Diverse Reading

 Reading is often what pushes students away from an ELA classroom. I have heard students in my internship complain that they don't enjoy reading. I will make the comment to them that they just haven't found the right book to read. The more I think about ELA classrooms deeply and as I continue to reflect on my own educational journey, I also heard this comment when I was in high school. As someone who enjoyed a good book and would sit down next to my dad reading the Eragon series, I would get comments about why I liked to read or that they could never sit and read for hours. My enjoyment reading has slowed down the last few years and I often blame it on school and that most of my reading now is for classes that I am in. That doesn't mean that I don't have the love for reading, I've also grown more into my own life. Reading for my back then gave me an escape from my life and my troubles. Now that I am in a part of my life I love, I want to experience everything that I can in my current life. Don't get me wrong, I can't wait to pull out a book for no other reason than it looked fun to read. 

Getting back on track, teaching reading to students involves a lot of work. I'm all for it. What drew me to books back then was recommendations from my school librarian, someone that has the knowledge to tell me briefly what the book is about and what I would like about it. Many schools lack funding for a full-time librarian and some students don't have a book person to talk to at school. I want to be the book person at my school, which means reading diverse books, that I may not be initially drawn to. English or ELA teachers should also try to find books that challenge the dominant narrative and introduce these books in a way that gets students to see the value in reading it. One way that I know I want to do this in my classroom is to create instruction around a, "tension" (Ebarvia p215). The word tension in this text is used to describe the big ideas. When we are focusing on the tensions, we are able to find more texts and non-print texts that support and go against this tension. Ebarvia acknowledges the intentional use of "tension" on page 216 in Get Free, "to capture the push-and-pull of ideas that can happen when we lean into all the complexities that a text may offer us..." Many times when focusing on the big ideas of texts, teachers tend to not open the space for different thoughts or ideas. This way of lecturing or teaching a text doesn't engage the students or get them thinking about their place in the world. When we find a tension and focus on it intentionally we are able to find more print and nonprint texts that will help to create an open-minded understanding of the tension and other people's views. 

After finding a tension and print and nonprint texts that relate to our students' lives but also challenges their views. It's important to implement different strategies. Before beginning this new unit, I liked Ebarvia's K-T-D Chart in pages 238-239. However, many peers also like the idea of a Modified K-W-L Chart which changes the words to "probably, skeptical, uncertain," as this will help students begin the conversation with more questions and a stance to learn more (Ebarvia p236-237). This second pre-reading method also allows students to reflect on the biases before going into a conversation with others, which I also really like. This activity paired with a good framing of the main text's ideas, I think, would also make students more willing to learn as throughout the unit, they will have their own questions to find the answers to. 

There are many ideas to take away from Get Free, a couple ideas that I really liked was Step In, Step Out, and Step Back. This activity would allow the students to step into a character in the novel and reflect on the character's feelings, thoughts, actions and what they know. After the first step, stepping out of the story, what would be helpful to understand this person's perspective. Then lastly, stepping back from the text and looking at yourself as the reader. What are you feeling as you are reading this? Which of your identities are present right now which are absent? (p250) This last question pairs well with another during-reading activity that I would want to implement and that is the activity, "Who Is Centered? Who Is Marginalized? Who Is Missing? (C-M-M)." This activity allows students to think about the characters and ideas that the author is portraying, this is a critical thinking activity to allow students to think about why some perspectives are being valued more than others.

Lastly, after-reading reflection, this is (in my opinion) the most important part of the end of a unit. This final stage gives students a chance to reflect on their learning of the tension that was discussed. One way that spoke to me was the "Identity-Conscious Character Analysis." This approach gives a "fill-in-the-blank" template for students to write in their thoughts and reactions to a text. This "template" will also give myself and students to understand more about how reading connects to their lives. All texts offer students a different perspective and to learn more about the world and others, students may not realize it until after filling out the "Identity-Conscious Character Analysis."  This analysis would also help readers show that they are much more complex than what they realize or what they've been told. This initial reflection will also allow for students to answer questions they may not have known before about their identities and their experiences. 

That is all for me on this topic. I want my students to thrive in their reading and to learn the importance of books since it seems to be something that is fading in our youth. The way that teachers present texts and the support with nonprint texts will effect how students perceive the reading of your tensions. I plan to implement these methods into my classroom to direct my students' reading lives in a positive and reflective way.

Have a great week!