How will you avoid Readicide in your classroom?

     One of the things we are learning this semester is how  write a unit plan, lesson plan, rubrics, and assessments. This is vitally important information to know as a teacher, it could be something that will make or break us as a teacher (besides our actual teaching). I have been so wrapped up as a student now and WHY I wanted to be a teacher, that I never even thought about how to create a lesson plan. Prior to this semester I honestly never put one thought towards it. But over the course of this semester I have learned greatly just how difficult it can be to create one and make sure everything fit together smoothly.

     I noticed the other evening how trying to create a class calendar can be quite the challenge! My mind told me, "oh this will be easy! Just drop down what I plan to do briefly that day, right?" WRONG! I mean, right in a sense but wrong in the concept idea. You do write what you plan to teach, but making sure it all flows together well is a completely different challenge. Earlier this semester we read a book called, "Readicide" by Kelly Gallagher, which discusses how students are being forced to read so much over such a short amount of time, and through various disruptive methods that it causes them to stop enjoying reading for fun...outside of the classroom. I was engrossed in this book. I cannot even describe how often I felt like this as student, and still do in college (thats a different matter though) . How often do we tell students to read in class without disruptions but then we disrupt them oursleves? How often do we send them home forcing them to read large quantities of pages and do some activity with it? Think about it. My answer is too often!
 

     Not only are students being asked to read too much, the texts are can be rather difficult, and often times teachers are teaching to the test with their reading. What I mean by this is that teachers are not focused on teaching the material soley to the students. Instead, they are focused on teaching students how to infer, read between the lines, do anything that the standardized tests will weigh a student on to show how well teachers are doing. It is a crazy thought...the elephant in the room as Gallagher calls it. Seems like a backwards plan, teaching to the test and the results still not bringing in what teachers want to see. What if we taught students the material without worrying about the test? I have this impending feeling that the results would actually increase tremendously. When we focus on teaching one thing just a little too much, so much more knowledge is overlooked and left in the dust. We read about avoiding Readicide in the classroom, what to do about it, and how to change the course of reading but we constantly hear how it is still happening point blank to students in the classroom.

      So much of what I want to do in my classroom, I think can be used to help students in more than one way. Finding material to read that is authentic not only can avoide Readicide but also interest students in other material to read, including young adult literature (YAL). If we think back to when we were in high school at the material we read, how interested were we? Did we read anything for class that we actually have the thrill to say, "oh yeah! I read that! I liked it." or "Yeah, I remember relating to that book"? There might be a few instances, not very many on my own end, but I want to change this. I want students to be able to connect to what they are reading, understand it, use it! I'm still working on this entire theory, but for now I know teaching to the test must be avoided.

     I created this philosphy that students should have less reading homework in particular. Maybe more writing or quick responses to something else, or even their final project if there is one. Reading in the classroom together to allow more time for comprehension and questions is important to me not only as a student but also as a teacher. So when I began designing my calendar, I thought to myself, "how do I do this?" It was difficult! It IS difficult. I still do not feel that my goal was even achieved because there is a week in my unit plan that students simply will have to read a secondary text at home, fifty pages a night for 5 nights. I look at my calendar and feel theres no other way to do this. They have to do it at some point and I need to utilize my short 50 minute class periods with them to do activities and discussion that will teach them information aside from the text. How do I do that? By having them read at home, no matter how much I dislike having to do this. I am sure there will be times again at which I need to do this for other units and while I may not like it, I know my students will not either, but we will need to work with one another to keep this to the minimum.     

    

     It'll be something I learn from experience on how much is too much or too little.

Until another day-