Week 4, Blog Post 4 Adding more voices to the reading pedagogy conversation. Takeaways for Pernille Ripp’s “Teacher Reading Identity and How It Matters” and “Developing Student Reading Identity by Making Reading a Personal Journey” in Passionate Readers: The Art of Reaching and Engaging Every Child:
In short, students need “choice, time, access to books, and a supportive environment” (Ripp 97) for reading success. Running like a current through Ripp’s chapters is the understanding that we may not see the transformation our students make to become readers, but we’re helping our students make progress toward that transformation. I think this will be one of my bigger struggles, watching my students seem to stay immune to my enthusiasm about reading and resistant to their own development as readers without becoming too discouraged myself. But in Ripp’s words, we can only hope we’re making progress with our students as readers if we “purposefully create the conditions for this shift in [reader] identity” (89). Like Kittle and Buehler, she offers suggestions on how to create those conditions rooted in her own experience as a teacher. “Consequently, on that day, four years into teaching, I realized that merely having some books and time to read them was not enough…” Pernille RippI can’t say I agree with Ripp as frequently or enthusiastically as I did with Buehler and Kittle because I’m concerned that some of her ideas aren’t as beneficial in the bigger academic picture. Yes, student choice is important. I’ve seen that for myself in addition to reading it in many respected texts. I can also get behind letting students abandon books. But I think student accountability is also important. Written-down personal accountability, sometimes in the form of reading logs, should have a place in addition to the public goals Ripp promotes. I suppose it depends on the class as to what exactly is the best fit, but Kittle’s argument in favor of logs with weekly goals (set to the student’s pace- Kittle explains how students log page numbers according their reading pace for each book and how this method of determining students’ reading investment is usually accurate) is more aware of students’ future needs as potential college students and adult readers. Students need to read consistently and rigorously to develop reading habits that will continue to serve them beyond high school. Kittle’s suggestion for two hours of reading each week is, I believe, more likely to encourage those consistent reading habits than Ripp’s one big goal. Consequently, I’m more inclined to agree with Kittle than Ripp on reading accountability. However, returning to student choice, Buehler, Kittle, and Ripp all agree that choice is important. All three also recognize the importance of teachers matching books to students, although Ripp gives less focus to these teacher-student-book relationships. Considering my own personality and my experiences teaching and tutoring, I think I’ll focus heavily on those relationships. In particular, Ripp has given me two new things to think about in my developing YA pedagogy: audiobooks and book abandonment. Personally, I very rarely abandon books. But I get what Ripp is saying when she explains that book abandonment is empowering to student readers and valuable for encouraging the reading habits found in reading adults. Also, a hesitant reader is going to be even more hesitant to read a book they aren’t enjoying. It’s better that they trade the “wrong” book for one that’s going to give them a positive reading experience because those positive reading experiences are what make life-long readers. As for audiobooks, they’re a valuable tool that somehow managed to slip past my radar. A friend of mine in high school would listen to the audiobook version of a text while they read the physical book along with it to understand the books assigned in our AP Literature class. I’m not sure how I forgot about that until now. I guess that’s part of why I’m so glad books like Passionate Readers exist. I’m not only getting new ideas, I’m also remembering old ideas that I already know work. And if you wanted another voice on twitterchats and/or a cute anecdote:
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AuthorI'm a high school English teacher looking to share with students, parents, and peers some of what I'm learning in the classroom as a teacher. Archives
October 2018
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