Chapter 4: Reader Response

This chapter culminates all of the 3 previous chapters into the reader’s response to a text. This chapter also brings back into the light that not all responses are the same to a text and that each reader will take something different away from the text. There is no one correct response to a book and if children understand that then they will be more inclined to make their assertions known about a text. I have had a few teachers that have read a book one way and their reading of it was right and the things that other people took from the book were wrong. That is not the way to teach a novel because it stifles original thought and creativity. As long as a child or young adult can justify their responses to a novel then their interpretation should be seen as valid and correct in the eyes of the teacher. Taking their hypothetical responses and their preferences into consideration it is up to us as teachers to choose books that will resonate with them as well as expand their reading repertoire.

As teachers we have to encourage their deeper and higher level understanding of books as well as understand what they take away from it and validate it. If we constantly tell them that their interpretation is wrong why would they ever want to read another novel again? They wouldn’t and we want our students to read for fun and for school. By encouraging talking in groups and presenting to the class about the things they found out in novels encourages social interaction but also gives new ideas to other students that they might not have considered and thus broadens their horizons. This broadening of horizons further develops their ability to think critically which, is a function of higher level thinking.

When choosing novels for our classrooms we cannot choose books that are to challenging developmentally for our students but we should also have to have some books that are slightly elevated so that it gives them a challenge. If they rise to the challenge of a harder book they will definitely be prouder of themselves and this will encourage them to read more and tackle harder books as they are able. We do not want to make their reading selections so easy that they do not have to think as they read but we also do not want to make them so hard that they struggle reading the books.

When they have finished a book or story they should be able to have fun presenting their understanding to the class or to the teacher. While group discussions are fantastic some students will not participate fully in them because they are shy. For these students doing something like a journal would be great because then they can write how they felt or saw the book in a very low pressure environment and then the teacher can read it to see where they are in understanding. Another fun thing to do is act out scenes from the book or to re-enact the entire book for class. This allows the teacher to see what kind of miscues the students are receiving from the book so that they can modify their pre-reading vocabulary or pertinent information so that their students better understand the text.

Chapter 3: Understanding What We Read

You can read several books but not have the schema or background to comprehend what you are reading but also you can be reading for tests and be taught how to bypass the comprehension and go straight for the literal answers to the questions you are given. I know this from personal experience. When it came to taking exams like the TAAKs (as it was called) I scored low on the reading comprehension, but not low enough to fail. My mother always asked me why when I read so many books that I had a hard time with the reading comprehension part of the exam, it was mostly because much of the time I had to exert little to no effort in reading the passages and answering the very straight forward questions that did not require my full comprehension of the text. Also sometimes I didn’t have the full understanding as I went into taking a test such as the TAAKs to get the meaning that they wanted me to receive out of it. As teachers we need to give our students relevant and meaningful information before they begin a text, while they are reading it and even afterwards so that during the reading process they have points of reference for certain foreign subjects that they will stumble upon throughout these books. Giving them meaningful information also deepens their understanding of the novel and allows them to form new pathways called schema between things that they did and did not know.

Transactional theory was brought to light in the 1930’s by Louise Rosenblatt. It states that each reader brings his or her own experiences to the books that they read and therefore take something different away from it, and that through an authors choice of words or style can influence the reader in ways that they did not intend. I find this theory to be very true and it also negates the theory that there is only one meaning to a text. You cannot guarantee this because readers do have such a varied background that taking away the same thing among them is almost impossible unless you tell them what you want them to get out of it. Rosenblatt also makes a distinction between 2 different types of reading. These two types are aesthetic and efferent reading. Aesthetic reading is done purely for pleasure while efferent has a purpose behind it such as reading a textbook for a class. According to Rosenblatt most reading is a combination of both efferent and aesthetic reading. Most of the reading that I do for pure fun is more efferent than aesthetic but for me it is a healthy dose of both. This is another lesson that is important in reading. Encouraging kids to read something that actually allows them to get something out of it instead of reading that requires little to no thought about the characters or plot.

One huge problem I find with reading comprehension is because due to standardized testing comprehension is bypassed for passing the test. Because passing a standard test is so much more important than understanding what you are reading right? WRONG. As teachers we have to prepare our students for life after graduation and not teach to the test like so many are guilty of today. We have to give them the tools for comprehension and give them the independence that if they don’t understand something that they have read to go and do some research on it. We have to hold ourselves to higher standards so that our students set a higher standard. This to me is the goal of education is to raise the bar.

Chapter 2: Culturally Responsive Literature

It is astonishing, that living in the United States with so many other cultures in our communities that we know so little about them. Growing up in a military family I had the advantage of moving around quite a lot and having the exposure to many different cultures. When I lived on Guam, an island in the Marshal Island system, I was exposed to Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Australian, Pilipino, Thai and so many other cultures. In school while I was there we took courses to learn Chamorro, the native language, and even learned native dances. It was an amazing experience. When I moved back to the states I was once again exposed to a plethora of other cultures from Mexico, Argentina, Brazil, and other Latin American countries by way of the public school system. Because I had developed a keen curiosity about these different cultures it was not uncommon for me to pick people’s brains about their cultures and I learned a lot. I think that every child should be curious about those people who come from different backgrounds and in learning about them they become better people and better citizens.

Fostering this curiosity about other cultures lowers the stereotypes about them by teaching them about the culture and respect for it. This will create better citizens and better people because they understand the differences in their cultures and do not adhere to the stereotypes that society has put out. Learning about the people that live around you through books also can make a child more likely to want to read because they see these people everywhere they look. Evelyn Francis started teaching multi-cultural books in her classroom and over the span of the school year she found out that her students like reading multicultural books as well as were less likely to consider stereotypes as the norm. They also enjoyed reading about the issues that these cultures faced and were interested in them. I admire what Evelyn did and in this post 9/11 world it is much important now than it ever has been in the past to be aware of cultures.

Teaching multicultural novels in a high school English setting that is done in time periods will be hard but also beneficial. Being able to see how far some of these cultures have come since say the Victorian Era in England will be a real eye opener for the students. They will be able to see the stereotypes that are still in existence today that were created back when these peoples were conquered or enslaved because they looked different. Overall I am a firm believer in teaching multicultural books because we can learn from our treatment of people in the past and change it for the future, as well as learn something new.

Good Teacher

I have to say that my favorite and the best teacher I ever had was my junior and senior high school English teacher. She is actually part of the reason I want to become a teacher in the first place. The content that we covered in that class was daunting to say the least for high school students but she made it fun. By doing different activities and having a more interactive classroom everyone seemed to enjoy the class that most others would find daunting. Her out-going personality and love for what she was teaching also helped us become more immersed in her teaching as well as making references to more modern day characters to make relations and characterizations easier for everyone in class.

The activities and exercises we attacked in class were fun and interesting. We read Shakespeare and then were able to re-write lines and create a more modern version of some scenes and performed them. When we moved into poetic analysis we listened to songs and analyzed the lyrics. Also as presentations on poetic analysis we chose 5 of our favorite songs and analyzed one stanza from each song while playing the verses for the class. This was one of the times that we were able to have fun and guide our own presentations, unlike most other teacher's where we are given what we have to present over and that is the end of it. By giving us some creative freedom in projects and having a more interactive classroom this made a what would have been daunting learning experience a lot more fun and the grades in the class reflected that.