Discipline-Specific Reading

My grandma was the one who taught me how to read.  She had been a first grade teacher for more than twenty-five years and was committed to ingraining reading skills into our brains.  As a result, I tested above grade level in reading for many years.  I loved books and I still do.  My husband will often laugh at me when we go to the library or book store, expressing thrill as my fingers trace the spines delicately placed on dozens of shelves.  With the development of eBooks  kindles, and other digital forms of literature, I have always preferred a physical text.

Classical literature has always been my go-to genre. This is largely because I can count on these texts containing complex themes, characters, etc.  For the most part, these are also the "typical texts" of the language arts classroom.  However, the language arts curriculum is enhanced by a variety of texts.  

Selection from The New England Primer

Informational texts are an excellent source for front-loading and contextualizing literature for students.  

For example, we read The Scarlet Letter my junior year of high school.  As a pre-reading activity, we discussed selections of The New England Primer, a puritan reader.  Doing this was an excellent introduction to Puritan values and traditions.  Moreover, it is also an introduction to themes that are paralleled in Nathaniel Hawthorne's story, such as community or the influence of religion over government/school.  

The Medieval Cosmos 

One of my favorite reading experiences in the classroom was reading Hamlet my senior year of high school.  During this unit, we did similar pre-reading activities with informational texts, such as discussing the Medieval Cosmos.  Our teacher also had us read the script as a readers theater with costumes and everything.  We also watched several film versions of Shakespeare's play, act by act, comparing each rendition with the original text.  

On the other hand, I have also had some pretty unpleasant experiences with reading in the language arts classroom.  One of my least favorite experiences was reading A Tale of Two Cities in sophomore English.  Our teacher failed to provide us with proper context and pre-reading activities.  Moreover, with a text as complicated as one written by Dickens, I am surprised that I can not remember doing any during-reading activities such as graphic organizers: character, plot, symbolism, etc.  I am disappointed to say that my first reading of the book wasn't good.  I hated the book.  I fell asleep multiple times trying to read it.  It was the worst!  And it was so confusing!  Even though my attitude probably played a large part in this horrible experience, I think that the structure of my teacher's unit could have helped me to have a much better one.  

For my own students, I want to be able to design lessons and units that excite students and that provide proper scaffolding toward comprehension.  Because students come from a variety of locations, experiences and levels of skills, it is naive to think that all of your students will properly comprehend a text given to them if they are asked to simply read it.  This is why front-loading and activities (pre-reading, during-reading and post-reading) are all vital to the construction of curriculum.