I've still been thinking a lot about reading this week. In my sophomore class, we are in the middle of a novel which some students are enjoying and some are not. Although it describes a culture and a time period (pre-colonial Africa) which are both unfamiliar to my students, the novel contains universal themes (individual vs. society, gender stereotyping, tradition vs. progress) which are important for my students to grapple with and, I believe, are relevant to their lives.
Before we started, I did a number of pre-reading activities (opinionnaires, anticipation guides, "word walls" -- small groups of students respond to key words that reflect the themes of the novel, e.g. tradition, honor, freedom etc.). Their reading assignments consist of about 25 pages every other night -- which seems pretty light for the average 10th grader -- and we are doing a number of different activities to discuss and engage with the novel ( a sampling: small group discussions, whole class discussions, small group presentations, watching relevant film clips, choosing songs to reflect the themes of each chapter, writing original titles for each of the chapters, writing original animal myths etc.) My goal is to make explicit connections between the world of the novel and the lives and experiences of my students.
There seem to be three groups of students in the class: 1. those who do the assigned reading, enjoy it and actively engage with the class activities, 2. those who read solely to pass the reading quizzes and at times engage with the class activities and 3. those who don't like the novel or find it boring and see no reason to engage with the class activities.
What more can I do to engage groups 2 & 3? Is it naive of me to think that there is something I am missing or not doing that would make their experience of reading more fruitful and enjoyable?
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2 comments:
I wish I had the answer to your question. I do not even assign reading for homework because students will not do it. We do all our reading in class. This is very difficult, because there are a lot of other activities that are sacrificed in order to have time to read in class.
I do not think you should beat yourself up. Every book will appeal to some students and bore other students to death. I think that the goal is to read different types of materials so that each student will be engaged at some point during the semester.
As a high school student I remebered loving some books, hating other books, and being indifferent about still others. Some books had absolutely no impact in my life, others have had a profound influence on me. I think it is just a teacher's job to help students discover their reading preferences and give students the tools to interpret and analyze those materials.
I keep wanting to write in response to your blog entries about reading--take a look in Beers. She has a chapter devoted to the students you described in your last posting, and a few chapters devoted to some of these students.
I guess one of the important questions about these students (groups 2&3) is, what's happening for them that leads to the behavior you're observing? I suspect that some of the students don't know how to make sense of the reading and so cannot participate in the activities you set up for them; others don't see why they should.
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