Topic: Genre

10-second review: One purpose in choosing reading assignments is to provide texts from different genres.

Title: “From Hitler to Hurricanes, Vietnam to Virginia Tech: Using Historical Nonfiction to Teach Rhetorical Context.” Lisa Decklehimer. English Journal (March 2020), 55-60.

Quote: “…expanding their view of what counts as ‘genre’ helps them to see that rhetoric can take shape in any text—speeches, political cartoons or blogs. As teachers, we will always be able to draw in historical nonfiction as learning resources.”

Comment: In other words, rhetoric occurs regardless of genre?

Think of “rhetoric” as persuasion. Hard not to think of rhetoric in this sense as manipulative. It is not simply the display of rhetoric in genre but real emotions. An excellent source is Best American Essays of the [20the] Century. Ed. Joyce Carol Oates and Robert Antwan. Boston, New York: Houghton Mifflin Company, 2000.

Joyce Carol Oates, one of the editors, had to say about this collection of essays: “My belief is that art should not be comforting; for comfort, we have mass entertainment, and one another. Art should provoke, disturb and arouse our emotions, expand our sympathies in directions we may not anticipate or even wish.” Most of these essays provoke. They paint a vivid portrait of issues in the twentieth century.

In other words, art as propaganda?

Topic: Black Dialect and Oral Reading

10-second review: The author asserts that black students reading orally will shift what they read in standard English into their dialect. The author suggests that these miscues sometimes interfere with comprehension and sometimes do not. For instance, the student who reads “I did my work” as “I done my work” understands fully the meaning of that sentence and his use of the dialect does not interfere with his understanding of the meaning.

Title: “Black Dialect Shift in Oral Reading.” KR Johnson. Journal of Reading (April 1975), 535-540.

Comment: I guess I wonder if speakers of black dialect do make that shift from standard English in reading to the same idea translated into black dialect. If they do, and the meaning is essentially the same, then obviously that speaker is reading very well—able to comprehend the meaning of the sentence so well that he or she can interpret it using the black dialect.

For me, the significance of this problem is correctness in using standard English. That is not a reading problem. It’s a social problem. RayS.

Topic: The Junior or Young Adult Novel

10-second review:  The junior novel or Young Adult literature is “transitional” between children’s literature and adult literature. As a result, topics in the novels have become, according to this author, more “sophisticated,” by which he is referring to “premarital sex, death, drugs, street life, and so on.” The result of using these “sophisticated” topics is also an increase in “artistic sophistication,” or literary techniques.

Title: “New Reading Material: The Junior Novel.” A Muller. Journal of Reading (April 1975), 531-534.

Comment: If we plan to use these newly sophisticated novels with questionable topics and with more sophisticated literary techniques, then teachers are going to need to prepare rationales for teaching them, The National Council of Teachers of English suggests rationales to prepare for possible censorship challenges. These rationales require the following:

A brief summary of the book.

Brief description of the controversial parts of the book.

Appropriate grade and maturity level of the students who will be reading the book.

A detailed plot summary.

Values of the book to the students who will read it.

Literary qualities of the book.

Summary of reviews of the book.

Objectives for using the book.

Teaching methods to be used in reading the book.

Assignments to be completed by the students while reading the book.

Possible objections to the book.

Comment: In other words, the NCTE is suggesting careful preparation for using the book in the literature program. RayS.

Topic: Comprehension Defined

10-second review: How would you define comprehension? The authors’ definition is an interesting starting point.

Title: “The Concept of Comprehension: An Analysis.” TE Wheat and RM Edmond. Journal of Reading (April 1975), 523-527.

Summary/Quote: “The reader must be totally involved in striving to reconstruct the author’s message. He uses all his past experiences and learning as well as his knowledge of the structure of the language.”

Comment: This brief summary of comprehension implies a concentration on the act of reading that I don’t think is necessary for everything we read. RayS.

Topic: Positive Statements about Reading

10-second review: The following statements express the values of reading.

Title: “Measuring Attitudes: An Extra Dimension.” LD Kennedy and RS Halinski. Journal of Reading (April 1975), 518-522.

Positive Statements about Reading and Its Purpose:

Reading helps me form opinions. Reading broadens my imagination. Reading helps me find a better way to communicate with people. I can learn much about my future from reading. Reading broadens my mind. I like to read to learn about people. Reading keeps me informed. Reading improves my vocabulary. Reading helps me understand problems that other people have.

Reading helps me understand my personal problems. Reading stimulates thought. Reading helps me to identify with people I want to like. I like to read about other people’s experiences in life. I sometimes become a character in the book I am reading. I like keeping up on new ideas. By reading I meet people and places I have never met before. Reading helps you think about things in a new way.

Comment: These statements reveal readers who have thought about why they read. Helping students understand why they read could change their attitudes toward reading. RayS.

Topic: Reading Attitudes--Negative.

10-second review: Negative statements that students are likely to make about reading.

Title: “Measuring Attitudes: An Extra Dimension.” LD Kennedy and RS Halinski. Journal of Reading (April 1975), 518-522.

Negative Statements about Reading:

Reading is difficult for me. I read only what I have to. Authors seem to like words that are hard to understand. It takes me a long time to read anything. There are very few things that I find interesting to read. I dislike reading because most of the time I am being forced to read. I read too slow. It’s hard just to sit and read. I don’t care to take the time to read.

Reading bores me. I usually do not understand what is happening in a story. Reading is too  complicated. Reading just doesn’t appeal to me. When I read, I can’t keep my mind on the subject. I can’t sit still long enough to read. Reading turns me off. Reading is difficult because of those big words. I am seldom in a mood to read. I get tired when I read. I have to read material over and over to get something out of it. It’s hard to get interested in reading things which are assigned. I hate to read. I seldom get any new ideas from reading. Reading takes too much concentration.

Comment: I would be surprised if even good and successful readers have not had these same negative comments on reading at some time. I think one thing we can say to reluctant readers is that what they think about reading is true. Changing these attitudes about reading, focusing on what can occur through reading, rather than on the process of reading itself, is what teachers need to emphasize. RayS.

Topic: Reading in the Content Areas

10-second review: Content teachers—teachers of subjects other than reading—must help students learn the special vocabulary of their subjects and the special skills needed to read their subjects successfully. They can begin by showing the students how they, the teachers, study the materials in their subject.

Title: “Reading in the Content areas.” Psychology in Teaching Reading. HP Smith and EV Dechant, pp. 358-376.

Comment: Teachers of content subjects—social studies, science, etc.—cannot be expected to “teach” reading. Teaching reading means learning to find the main ideas, supporting details, inference, etc., directly. However, content teachers can HELP students read their subjects successfully.

1. They can find out what students already know about the topic of the textbook chapter. They can add information to increase background knowledge of the topic. The more students know, the more they can comprehend.

2. Content teachers can introduce key vocabulary from the reading selection, words with which the students are likely to be unfamiliar. Students will then see words they would usually pass over because they don’t know them.

3. Content teacher can have the students survey the chapter—the title, sub-titles, the first sentence of each paragraph and the last paragraph.

4. After this survey, students can formulate questions they will read to answer.

5. After reading and discussing what they have learned, the students can apply what they have learned, often extending their knowledge of the ideas in the chapter by using the Internet to find what is thought about the topic in the world of today. RayS.