Readicide

I have to say I am jealous of Phil right now...he was able to hear Kelly Gallagher speak. I just finished re-reading Gallagher's text Readicide, and I was challenged by how far I have to go yet in my practice. I read this book several years ago and wanted to implement many of his practices, but I failed to follow through on many of them.

I appreciate Gallagher's focus on getting students to read. This is one of the major issues I have found with students. Instead of giving them a program, why not give them a book instead? I have found from my own experience how my vocabulary has shifted and expanded as a result of the reading I do. I read a variety of sources...from academic/scholarly work to young adult and children's literature to news articles. Not only has my vocabulary expanded, but I have become better at code-switching in each situation. This is an area Phil touched on in his post, and one I am fascinated by. Instead of teaching our students one way of writing something, why are we not helping them understand that the way they write is determined by the audience, subject, message, and genre. I can feel the excitement coursing through my veins.

I am excited to sit down with Phil and discuss his ideas!

In my quest to be more intentional this year, I am striving to design learning experiences for my students that will help them become better readers not non-readers. At the senior level this may be a challenge as I have to undo damage from previous years of schooling. I realize just how much better I need to be about modeling (which I have done quite a bit in the past) and finding that 50/50 balance for my students, both in the texts they read as well as the way I go about helping them read those texts.

I am feeling overwhelmed by the time limitations and all of my ideas, but as I have learned from Myles Horton and Paulo Freire, we make the road by walking. I will start walking in this direction and see where it leads.