Day One Reading

BPR Chapter 1 (Adolescent Literacy)
I agree that most schools are reacting to NCLB in unproductive ways. I like how Dr. Beers refused to sign the petition to repeal the bill and how their reasoning was explained. I was a little sad when I read about Collin's story. I had a student like that last year. I only got a handful of assignments after Christmas break. When he would do work, it would be great, but I was never able to convince him that learning the Core Content was worth the effort or that he really had the ability to master it. Maybe if I could have found the right story to motivate him, things would have turned out better. All of my students enjoyed "story times" when I would find stories that applied to what we were studying, and almost all of my students had a myspace account. I'm looking forward to seeing how I might could use some of the technology tools to help my students enjoy learning about science by making it more similar to how they use their free time.

DZ Chapter 1 and 2

Chapter 1

I could see my students enjoying the unit described concerning Fast Food Nation. I know I could get other teachers in my building to collaborate with me, I'm just concerned about how this kind of approach would work with JCPS accountability pacing. I thought the authors made a good point about what "the problem is: they don't remember" what they read. I don't feel confident in my present ability to teach kids how to remember what they read. I can tell them ways that I remember things, use guiding questions, and graphic organizers, but I still don't know how to make information "stick." I'm excited to see what suggestions are offered in this book.



Chapter 2
The examples used in this chapter were very helpful in reminding me how foreign the terms in my content area are to my students. (Kind of like the book read at the beginning of class) I had never thought of "prior knowledge as the main determinant of comprehension," but the concept makes sense. I liked the table on page 30 that laid out the stages of reading, I guess this could be modified to fit just about any reading task, since my class doesn't have a text book.