Week 4 Reading

These readings also reminded me a lot of TE 348. In these classes we had to write a paper for each book we read based on a specific perspective. These different perspectives included textual response, personal response, critical response, inertextual response, and artistic response. I liked having to write papers in different perspectives because it focused my thinking and allowed me to notice different aspects of the book that I would not have otherwise. This is very similar to the Langer article that discusses the four major process of interpretation. These four process are being out and stepping in, being in and moving through, being in and stepping out, and stepping out and objectifying the experience. I think students may do these four types of interpretation without knowing. If teacher’s would isolate these ways of interpreting and correlate them with discussion and writing activities students may be better at looking at texts in a variety of ways. I was not introduced to this form of thinking until late high school and college. I think that if I were introduced to this way of thinking earlier in my schooling then I would have looked at texts more critically, which is a very important skill to have. I learned and practiced this skill in TE 348 and now do not look at texts so literally. I try to find the deeper meaning or connect what the main idea from the book is saying to its reader. It is important to find books that will bring out this critical way of thinking.

It is also the teacher’s responsibility to choose texts that allow the students to challenge their way of thinking. I think it is important to note that these books do not all have to be award winners and sometimes it is good to read a book that might have some critical flaws because students can discuss them. In TE348 not all of the books were excellent reads and some of them were really bad, but it gave the class a chance to discuss the main points and question why the author did the things the way he did. In the Leland article it stresses the importance of using books that introduce social issues that are relevant to the students lives. It gives many examples of the students thinking more critically about the texts and asking questions. I saw this briefly in my kindergarten class when my teacher was reading a book about Martin Luther King Jr. one of the students asked why blacks and whites used to be separated. This was the first time that I have seen my teacher read a book that introduced a socially important topic. I was surprised that the students had questions and really seemed to be interested. This opened my eyes and showed me that I can introduce books of social importance and if done correctly even young students are capable of questioning and criticizing.