Saturday, October 23, 2010
post 4
This chapter was rather confusing to me. The previous chapter talked about overteaching and causing readacide becasuse of it. Now this chapter is talking about underteaching a book. I guess what I got out of it is you have to find a place in the middle to satisfy our students, without killing reading. I like the idea in this chapter about second draft and third draft reading. Me personally I have to do this sometimes just to understand what I just read. This type of reading helps the reader have more understanding of what you are reading and what you are looking for in the reading. You do not want you students just reading the material and not putting it to use or not understanding any of it. I don't like the philosophy of "big chunk/little chunk", I feel it confusing becuase it it kinda telling you the opposite of the previous chapter. I did like the diagram that the student created with a little chunk of reading. But it stil reminds me of last chapter when it said not to break books down to the point of dumbing the book down. I also find it hard to relate to this chapter because I do not teach a content course and don't really deal with these issues in my classroom. Bein a PE teacher, I did not find much in this chapter that I could use in my classroom.
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I too was a little confused by some of the chapters because it seemed to contradict some of the things that were said earlier and also contradict some of the things that we have seen in the modules. Overall, I think he had a lot of good points but a lot of the things he complained about are things we cannot change. As I have said many times throughout this course, I sometimes get a little distraught over the future of education but then sometimes my literary engagements give me some encouragement.
ReplyDeleteI think Gallagher is pointing out that we have to be cautious about extremes - which leads to his notion of "sweet spot." As far as the course, this is the only course you have in reading. You may not be a PE teacher for your entire career. For example, some PE teachers become principals - and may now find they are seriously looking at test scores and understanding the importance of literacy across the high school curriculum, even in PE. For example, I recently read a book about the fact that guys aren't reading. One high school had a literacy drive. Coaches had book clubs with their teams. Once a month after practice they went for pizza and had guy talk about good reads. It takes a school community!
ReplyDeletei agree with you completely. it seems like a lot of the education books tend to do this. in my opinion the book is likely trying to tow the line between what is seen as being acceptable in teaching reading and what isn't. in short i think the book is advocating not over teaching a book but in an effort to appease everyone the book also states the importances of text comprehension.
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