Topic: Reading to Learn

10-second review: Learning to read is not an end in itself. Reading must become a tool for learning. All teachers need to teach students how to study; students need to learn how to learn. They need to move from dependence on the teacher to independence in reading.

Title: “Reading in the Learning Process.” Psychology in Teaching Reading. HP Smith and EV Dechant, pp. 326-352.

Comment: A basic study skill is SQ3R, Survey, Question, Read, Recite and Review. It’s a good example of how students move from a teacher-directed technique for reading to its use independently by students in studying a textbook chapter.

Teacher directed: Teacher directs students in the SURVEY to read the title and speculate about it, to read sub-titles, the first paragraph of the chapter, the first sentence of each succeeding paragraph and the last paragraph. The teacher then provides questions to answer as they READ. (The first paragraph introduces the topic of the chapter, the topic sentences introduce important details and the last paragraph summarizes the chapter.) Students then discuss what they have learned (RECITE) and REVIEW.

Student directed: The student reads the title, reflects on it, reads the first paragraph, the first sentence of each succeeding paragraph and the last paragraph. The student then raises questions to read to answer. RayS.

Topic: Reading and Motivation

10-second review: “Developing the habit of reading: children who will read rather than children who merely can read. Reading proficiency builds reading interest and, in turn, reading interest fosters reading proficiency.” In other words, children learn to read by reading. “We must offer…a ladder of materials that lead him to become a more competent and discriminating reader.”

Title: “Motivation and Reading Interests.” Psychology in Teaching Reading. HP Smith and EV Dechant, pp. 269-295.

Comment: Students have the ideal that they become absorbed in their reading. They want to become lost in their reading. However, they usually start reading on page one and read everything. They soon learn that not all parts of a book are equally interesting. And then they quit. Students need to be shown how to re-connect to the book or chapter or story in order to renew their interest.

1. Preview chapters and magazine articles by reading the title, subtitles, first paragraph, the first sentence of each following paragraph and the last paragraph. This “survey” will raise questions in their minds that they will read to answer what they want to know. They read to answer their questions.

2. Preview nonfiction books by reading the first and last paragraphs of each chapter before they begin to read each chapter. Begin reading the first sentence of each paragraph in Chapter One. When they are “caught,” they keep reading. “Uncaught?” They go back to the first sentence of each paragraph until they are again caught up in their reading.

3. Preview novels. Read for ten minutes near the beginning. Read for ten minutes half-way through the novel. Read for ten minutes three-fourths through. Finally, read for ten-minutes near the end. Questions? Go back and begin reading to answer the questions. Bored? Ready to quit? Read a paragraph a page until they are caught. Uncaught? Go back to a  paragraph a page until they are caught again. And they will be “caught.”

Short Stories. Read a paragraph a page or column to determine whether the story is worth reading in its entirety.

So far as the “ladder” to reading discrimination is concerned, G. Robert Carlsen in Books and the Teen-age Reader recommends children’s literature, young adult books, popular adult books, significant modern literature, and the classics as a hierarchy of levels of reading. He claims that students who have climbed this ladder become successful readers of the classics. RayS.

Topic: Rhetoric Defined

10-second review: “Rhetoric” is one of those slippery terms that can mean almost anything to anybody, so that when authors use the term in professional publications in English, one has to first define its meaning before one can understand the author’s message. It can mean anything from simply communication, to emphasis on purpose and audience to persuasion. The latter is the most agreed-upon meaning.

Source: RayS.

Summary: Rhetoric is most often defined as persuasion and the study of the methods of persuasion. Rhetoric can also refer to those who are pretentious in using language or can refer to someone who uses apparently fine language that doesn’t mean anything.

Comment: The topic came up in my reading the English Journal issue for March 2010, a publication of the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE). This issue of the journal was devoted to teaching nonfiction in secondary classrooms. Several articles used the term “rhetoric” with different meanings,  from emphasis on purpose and audience (“rhetorical reading”) to persuasion (propaganda and critical reading). RayS.

Topic: Why Read Essays?

10-second review: To find out what other human beings think about their experiences.

Title: “Eavesdropping on Contemporary Minds: Why We Need More Essays in Our High School classrooms.” KH Campbell. English Journal (March 2010), 50-54.

Summary: Notes the series of essays published each since 1915, The Best American Essays.

Sue Orlean, editor of The Best American Essays, 2005: “That they [essays] continue to be written and read is enduring proof of that, all indications to the contrary, our voices matter to each other; that we do wonder what goes on inside each other’s heads; that we want to know each other and we want to be known. Nothing is more meaningful—more human, really—than our efforts to tell each other the story of ourselves, of what it’s like to be who we are, to think the things we think, to live the lives we live.”

Comment: I write a blog in which I summarize essays from a variety of sources. http://essayreviews-rays.blogspot.com/ RayS.

Topic: "Rhetorical Reading."

10-second review: On analyzing essays: what are the authors’ purposes in writing essays and how do they achieve them? Write a précis.

Title: Teaching Nonfiction Through Rhetorical Reading.” MR Lamb. English Journal (March 2010), 43-49.

Summary: Strategies for reading “rhetorically.” Teach students to annotate. Use stickies if the text belongs to the school. Outline the text. Write their questions. Ask themselves, “What did I already know? What surprised me? What do I agree with? What do I disagree with.” Write a summary of the essay.

Write a précis:

Sentence 1: Name of author, genre and title of the work, date in parentheses; a rhetorically active verb (claims, argues, asserts, defines, explores, or suggests); and a “that” clause containing the major assertions, main idea or thesis statement of the work.

Sentence2: An explanation of how the author develops and supports the thesis (i.e., evidence) usually in chronological order.

Sentence 3: Statement of the author’s apparent purpose.

Sentence 4: Intended audience.

Comment: It’s helpful to give a model of the précis in step-by-step order. Frankly, I’m going to need to try this version of a précis myself. RayS.

Topic: Wrting Sets of Instructions

10-second review: Let students design creative ways to write sets of instructions.

Title: “Poetry, Visual Design, and the How-To Manuals: Creativity In the Teaching of Technical Writing.” KD Welch. English Journal (March 2010), 37-42.

Comment: At the high school level, students could take on the challenge of transforming the fine print on credit card instructions. But it would be fun to take manuals for anything and try to make them more readable. RayS.

Topic: Some Memorable Words about Writing

Topic: Memorable Words about Writing

10-second review:

“The concept of flawlessness masks the rigors of craft.”

“I make them show all their work in math. And hide it on their final drafts.” Taylor Mali, “What Teachers Make.”

Title: “Tucking the Pigeons Up Your Sleeve: Ten Personae Teach Our Nonfiction Course.” BS Sunstein. English Journal (March 2010), 13-21,

Comment: “Rewriting is…a constant attempt on my part to make the finished version smooth, to make it seem effortless.” James Thurber in Cowley, ed., Writers at Work.

“The purpose of grammar in writing is to polish expression.” Raymond Stopper. Teaching English, How To…. RayS.