The Homework Myth

As mentioned in a previous post, I did not take notes while reading this book, so I expect this review to be less detailed than my review of Fires in the Bathroom.

While reading Alfie Kohn's The Homework Myth book, I got into debates about its content many times. Here is a compilation of my discussions:

Me: Why do we need homework?
Them: Homework reviews important skills.
Me: Why can't that be done at school? Wouldn't class time be better spent on that practice where the students could get help?
Them: But there isn't enough time to do all that practice and cover the content.
Me: If you understand how to do the work, you don't need to do a lot of practice. If you are lost, then you need instruction, not practice. Also, this would streamline your ability to get through content faster because you wouldn't have to back track when kids don't have homework done.
Them: Well, homework teaches you responsibility. It teaches you how to do work for when you are in high school or college.
Me: No studies actually show this. Aren't their better ways to teach responsibility that don't undermine a child's natural curiosity? Is all that practice really necessary when there isn't a large correlation between homework and high school student achievement either?
Them: Well, we did homework and turned out alright.
Me: Just because we did it doesn't make it good for students, especially since younger and younger students are being assigned more and more work.
Them: Other countries give lots of homework and we need to catch up to them.
Me: Actually, it isn't true that lots of other countries give a lot of homework. In fact, Japan has ended homework in some places. Instead, some places have more class time for instruction and support instead of encroaching upon the family.

It is usually at this point (if not sooner) that whoever I was talking with got frustrated with me and changed the subject.

What impressed me was how thoroughly Kohn presented his argument against homework. Every counterargument that someone mentioned in my conversations, Kohn addresses. Kohn's research on homework is extensive, which makes him very creditable. He cites many sources, as well as providing a list of those sources and about 40 pages of notes at the end of the text about the cited research. Also, Kohn's writing is very well organized. He breaks the content into many chunks making it very easy to follow his ideas. This style furthers the feeling of thoroughness. But, his writing is repetitive. He is constantly adding that research does not back up giving homework for academics, but actually shows it may be harmful. This gets old by half way through the book. I felt that anyone interested and intelligent enough to make it that far in the book had gotten the point by then.

Most interesting to me was the early discussion on the negative effect that homework has on children, particularly the family. Since when I was teaching, I didn't have a family per se, I didn't understand this. Furthermore, growing up my family didn't spend much time together, so homework didn't affect us much. I do remember my parents investing time into our homework though. I don't remember many of these exchanges being tense, but they were time consuming. So as a teacher, I didn't have a lot of personal experience of homework ruining family time and twisting family relationships. Reading this section gave me insight into how homework affects a wider range of families outside of my direct experience.

I was left at the end of this section feeling powerless. I am on board with Kohn that homework should be for older students, and then we should modify how we think about it (more on that in a minute). But, my feelings as a teacher will most likely not affect my child's experiences throughout her eduction. I was left feeling very sad about my poor little girl facing hours of mindless, yet frustrating homework that eats up her evening hours with her parents and her time to relax. I found myself actually thinking I would ask teachers how much homework counts towards final grades to determine if the percentage was worth us just not doing it in our home if we didn't feel it was necessary. I was also contemplating calling Natalie's future school and asking about the homework policy, even though Kindergarten is still about four years away for her.

What I did feel good about was the section where Kohn describes how we should rethink homework. First, he states that we should reset the default so that homework isn't a given. I know as a teacher I though of homework as a given when planning, but mostly so I could fit in as much as possible. When I switched to Nancy Atwell's reading and writing workshop, I didn't do that anymore. And that is the type of homework that Kohn recommends. He strongly recommends free reading. Also, continuing projects not finished in class when students choose not to use class time is another new form of homework that Kohn recommends that I used in my classroom with writing workshop. Choice is a large factor in Kohn's new vision of homework; his endorsement of choice also made me proud of that amount of choice I gave students in reading and writing.

While reading The Homework Myth, I was tempted to buy copies for the superintendents of the school districts I plan to be in contact with in the future. In my mind, that is a big endorsement for Kohn's ideas on homework.

Teach: Tony Danza Episode 2

We managed to fit the new episode of Teach: Tony Danza in during Natalie's afternoon nap. Afterward, Mike asked me if I like this show so much because he is teaching English. I think that I like it more because I identify with the content, but the show is doing an awesome job focusing on general challenges in teaching.

I really liked how this episode showed the chaos of teaching. He has three students he's having trouble with because of dealing with special ed accommodations - their legality versus his ideals. Then, there is a student who he is riding because she isn't working to her potential, yet she is completely resisting him. Also, there is one student begging for more challenging work, while another student listed as gifted is complaining about being lost. This was a very realistic picture of what a single class can be like and I think the producers did a great job of portraying this.

This episode focused mostly on issues surrounding special eduction. Tony had three students who wanted to use the Resource Room for their quiz, but he asked them to stay instead. I still think that his line of thinking came from the best of intentions. He thought, "Let's try it here first, where you are part of the class, and if things go poorly, we'll address it." He saw sending them out of the class as either him passing the problem along or their using it as a crutch to not try harder, both of which can happen with special ed students. (I say this from experience. I once had a student who's mother brow beat a new special ed case worker into getting it on the IEP that her son only had to write something like 5 sentences for assignments. Five sentences for a high school essay? That student had already proven he could do more and his mother was using his disability as an excuse. As to Resource Rooms sometimes not providing the most productive kind of support: A fellow teacher once had a student who was allowed to use a dictionary on a vocab quiz she took in the Resource Room). After an intervention from his coach, attending a mini seminar on the resource room (was this already scheduled or was it planned for the benefit of Tony and the show?), and talking to the principal, Tony gets it. It doesn't matter what he thinks on the matter; legally he must accommodate for these students if they ask for it.

While I thought that Tony's idea of trying the quiz in the classroom first and him giving them extra time and effort was noble, he didn't handle the quiz debriefing well. He strongly gave the impression that the thought everyone did poorly because they weren't trying. While that is definitely the case for some students, it wasn't for all, especially the special ed students who were trying to explain to him their difficulties. Tony was left not asking the right questions. He trying to be very supportive and reassuring, but he didn't get down to the problem at hand much. What I saw the most was students saying they were stuck, but he didn't ask them more specific questions or pull out the text and get into working through it. I saw a lot of the same problems I've encountered with students, such as smart kids reading but still being confused and other kids unable to engage with the text.

I found the way Tony dealt with Paige (a student who was doing poorly and resisting his help) both commendable and pushy. I have never been able to go over to a student and talk to him or her face to face the way Tony was. I always feared pushing too hard or singling the student out, which is exactly what Tony did. Paige pulled back more and more as he pushed. I personally don't think that he should have discussed her grades with her at her desk where other students could hear them so easily. That was something I always tried to avoid. (In fact, a lot of his debriefing of the quiz got too personal about students' individual problems). But, I do think that Tony was right to call home, and that Paige was starting to come around by the end of the episode. She did participate in the activity for him. Showing students you care about them on such an individual level is amazing stuff if you can pull it off correctly.

Monty is another story. I don't understand why he agreed to be on the show if he wanted an advanced class experience. Did he really think that if he was in a mixed class that the class would go at the pace of the top students? I really disliked watching his monologues about the class since he was so single sighted and critical, claiming that it was all in the name of his education. However, he was very much like many advanced students I've met in the past. Its just a side of that type of student that I don't much enjoy. I have to give him props though for asking for extra work. It was a great idea. But, I do feel sad that he only waited a week (if that) before asking his grandmother to go in and talk to Tony about it. As viewers, we know the kind of week that Tony had, and he probably didn't have much mental energy left for coming up with extra advanced assignments.

Near the end of the episode, he breaks down after talking to his coach and the coach sends the assistant principal (because she is a woman I wonder?) to talk to him. An assistant principal needs to be able to deal crying from all sorts, and she did a wonderful job talking him through it. Another person who was rather impressive in this episode was Paige's friend, Tiana (I think that was her name). She did an excellent job telling her friend the truth about the situation with Mr. Danza nagging her and singling her out and it was refreshing to see a student conversation where the student helping her friend really understood the teacher's motivates and stuck up for them.

Next week's episode appears to deal with one of my biggest challenges: Classroom Management.

Lesson in Practice

As I read The Homework Myth and Fires in the Bathroom, I inadvertently put one of my major classroom lessons into practice.

I went into reading each of these texts knowing that I wanted to write a somewhat detailed review of each book. But, for some reason, I decided to only take notes on one of the books. As I read Fires in the Bathroom, I stopped to use post-it notes (since I didn't own the book), but I didn't take notes on The Homework Myth.

Now I have finished both books, but I am slacking on writing my review of The Homework Myth. Is it because I liked Kohn's book less? Is it because I was less interested in the material? Was the writing enjoyable? NO, in fact, to all these questions. I very much enjoyed The Homework Myth, while Fires in the Bathroom was just alright. But now that I have completed the second book, I don't have anything to look back on to help me write about it. When I did my first review, I flipped through the text and pulled out each post-it and decided whether to use it in the review. Drafting the post was a breeze. Conversely, now that The Homework Myth is done, I'm having a hard time remembering all of Kohn's points. In fact, when I was asked a question about the book near the end of my reading, I struggling to respond.

Also interesting, I didn't talk about Fires in the Bathroom at all. But, particularly for the first half of the book, I debated homework with my husband almost daily. These were sometimes heated conversations where I referred back to specific passages of the text, but now I can't remember exactly what we discussed. What is interesting about this for me is that just talking about the text wasn't enough for me to remember it.

So, I have learned a few things from accidental experiment:

• I reinforced my knowledge that I remember information better if I write it down.
  
• I used to think that I remembered information from lectures and discussions in courses well because of my listening skills, but I'm wondering if it really was my note taking that made the difference. Even if my notes weren't excellent, they were enough to jog my memory later.
  
• I don't remember non-fiction texts anywhere near as well as fiction without the use of notes.
  
• What I've been telling students for years is true (at least some of the time, for some people). If you are planning on using a text for more than a pleasure read, taking notes of some kind is to your advantage. They are even more advantageous if you are going to use the information in another way, such as a report.
  
• Talking about a text right after reading it isn't necessarily enough to commit it to memory.
  
• Liking a text doesn't necessarily mean that you will remember it later either.
  
• I should pass on to students that this process also works with non-fiction. This could be particularly useful to help students figure out how to write about a non-fiction text for another course, especially since content area teachers often don't give a lot of direction about how they want their papers written.
• How can I teach this lesson to students? I am glad to have this experience to share with them, but it is unlikely that just the story of my experience will motivate many of them to give it a try. Could I challenge them to try it out with two texts? Maybe we read two short stories and return to them a while later. One has notes and the other doesn't.
  

The question I'm left to ponder is: How important is it for my students to remember a text after they have finished it? We read literature primarily in my classroom. Usually the literature is a venue for practicing other skills. The text itself isn't the content the majority of the time. If students remembered my beloved Huck and Scout, it would improve their understanding of American culture, but it probably won't directly impact them later. But, students do need to remember a text long enough to get through it. Some of my students have trouble remembering what they read into the next day. Or, some of my students read ahead and finish a text significantly sooner than the rest of the class so they have a large gap before discussing or writing about the text.

Also, I must not forget the kind of notes I am asking students to take, and I took myself in this accidental experiment. I did not note the content. I noted my reactions to the content. While it is often easy to remember your strongest reactions to a section of reading or a short text for a short period of time, as I've proven to myself, its hard to remember your reactions over the course of a whole book that is read over time. A record of those ideas would prove useful for generating writing topics or for gathering evidence to support an overall opinion. Thus, this type of note does serve two functions. They do force the reader to engage with the text on some level, hopefully one that is personally meaningful. But they also do leave a trail to follow when one has free choice on how to respond to the text once it is through, which traditionally is an analytical essay in the high school English Language Arts classroom.

Teach: Tony Danza Episode 1

My husband stopped on Teach: Tony Danza while channel surfing. I was immediately intrigued. In fact, I swear it was just the day before I was thinking about how difficult it would be to do a reality TV show of a classroom or high school. I couldn't sit down and watch since we were getting ready to go out. Luckily, A&E has the full episode on their web site, so we watched it that evening instead. The DVR is now set to record the whole series.

Overall, I felt bad for Mr. Danza. The first few days of teaching are so difficult and embarrassing and to be scrutinized by so many venues made it almost painful to watch. Watching a show like this, viewers are waiting to see him make a huge mistake that a real teacher wouldn't do. Viewers expect the big celebrity to come in and say how difficult teaching is. But, Tony Danza isn't just waltzing in there. Unlike Paris Hilton's silly little TV show from a few years ago, he has a degree in eduction and has taken every step of the process seriously. There is footage of him scrubbing his classroom (which is something that I didn't always know that some teachers have to do themselves), putting up his bulletin boards, and attending teacher orientation.

Watching him over the first week, he makes mistakes that are common for all new teachers. But, he is lucky that he is being told about them. I went maybe two months or more teaching at my first position before I was observed and received feedback for improvement. He is getting valuable feedback so early that he can make adjustments the second week of school!

The major piece of feedback Danza receives is that he talks too much. Even though I'm sure that he isn't the first teacher to get this criticism, it hits him hard personally. But often criticism of teaching is hard not to take personally. That just seems to be something in the nature of teaching. Especially when the teacher is as enthusiastic as Danza, the teaching is personal because so much hope and passion have been put into it. But, the viewer can really see that by the end of the week, he's gotten the message. Now the challenge will be how to relinquish control over to the students, because right now he is doing all the work. Like he said himself, he feels he is preforming for them. While teaching is preforming at times, it is also a lot of guiding and weaving student input together.

Meanwhile, he appears to have no business being involved with the football team. I personally think the producers of the show had something to do with that move. Otherwise, both he and the head coach were real idiots thinking he could coach without any knowledge on the subject. That's precisely why I never volunteered to do anything with sports. I never played sports or even really watched them. How could I possibly help coach? I think that Danza's interest in the band will be better placed because he at least has some music background. But, from the previews, it looks like he is helping a new extracurricular each week. This feeds my idea that this is to make the show more interesting. However, Danza's work with extracurricular activities does show the habit new teachers have of taking on too much, too soon.

My only other criticism of this show is that it appears that Dana only has one class. A&E's web site says that he was a full time teacher, but only one class is seen on the show. Is it because he had only one class? That's not full time then. Is it because they could only get one class worth of students to participate? That is very possible. Either way, I dislike that only one class is discussed. Even if the producers can not legally show those students, Danza should at least make reference to the fact that he has other classes. He isn't taking on the full role of a teacher with only one class. While everything so far has been very real, the fact that he only has this one class, makes the intensity of it so much less for me, because in real life, that experience is multiplied 5, 6, 7 times. Parring down a teacher's class load to one group of students is very popular in media, though. In fact, I can't think of a single movie or show that really shows a teacher dealing with more than one class at a time. I understand that this makes it easier for the audience to follow, but it doesn't depict reality. I don't expect viewers to keep track of 100+ students, but there should be a happy medium.

I am very interested in the topics raising in the previews and I'm excited to watch the rest of the series.

Fires in the Bathroom

Fires in the Bathroom: Advice for Teachers from High School Students mislead me. The title and premise conjured a picture of a superficial book that gave mostly obvious and angst filled ideas padded by some feel good support from the author. That was not the case at all.

Fires in the Bathroom is actually a level headed, thorough, and well organized text for new teachers. Cushman and her student collaborators spent countless hours working on the material for this book. In fact, there is even a chapter at the end of the book about how they made the book. All of the student insights were organized into ten chapters with focuses such as knowing students, teaching difficult material, classroom behavior, respect, motivation, and ELL. While the chapter formatting doesn't make a riveting read, subheadings, lists, charts, tons of student quotations, and bulleted chapter summaries make it extremely easy to follow. Also included are ready-to-use worksheets; some of them are for student use, but the authors designed most of these to aid teachers in reflecting on their practices. Some of these worksheets are helpful, but others are overkill. For example, anyone who would take the time to fill out "Am I Playing Favorites?" probably is reflective enough to already know the results.

This book is very obviously written for new teachers. Much of the student advice in the first chapters of the books can also be found in Wong's The First Days of Schools. Ideally, this text should be read during course work leading up to student teaching or before starting at one's first position, but as a teacher with five years under my belt, I still found many useful ideas. However, a large portion of the suggestions are painfully obvious. For example, the first chapter on knowing your students provided an opportunity to reflect on my relationships with students, but it also cautioned against drawing conclusions about students based on what I've seen in the media, which to me, is common sense. Obvious suggestions like these are found throughout the text.

I only noticed a couple problems with the text besides it stating many common sense ideas. First, early in the book, the author states that all the suggestions were presented for authenticity sake, but that veteran teachers would know that some of these ideas aren't practical or plausible. Thus, some advice could yield negative results with the best of intentions, such as suggestions to let students teach the class to see from the teacher's point of view or putting too much emphasis on getting to know students and individual progress, which could backfire by affecting fairness. While the student authors' ideas needed to be respected for this project, it seems a little counterproductive for a book for new teachers to not take advantage of what veteran teachers would know. The second problem with the text was much smaller. Some of the information is skewed by the fact that the students involved were from urban, diverse schools. For teachers like myself who work in a rural community, our population is far more homogeneous than those discussed in the text, which made some of the advice not fit my community.

Despite these problems, there were lots of valuable suggestions and ideas. One of the best sections was the behavior management chapter, including tips for subs. I also liked the emphasis on revision and positive feedback. The advice on assessment was very clear: spell out what you're looking for, give examples of product at different levels, use a rubric, and give opportunity to revise. Additionally, I enjoyed the section on motivating students. It included insightful student comments about the conformity of eduction and the right question inspiring them to learn. One of my favorite suggestions was to have a department test day so that students don't become overwhelmed with multiple tests and assignments on one day; however, all the other information on scheduling indicated that it is never a good time for pretty much anything. The homework section contained information that should be common sense: Only assign homework that is meaningful learning, don't over do it, and provide support. The reading and writing section was short, but a very good representation of the information I learned in my master's program.

The most shocking aspect of this book was the teacher behavior described by some of the students. Some behavior defied the common sense of how to deal with people while other behavior showed a complete lack of compassion and fairness that made me question how some of these teachers entered the profession. One of the most common comments in the book was that teachers won't call on a students who aren't the go-to student of the class. How can a teacher not call on the quite kid who finally raises his hand? Also mentioned were teachers who rudely blew off real questions about the subject, not because they were inappropriately timed, but because they weren't seen as valid questions.

For me, I walked away thinking about the following points:

• I need to get to know my students more. While at the beginning of the year I always collect information about my students, I often don't wind up using it because its just too hard to keep track of 100+ students and integrate it into lessons. But, I do need to learn more about them, especially in terms of their struggles and accomplishments. I want to know about more of the complicated issues in students' lives, but I don't see how to without being invasive. What sticks out to me the most are cases when I discovered at the end of the year that smart kids were struggling because of a divorce. I also learned through FB that a student was away for a year, then back because she had a child. This particularly bothers me because I was left to make the assumption that it was other issues in her life that I did know about that kept her from school. If I had taken a greater interest in this student, I could have had a clearer picture of why she was struggling.
  
• A trait that I have always admired in other teachers is how they can pull a student into the hall to talk about an incident that just occurred in class. I haven't been able to do that. In fact, I almost never talk to students about their behavior, whether its talking or not turning in work. This is something I need to work on when I return to teaching.
• I want to continue to give students both silent time and time to collaborate on all types of work. My experience matched the student comments.
  
• I need to evaluate how group work progresses. In the past, I wasn't very good at really seeing how groups were working. While there is no real excuse in my mind for cheating and plagiarism, poor group work conditions were the root the most frustrating cases I encountered. This would also includes time when students are informally collaborating, such during writing workshop time.
• I want to give more attention in my feedback to what and how students did well, so they can be repeated it next time. I've done alright with this at times with writing assignments, but could do better; I need to work on it for all the other areas in the classroom.
  
• I was glad to see the comments that grades should be advice for next time. The students involved in this project seemed most interested in learning and the feedback that would allow them to succeed at learning. The grading fiasco I had my last year teaching really had a lot to do with this idea.
  
• I need to remember that some kids won't turn in work if they don't think it is done right.
  
• I've always asked students to ask questions, but I've had trouble getting kids who really need help to ask. I need to continue to work on ways to get kids to feel safe enough to ask questions which make them feel vulnerable, especially questions dealing with understanding. I wonder what portion of my apathetic students behave that way because they don't understand and can't ask for help?
  
• I want to provide opportunities for students to do work they feel proud of. I feel that this happens for only a small fraction of my students and its those who don't feel proud of their work that continue to fail.
• More than once a comment was made about being the only student who every answered teachers' questions and that the whole class rides on that one student. I can't imagine being that student who is the only one who ever does the work or talks, but I've had that happen many times. I always force other students to participate by refusing to let that those few eager students continue to lead the class once they've contributed once or twice in a row. I'm surprised more teachers don't do this, but at the same time not surprised because sometimes the silence is very uncomfortable and it means halting the lesson and trying a totally new approach, like writing down question or comments for me to collect and share anonymously.
  
• The importance of choice and personal relevance were mentioned more than once. I've done a lot of work on choice that I would like to keep up, and I hope that those choices add personal relevance, but I don't think it always does. How do I help students choose meaningful topics when students know themselves the best? Sometimes kids make really bad choices, not so much with choosing books to read, but with writing and research topics.
  
• One comment that I found particularly interesting was that students find it hard and frustrating when they are given freedom and responsibility after having information forced on them for years. This goes along with my above comment about students being stumped by free choice.
  

Professional Books

When Natalie was born, I realized that now is a wonderful opportunity for me to read books about my trade without course work or grading getting in the way. However, its been a year, and I haven't read anything yet. A large part of this reason is that I spent a fair amount of time reading child care books. I've also just enjoyed reading lots of books for entertainment. But now, I want to start taking advantage of this time. It won't be that long from now that Natalie starts dropping naps or that, if all goes according to plan, I'll have a second child.

So, I've inter-library loan requested two books on teaching.

The first is Alfie Kohn's The Homework Myth. In my grad work, we read a couple articles by Kohn, and I really agreed with his ideas. Where I gave a significant amount of homework (mostly reading and writing papers, assignments that would take forever to complete if not worked on outside the classroom), I'm interested in his argument. However, I'm a little concerned that this book will center around younger students. I chose this book because unlike most of my education to-read list, it is not as practical.

The second book I chose is a more of a fluff book: Fires in the Bathroom by Kathleen Cushman. It is a compilation student advice for teachers. I except not to gain tremendous insight from this book, but I am still curious about what students have to say.

What I DON'T Miss about Teaching

• Second floor classroom with no AC on any day above 80 degrees, especially when filled with 20 or so teens, some of whom are quite sweaty and a little smelly.
• Dealing with parents because it was never good news. Either I'm telling a parent her child is failing or a parent is trying to tell me off for not meeting her child's advanced needs. No one ever walks away from either type of conversation really happy.
  
• Kids using their cellphones and earphones in class. I'm glad I left before they all got lap tops and could use FB in class.
  
• Obviously, the foot tall stacks of grading.
• Spending all the day light hours at school during the winter.
• Having to rearrange my plans for a class full of students who didn't do their homework.
  
• As uncommon as it was, I still don't miss the fire alarm going off in the rain or cold.
• Having a runny noes when the room is quiet.
  
• Having to wait until in between class or even lunch or after school to pee.
• The night before grades are due.
• Hearing kids say queer, gay, retard, and the occasional racist remark.
• Long staff meetings or in service days when I don't care about the topic and have other work I'd much rather be doing, either because it is more interesting or more immediately important, or both.
• The unlucky placement of testing, bus evacuation drills, picture day, and pep rallies.

Back to School Time ... But Not for Me

All my teachers friends went back to school yesterday as my old district started the term with two in service days. Students start back Monday with just freshmen, which I always taught. Today, I went out to Margarita's after school with most of my former department plus a few extras (history teachers, guidance counselor). Due to where the empty seat was at the table when I arrive and where a high chair would most logically fit, I wound up to another mom with a 15 month old (baby wasn't with her though). We mostly discussed mom things, and I felt a real disconnect both physically and mentally from the rest of the table.

Oh, I miss back to school!

True, it was always annoying how early Walmart had to set up the school supplies, but I love the school supplies. There is something about rows of pens, Crayola markers, and colorfully covered notebooks that is ever so appealing. I could easily spend a shopping spree in Staples just for myself, not even including the awesome supplies for students. I loved getting my catalogs with posters and bulletin board themes in the mail. I'd circle everything I want, then go back through narrowing it down to a more realistic total. I loved going to Staples and browsing the teacher section, contemplating buying the colored copy paper, and looking at all the fabulously colored pens and post-its.

I also loved getting a new planner and filling it in. Looking over the student names and writing them on place cards. Writing and rewriting my plans for the first month, moving each part of the lessons around to adapt to half days, pep rallies, and extended homeroom.

I loved my classroom. I could easily waste hours creating bulletin board displays recommending books. My favorite last year as a reference book section I started highly things such as literary term dictionaries, writing guides, or books designed to give support on an author or time period. I spent so much time organizing all my handouts at the beginning of each year. Sending my copies to be made early, color coding them, lining the up for use. Actually, I loved organizing my room on a daily basis. It was a therapeutic way to end my day. Erase the board and write the next day's agenda, straighten the desks, pick up the pens off the floor, straighten the books, clean up my desk.

I loved my content, too, for the most part. Huck Finn (Mike would not allow me to name our daughter Emmeline). To Kill A Mockingbird. The Great Gatsby. My free reading program last year. And I didn't just love teaching novels. I liked teaching about essay structure, citing sources, note taking, literary terms. It was so fun when I looped sophomores and got to show them the next step after teaching freshmen for the same things for four years.

I loved the excitement of a new group of students. (Looking at their names and wondering what they will be like. Where I taught freshmen level courses exclusively except for one class one year, when I saw a familiar name, it was always a student who had failed). Starting over fresh and getting to try everything over again. In fact, the ability to always try something again and improve on it was one of my ultimate favorite things about teaching. September was really my New Years.

Really what I didn't like about teaching was discipline and the time it took me to grade so many papers. It also sucked to drive to and from work in the dark, and getting up at 530 on a winter morning, but lots of people have to deal with that sort of thing.

I do worry that I will be out of touch in many ways when I return to teaching. I will need to take one course to keep my certification. I have fears that I will mess this up somehow. Not that I'll fail the course, but that I will forget to take it, take something that doesn't qualify, or mess up the paperwork or dates. But other than just my certification, I worry that I'll be out of touch after being out of teaching for years.

I wonder if I will return to my previous school. Already, in the year I've been gone three teachers have left my old department (two asked to leave and one changed subjects) resulting in three new teachers (my friend took my position), a new librarian, a new secretary at the front desk (which is a big deal in a school) and a new principal on the way. That is a lot of change for one year. I can't even imagine how different the culture of the school will be by the time I am ready to return. I've gone back to the school several times to visit, and thus far they've been accepting of this. I always ask if I need to wear a visitor's pass, and the answer was always, no. But how much longer will that last? How long until they wonder why I keep returning? How long should I return? There are only two years of students who even had the opportunity to know me now left in the building, and my working relationship with most of the staff has lapsed.

I also worry that I will be out of touch with my content having been away from it for so long, but I don't thing that will be as big of a problem as being out of touch with new trends. I have so many education books on my to-read list, yet I haven't read one since I finished my masters. I am hoping that this blog will help inspire me to read and then write about some of those texts. Maybe I'll try starting with some that are more broad- philosphical rather than the practical application you want when in the classroom.

Don't get me wrong. I am very happy to be home with Natalie. I really can't imagine her at day care for this first year and the next few to come. I am sure that being a parent will give me a lot of insight into my teaching, even if it is just through watching a child learn and understanding how to talk to parents better. But, I am starting to feel like I wish there was a little more I could do. This conflicts with our plans for our second child of course, because anything I start now would have to end when that next child arrives. That's why something small like reading would be nice, but I've also toyed with the idea of seeing if I could somehow volunteer for our school district. I've hesitated because I'm not sure if there is anything I could do given my lack of a baby sitter. It would need to be something I could do with Natalie in tow, at home, or in the evenings after Natalie is asleep.

Classroom Librarian

Not my favorite work from grad school, but worth sharing due to the love I had for my classroom library. When I submitted this paper, I included photographs of my library. Maybe on some day when I have time to waste, I will add them here as well.

Becoming a Better Classroom Librarian:
Application Paper

Prior to taking Reading Development and Instruction, my feelings were mixed about my classroom library. The number of books in my library compared to my colleagues made me proud, yet I knew amount was insignificant if students never read the materials. Routman’s chapter on classroom libraries in her book Reading Essentials also provoked mixed feelings. Her chapter chipped away at my pride making her suggestions a little hard to except at first. At first, pointing out what I could not try due to my high school restrictions was easier than looking at what I could do. However, I want my students to be enthusiastic about reading, so I tried some of her suggestions by making a few small changes. Now, with just minor changes, I am seeing significant results.

When working on my library, I figured that I had a lot of materials; my library contains about four hundred books of various genres as well as a generous supply of magazines and back issues of the school paper. So, I decided to focus my energy on making what I had better rather than working on gathering more materials at this time. Yet, my first change was bringing in all my unused books from home. When I looked at my books as a whole, I noticed that I chose the titles much more so than the students. To address Routman's suggestions about students helping in the selection of books and the books mirroring them (p. 166), I made a plan for going to yard sales and book sales this summer to find more books for my library so that I can add more books that my students are interested in, such as series they often mention like Maximum Ride, Gossip Girl, Twilight, and Cirque de Freak. Lastly, I began using the school library and the public library and interlibrary loan to supplement my own collection based on our current unit of study, which coincides with Routman's suggestion to “rotate, change, and add so the collection based on changing needs, interests, and curriculum” (p.167).

Routman recommends that teachers critically look at the organization of their library. The majority of my books were well organized; I had sections for young adult literature, adult fiction, some non-fiction, classics, poetry, plays, reference materials, and magazines. The problem was that all of these areas were not clearly differentiated or labeled for the students. So, when I brought in the new books, I designated bins for the smaller collections of comics, poetry, short stories, children’s / picture books, and school newspapers. I made large and colorful labels for these sections to increase the changes of students noticing them and thus finding what they want.

The major focus of the changes I made to my library, were to how it looks overall. Routman asks teachers to consider: “When you walk into your classroom, does the library or book nook jump out at your, or is it all but invisible? Does your library corner look beautiful and contain an inviting display of plentiful reading materials, or does it look bland and impoverished? (p. 166). While I had a lot of reading materials, they really did not jump out to a visitor of the classroom. My classroom design has all the shelves on the side of the room opposite the door. The student desks block most of these shelves and make the books blend into the background. Now, I can not change the placement of my shelves since they are built into the walls, but I decided to work on creating displays that exposed book covers to draw attention to the library.

I started revealing book covers by gathering books related to the literature circles titles the students just finished and arranging them on my “chalk” tray at the front of the room. I labeled these books either “Books your peers like” or “If you liked ______, you might like one of these.” My students definitely noticed the books. One student checked out a book the first day she saw the choices at the front of them room, and I saw several other students look at the books up close, reading the backs and such. I like having the books up front where they grab the students' attention, but I dislike having my marker tray monopolized. So, I plan on photocopying the rain gutters idea from Routman’s text (p. 78-9) and giving it to my principal with an explanation of the results I have seen so far. I hope this will persuade him to let me drill holes in the virgin walls and install rain gutters along the front and back of my room, under the white board and bulletin board.

In my first literacy class, I learned about making text sets for units, and since then I pull books from the shelves that related to our theme to create a display. However, I put these between bookends previously, but the kids never looked at them. Book spines are not interesting; they do not pull in students or catch their eye. So, I purchased twenty book easels. When I started my Huck Finn unit, I placed selected titles on the easels to display the covers. I put the rest of the theme based books in a bin in the center of the easels and arranged the books so that they could be flipped through to see the covers. This display is much more noticeable and interesting than just the book spines. When one enters the room, this display is noticed right away, unlike the shelves below. Even though no students have borrowed books from this section, I witnessed several students look at these books, which is an major improvement.

The electric pencil sharpener is located next to my unit based books in hopes of attracting the students' attention while the machine grinds away at their pencil. This time, I taped a question and answer article on the human black market to the counter next to the sharpener and placed Sold by Patricia McCormick and Dreams Freedom by Sonia Levitin on book easels around the article. I chose the topic of modern slavery because when we discuss Huck Finn my students so often refer to slavery existing “back then.” Soon after creating the display, a student, who had not checked out book from my room all year, asked if she could borrow Sold. She read it in less than a week and returned it. A few days after returning the book, she seemed very interested in Dream Freedom, while she waited for a friend who was talking to me after class. I started up some small talk with her about Dream Freedom and she left with that book that day. So, the pencil sharpener display has inspired one student to read two books in addition to Huck Finn to further her knowledge on a topic she knew little about before.

I had a few remaining book easels after creating my Huck Finn display, so I placed them around the room on different shelves of the library to display a single text from that section, much the way a regular library or bookstore does. No students have appeared to notice this change, but one of my colleagues who visits my room almost every day did. She saw Memoirs of a Geshia on one of the easels and asked to borrow it. Never before has a fellow teacher asked to borrow a book they saw in my room while visiting. So, even though no students have yet asked to check out those books, I know the book easels are drawing attention to the library shelves thus making them more appealing.

Often libraries and book stores have displays that show the recommendations or current reading lists of the people who work there. I decided to couple this idea with the ideas in Routman's chapter on sharing your reading life with students. I started small by adding stickers to the bindings of all the books I have read in my collection and hanging a mini white board on the wall that shows what I am currently reading. Next, I started to tell some of my classes about the book I was reading and how it was interesting to me. I could see the interest on their some of their faces. As the students began reading Huck Finn, I began reading Finn by Jon Clinch. This book retells the basic story of Huck Finn through Pap's point of view including filling in some gaps about Pap's past. When I told my classes about this book, I could see that some of the students found it really interesting that there was a book that explored these ideas about the text they were reading. Seeing the interest on students' faces has made me want to share with them about other books, so I have been reading other related texts while they read Huck Finn. When I first started teaching, I could not have done this because I devoted all my time to rereading the primary text the students were reading. Now that I have read Huck Finn annually for several years, I can spend time reading new books such as The Day They Came to Arrest the Book by Nat Hentoff and The Coffin Quilt by Ann Rinaldi, both of which I introduced to students today.

The biggest successes I witnessed occurred when I gave students my opinions on specific books and gear it towards what I would have wanted to know at their age. Having recently read Tod Strassser's The Wave, I was interested in reading his novel Give a Boy a Gun during April break. When we returned to school, I put it back on the tray with a post-it on the cover saying: “Mrs. Boyd read this over vacation. Fast read, but gory and violent in places.” Within ten minutes of class, a student asked what the post-it said. Within thirty seconds of me saying I thought they might like some of these books as I had them out and then dictating the post-it, a hand went up asking to put dibs on the book. When I saw this success, I got a second copy of the book and repeated; within a day the second copy was borrowed. So, I continued to label books with note cards or post-it notes to catch students’ attention. For example, the two previously mentioned books, The Day They Came to Arrest the Book and The Coffin Quilt, both have notes on them. The former book has a post-it on the cover saying, “If you are interested in book banning, you might want to read this one!” while the latter book has a note card in front of it letting students know how it relates to Huck Finn and pointing that we read a text earlier this year by the same author. I even put Alice in Wonderland on a book easel with a post-it about the Mad Hatter, since we mentioned that character in class when discussing the scene in Huck Finn where the bread with mercury in it is used to find the drowned body. These notes from me to the students are helping to convey my recommendations more clearly, thus peaking their interest in the texts.

I have also started to make more personal recommendations for individual students. In literature circles recently some of my students read Jerry Spineli's Stargirl. Two of my students expressed an interest in reading the sequel, so I located a copy and left notes in the office for the two girls who were interested. One of them came to get the book with in a class period. She finished the book in four days and passed it on to the other student today. I also recommended Sweetblood, a book about a girl who thinks her diabetes is really vampirism, to a diabetic vampire loving student. She thought it sounded like a cool concept and might check it out of the school library. A third example is another student stated she really liked Huck Finn and Ann Rinaldi's A Break with Charity. I recommended for her to read Rinaldi's The Coffin Quilt, which tells the story of the real feuding families satirized in Huck Finn, Hatfield and McCoys.

Aside from getting my students more interested in reading, these personal recommendations help me to bond with my students like Routman discussed in chapter two of her book. My husband says his favorite English teacher was a man who lent my husband his personal book about the existence of aliens, which was a topic he and his teacher sometimes chatted about together in class. My husband never forgot that teacher's attention to him as an individual. I hope that these recommendations will not only help re-energize reading for my students and broaden their interests, but also show them that I see them as individuals and care about their interest and personalities, just as my husband's teacher did for him.

These personal book recommendations also match students and books, which is another recommendation that Routman makes. One deterrents of reading for me when I was in middle school were book recommendations from the librarians which they liked, but had nothing to do with me. I loved stories, but had a hard time finding ones which interested me. I can make meaningful recommendations because I know my students both on their ability and interests. I want to continue to do this, but I am concerned that I personally have not read widely enough to reach many of my students. For example, I have not read many sports, science fiction, or fantasy books, which would be appealing to many of my male students. This is an area I want to continue to work on.

I look forward to applying some of Routman’s other ideas. One ideas in particular is to make a bulletin board of top ten books (p. 71). I am not yet ready to move fully to independent reading, but I think we could do this activity at the beginning of the year and then the end of each quarter. My students are influenced by their peers’ choices and I want to see more of that. As more students begin reading, I want to build in more class time for them to share what they are reading, which will in turn peak interests of their classmates. Additionally, I want to work on more reading time into my classes. Actual reading seems to be the big element missing in my room that libraries have because most of their reading is assigned as homwork.

Overall, through applying Routman's ideas to my classroom, I discovered that small changes can make a difference for individual students. I made my classroom library more appealing and thus drew in several students who are now more excited about reading. In addition, thinking of myself as a part librarian, I recommended books to students using my knowledge of their personality, which has also been meaningful and motivating for students. I look forward to trying more ideas in the fall which will continue to encourage my students to become enthusiastic about reading.


Works Cited
Routman, R. (2003). Reading Essentials. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.

Simple Fixes are a Myth: How to Help Students Struggling with Literacy

First read the following post first: No Simple Answer:Why Students Struggle with Literacy in American Schools

Simple Fixes Are a Myth:
How to Help Students Struggling with Literacy

No silver bullet will cure literacy problems. Although someone periodically promotes a new program or method claiming to end literacy difficulties, no one solution works for every student. In reality, multiple factors that affect the success of any particular child, resulting in a unique mixture of struggles and strengths. Instead of using a one-size-fits-all approach, teachers must use a variety of practices and assessments to prevent struggles and individually determine strengths and weakness. Thus, teachers diagnosis and treat reading difficulties on a case by case basis and to make reading exciting in a supportive environment for those who are progressing well.

PREVENTION
Scientific research shows that some reading problems start with a lack of exposure to language before arriving at school (Lyon & Chhabra, 2004). Thus, one way that educators can alleviate literacy struggles is to inform parents that surrounding their children with language and print will have a huge impact on their later success. Shaywitz describes in great detail in her book Overcoming Dyslexia how parents can simply and easily interact with their pre-school children to increase their understanding of language. Activities such as reading to one's child, singing nursery rhymes, and playing with words like rhymes or alliteration are simple and fun, yet raise the child's awareness of print and phonics (Shaywitz, 2003). We also discussed in class the importance of teachers and parents working in unison, but this can be a challenge when families hold different values in literacy compared to teachers who are usually “super-literate” (Note 1). Sadly, some families suffer from economic or social problems that limit their ability to preform such activities with their children. In these cases, the larger systems of society needs to create programs that result greater equality between all families.

Additionally, teachers can prevent reading problems by creating supportive and caring classrooms that instill curiosity, passion, and expression in students. In these classes, a child's love for learning motivates him while the teachers encourages and supports (Kohn, 2004; Kohn, 2005). When these elements are absent some students lose interest in literacy and fall behind because they no longer practice the skills they have or fail learn new skills to move them along. When problems cannot be prevented educators must then assess with a purpose of determining strengths and weaknesses.

ASSESSMENT
In order to determine the strengths and weakness of students, teachers, and curriculum, assessment's purpose must be to improve teaching and learning. Educators need to remember assessment's huge impact on the lives of students in terms of their motivation, self-esteem, educational opportunities, and understanding literately. The International Reading Association (IRA) and National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) (1999) developed eleven standards to guide teachers, administrators, and other community members in developing assessments that evaluate as objectively as possible.

IRA and NCTW assert that assessment must revolve around the student and “encourages students to reflect on their own reading and writing in productive ways, to evaluate their own intellectual growth, and to set goals” (IRA & NCTE, 1999). Students who must relay on others, such as teachers, to show them their progress in learning,are not becoming citizens who can make the choices adults face from day to day. Additionally, assessments that mandate curriculum are detrimental to learning because the assessment creators leave teachers and students out of the planning. Instead, school communities need to shape curriculum and assessment together with a focus on the needs of the students in that community. For example, a case study explains teachers changing an assessment into instruction if that action suited the child's needs; however, when high stakes tests are used teachers cannot pull a student from the test if he needs more instruction or practice (IRA & NCTE, 1999). Furthermore, we looked at an examples of commercial tests in class and saw that all were false reading situations and that some, such as the blending test that really assessed segmenting / spelling, were not valid assessments (Note 2). Even without these flaws, assessments that do not place the needs of the students first do not give teachers the picture they need to determine the correct intervention.

Teachers should not evaluate students with just one type of assessment because “only some aspects of reading and writing will be captured in any given assessment situation” and that “any one-shot assessment procedure cannot capture the depth and breadth of information teacher must have available to them” (IRA and NCTE, 1999). Reading is complex so a teacher needs to see the full student to discover the root of problems and only one type of test will not give the breadth necessary for such a rounded picture. IRA and NCTE believe that “the most powerful assessment for students are likely to be those that occur in the daily activities of the classroom,” and thus recommend detailed notes of observations and student conferences as well as portfolio work instead of high stakes multiple choice standardized tests. Additionally, information that assesses students should not just come from classroom teachers, but instead should include the perspectives of the student, parents, administrators, and other school community members who interact with the student in order to achieve the most accurate understanding of the student's abilities (IRA & NCTE, 1999).

When assessing, it is extremely important that assessments are “fair and equitable” for all students. Students with varying ethnic, gender, nationality, religion, socioeconomic, sexual, mental, and physical characteristics must all receive equal opportunities for success on assessments (IRA & NCTE, 1999). Particularly, educators must ensure that assessment does not penalized students because of their disabilities or differences, yet these students receive no advantages that allow them to achieve more than they are capable (IRA, 2000). Specifically, individuals make different meaning of language based on their unique experiences and backgrounds, so it is crucial for school communities work together to eliminate problems with assessments that relate to narrow interpretations of language (IRA & NCTE, 1999). “Once students are assigned to systematically different curricula, uneven access to subsequent experiences and jobs becomes not only a possibility, but a probability” (IRA & NCTE, 1999), so equality and fairness remains crucial in determining a student's future path including perceptions of literacy.

Also, when choosing assessments and materials that teachers and administrators use scientific research (Lyon & Chhabra, 2004). Yet, just because something totes the term “scientifically based” teachers still need to be critical. Many resources claim research, but when examined closely the researchers misinterpreted the data or poorly conducted the study (Arllington, 1997). Similarly, teachers should choose prepackaged materials carefully. In fact, experts recommend modifying materials according to the student's needs in order to recieve the best results (Kress). Lastly, teachers should be highly wary of allowing a machine to do the work for them (Aim; Kress). Kress states this sentiment as follows: The data collected by computer programs is “of value as a part of the collection of data that clinicians and teachers consider in placement and other instruction decisions; its difficult to see how they can ever become the single – or even major – informant of such decisions, however.” As one adult enrolled in a literacy program put it: the computers can't care nothing about you (Amoroso).

Some assessments in addition to conferences, observations, and portfolios are running records, miscue analysis, cloze activity, and oral reading analysis. Yet, each one of these assessments has specific uses, so teacher must decide which assessment will gather the information they seek. For example, during a miscue analysis the teacher notes the errors a student makes while reading orally and then analyzes the mistakes to discover why the student made them. This assessment allows teachers to determine what skills, mostly dealing with decoding, need working on to help the student move past the types of mistakes present during the oral reading. Meanwhile, a cloze activity investigates more closely how a student uses the context of a passage to determine missing words in a short passage. The cloze activity assesses a student's vocabulary and comprehension instead of decoding (Steineger, 1998). Thus, if a teacher wants to know specific information about a student, the teacher needs to choose the assessment that will give that information or it will be a waste of time. Moreover, for the teacher to learn about decoding and comprehension, the teacher must preform both assessments, which demonstrates that multiple assessments provide a more accurate picture of a student's abilities.

INTERVENTION
Lyon and Chhabra (2004) state that “the majority of children who enter kindergarden and elementary school at risk for reading failure can learn to read at average or above average levels – if they are identified early and given systematic, intensive instruction” in the major components of reading. Shaywitz (2003) agrees and promotes explicit, systematic phonics intervention for struggling readers, particularly dyslexics. She details the activities students should work on at school and reinforce at home at all ages in order to become fluent readers (Shaywitz, 2003).

On the other hand, some experts disagree with the idea that phonics is the best approach, even though it is endorsed by the National Reading Panel. Allington (1997) believes teachers have been misled into thinking that phonics must be taught in a “direct, systematic, and sequential” manner. Other experts, such as Nancy Atwell agree that phonics is not the only approach. Atwell (2007) believes that reading workshops provide the best methods for teaching all readers. Her whole language approach allows students to choose their own books and spend copious amounts of time reading. Unlike phonics, this approach is not systematic; instead, students are taught skills as needed through mini-lessons. Atwell's approach workshop approach is based on student choice breading joy in reading (Atwell, 2003).

I personally believe more in Atwell's approach than Shaywitz for several reasons. First, students with no interest in reading have a much greater change of struggling, and Atwell's methods keep students engaged by letting them feel the joy of reading. I have witnessed this with my own students; when they are not interested in an activity, their motivation and understanding drops. Secondly, in class, we looked at various phonics exercises and even though most of the class could not preform these tasks easily, we all are accomplished readers (Note 3). To me, this experience demonstrates that systematic teaching of phonics does not equate reading. Lastly, I believe in whole language more than phonics based on my personal experiences with dyslexia. Shaywitz states that explicit phonics remediation is the only answer for dyslexia, yet I have no memory of receiving such intervention after my diagnosis in the second grade. However, I was immersed in literature through my family and other school experiences.

No matter the approach statistics show “failure to read by nine years of age portends a lifetime of illiteracy for at least seventy precent of struggling readers” (Lyon & Chhabra, 2004). Thus, teachers must assess students often and deeply so that problems can be discovered in the early grades so that intervention can start.

Even with all these methods of prevention, assessment, and intervention, many students arrive at the secondary level struggling with literacy. Older students build up years of failure and anxiety over reading; additionally, when part of a heterogeneously grouped classroom setting, teen readers have their social standing to protect. Thus, the approaches that work for younger readers do not necessarily work for older students. Teachers can try organic primers and working with multiple literacies as alternatives.

Organic primers are stories created by teachers that illicit emotional response from the student. To creat an organic primer a teacher must get to know the student to learn what he values. The primer increases in length and complexity, yet that still uses comfortable dialogical language and structures. These primers are meaning to the student because they connect to him as an individual and because the teacher makes it especially for the student (Amoroso; Note 4).

For students who have struggled for years with literacy, an affect intervention might move away from print and allow the student to explore other media. One study described students who created projects which started with non-print literacy and then branched to print. These multimedia projects increased literacy skills because the students were passionate about the topics they chose and thus were excited to learn more and to express that learning (O'Brien, 2003).

CHANGING TEACHERS
To help students struggling with literacy, teachers, one of the many causes of this struggle, need to change. First, teachers need more training during their pre-service and professional development time that will help them meet the realities of teaching. Almost half of the states do not require elementary teachers to be trained in teaching reading (Birth of a Syndrome). This needs to change. Aim discusses “unrealistic readability levels and limited comprehensibility of texts due to concept loading and related problems,” and then describe an instance where a history teacher's students struggled with the textbook. This teacher, much like myself when I started teaching, did not realize that the students had difficulty navigating the text structures (Aim). If this teacher received instruction on reading, particularly that of textbooks, he could have helped his students understand the text starting the first time they picked it up. Thus, all teachers, not just elementary or ELA teachers, need to understand how one learns to read and how to support students in reading the materials for their particular subject. Simply put, the more knowledge teachers have about literacy, the more productive their assessments and interactions with students will be (IRA & NCTE, 1999).

Pre-service experiences also need to show teachers how to avoid practices that negatively affect their students such as classroom environments that value some students above other or that lack passion and curiosity in the content. Stienger (1998) explains that “the goal is to create readers who challenge themselves to read frequently and who tackles books above grade level.” To met this goal, teachers need instruction on how to center the materials and methods they use around the interests and needs of the students, particularly when it comes to reading materials. Students should use texts that grab their attention and make them excited to keep reading. For example Stienger (1998) describes the drastic increase in interest and motivation from a lesson using a basil to a lesson using a rich literary text. In fact, the organic primers and multiple literacy projects described above are also based on this same principal that the reader should be central to choosing the text and methods.

Teachers of all subjects should also be taught about writer-based prose. When students begin to write, they pull their knowledge or memories to the surface to get them on the page. They often use words that are “saturated” in meaning for them, but not the reader, or the student may list instead of going into detail. The writing may also have grammatical mistakes, particularly with run-on sentences, because they try to get the ideas on to the page so quickly (Newkirk). Teachers instruction on this topic to understand how to not be harsh with such efforts and instead encourage the students to revise.

Lastly, a most crucial change requires teachers to bring more strength to their profession. Government or district educational policies limit teachers' ability to teach using their knowledge of their field and students. IRA and NCTE (1999) state that teachers must show how assessments “benefit and do not harm individual students.” Additionally, they assert that “assessment information should not be used for judgmental or political purposes if that use would be likely to cause harm to students or to the effectiveness of teachers of schools” ( IRA & NCTE, 1999). Currently, government and districts use high stakes assessments in just this way. These assessments determine the effectiveness of schools and teachers, which is then linked to funding. Teachers need to fight against such practices because this type of assessment does not improve learning and teaching. So, tests such as the MEA, the NWEA, and the SAT that are “group administered” and “multiple choice, machine scored tests used to hold teachers accountable” need to receive less value in the community because they do not “stimulate reflective teaching and learning” ( IRA & NCTE, 1999). Assessments like these cause teachers to devalue their own knowledge about literacy development and make teachers and students feel like assessments are “done to them rather than something in which they are involved” (IRA & NCTE, 1999). As stated above, teachers need more training on literacy so they can use their knowledge to end destructive practices. Teachers need the power of being informed so that they can speak up for the needs and best interests of their students instead of just following orders.

CONCLUSION
Illiteracy is often like the hydra Hercules fought as part of his labors. The simple solution to cut off the beast's head only reveals more struggles in its place. In comparison, educators can not seek the easiest solution, but rather must assess literacy problems more fully. The solution to literacy struggles is multifaceted to address the many causes of illiteracy and aliteracy. Prevention is furthermost, followed by fair, varied, and valid assessment of the student as a whole. After strengths and weakness and causal factors are determined, the teacher chooses an intervention that works best for the student addressing his academic needs as well as other mental, emotion, and social needs. Only with a multifaceted approach centering on the student as a whole can we overcome literacy struggles.

Notes

1. EDU621Understanding Literacy Problems at USM in Lewiston, ME. July 25, 2008.
2. EDU621Understanding Literacy Problems at USM in Lewiston, ME. July 25, 2008.
3. EDU621Understanding Literacy Problems at USM in Lewiston, ME. July 24, 2008.
4. EDU621Understanding Literacy Problems at USM in Lewiston, ME. July 24, 2008.


Works Cited

Aim, R. The educational causes of reading difficulties. Retrieved July 10, 2008, from EDU621
Understanding Literacy Problems Web site: http://www.usm.maine.edu/%7Eamoroso/edu621/causes.htm

Allington, R. L. (1997, Aug/Sept). Overselling Phonics. Retrieved July 10, 2008, from EDU621
Understanding Literacy Problems Web site:
http://www.usm.maine.edu/%7Eamoroso/edu621/phonics.htm

Amoroso, H. On becoming literate: personal perspectives. Retrieved July 10, 2008, from EDU621
Understanding Literacy Problems Web site: http://www.usm.maine.edu/%7Eamoroso/edu621/personal.htm

Amoroso, H. Organic primers for basic literacy instruction. Retrieved July 10, 2008, from EDU621
Understanding Literacy Problems Web site:
http://www.usm.maine.edu/%7Eamoroso/edu621/organic.htm

Atwell, N. (2007). The Reading Zone. New York: Scholastic.

International Reading Association, (2000, April). On Assessment for Children in Special Education
Experiencing Reading Difficulties. Retrieved July 10, 2008, from EDU621 Understanding
Literacy Problems

International Reading Association, National Council Of Teachers Of English, (1999). Standards for the
Assessment of Reading and Writing.IRA/NCTE Joint Task Force on Assessment.

Kohn, A. (2004, Nov). Challenging students ... and how to have more of them. Retrieved July 10, 2008,
from Alfie Kohn Web site: http://www.alfiekohn.org/teaching/challenging.htm

Kohn, A. (2005, Sept). Unconditional teaching. Retrieved July 10, 2008, from Alfie Kohn Web site:
http://www.alfiekohn.org/teaching/uncondtchg.htm

Kress, R. (1988, Nov). Remedial reading: some caveats when applying two trends in diagnosis.
Retrieved July 10, 2008, from Eric Digest Web site:
http://www.indiana.edu/~reading/ieo/digests/d31.html

Lyon, G.R., & Chhabra, V. (2004). Science of reading research. Educational Leadership. 13-17.

Newkirk, T. It's dirty to keep yelling digression . Retrieved July 10, 2008, from EDU621
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competence of struggling adolescents. Retrieved July 10, 2008, from Reading Online Web site:
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Magazine Web site: http://www.nwrel.org/nwedu/fall_98/article7.html

No Simple Answer: Why Students Struggle with Lireracy in American Schools

No Simple Answer:
Why Students Struggle with Literacy in American Schools

Reading: perhaps the most complex cognitive function humans preform. Thus, why are we surprised that a percentage of people struggle to become fluent and purposeful readers (Tufts University, 2001; Lyon and Chhabra, 2004; Shaywitz, 2003)? Over the years, society dedicates significant time, money, and effort to discovering why some children learn to read and write easily, while others stagger on their journey to literacy. Current literature on literacy depicts classroom teachers as the strongest cause of students' struggles; however, literacy problems also steam from the learners, their families, governmental and district mandates, and teacher education programs.

THE TEACHER
Teaching combines art and science; this potent mixture requires emotion. While some teachers elevate self-esteem over learning, emotion in the classroom remains crucial for high student success. When teachers lack an emotional connection to their students and in turn disvalue the emotions of their students, then literacy problems ensue. Emotion in the classroom affects literacy success by ending conditional teaching and driving teacher and student passion and curiosity.

A teacher's stance on emotions influences the type of environment that teacher creates for her students. Cambourne (2002) defines an environment as a place, the people and objects that inhabit the place, and the routines that occur in that place. The individual lessons, or ìepisodes,î in the classroom ìpermeateî the classroom setting, which ìcan flow back and forth into the episode, thus shaping it and vice versaî (Cambourne, 2002). Thus, lessons shape the environment and the environment the lessons. Emotion heavily dictates the objects and behavior found in a classroom. Just like missing books and pencils, teachers failing to include emotion in a classroom affects student literacy.

Teachers attempting to create a warm learning environment sometimes do so in a flawed manner. Instead of unconditional acceptance, these teachers project that they value ìgoodî students more than those with low scores and less obedience. If the teacher's acceptance depends on certain scores or behaviors, then the students feel that their teacher does not value them as they are (Kohn, 2005). Studies note correlations between negative moods, such as sadness, to poor performance on academic activities as well as students responding to the mood of the teacher (Coles, 1999). Aim further explains by quoting ìchildren 'respond most often not to the activity but to the feeling that the adult displays about them in the course of asking them to do whatever it is the adult has in mind.'î Thus, conditional acceptance of students contributes to poor gains in literacy or any subject.

The practice of valuing a student based on scores or behavior prevents the teacher from seeing her student as whole, complex person with unique needs, backgrounds, and problems. As discussed through various case studies in class, the teacher needs to see the whole child or they do not get an accurate picture of the root of a student's struggles. ìPigeon holingî students with labels or tracks also affects students. When the teacher or librarian only allows a child to read materials at his ìlevelî despite intense curiosity or interest, the adult succeeds in diminishing that child's love of learning (Note 1). The most potent example described a little boy who was not making progress because he never finished his classwork. This child's teacher did not perceive him as a whole person and did not know how interact with him because he did not fit her ideas of what a good student should be. Additionally, this teacher would always talk to the strongest students first, which projected that she valued only students who were not struggling. If teacher had connected with him, she would have learned that he was being emotionally ignored because a of a new baby in the family (Note 2). Even though this example depicted a second grader, adult learners feel the same. Comments from individuals in adult literacy programs also reflect difficulties based on teachers not seeing the student as a whole individual (Amoroso). Thus it is important for a teacher to see a student as a whole person, not just a score.

When a teacher sees students as multidimensional individuals, she seeks out and reacts to her students' learning interests and their opinions on the content and teaching methods. In contrast, when teachers ignore the natural passions and curiosity already present in the students, the students suffer. Teachers who lack flexibility in how and what they teach set their students up to struggle by not including the students in the planning. Moreover, when teachers react negatively to how students react to their curriculum, the problem is compounded. An excellent example of a teacher ignoring student interests and student reactions to curriculum and methods deals with ìThe Rime of the Ancient Mariner.î An inexperienced eighth grade teacher introduced this challenging text and expected the students to be excited about discussing the ìmystical and metaphysicalî properties of the piece. The students rebelled against the assignment because it was too difficult and boring. Instead of fixing the error and reacting to the students, the teacher made the students memorize the first twenty stanzas of the poem! (Aim). Those students must remember this canonic work with grimaces since their teacher killed any possible curiosity or interest they could have in the poem.

A participant in an adult literacy program summarized the importance seeing student unconditionally as whole individuals through this advice: Just don't have the students in your class to learn but take an interest in what the problems are and what they're interested in learning. What you can do to make things better for them and get them interest in things they want to do. Help them to understand what they are doing and to like it because some teachers will if you don't want to do this I don't care if you are in my class. For a lot of people they don't want to hear this. They are fighting back and saying I don't understand this and I don't want to do this. When they are really asking for is in other words please help me, but I don't know how to ask you for it. Take an interest in them and show them what to do (Amoroso).

Even when teachers see students as complex beings, other poor instructional practices rob students of the passion and curiosity these teachers want to inspire. One pitfall of teachers is overusing purchased materials that claim to address all the needs of the students. Teachers think using a prepackaged system saves time and energy, but really these stiff programs do not addressing the individual needs of students. Another common mistake, which sometimes results from packaged materials, is inflexibility in pacing through adherence to the idea that simple concepts must be master before complex. Many students become bored and frustrated working on these simple skills and thus the teacher deprives students of the exciting challenges resulting in slow and dull classes (Note 3). Lastly, too many worksheets or isolated practices never show the students how the skills connect in real reading and writing situations. For example, Aim describes a classroom where phonics explicitly taught in the early morning, yet, come reading time, those skills were not applied. Thus, these students were left on their own to make connections between the phonics skills and the reading.

Passive teaching springs from a reliance on workbooks and scripted lessons. First of all, students need skills modeled (Kohn, 2005). Without modeling, students never see how a literate adult puts all the pieces together when reading or writing. When teachers write in front of students or do read-alouds, not only do students get a clearer picture of how to do the task, but students also see skills in practice. Furthermore, seeing skills implemented in real world situations shows validity in learning the skill. Additionally, an enthusiastic teacher increases the students interested in the content. When teachers are cold distributors of bland facts, then the passion and curiosity in students dies. Coles (1999) describes this as a ìstolid emotional stateî in the classroom and adds that when students are left to ìdraw solely up on their own motivation, they are unable to sustain a commitment to learning.î Worksheets rarely, if ever, display a teachers love for learning and thus do not inspire passion in students.

On a deeper level, telling, instead of showing and doing, harms students because it hammers out students' ability to think independently (Kohn, 2005). A child loses his natural curiosity when he realizes that to do well he simply must memorize facts and do exactly what the teacher says. Students instead need to question and challenge in order to be real problem solvers and to have real interest in what they are learning. Kohn proclaims, ìWe should reject a focus on right answers and conventual methodsî and instead ìask probing questionsî and provide in ìevery lesson ... chances to wonder, to argue, to criticize the text and what the teacher has said.î Instead of memorizing ìrightî answers, students should be lead to form their own opinions and understand how they came to them (Kohn, 2005). However, challenging authority does not fit into many teacher's plan and thus the students lose their passion and enthusiasm.

For all these reasons, teachers make a large impact on students' learning and thus impact if a student will succeed or fail. However, the teacher is not the only factor in a student's literacy development. No matter how connected and enthusiastic the teacher, other factors contribute to a student's success with literacy.

THE STUDENT
Many believe that students struggle due to learning disabilities inherent in the individual's brain from birth. On such disability is dyslexia, a condition where brain does not connect sound and print as easily as the average person. This results in slow, labored reading (Shaywitz, 2003). Even though dyslexia relates directly to the learning of how to read, it is not the only learning disability that affects reading. Other mental, social, and behavior disabilities can influence how a student learns. However, not all people accept learning disabilities and instead think that other factors, such as schools and family, situations contribute to these outcomes (Birth of a Syndrome). Some educators even believe that gender determines how successful a student will be with reading.

As a high school teacher, I find it difficult understand why my students struggle with reading when they have had nine years schooling before arriving in my class. Secondary teachers often jump to the conclusion that struggling students are lazy, disorganized, disrespectful, valueless, unmotivated, or unintelligent. However, factors students encountered over the years cause these symptoms or defense mechanisms. O'Brien (2003) describes this phenomenon: ìAs a result of early identification, labeling, and prolonged placement in corrective programs, the stigmatized students develop early, profound, negative perceptions about their ability. The tragic irony is that we are so preoccupied with fixing deficit skills that we ignore this syndrome of diminished self-efficacy, attribution of failure to factors students perceive as being beyond their control, and learned helplessness.î Most of the behaviors I see at the secondary level are a result of years of struggle with reading and the students have masked their immediate problems with reading and confidence with different behaviors.

However, not all students who fail my class have a problem reading. Instead, they are aliterate. They can read, but they choose to do otherwise. Unlike the student described above, the student who can read well, but chooses not to do so, is more of a challenge for a teacher because there can be so many reasons why the student is not reading, some intrinsic and some not. One outside factor that can thwart a teacher's efforts against aliteracy is the student's family.

FAMILY
Family affects literacy just as teachers do. Scientific research shows that the family environment a student spends the formative years before school even starts has a huge impact on literacy achievement. Students from ìdisadvantaged environmentsî show lags in literacy development very early which grows as their more wealthy peers advance. One reason for this discrepancy is children on welfare speak and listen to their parents far less then other economic groups (Lyon and Chhabra, 2004). Thus, being part of a particlar family and that family's economic status can affect a student's gains in literacy.

Family also affects literacy through how much exposer to the world and print a student receives from his family. ìReading is a psychological guessing gameî where we combine our prior knowledge of the world and the patterns of language to create our guesses. When children lack prior knowledge, reading becomes more difficult. We experimented with this in class by looking at phrases quickly on the overhead. When we knew the phrase due to our prior knowledge, we could easily figure out the end even if we did not technically have time to read it. However, when the prior knowledge removed from the equation, it became almost impossible to guess the next words, which required the reader to slow down and focus more (Note 4). Thus, the more one knows the easier the reading. So, students whose families expose them to more language, more books, and more experiences bring more prior knowledge to the table and thus make learning to read easier.

Learning disabilities are frequently diagnosed, which some see as a panacea to all reading problems. Some parent pressure educators into diagnosing a learning disability even though labeling a child with a disability can provide an excuse or the wrong intervention for the child. Some parents want every problem to be a learning disability and not a sign of rebellion, clashing morals, or mental illness. For these reasons, ìparental advocacy groups have remained the strongest force in keeping alive the concept of learning disabilitiesî (Birth of a Syndrome). It is unclear how often parents pressure educators into false diagnoses since sources conflict; some believe few students have real learning disabilities while others contend that no parents tries to push a learning problem on to their child (Birth of a Syndrome; Shaywitz, 2003). The division over learning disabilities among educators also hinders reading development because it sends mixed messages about the root of the problem resulting in confusion and second guessing instead of successful intervention.

GOVERNMENT AND DISTRICT ADMINISTRATION
Often teachers give into poor practices, such as passive teaching, condition teaching, or labeling students, because of outside pressures. Some pressure comes from parents, but the government's laws about education and the local administration's implementation of those laws can create an environment where teachers have little flexibility in curriculum, pacing, or methods. If a district values the scores of a student more than the student, then it is hard for the individual teacher to not do the same in their classrooms. Furthermore, the policies, procedures, and restrictions some districts put on teachers limit their ability to break away from isolated skill practice or dull distribution of facts (Kohn, 2005). In such ways, it is the government and district policy makers who affect students' literacy achievement through affecting how teachers are able to teach.

TEACHER EDUCATION PROGRAMS
As we discussed in class, there is often a mismatch between training of teachers and reality (Note 5). My own experiences with teaching coincide with this critique of pre-service training. No one can be fully taught how to be a teacher; one learns to teach by teaching. Yet, my minor in secondary education needed more training on creating lessons that would transfer my passion for literature and writing to my students. My education also lack how to help my struggling readers progress. I received no instruction on how one learns to read nor was I required to reflect on how I read. Instead I was taught how to move them through Massachusetts state curriculum. My lack of training in these areas drastically affected the students my first year of teaching. My students were confused and disinterested in reading and writing and did not make much progress. Surprisingly, I am not alone in feeling unprepared because ìonly twenty-nine states required elementary teachers in training to have course-work specific to reading instruction, and even in those states only about twelve hours of graduate training is mandatedî (Birth of Syndrome). Students already battle so many causes of reading failure that it is ludicrous not to train teachers about these factors, how to overcome them if possible, and how not to be a cause for literacy struggles oneself.

CONCLUSION
No one cause can simply explain why any particular child struggles to gain literacy. Students arrive in Kindergarden with varying language skills, which sets some students behind. Others have learning disabilities that affect how their brains process. However, a student can also lose interest in reading and writing when a classroom is void of caring, support, passion, and curiosity. A teacher's lack of connection with her students or harsh district or government mandates that dictate a teacher's practices create these uninspiring classrooms. Students who encounter more than one of these factors have a greater risk of struggling with literacy.

Notes
1. EDU621Understanding Literacy Problems at USM in Lewiston, ME. May 17, 2008.
2. EDU621Understanding Literacy Problems at USM in Lewiston, ME. July 25, 2008.
3. EDU621Understanding Literacy Problems at USM in Lewiston, ME. May 17, 2008.
4. EDU621Understanding Literacy Problems at USM in Lewiston, ME. May 17, 2008.
5. EDU621Understanding Literacy Problems at USM in Lewiston, ME. May 17, 2008.

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