Spring 2015: Reading One

Shannon DeWitt

READ 6360

CCSS

“Although many are creating partnerships with higher education, only 16 states plan to align college admission or first-year undergraduate curriculum with CCSS.”  (p. 1-2)  I think this seems counter-productive if only about one quarter of the states are actually trying to prepare students for college. What if your family moves from a state that honored the alignment to one that does not? Or, vice versa. I think there should be more of a conscious effort made by all states to prepare students for higher education, especially if that’s what we are all aspiring toward.

The CCSS is by no means a perfect system, but I think that it should help all states to have the same standards. I think that this would benefit anyone who may move from county to county or state to state to stay on top of their academic studies.

Censorship

“Censorship has similarly negative effects on teachers. It devalues their expertise as it prevents them from drawing on their knowledge about specific students, available materials, and the local context to make instructional decisions.”  (p. 2)  I had not thought about it in this way, but it makes sense. I am not sure an approved reading-list is the best solution. Who can say that what is on that list won’t offend someone anyway. I believe we currently live in a world where everyone is offended by something and they are more than willing to Facebook about it. Personally, I loved “banned books” week at college, especially. It was interesting to read what was and is banned, yet some other stories are allowed to be told with no repercussion. I have to admit that the comment about the Scarlet Letter being filth made me giggle. There are tawdry little tidbits in so many stories (i.e. Shakespeare-anything).  And, another thing, how many of these irate parents let their children watch television that isn’t G-rated and have access to social media that is by far the best of the world’s nonsense and trash? (of course, I have a Facebook account).

Comprehension

“Preparing students to read complex texts effectively is one of the most important and most challenging responsibilities of schools.” (p. 3)  When I read this, I immediately thought, “well, yeah, hasn’t this always been the case?”  Why is this a new idea? What have we been promoting in the past? This is definitely the most important part of preparing our students for higher education. Students need to be able to pick a part a text, compare it to other texts they have read, and truly extract meaning from what they are reading. Without these things, we are not fully developing literacy in our students. I think both textual complexity and close reading are important for understanding what we read. I do not think they are as independent from one another as they are presented in the article. Both of these processes need to be involved in developing a full literacy capability.