You Gotta Be the Book: Chapters 1-3

I loved the introduction to this book! I really like reading about teacher's experiences, so this was awesome for me. It provides for a great reflection for ones self as well as their readers. Creating a teaching journal such as this demonstrates the care, compassion, and motivation for the author to become the best teacher FOR his students that he can be.
With that being said, one of the fist journals the author shares with us states, "The eighth graders simply hate reading, or say that they do, and they refuse to even try to do it" (3). Nothing that the teacher was attempting was working. How frustrating this would be! It seems as though the teacher was so open and willing to attempt all possible avenues to get his students engaged in independent reading.
Thus, his first chapter explores how to morph the classroom into a reader-centered one. The author describes a reaction that I am so familiar with, pertaining to the boy, Randy. He stated that "school is a bunch of crap that doesn't mean anything... you just do a bunch of crap for someone else so you can get through the year" (19). This, for me, epitomizes my entire high school career. Yes, I do like reading. Yes, I did exceptionally well in school. Yet, I was also able to produce what the teachers wanted. They wanted a five page paper on "my" representation of a character in a novel, that they said represented a certain thing, so I wrote the paper based on what they told me it represented. Quite honestly, I did not really notice that I was moved to "do as told"  as much as the reality of it, until last semester. I was talking with a fellow classmate who had been out of school for a while, thus offering more world experience than what I could offer. Our one professor would tell us something, yet could not always tell us why it was this way. My classmate could not accept this. She said she learned by connecting things together; learning by knowing why things were the way they were. At first, I could really care less why the answer was the answer. Ridiculously, I just wanted to memorize it and get that "A." However, as my peer continued to question why and was further agitated by the unresponsive professor, I became interested in the "why." As a side note, one of my other classes began stressing that as a student teacher/ teacher in general, one should continuously ask "why are things this way?" Asking "why?" will get you answers, and when it doesn't, you can go out and find the answers. So anyway, I became unsatisfied with not knowing how ans why things connected, it didn't make sense. We were being fed ONE person's view, ONE person's answers. We were being told to memorize certain things that ONE person felt was necessary, yet that person could not provide why we were memorizing it. As a student, I felt I was being slighted. Yes, I could memorize this ridiculousness; however, I could not tell you why it was important, how it connected to other information, and why I was learning it in the manner that I was. I ask you, is this teaching?! Is this really learning?! I think not. Teaching, as well as learning, is an interactive process. It's a process in which one explores the "why" when they are unsure. It is NOT the ability to regurgitate an answer, simply because the teacher tells it to you.
Ahh, sorry for the off-topic long reflection, that's not all that off topic. Nonetheless, I shall get back to the book in a later post! Thanks for reading : )    

Heidi

Would you consider yourself a reader? most definitely  
What do you enjoy about reading? I enjoy being able to emerge myself into a new world. 
When did you begin reading? Was it strictly for school or did you read for pleasure? Well, I will assume that I learned to read prior to and in Kindergarten for school purposes. However, I can remember that I have always enjoyed reading. 
What books did you choose to read as an adolescent? List titles if you can remember them.  Walk Two Moons, Night, The Great Gatsby, Their Eyes Were Watching God, The Awakening, Crime and Punishment.... 
Which genres/topics were you drawn to? I was/am drawn to fiction (novels) that deal with historical events as well as currently living authors such as Nicholas Sparks and Jodi Picoult's literature.  
How did you respond to the literature taught in your classrooms? What type of literature were you exposed to in your middle/high schools? All of the titles previously listed are novels that have been in my school's curriculum.  I thought many of the novels were interesting; however, I got annoyed that we solely focused on "the classics." I understand that classics are important and are classics for a reason, but we never had any room to read anything that we could select or anything other than classic novels. Also, many of the novels that I have read in high school have been re-visited in my college classes. I look back now and can say that I honestly did not understand all of the parts (symbolism, character development, etc.) of these novels when I read them in high school. I am glad that I was able to reread them again though, because each time I reread something, i learn so much more.   
Would you consider yourself a motivated/reluctant reader? I am a motivated reader--I enjoy  reading and learning while reading. 
In what way do you hope to inspire your own students to value reading/literacy? I hope to be able to have the students who are the least interested in reading/literacy be able to enjoy, or at least find my class inspiring when they have completed it. I hope to do this by finding create, and not alway conventional, ways of presenting literature. I want a very interactive class that supports a free thinking environment, and need to evolve my lesson plans on this.