Treasure Chest of Thoughts

This year I am teaching an eight-grade literacy lab class, a one-time opportunity.  As I progress, I am chastising myself for not utilizing the teaching method I daily incorporate into this class:  I read aloud as the students complete a graphic organizer on the literacy term of the day.

I know….duh!  Right?

So why do I not read-aloud to my high school students more?  The answer?  Yes, time.  Or so I thought.

There just does not seem to be enough time in a class period to get everything discussed, analyzed, completed, quizzed, tested…and the list goes on, as every teacher knows.

Let me share with you, though, what I have discovered in this literacy lab…a class that provides the time, a class designed with this very component in mind.  Those kids love for me to read aloud!  They do not want me to stop.  “Read just a little more.”  Or if I switch novels on them?  Oh, my!  They want more!

Another good thing?  They always want to check out whatever book I have that day.  Have got to start taking additional copies with me! (I travel to the nearby junior high to teach this class.)

Last semester, I used the above Scholastic Read-Aloud Anthology, and they enjoyed that also, but then I began to take in books from my library or the young adult novel I might be reading at the time (Maximum Ride, Touching Spirit Bear, The Dangerous Days of Daniel X, Call of the Wild).

Thus what I have discovered?  Another way to “hook” my students on books!

Now I am selecting more classics to read…think I might introduce them…or read-aloud excerpts… to my high school students.  Already (after letting my Pre-AP students read the first installment of The Curious Case of Benjamin Button) two have told me they, too, have subscribed to this novelette.  A good thing.  Yes?  Why, just today I received an email from a student requesting the site for the novels via email (Remember?  DailyLit).

One more epiphany:  only one or two of my eighth graders had read Call of the Wild.  This just affirmed a concern of mine that 1) we are not teaching the classics as we should and 2) because of this, our students are not being challenged to read the various author styles.  What scenario do we then see being created for themas they one day enter college?  They are adept at reading current young adult fiction, but what about the classics to which their professors will assume they have been exposed?  Ah, yes, another blog post…right?

So much work to do; so little time.  So many good reads; must find the time.

I shall now read Persuasion…yes, via email.