Tuesday, October 14, 2008

Professional Reading

10-second review: Teacher-training students discover professional reading.

Title: “A discussion, Not a Report, If You Please.” G. Taylor. Journal of Adolescent and Adult Literacy (April 1998), 561-563. A publication of the International Reading Association (IRA).

Summary: Students find articles in professional journals on the topic being taught in the teacher education course. Are required not only to share what they learned but were required also to lead a discussion about the ideas.

Comment: Some important ideas for teacher education. First, the students are learning to find professional materials related to the class topic. Second, they learn how to organize a discussion. Third, they are being introduced to professional reading and professional journals.

My workshops always centered on problems in teaching English—grammar, spelling, writing, reading in the content areas, etc. I always began my workshops by providing as many articles as I could find dealing with the issue. Teachers would read these articles and then discuss what they had learned as a way of focusing the workshop on solutions to the problems.

Of course the articles we used became part of the bibliography for the workshop’s product, giving it some credibility
. RayS.

This blog, English Education Archives, reviews articles of contemporary interest from past English education journals.

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