Once again, Daniels and Zemelman were able to keep me thinking about many things while I was reading the text.
I really thought that the questions posed by the authors on page 179 were useful. The questions are to be used to determine what the big ideas and concepts are in a textbook that a teacher wants to teach to the class. The text informs us that, as teachers, we have to be selective of what we show students. We shouldn’t assign the students an entire textbook to read and then test them on it. It’s not only a waste of time, but most students will not even remember most of the text they read. We have to select pages and passages carefully. I completely agree with this statement. I can say with confidence that probably 85% of all textbooks that I have ever had to read for any class I forgot the content of after the test it correlated to. This is not the way we want to teach our students. We want to create a meaningful classroom that instills learning not memorization. Thus, the questions on page 179 will really come in handy for the future when I need to determine what exactly is most important for my students to be taking away from the classroom and textbook.
The text also outlines different tiers through which vocabulary words are located to determine readability. I thought that these tiers were also a helpful tool for the future. Too often we see teachers assign textbooks with vocabulary that is far beyond what the students’ readability is. We, as teachers, need to decide “What kind of words do I want my student to know? How hard should these words be? Will the student encounter these words in the future, or are they just words that are typically only used by those with a very large vocabulary?” We need to think about these key issues for our students and make a conscious decision as to what we believe is key for them to know. What I found most important to note in this section is that it has been found that people typically learn the meaning of the word through “exposure of use”. In other words, people learn by listening to a word being used and then by trying to replicate its use and use the word in their language. People are always hearing new words and typically try to guess what it means through context clues. Sure, we can ask a student to write the word 30 times and the definition 30 times, but, while that exercise may help them remember the word, it does not help them practice to use it in context. We learn through practicing and, thus, the constant use of the word is essential. One strategy we might want to use when introducing a new word to our students is using it constantly through the next day or two and encouraging students to use it throughout this time too. Include it when talking to students or teaching in general. This way students can get to understand the context. Ask students to try and use the word at least 3 times throughout the course of class. Remember: practice of use makes perfect.
What I found interesting that the text had to offer was the hint that we need to study the “big tests” to see what is really on it and then find a way to teach that content. While that seems like a good idea, I have a big question about this: how do we gain access to the content for these tests? I have always remembered how this information was always confidential. Is there a way for teachers to gain access to these tests? I know there are sometimes study guides provided for some of these tests, but do we, as teachers, have the privilege of looking at the content? I’ve never been quite sure about this.
The text also brought up something that I hadn’t really thought that much about before that kind of shocked me a little. It said, “In many states your salary will be partly determined by how well your students can answer these [test] questions”. I knew that our students’ success was what our job was determined by, but its kind of scary to think that these TESTS are what are determining our futures as teachers. How often is it that teachers spend an entire year preparing their students and teaching them to the best of their ability and then realize that they have not been able to cover absolutely everything on the test? It’s scary to think that our students could have learned so much over the course of the year, but if it is not exactly what is on the test then we are punished for somehow not teaching the right way? I have always hated the test as god notion, and it oftentimes makes me wonder about what kind of issues there really are with our education.
I liked the strategy of jigsawing. I have actually experienced this kind of reading first hand, but, surprisingly enough, only in college. I typically found it effective, especially in a time when we needed to get through the text in a short amount of time. I will say that I believe it does not have the same kind of effect as actually taking the time to read the entire book by oneself and really thinking about the text, and I do think this activity takes away from the book a little bit, but I also believe that this activity is very helpful when it needs to be used. The students still find a way to understand the plot, character, and themes while also analyzing the craft and techniques of the author. We’ve done it before in many college classes and it did work. I think though, if I were to use this strategy in my classroom, I would probably still have to give the students a general background on the book (setting, characters and who they are in relation to one another, etc.) I would possibly even have them all at least read the first chapter together to get a basic understanding of the book. Coming in at chapter 5 could make it hard for the student to understand the context of what they are reading, and we don’t want them to be confused.
I think my favorite part of this entire chapter was the Guide-o-Rama study guides. This is something that I most definitely want to include in my future classroom. I think it would not only be fun to write out for my students, but I also think it is a good way to constantly have a conversation with the student about the text without even having to be there for them. It helps that the student have an example of how ones mind should be constantly thinking about, analyzing, connecting, reacting, and relating to the text. As the teacher we may even be able to ask the students to create one for us to read. That way we can tell that not only was our model a success, but that the students are actually engaging with the text. I really think this is a golden strategy here, and I am kind of excited to try it out.
There was also a realization by a physical science teacher named Jeff James in the text that caught my attention. He stated, “the parents think the textbook is the subject.” The context of this quote being that he never assigned a textbook to his students which concerned parents. I thought this observation was very interesting. I think it says a lot about what education is to parents and people. In today’s world people typically think that the text holds all of the answers to the classroom, but the answers are in the teaching, not the textbook. The textbook is only but a guide for students. I also found it funny that I also had a professor that wrote his own textbook. I think that was the first history course that I ever really excelled at, and I most definitely correlate it to a readable text. Even as an English major I have often had difficulties understanding history text books in particular. They really were very difficult to read and often forced me to read them multiple times for comprehension. This professor, on the other hand, wrote his text book as if he were speaking to us and giving us a lecture that we could interact with and even laugh at from the jokes imbedded within. It really was a success, but I think it is a strategy that would take a lot of time and effort to do. Still, I think its a very successful idea.
Overall, the text really got me thinking a lot about the textbooks we choose to use in our classrooms and has made me conscious of different decision we have to make as the teacher for the betterment of our students.
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