[etni] Fw: Re: book reports
- From: "Ask_Etni" <ask@xxxxxxxx>
- To: "ETNI" <etni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Wed, 18 Feb 2009 19:02:50 +0200
----- Original Message -----
From: "ron" <rjbelzer@xxxxxxx>
Subject: Re: book reports
I tried to deal with the problem of reading when I was a regular
classroom teacher. Frankly, I always felt that the students (in
Junior High) were generally (עובדים עלי), faking it and enjoying the
game of putting one over on the teacher. I tried all kinds of reading
tasks, and of course, they worked with some students, but not all.
May I suggest that the goal be as David has suggested below:
getting the kids to love reading. The only way, I think, is to have them
read very easy and very short books, below their level, so the task is an
easy one. With success, they MAY be motivated to try a bit harder
readers. Use classroom time to have them read, and let them have free
rein in terms of what books to read.
If you can get some students to actually like it, then that is
success.
Of course, you will always encounter the retort on the part of some
students: "But teacher, what do you want from me? I don't read Hebrew
books. How can you expect me to read in English?"
I wish you all success.
Ron Belzer
Petach Tikva
David wrote:
> When I was in 9th grade (way back before the days of personal computers) I
> decided to go one step further. Not only didn't I read the book, but I
> wrote a book report about an imaginary book, an imaginary author and an
> imaginary publisher. I was awarded a 98 for my efforts. One of the best
> imaginative
> compositions I have ever written, I must say.
>
> This wasn't because I was too lazy to read a book. I read at least three
> books a week at the time. My mother would read a book and put it down. My
> older sister would pick it up, read it and put it back down. Then it was
> my turn. I remember reading War and Peace at the age of 14 and really
> enjoying it. Reading was one of my passions.
> But high school bored me. I sought real challenges and found none. If I
> could fool the teacher into believing in my made-up book, then she
> deserved to be had. And I deserved the mark awarded me. There seemed to be
> more
> reason in doing this than in turning my private pleasure into a punishing
> exercise.
> And now I am on the other side.
> We supposedly give book reports as a part of our effort to encourage our
> students to read. I have been through it all as a teacher. I've given oral
> book reports, in-class book reports, and all of the sadistic variations I
> could think of in order to try and ensure that the student actually read
> the book. You could say that I was now getting what I deserved, ever since
> writing that imaginative book report.
> But underneath it all, I really just wanted my students to enjoy reading
> like I did when I was their age. But it doesn't work that way, does it.
> I would be more interested in hearing ideas about how to infuse the love
> of reading in our students, rather than know that they have really read a
> book ... just so that they can complete a book report. Will they be better
> English learners in our knowing that they actually plowed through the
> book?
> Any better than their writing an imaginative composition in English about
> an imaginary book?
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