Observing Literacy in Action

• Having taken this class it's amazing how much it has opened my eyes to reading in schools and made me more aware of its presence or in most cases lack there of. But luckily at the high school that i am teaching in, in Jones County they seem to have caught on to the lack of reading in schools and are making adjustments. The first week that i was teaching, on wed and thurs the first 15 mins of each class the students had to read. They were allowed to read anything they wanted and for the students who didn't come prepared, the teacher had "history" themed magazines in the corner for them to flip through. I was actually pleasantly surprised to see how many students actually brought books from home and what they were reading. On a more negative note, i am teaching a high school government class and when the teacher handed me the book they were teaching, from the first thing i noticed was that it was the same book that i was taught from when i was in highschool (5 yrs ago) AND THE BOOK WAS THE 1999 EDITION! That's over 10 yrs ago! Not that the basic principles of Government have changed but you know we have gone through an election and we have a whole new set of people doing things, so a lot of the names and numbers are wrong in the book.
  
• I did my first literacy assignment last Thursday. It went rather well, i learned a lot from it that i believe will help prepare me better next time. I'll get more in depth in the class discussion.
  
• Readicide Chpt 3 i found fairly interesting. I've always been an avid reader since i was a kid so sometimes it's weird for me to imagine someone not enjoying reading. And i really connected with the author when he talked about "flow" and "Chop chop curriculum". When you're reading a book and you're so in to it, it is amazing how you get lost in it. You don't want to put it down, but at the same time you don't want the book to end. I find myself reading at a slow pace at the beginnings of book, a fast pace in the middle towards the end and then when i see i only have a few chapters left i slow down the pace because i don't want the book and the story to end. And i never thought about it this way but this whole idea of chopping up books and having students pull things out of every section really is killing it for the students. Instead of reading for pleasure and taking what they want to out of it (because almost every book means something different to everyone that reads it) the students read to find what they are "supposed to find". The underlying themes and the roles the different characters play etc. It makes reading less enjoyable because students are only looking at the small pictures and parts when the things that are going to change them are the wholes.