Journal #10: Readicide

While reading Readicide, by Kelly Gallagher, I couldn’t stop being reminded of I Read It, But I Don’t Get It. There are a lot of similar themes in both of these books, and they both had a lot of interesting tips about how to get students interested in reading. Some of the methods were similar as well. What stood out to me, though, was in Chapter 4 and talking about the “Sweet Spot” of not over or under-teaching a literary text. This stuck particularly with me because I saw myself in his daughter Devin, thinking of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn as a “Lousy Classic.” I saw the merit in the book, but it was chunked apart to the point that, by the time I got to the scenes with Tom Sawyer, I was right alongside Mark Twain with wanting it to end already. In retrospect I loved the story up until the parts with Tom Sawyer, but I digress. The point is, I’ve been a part of the system that over-teaches literary text. I’ve also been in classes that hit the “Sweet Spot,” and cherish those books to this day.

                I’ve never had experience with an under-taught text, I’ve only ever been exhausted by To Kill a Mockingbird, Hamlet, and Huckleberry Finn. The thing I found so striking is that it mentioned Grapes of Wrath being assigned without a direction, without a purpose. This again brought me back to Tovani’s instructions for how to help poor readers. When students have a purpose for reading, they’re more likely to be engaged in their reading and enjoy it. Reading becomes less of a chore than a real learning experience. It becomes a puzzle, a scavenger hunt for information that serves your purpose.  Giving a student purpose lets them know what they should look for, it helps them frame their ideas and guide their active reading and internal questions about the text.

                Readicide discusses how “teaching to the test” is one of the major factors that kills reading. In his book Teaching Adolescent Writers, this is his conclusion about writing as well. We should be teaching students, not tests. Yes, assessment should exist, and it should reflect what students should know, but schooling shouldn’t be like a factory. The factory model of school is soul-crushing, and squelches the love of reading and writing.