[LIT] Ariticle from Voices in the Middle

[Ty Dartez]

I read it this afternoon, Kimberlee and Caroline, and I enjoyed it too. 
I agreed with so many things that they said (i.e. I've had experience 
with the pitfalls of independent reading) and I appreciate their 
solutions to them....what they are proposing is pretty similar to some 
things that Laura Robb's book, Teaching Reading in the Middle School, 
which recommends a strategic approach  within a workshop 
setting....what I enjoyed about this approach and can't wait to try is 
the sharing time at the end, which sounds like a very productive use of 
time. Another thing I agreed with in this article is that so many 
times, it is not grades that motivate students, so we need to find 
another approach. I believe that the sharing time protocals that they 
use seems to be motivating for students. I also agree that the teacher 
should be conferring with students rather than reading herself, because 
that way she/he can be helping the readers who tend not to stick to a 
book, etc. Like the authors proposed, there are so many ways to show 
students that we are readers other than using time that we could be 
conferencing with students to read....and I always found it hard to 
concentrate on a book when I was in charge of a classroom, anyway!

Thanks for sharing this with us, Caroline. I am excited to bring this 
approach back to the teachers at my school next year! I am just trying 
to figure out how to fit it into the Four Blocks model (Big Blocks in 
Middle School) and our required curriculum frameworks.

May Dartez
6-8 Title L.A.
Georgia

On Jul 9, 2007, at 5:44 PM, kimberlee hannan wrote:

> I've read it.  I thought it was a great article, actually. 
>