of having students write 20 questions they have after reading the first chapter. It could easily get the students involved with the text and give the teacher a great idea of where the students are struggling, areas that could easily be cleared of confusion, and provide the teacher with a notice of questions that the students may have later in a reading.
Christenbury is amazing. I think I highlighted just about every page in Chapter 7. I grew up under the traditional model of writing, and it made me excited to get away from that and use different techniques with my own classroom. I loved her ideas and can't wait to be able to put some of them into action. Writing is a process and students should have options when choosing a topic, they should be able to understand how to write and re-write, and they should realize that writing is more than just having a paper with no grammar corrections.
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And clearly I need to ask myself, "How does my title need to improve?"
I agreed with Gallagher in that we need to show our students that we don't always understand things the first time we read them. We need to give students the opportunity to re-read and to really come to a place of grasping what is being written. The problem that I had with that as a student (both high school and college) is that the writing load is so overwhelming, there really isn't a lot of time to go back and comprehend stuff. Sometimes its really just about getting through the material and understanding it is a bonus. So as teachers, we need to allow time and flexibility for our students to re-read if necessary.
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