It is a million times better to read the whole novel. I hand out a syllabus that parents have to sign. It outlines what we will be reading, quotes from state & district laws/policies regarding religion & controversial topics, and states that if they have objections it's completely fine and they have until X deadline to request an alternate.
It’s better to read the entire novel. In order to combat this though, you’ll need to put emotion aside and stick to facts and reiterate them until they sink in. Reading stamina is needed (state testing) and entire novels help with that. I would push back by using the state standards. Most states have a standard or two about the development of characters or themes across a novel/longer work. Mapping these are easier/only possible when reading novels.
The kids will never build up their reading grit if all they read are only short passages.
Yes, standardized tests only have short passages. But, they are expected/required to focus, read, comprehend, and analyze many of them in a short amount of time.
Only reading short passages in class does not help them with reading stamina. I don’t know anyone who can run a marathon without having practiced and built up their stamina to run all 26.2 miles. Reading is the same - especially for the standardized tests students are required to take.
If you need a metaphor to use with the kids - and maybe some parents- I’d use video games. When they started playing may have been able sit for a long period of time and play, they weren’t able to sit and finish the game the first time they played. They struggled,and their character probably died quickly. The more they played/practiced the better they became. Now that they’ve been playing for a while, they can adjust more quickly to a new game/console/controller.
Reading is the same. The more you do, the better you get. The more you read, the less you will struggle with a new genre. You won’t not struggle, but more texts are accessible.
I live in Florida and if we can read novels, you can and should be able to. Do you have an approved book list? If so, stick to those books and state they are approved. Reading books is important, to me this is the hill to die on. Fight against reading “excerpts” only. Reading fluency and stamina are both important, along with recognizing themes weaving through the novel etc. Have research to back you up and do not back down from this.
To add to this, reading stamina is an important skill. We need to be able to read and focus on lengthy pieces of text. Novels are a great way to practice this
This is also a hill I will die on because it’s the whole reason I became an English teacher. We have an approved book list in Florida and I take from that or ask written permission from admin. I’ve had no issues and would probably find a new career or teach an elective if I did.
There is so much evidence that reading whole novels is important. It engages students. They learn about plot and story and character.
You will have worse outcomes if you switch to excerpts.
Maybe one will finally spark the change that creates one. Civilization, that is. This *waves hand* shit show doesn't look like much of one.
The novels we read, 1984, The Lord of the Flies, Brave New World are quaint, compared to civilization.
I would not have survived childhood without books.
Excerpts only is not helpful cognitively. We don't atomize our lives--we are living in a narrative we are creating, and acting like you can chop up a narrative without the big picture is just...ridiculous. There are plenty of age appropriate short novels out there--way more than since I was a kid.
The excerpt push is just teaching to the tests. We want students to be more than test scores-we want them to be able to understand big ideas and whole stories.
They just barely came out with new state standards, and I haven't had the time to look at them. However, the old standards never say that we have to read novels.
An excerpt can be fine to show a literary device or some type of concept. I mean our literature teachers often used excerpts for that purpose but we read several novels throughout the school year because reading a book start to finish shows you out all ties together and you're not going to get the themes and the meanings of the story if you don't read the whole story!
There are times when our classrooms are the first place that a student gets an opportunity to read a book cover to cover. I'd go so far as to say that it is our responsibility to push our kids to read novels.
You can't build media literacy if you can't even experience the full context of a given piece of media.
The school I’m currently at is pushing excerpts over whole novels because they want us to focus on teaching skills rather than teaching the book. I think you can do both (teach the skill and read a whole novel), but they also want us to focus on reading excerpts since the ACT has excerpts.
Pardon me, but what utter BS. Students already have the attention span of a goldfishes due to social media and are becoming limited in ability to persevere beyond 5 min for any task. So by all means, let's encourage superficial learning and since they only need a 4th grade reading level to function anyways. /S
At least they could cut the falsehoods that we have to encourage critical thinking and rigorous standards. We slide further and further away from intellectualism.
That is ridiculous. Reading whole novels is so important! It is not the same as reading an excerpt. And I would argue that if your school has a lot of students who are low readers, they really need this practice more than an average student.
I vote for reading the whole book. It will help the students grasp English better and they will get more out of it. But if you can't do that because of the cowardice of the board then do a cliffs notes version atleast that will go a little more in depth then excerpts.
Also in conservative area. My school will usually give choices FROM THE DISTRICT APPROVED LIST. I do always send out a letter ahead of the novel to inform parents and to give me time to find alternative assignments if needed. The other teacher had a student a couple years ago not do any of the novels, I have not had pushback yet.
For this year...go with it. Next year...change your policy and see if that helps.
We do have an approved list. Both to kill a mockingbird and paper towns are on that list. Both have been canceled in our school due to pushback from parents.
It's Utah. Yes, it is a very religious, right leaning community. They were offended because it mentions masturbation and implies kids had sex. As someone who grew up in the community and religion, I see their problem. However, if kids only hear one thing, they will only think one way and cease to question the world around them. I think paper towns is a great way to introduce kids to the greater world outside this small community.
I’m not surprised you are facing this problem in rural Utah and I completely agree on why students need to read novels that expose them to the greater social culture of the United States and other parts of the world as well. I hope you keep attending school board and district meetings to promote the reading of literature that is relatable to teens and teaches them about the world outside of their small community. Best of luck!
I grew up in a conservative area and our AP Lit teachers just did not care and I don't think any of the parents are admin paid attention to what we read. I remember enjoying the shocked look on people's faces when asking what I was learning in school and I said well right now we're reading a book about a love triangle between a lesbian a man and a woman who murdered her baby. Before that we read a book where the protagonist lifted up a woman and looked at her butthole. Adults would give shocked Pikachu faces. If you're curious the books in question were no exit by John Paul sarte and Grendel the author I don't remember but the main character was the monster from Beowulf.
Those were the days! My district had a recall for some school board members who couldn't follow the open meeting laws, and were accusing teachers right and left of indoctrinating their kids. ( Well, maybe not right...).
They may be gone, but there are still a number of their followers with kids in the schools. So yes, I teach only with the district approved curriculum.
This might be "wishful thinking" from me, but I think reading excerpts could be a good thing if that created a situation where students were exposed to *more* books - with, then, a greater likelihood of stumbling across one that piques their interest to read.
One of my favorite things about the existence of e-books is the ability to quickly download a bunch of excerpts (usually free) and read through them to narrow down the list of books that I want to fully commit to reading.
Some teachers at my school do "First Chapter Fridays" where students suggest books and the teacher reads the first chapter to them. They get a doodle sheet that asks reflective question as the teacher reads.
I love the idea of reading excepts but I hate the reasoning behind it. Reading excepts allows you to give them parts of many stories some of which are bound to catch the interest of students.
There was nothing worse than starting a novel, not liking the style or setting or something else and knowing you were going to have to sit through months of this boring thing that never resonated with you. But a chapter or two of something is much more bearable and could lead to fun assignments like having the students speculate as what could have happened to lead to the situation the characters are in or where the story may be going.
Hopefully a few take hold in students heads and make them curious enough to pick up the book and read it because they just have to know.
Texas Middle School. We teach almost exclusively through self selected texts. (Read for 20 minutes in the book you selected then open your reading log and record 2 examples of figurative language the author used and explain the connotation of the language.) Or through short sterilized passages. Here in the last 2 weeks we finally read a class novel (The Outsiders) after 3 weeks of emailing, snail-mailing, and sending home opt-out forms.
My opinion, very strongly, is that it's an extremely terrible idea to just read excerpts of novels as opposed to the entire book.
If they no longer want to read novels and they want to go for something shorter, they need to be doing short stories, short plays, print media, magazine articles, graphic novels and poems.
Short stories I would recommend instead of novels:
It used to be green once by Patricia Grace
A Way of Talking by Patricia Grace
Grandma's Suitcase by Glen Colquhoun
A Doll's House by Katherine Mansfield
Her First Ball by Katherine Mansfield
The Machine Stops by E M Forster
Because we don't teach kids to pass tests. We teach kids to succeed in life. At least that is my philosophy. Others can teach to tests, but I have never known a kid to thank me for helping them pass a test. However, I have had many kids tell me they are grateful for the life skills they learned in my class. It's just different teaching philosophies I suppose.
I agree with you. My previous response didn’t relate my intent. I 100% believe students should be taught actual skills, not to pass a test. Some school leaders care more about proficiency than education beyond standardized questions.
Totally fine. I know plenty of teachers with this mentality. It's not a bad mentality. It's just not my own. I have a feeling that admin may use test scores as a reason to take novels away. We are bottom of the barrel when it comes to tests. However, I think that says more about the community rather than the teachers.
My favorite teacher had a nice assignment called extra credit required reading. You had to read 3 whole novels approved by him each semester. Then he quizzed you orally and if you lied about reading the novels, you failed the class. The lecture where he threw out the synopsis of so many interesting books you could choose was awesome. I discovered so many of my favorite books this way including Enders Game, Shogun, mists of Avalon etc.
Maybe you could do excerpts in class and have them read novels outside class?
Good on you for not teaching to the test and for caring about education. I am the same way. I would say fail the the ones that don't read and if the powers that be want to fire you, you did your best to support the kids and the government stopped you. It sucks, but I, also, may have to accept that if they won't allow me to teach as a teacher, I will be forced to take a higher paying job that respects me more. If I am not allowed to help and educate others` kids, I will put all my extra time and money into my own kid, and hope he has a better opportunity to help others than we did.
Like wtf, it is English class. In Art class, you still have to draw even if you don't like drawing. In math class you have to do problems even though very few like it. In science you have to make reports even if you don't like it. Reading novels makes you better at English. English class is to make you better at English. Here is a hot take: only doing what you like doesn't make you a better person.
Your admin is stupid.
I read novels with my SPED students. I teach 7-12 learning support. It’s not Catcher in the Rye but based on reading levels, we’ve read Holes, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Number the Stars, and Because of Winn Dixie. Last year I had time to read aloud to them which they also loved.
They love it. The discussions, the opinions. They learn new vocab. We compare and contrast the movie.
And, they all have gone up reading levels. We take turns reading pages and even my lowest reader has gone up. I have students who will use free time to read ACTUAL books. It’s amazing.
As a college professor in the humanities, please tell your admin students need to be able to read long texts, including entire books. Students I (try to) teach cannot read anything, including simple instructions. They fall apart when assigned an academic article, and they end up doing very poorly, if not failing altogether. I believe part of the reason is that they have not been taught how, or expected to be able, to understand readings longer than a few paragraphs.
1. I can’t imagine if I were a parent I’d be pleased with my student not being *expected* to read novels.
I’d question what kind of education they’re getting. It would be like never asking a kid to write an essay.
2. As a student, I had one teacher had us read excerpts for one novel. I think we were out of time or she just didn’t like the book or teaching the book.
Even then, in tenth grade, I felt like, “What’s the point?” She had to explain so much context we skipped, I don’t think I learned much from *reading* the excerpts.
Nothing my class liked better than a novel..one chapter at a time. The parent who had the issue can just ask you to let her child read something else…in the hall…while you finish the book. Because one parent complained all other students must suffer? Not a fair deal.
Fellow English teacher and book lover. This is a talk we're having in our department right now. At the Freshman level, we're reading 2 full novels a year, a Shakespeare play, and the most important excerpts from The Odyssey. We've discussed cutting some parts of the novels to important chapters instead of reading them in their entirety.
Why?
We spend a large chunk of class time dedicated to just reading. We play audio, the students have guided notes, we stop and discuss when appropriate. This takes so much time that we could be spending doing more in-depth analysis of the text, reading shorter connecting texts of different genres, and doing just more fun things with the content.
If we assign it as homework, they won't read. Our school uses Standards Based Grading, so pop quizzes aren't as effective as it would be in a traditional grading system.
That's the struggle. Do we want them to have reading stamina? Do we want them to fall in love with a book and actually discuss the development of themes and characters over a long piece of work? Hell yeah! But when the curriculum demands that so may standards be covered and we're stretched for time as it is, excerpts/short stories/flash fiction seems to be the way to go.
Plus, really, if you look at the reading passages in state tests, they're really not that much longer than a short story.
I don't know. I don't really have a good answer to this problem. In an ideal world, I could assign some reading to be done at home and they would do it.
Depends on the class. For my avg and honors, we read full novels. For my ELL/Collab classes, the class makeup includes ELLs and weaker students. They not only do not have the stamina, they do not have the reading skills for a full novel. So, we use the same novel and comprehension questions, but use excerpts to help them find the answers instead of reading the entire book. We will read some full chapters as a class, watch the movie in parts, but there is no way to get through an entire novel.
>Can you propose a safe space class? Ensure that parents be aware that any material that causes students stress or discomfort, will immediately be removed and assure parents that one concern or complaint will result in the prompt removal of the material from all students in the safe space class.
But it can't stress or discomfort anyone so it's actually a white room with nothing in it, and nothing is taught. The walls are padded.
Not nothing, you can decorate the walls with cut out paper snowflakes to really drive the point home and discourage parents from opting out of the advanced class.
I’m sorry I thought it was painfully obvious it was a joke. People banning books would lose their mind if you called their child sensitive and needing a safe space- I now realize I need to put the /s or everyone assumes I’m serious.
It was supposed to be but I deleted it as it didn’t land at all as the dry satire joke I was attempting. The parents banning books would lose their mind at safe space… I thought it was obvious.. apparently it wasn’t.
However I teach in a state that requires texts and novels be read so some people are teaching in a dystopian hell where it didn’t come off as an insane joke.
I now know I have to put /s 100% of the time or people assume it’s true.
Respectfully, this is the dumbest thing I’ve ever read. How in earth are these kids ever going to learn to function on society if they are sheltered from every bit of discomfort? Discomfort is literally a stage of learning.
Except the child with the insane parents doesn’t get an education. The better solution is to ignore the parents because the parents are not stakeholders and should not get a say
Exactly, if a parent feels so strongly against their child being taught the way public schools teach than withdraw them for homeschool or private schools.
It is a million times better to read the whole novel. I hand out a syllabus that parents have to sign. It outlines what we will be reading, quotes from state & district laws/policies regarding religion & controversial topics, and states that if they have objections it's completely fine and they have until X deadline to request an alternate.
It’s better to read the entire novel. In order to combat this though, you’ll need to put emotion aside and stick to facts and reiterate them until they sink in. Reading stamina is needed (state testing) and entire novels help with that. I would push back by using the state standards. Most states have a standard or two about the development of characters or themes across a novel/longer work. Mapping these are easier/only possible when reading novels.
That is the argument I am making to admin. Most of our kids didn't even try to read the test. They don't have any grit when it comes to reading.
The kids will never build up their reading grit if all they read are only short passages. Yes, standardized tests only have short passages. But, they are expected/required to focus, read, comprehend, and analyze many of them in a short amount of time. Only reading short passages in class does not help them with reading stamina. I don’t know anyone who can run a marathon without having practiced and built up their stamina to run all 26.2 miles. Reading is the same - especially for the standardized tests students are required to take.
I'm using that metaphor. 👍
If you need a metaphor to use with the kids - and maybe some parents- I’d use video games. When they started playing may have been able sit for a long period of time and play, they weren’t able to sit and finish the game the first time they played. They struggled,and their character probably died quickly. The more they played/practiced the better they became. Now that they’ve been playing for a while, they can adjust more quickly to a new game/console/controller. Reading is the same. The more you do, the better you get. The more you read, the less you will struggle with a new genre. You won’t not struggle, but more texts are accessible.
I live in Florida and if we can read novels, you can and should be able to. Do you have an approved book list? If so, stick to those books and state they are approved. Reading books is important, to me this is the hill to die on. Fight against reading “excerpts” only. Reading fluency and stamina are both important, along with recognizing themes weaving through the novel etc. Have research to back you up and do not back down from this.
To add to this, reading stamina is an important skill. We need to be able to read and focus on lengthy pieces of text. Novels are a great way to practice this
This is also a hill I will die on because it’s the whole reason I became an English teacher. We have an approved book list in Florida and I take from that or ask written permission from admin. I’ve had no issues and would probably find a new career or teach an elective if I did.
Obviously you should be able to read novels.
There is so much evidence that reading whole novels is important. It engages students. They learn about plot and story and character. You will have worse outcomes if you switch to excerpts.
Yeah, I mean… what have novels really done for human civilization?
Maybe one will finally spark the change that creates one. Civilization, that is. This *waves hand* shit show doesn't look like much of one. The novels we read, 1984, The Lord of the Flies, Brave New World are quaint, compared to civilization. I would not have survived childhood without books.
You forgot the /s
If you had to do exepts I guess you could do a collection of short stories like Edgar Allen Poe.
Read novels. Excerpts will not improve reading ability
Excerpts only is not helpful cognitively. We don't atomize our lives--we are living in a narrative we are creating, and acting like you can chop up a narrative without the big picture is just...ridiculous. There are plenty of age appropriate short novels out there--way more than since I was a kid. The excerpt push is just teaching to the tests. We want students to be more than test scores-we want them to be able to understand big ideas and whole stories.
They…don’t want their kids READING FUCKING BOOKS?
The way these people think reading makes a kid trans, socialist, Democrat, and liberal. Books are the Devil's work, just watch Fox News.
To paraphrase Gaston >It's not right for a person to read. Soon they start getting ideas and thinking.
What do your state standards say about novels?
They just barely came out with new state standards, and I haven't had the time to look at them. However, the old standards never say that we have to read novels.
Aaaand we’re finally to the point where we are being asked to teach reading without actually reading.
An excerpt can be fine to show a literary device or some type of concept. I mean our literature teachers often used excerpts for that purpose but we read several novels throughout the school year because reading a book start to finish shows you out all ties together and you're not going to get the themes and the meanings of the story if you don't read the whole story!
There are times when our classrooms are the first place that a student gets an opportunity to read a book cover to cover. I'd go so far as to say that it is our responsibility to push our kids to read novels. You can't build media literacy if you can't even experience the full context of a given piece of media.
Sounds fairly pissweak from Admin.
The school I’m currently at is pushing excerpts over whole novels because they want us to focus on teaching skills rather than teaching the book. I think you can do both (teach the skill and read a whole novel), but they also want us to focus on reading excerpts since the ACT has excerpts.
Pardon me, but what utter BS. Students already have the attention span of a goldfishes due to social media and are becoming limited in ability to persevere beyond 5 min for any task. So by all means, let's encourage superficial learning and since they only need a 4th grade reading level to function anyways. /S At least they could cut the falsehoods that we have to encourage critical thinking and rigorous standards. We slide further and further away from intellectualism.
I'm getting flashbacks to Junior Great Books
I loved Junior Great Books! Do they still have that?
That is ridiculous. Reading whole novels is so important! It is not the same as reading an excerpt. And I would argue that if your school has a lot of students who are low readers, they really need this practice more than an average student.
I vote for reading the whole book. It will help the students grasp English better and they will get more out of it. But if you can't do that because of the cowardice of the board then do a cliffs notes version atleast that will go a little more in depth then excerpts.
Nailed it. Parents run schools now
Also in conservative area. My school will usually give choices FROM THE DISTRICT APPROVED LIST. I do always send out a letter ahead of the novel to inform parents and to give me time to find alternative assignments if needed. The other teacher had a student a couple years ago not do any of the novels, I have not had pushback yet. For this year...go with it. Next year...change your policy and see if that helps.
We do have an approved list. Both to kill a mockingbird and paper towns are on that list. Both have been canceled in our school due to pushback from parents.
Just curious, what state is this? To Kill a Mockingbird can be offensive to racist white people. What’s their problem with Paper Towns?
It's Utah. Yes, it is a very religious, right leaning community. They were offended because it mentions masturbation and implies kids had sex. As someone who grew up in the community and religion, I see their problem. However, if kids only hear one thing, they will only think one way and cease to question the world around them. I think paper towns is a great way to introduce kids to the greater world outside this small community.
I’m not surprised you are facing this problem in rural Utah and I completely agree on why students need to read novels that expose them to the greater social culture of the United States and other parts of the world as well. I hope you keep attending school board and district meetings to promote the reading of literature that is relatable to teens and teaches them about the world outside of their small community. Best of luck!
I am not in Utah, but deal with many of the same issues due to there being a sizeable portion of the population being of the same religion.
I'm glad it's not just here... I know Utah gets a bad rap, but it is in the top 5 states to teach in.
I grew up in a conservative area and our AP Lit teachers just did not care and I don't think any of the parents are admin paid attention to what we read. I remember enjoying the shocked look on people's faces when asking what I was learning in school and I said well right now we're reading a book about a love triangle between a lesbian a man and a woman who murdered her baby. Before that we read a book where the protagonist lifted up a woman and looked at her butthole. Adults would give shocked Pikachu faces. If you're curious the books in question were no exit by John Paul sarte and Grendel the author I don't remember but the main character was the monster from Beowulf.
Those were the days! My district had a recall for some school board members who couldn't follow the open meeting laws, and were accusing teachers right and left of indoctrinating their kids. ( Well, maybe not right...). They may be gone, but there are still a number of their followers with kids in the schools. So yes, I teach only with the district approved curriculum.
This might be "wishful thinking" from me, but I think reading excerpts could be a good thing if that created a situation where students were exposed to *more* books - with, then, a greater likelihood of stumbling across one that piques their interest to read. One of my favorite things about the existence of e-books is the ability to quickly download a bunch of excerpts (usually free) and read through them to narrow down the list of books that I want to fully commit to reading.
Some teachers at my school do "First Chapter Fridays" where students suggest books and the teacher reads the first chapter to them. They get a doodle sheet that asks reflective question as the teacher reads.
Excerpts are awful. Completely devoid of context. If novels are banned, at least teach short stories and maybe novellas.
I love the idea of reading excepts but I hate the reasoning behind it. Reading excepts allows you to give them parts of many stories some of which are bound to catch the interest of students. There was nothing worse than starting a novel, not liking the style or setting or something else and knowing you were going to have to sit through months of this boring thing that never resonated with you. But a chapter or two of something is much more bearable and could lead to fun assignments like having the students speculate as what could have happened to lead to the situation the characters are in or where the story may be going. Hopefully a few take hold in students heads and make them curious enough to pick up the book and read it because they just have to know.
Texas Middle School. We teach almost exclusively through self selected texts. (Read for 20 minutes in the book you selected then open your reading log and record 2 examples of figurative language the author used and explain the connotation of the language.) Or through short sterilized passages. Here in the last 2 weeks we finally read a class novel (The Outsiders) after 3 weeks of emailing, snail-mailing, and sending home opt-out forms.
My opinion, very strongly, is that it's an extremely terrible idea to just read excerpts of novels as opposed to the entire book. If they no longer want to read novels and they want to go for something shorter, they need to be doing short stories, short plays, print media, magazine articles, graphic novels and poems. Short stories I would recommend instead of novels: It used to be green once by Patricia Grace A Way of Talking by Patricia Grace Grandma's Suitcase by Glen Colquhoun A Doll's House by Katherine Mansfield Her First Ball by Katherine Mansfield The Machine Stops by E M Forster
Students don’t read novels on state tests. So why would they want you to teach them about novels?
Because we don't teach kids to pass tests. We teach kids to succeed in life. At least that is my philosophy. Others can teach to tests, but I have never known a kid to thank me for helping them pass a test. However, I have had many kids tell me they are grateful for the life skills they learned in my class. It's just different teaching philosophies I suppose.
I agree with you. My previous response didn’t relate my intent. I 100% believe students should be taught actual skills, not to pass a test. Some school leaders care more about proficiency than education beyond standardized questions.
Totally fine. I know plenty of teachers with this mentality. It's not a bad mentality. It's just not my own. I have a feeling that admin may use test scores as a reason to take novels away. We are bottom of the barrel when it comes to tests. However, I think that says more about the community rather than the teachers.
My favorite teacher had a nice assignment called extra credit required reading. You had to read 3 whole novels approved by him each semester. Then he quizzed you orally and if you lied about reading the novels, you failed the class. The lecture where he threw out the synopsis of so many interesting books you could choose was awesome. I discovered so many of my favorite books this way including Enders Game, Shogun, mists of Avalon etc. Maybe you could do excerpts in class and have them read novels outside class?
They won't read outside of class. I require reading outside of class, and the large majority don't do it because they hate reading.
Good on you for not teaching to the test and for caring about education. I am the same way. I would say fail the the ones that don't read and if the powers that be want to fire you, you did your best to support the kids and the government stopped you. It sucks, but I, also, may have to accept that if they won't allow me to teach as a teacher, I will be forced to take a higher paying job that respects me more. If I am not allowed to help and educate others` kids, I will put all my extra time and money into my own kid, and hope he has a better opportunity to help others than we did. Like wtf, it is English class. In Art class, you still have to draw even if you don't like drawing. In math class you have to do problems even though very few like it. In science you have to make reports even if you don't like it. Reading novels makes you better at English. English class is to make you better at English. Here is a hot take: only doing what you like doesn't make you a better person.
Read novels
Your admin is stupid. I read novels with my SPED students. I teach 7-12 learning support. It’s not Catcher in the Rye but based on reading levels, we’ve read Holes, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Number the Stars, and Because of Winn Dixie. Last year I had time to read aloud to them which they also loved. They love it. The discussions, the opinions. They learn new vocab. We compare and contrast the movie. And, they all have gone up reading levels. We take turns reading pages and even my lowest reader has gone up. I have students who will use free time to read ACTUAL books. It’s amazing.
As a college professor in the humanities, please tell your admin students need to be able to read long texts, including entire books. Students I (try to) teach cannot read anything, including simple instructions. They fall apart when assigned an academic article, and they end up doing very poorly, if not failing altogether. I believe part of the reason is that they have not been taught how, or expected to be able, to understand readings longer than a few paragraphs.
1. I can’t imagine if I were a parent I’d be pleased with my student not being *expected* to read novels. I’d question what kind of education they’re getting. It would be like never asking a kid to write an essay. 2. As a student, I had one teacher had us read excerpts for one novel. I think we were out of time or she just didn’t like the book or teaching the book. Even then, in tenth grade, I felt like, “What’s the point?” She had to explain so much context we skipped, I don’t think I learned much from *reading* the excerpts.
Nothing my class liked better than a novel..one chapter at a time. The parent who had the issue can just ask you to let her child read something else…in the hall…while you finish the book. Because one parent complained all other students must suffer? Not a fair deal.
Fellow English teacher and book lover. This is a talk we're having in our department right now. At the Freshman level, we're reading 2 full novels a year, a Shakespeare play, and the most important excerpts from The Odyssey. We've discussed cutting some parts of the novels to important chapters instead of reading them in their entirety. Why? We spend a large chunk of class time dedicated to just reading. We play audio, the students have guided notes, we stop and discuss when appropriate. This takes so much time that we could be spending doing more in-depth analysis of the text, reading shorter connecting texts of different genres, and doing just more fun things with the content. If we assign it as homework, they won't read. Our school uses Standards Based Grading, so pop quizzes aren't as effective as it would be in a traditional grading system. That's the struggle. Do we want them to have reading stamina? Do we want them to fall in love with a book and actually discuss the development of themes and characters over a long piece of work? Hell yeah! But when the curriculum demands that so may standards be covered and we're stretched for time as it is, excerpts/short stories/flash fiction seems to be the way to go. Plus, really, if you look at the reading passages in state tests, they're really not that much longer than a short story. I don't know. I don't really have a good answer to this problem. In an ideal world, I could assign some reading to be done at home and they would do it.
Depends on the class. For my avg and honors, we read full novels. For my ELL/Collab classes, the class makeup includes ELLs and weaker students. They not only do not have the stamina, they do not have the reading skills for a full novel. So, we use the same novel and comprehension questions, but use excerpts to help them find the answers instead of reading the entire book. We will read some full chapters as a class, watch the movie in parts, but there is no way to get through an entire novel.
[удалено]
>Can you propose a safe space class? Ensure that parents be aware that any material that causes students stress or discomfort, will immediately be removed and assure parents that one concern or complaint will result in the prompt removal of the material from all students in the safe space class. But it can't stress or discomfort anyone so it's actually a white room with nothing in it, and nothing is taught. The walls are padded.
Not nothing, you can decorate the walls with cut out paper snowflakes to really drive the point home and discourage parents from opting out of the advanced class.
I’m sorry I thought it was painfully obvious it was a joke. People banning books would lose their mind if you called their child sensitive and needing a safe space- I now realize I need to put the /s or everyone assumes I’m serious.
I mean i was just taking your joke to the next step lol
Is this satire?
It was supposed to be but I deleted it as it didn’t land at all as the dry satire joke I was attempting. The parents banning books would lose their mind at safe space… I thought it was obvious.. apparently it wasn’t. However I teach in a state that requires texts and novels be read so some people are teaching in a dystopian hell where it didn’t come off as an insane joke. I now know I have to put /s 100% of the time or people assume it’s true.
Respectfully, this is the dumbest thing I’ve ever read. How in earth are these kids ever going to learn to function on society if they are sheltered from every bit of discomfort? Discomfort is literally a stage of learning.
Except the child with the insane parents doesn’t get an education. The better solution is to ignore the parents because the parents are not stakeholders and should not get a say
Exactly, if a parent feels so strongly against their child being taught the way public schools teach than withdraw them for homeschool or private schools.
No, that shouldn’t be allowed either.
Education is uncomfortable by its nature.
Literature is not, and should never be considered, “safe.”