September 24, 2010
Steven Wolk's article started with flashbacks to how he came to write this article. Like any other writer, Wolk uses what he experienced around him to his advantage. He explains that after interacting with his colleagues, random students of various ages and backgrounds, he was astounded to find that students today are still reading materials that students read in the 1960s. Wolk addresses various questions to his audience while confronting this issue, such as: Why read? Are you on Facebook? What are students assigned to read? What could students be reading? Wolk addresses technology and how it could be implemented into the classroom while having the students continue to flourish and achieving educational goals.
Reading is perhaps one of the most basic needs in achieving higher successes in the 21st century. One could not possibly get too far in society without learning to read in some way, shape or form. And this does not necessary limit to reading text in a book. Wolk mentions that if “...we want students with functional literacy, high scores on reading tests, and decent comprehension skills... then perhaps the status quo is adequate.” (Wolk 10) Personally, I believe that it is the instructor's job to help aid his or her students to achieve way beyond our expectations if it is possible. If a man is able to understand that red means “stop”, yellow stands for cautionary or “slow,” green means “go,” and he is able to make out the white marks on a stop sign, why not continue further?
Wolk indicates that within a study, researchers determined that out of 151 sixth and ninth graders that were interviewed, only 12 were actual readers outside of school (Wolk 10). That is only about 7.9%! What are the underlying causes of this? Wolk continues to say that students have often told him that they do little to no reading at all in school; mostly because students are doing all that they can to avoid reading the assigned materials. And one way of avoiding it was to find things like Cliff Notes, cramcast, or anything that is similar to the two listed. Taking into account of social networks, such as Facebook, we can already assume as to how far technology has come. Most of us have probably come from a generation where computers were first being introduced and have since then slowly oozed into our homes. And within x-amount of years that flew by, many homes are now infected by probably many television sets, desktop computers, laptop computers, laser and inkjet printers, iPods, Microsoft Zunes, and various video game consoles. The point is, technology has become a very big part of students' lives; most of them can probably not live without such technology, especially their innovative cell phones. Most of the students are probably too “cool” to admit that they would rather read posts on Facebook then read classics like The Scarlet Letter, Romeo and Juliet, etc.
So what should students be reading and how can we, as future instructors help the student experience be a bit more enjoyable? Well for one, Wolk is not saying that he would like to see the entire classics eliminated from the schools' curriculum as much as some of us would like to see that done. One way in which instructors can make reading enjoyable within their classroom is to incorporate newly published literature. New literature equates to current students being able to adapt easily to the material and become seemingly interested with the course as a whole. Usually, the text that are recently developed include sentence structure that students are able to understand clearly as well as having similarities to the students of various kinds. Also, newly published literature does not necessarily have to equate to books and novels, but newspapers, magazines, students and reports, etc.
For the most part, I thought that Steven Wolk's article really helped me better understand the situation with reading old classics within the classroom. I was able to be familiar with this article not only as a future educator, but as a student. Oftentimes, I would wonder why, during high school, we had to read these boring texts. I did not quite understand why Romeo and Juliet was so important. I was (and still am, regrettably), not interested in reading Shakespearean plays. My friends and I were separated into different classes for English and we all read different materials. My friends read books like Fahrenheit 451 while I had to read Shakespeare's Hamlet and Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales. Although I enjoyed reading segments of The Canterbury Tales, I really wanted to get my hands on what my friends were reading simply because they sounded much more interesting-- they had twisting plots and really mind-boggling characters. In addition, they seemed much easier to understand than Old/Middle English.
Wolk mentioned somewhere within his article that it was important for students to be able to adapt to what they are reading in order to grab their full attention. I think that this is very important for instructors to understand because if the material is too drool for them, then most likely you will not be able to grasp their attention long enough to fully teach them what you want them to know. Most of the students will drown your voice out while you are talking about the text or just will not pay attention. They will most likely never read the assigned text either, unless you find something flashy for the students to look at.
Steven Wolk's article caught my attention and has reminded me that I will need to somehow make my lessons on classical literature a bit more enjoyable to the students and myself. In contemporary times, it is especially hard for instructors to “stick to the old ways” of reading only classics as part of their curriculum. Because of the experiences that Wolk has noted within his article, it is perhaps imperative that instructors should have a combination of the old and the new within their curriculum so that the students are able to experience both ends of time.
I am reading the texts that were assigned within this class. I am considering on using some of the novels that have been introduced to me this semester as part of my lesson planning now and into the future wherever applicable. I truly believe that with these new experiences in reading, I will most definitely be able to find literature that my students will enjoy and take advantage of. As a student, my eyes have been opened because there is simply an abundance of information that I have not yet received and immersed in. As a future educator, I hope that I am able to use what I have learned regarding different pieces of literature to make my classroom an engaging and enjoyable place to be for my future students.
I can truly see that my students will fully enjoy what future educators have in store for them, especially within the reading-oriented classrooms, just by reading some of the synopses of the novels available for the students to read. There has been definitely an increase of what is available for the students to read than what I remember when I was in middle school and high school. It is my belief that students should challenge themselves by reading books that are difficult in nature for them in order to better themselves as readers, students, and as a person. I would definitely encourage reading within my own classroom simply because for some of them, if not all, my classroom may be the only time out of their day that they can fully immerse themselves into a good book.
Resource(s)
Wolk, Steven. “What Should Students Read?” Kappan: April 2010, pdkintl.org, 9-16.
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