Chapter four Response

I found chapter four of Subjects Matter to be very helpful in determining the way I should choose and assign reading in the classroom. I agree with the notion that as teachers we shouldn't only have students read text books to learn about the different content areas. I can think back to when I was in high school and I would be assigned reading for a text book, usually from subjects like science and math. Today, I couldn't tell you really anything that I learned from those books, and I remember often feeling frustrated and confused after reading directly from the book without teacher instruction. I think Daniels and Zemelman make a valid point that students should be assigned a wide range of readings, like magazines and articles, or even narrated non-fiction. This will allow the readings to be more engaging and students will be more likely to store the information into long term memory, rather than working memory.

Another point of the article that stood out to me was the comparison between teaching students’ classic literature and contemporary works. Thinking back to my years of schooling, I recall reading contemporary novels for most of elementary and middle school. However, once I was in high school, the novels assigned in English class shifted to much more dense classic literature. We read difficult classics like Shakespeare and Chaucer. Public schools are always required to assign these texts, yet students always question why they are required to read such old texts that contain dialects that are no longer used. We are never given a good answer to this question, and I liked that the authors of Subjects Matter stated that it is important to assign equally as much contemporary works as classics. I believe this is also important because we want our students to enjoy reading, and if we are only assigning hard old English texts, many students will lose their enjoyment of reading. We should continue to assign texts that students can relate to so that they will be life-long readers.  This also ties into the belief that hard readings should be assigned just as often as easy reads, so that students will be able to spend time reading things that appeal to them and not just texts that frustrate them.   

At the end of the chapter, Daniels and Zemelman include a lengthy section of suggested readings for students. I was impressed by the way each book mentioned was categorized by content and difficulty, and even provided a brief overview of the story. I think this list will be very helpful to hold onto for the future when I start to build up my classroom library. It will also be great in deciding which books I can assign to the class, or even individual students who are in search for a novel recommendation.