History and Mozart

• For my topic of inquiry for this class i have thought that i would like to do something a long the same lines as my action research project. I would like to examine the effects of background music playing while the students are reading and how it effects their memory retention. There are many theories out there that listening to soft music while students complete tasks such as reading and test/quizzes helps with student concentration and retention.
  
• I am going to be doing this project by myself since it is the same thing I'm doing for my action research.
• Looking at reading in a history class, now i understand that students need to come from the perspective that they are a historian. They are expected to know the vocabulary like a historian would and use the vocabulary the same way. They need to read and examine the documents, books and sources they read and need to ask the questions like "Who said this?", "Where did they get their information from". Because as historians establishing fact from rumor is very important to our discipline.
  

Content Literacy In adolescents

• After teaching in a classroom for a semester, reading through the article and from my personal experience of being in a classroom as a teenager, I've come to the conclusion that basically most students just do not enjoy reading. They especially do not enjoy reading texts that are assigned to them. Usually the texts assigned have more educational value than entertainment value and are harder for students to pay attention to and move through as opposed to books such as Harry Potter or Twilight. Now-a-days it is especially hard for teachers to expect students to read 200-300 page novels because this day-in-age with advances in technologies students have an abundance of information available to them with the touch of a button and teens like to be "instantly-gratified". Reading a novel, even though it might be as equally gratifying in the end, would take too long to achieve that goal so students are instantly turned away.
• My experiences, although meager at most right now, have shown me that the second a teacher requests students read something instantly the room will break out in moans and groans. Even if it is something that might actually appeal to them they don't want to take the time to read it, they would rather you just tell them what it is about and than they will tell you their opinion on what you said.
  
• In history there is a necessity to read a lot. To form opinions on history and to really understand historical events one most explore different peoples opinions on the event and read through multiple accounts since history is told through the eyes of the beholder. It is annoying and of course it is overwhelming when you have to think about all the articles and time you will have to spend to research topics but if you enjoy history than you don't mind because it is actually rather interesting to hear and read about the different accounts from a specific event in time. Effective reading in History is taking the time to rummage through multiple sources, both primary and secondary, and acquiring as much knowledge as you can from them to form your own opinion about how an event occurred.