I copped this from Ashlees timeline. But, heres my take: I am cool with students self-selecting, but I think also that there is a failure of teachers to connect books to the lives of students. What I take away is that meaningless discussion and assignments will not engage students. The hard work of teaching is moving students towards that connection with books they never imagined they would like. Many of the teachers I know who love self-selected reading love Socratic seminars--and such discussions are exactly what these students schmooze through. Maybe its because unlike many of my colleagues, the notion of just read it or as long as they are reading ... makes me squeamish. Reading is not hard, thinking is hard. 5000 pages of Twilight-ish texts? I am not impressed. 200 pages of a novel that compels you to leave your safety zone and think about hard questions--THAT impresses me. Maybe the key is quality time and authentic tasks with fewer of those challenging and important (to my mind) texts. SSR is the ideal place for self-selected reading.
Posted on: Wed, 15 Oct 2014 13:17:55 +0000
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