I was happily amazed that a minimum of three colleagues chose the same sentence as I did when Don asked us to choose a sentence from Engaging Ideas to discuss in our journal. I chose page 57 sentence that starts with "He brung it..." Laurie discussed how the sentence makes her think of the intelligent students she encounters in Athens County, but perhaps some may judge them to be talentless or unintelligent based on how their writing "looks." I feel similarly regarding my students in Hocking County. Perhaps economy, politics, and education have a negative impact on the language spoken in south-east Ohio, but it is a dialect that is a more intelligent use of English than I could imagine implementing in a world of car repair, farming, hunting, blue-collar labor positions, etc. The economy and politics of what should be valued and where degrade my area of the world and the language we use in daily lives; the mysterious they (where are they found and what's the address) see no educational or monetary value in utilizing our dialect and no value in the jobs we strive to possess and maintain.
So, dear all, what do you think about AR? Reading tons of books but no quality of work involved...
I don't feel as though I know enough about AR to argue for or against it; however, I do support sustained silent reading. I feel that encouraging students to read and giving them the time to do so will expand their vocabulary and help them in their future writings. Perhaps students feel the same sense of "there's not enough time for that" as we do as teachers when we skip over things for the sake of time.
ReplyDeleteI like AR if only because students are given a chance to read something in their level, and I know what the level is. As a teacher, I can go as far as I want with AR. I could have them do book talks, reports, some of this new stuff we are learning, etc. to engage them further. Because it is used as a grade in the lower grades, it does tend to make students read even if it is only a little bit. Some is better than none.
ReplyDeleteWhen I was in school (way back in the dark ages) they provided us with a wonderful program called SRA. I quickly learned that I could go to the test and take it without reading the assignment. What did I learn? Test taking strategies!
ReplyDelete