As your High School English Department Supervisor, I'd like to take this opportunity to discuss some issues I've observed within several of our classrooms. Issues mind you, that we can all discuss when we're together again but for now, please take a moment to read on and start thinking...As English teachers we all teach reading and writing to our students, but how many of us really understand the importance of what's at stake here? In his well-renowned book, Results Now, Mike Schmoker dedicates three chapters to the importance of literacy.
"It is through reading, writing and talking that students most directly and effectively acquire a facility with what Lisa Delpit calls the "dominant discourse" (1995). It is the language of the educated... Literacy liberates" (56-57).
With this in mind, we English teachers need to be cognizant of the fact that the space our students are going to get the most exposure to reading and writing is within our classrooms. We therefore need to cut back on multiple choice quizzes and useless packets, and focus our lessons around reading more critical discussion, and writing... IN CLASS!
Yes, I said in class. We have too many students who don't read or write at home because they don't care to or are unfortunately unable to for various reasons. Schmoker quotes Richard Allington in his book as saying,
"... as early as 1st grade, the highest achieving classrooms spend as much as 70 percent of class time reading or responding to what they read. The benefits of time spent on purposeful reading and writing are so crucial that Allington recommends that we establish flexible standards: about 60 minutes per day of reading and 40 minutes per day of writing" (97).
Now many of you are thinking, I have a 40 minute period, that's impossible! No it isn't... not with my next idea that is of all of us working together!
Mike Schmoker raises key fact in his book that I believe we're all aware of but turn and look the other way because it's convenient and because it's what we know. He states,
"…isolation masks the starkly different results achieved by different teachers. Without any point of comparison, the isolated teacher never has to confront the fact that (1) the teacher next door is three times as effective as I am, or (2) much of my teaching is inferior (though parents and principals seem to like me as much as--or maybe more than- the teacher next door). "
Have any of you wondered how effective your teaching really is? Have you wondered just what he states, if the teacher next door is more effective? I know I have (I'll admit it) and believe we need to start team teaching and/or at least begin team planning to ensure we're creating lessons, units and curriculums that are equally effective, and allow us to incorporate this vital in-class reading and writing time.
I welcome your thoughts, concerns and responses and look forward to all of us collaborating together to ensure we don't fall into what Schmoker refers to as, "The Knowing-Doing Gap."
More on that next time...
Keriann
