Days 13, 14, 15: Some Interesting Facts About My Students

I found out some interesting things about my students.

I got the results from the reading test my students took. This test scored the students on their reading grade level meaning that if a student read on the level of an average 10th grader, it would show that s/he was reading at 10.6 (10th grade, 6th month).

According to the test, this is how the 11th graders at our school level out on their reading abilities.

We have:
1 at 3rd grade
5 at 4th
7 at 5th
16 at 6th
9 at 7th
5 at 8th
4 at 9th
3 at 11th
2 at 12th
and 12 reading at the Post High School level.

This is how the 12th graders are doing with their reading

2 a the 4th grade level
3 at the 5th
7 at the 6th
13 at the 7th
7 at the 8th
9 at the 9th
2 at the 10th
1 at the 11th
1 at the 12th
and 5 are at the post High School level

I am not writing about this to gain pity points. I accept the challenge that these numbers represent. But I hope this makes clear both the problems and opportunities we who teach in urban school districts have.

We continued our reading of Native American myths and Beowulf in the 11th and 12th respectively. On Friday, I used some graphic organizers that I found on a very good website that I highly recommend to my fellow teachers.

The weekend is here!

Day 5: Testing Redux, Redux and "Way to Rainy Mountain"

Rainy Mountain, Wichita Wildlife Refuge near Lawton, Oklahoma
Finally got finished with the GM Reading test today. A few students were absent on either of the first two days, so they had one part of the test to make up. My 7th hour finished the vocabulary because I ran out of answer sheets on Wednesday for them. Those who were not testing read M. Scott Mommaday's wonderfully lyrical essay "Way to Rainy Mountain". Next week we are supposed to do the first of the district's "Benchmark" exams that are designed to measure what our students know and do not know about reading and writing.

I wish I could do this without giving my students yet another standardized test.

Day 3: Testing, Testing, Testing

Today, we tested, the first of many certainly. This was the Gates Reading Test to determine the students' reading levels. I think this will yeild useful information. I'm curious about the reading levels of my students. I have suspicion that many are reading well below grade level, but this will give me a better indication.

My question is, what then? I am not trained in reading remediation. If I find that Jesse reads at the 6th grade level, then what should I do. I am not asking this as a rhetorical question or to simply show dispair. I really want to be a good teacher, one who meets his students' needs, but sometimes I feel that the ocean is so big and my boat is so small.

Another problem I had arose when they were finished with the test. The portion of the test they took today was over vocabulary.Explaining the test took about 5 minutes, and taking it took 20 minutes. I ended up with 10-15 minutes after the test. I spent the time talking about some of the class procedures, but I felt as those I didn't use the leftover time well.

When I came to my last hour's class, I had run out of test answer sheets. So I had the students read M. Scott Momaday's essay "Way to Rainy Mountain", and had the students write a couple of paragraphs about home and family as well as summarize the Kiowa legend Momaday recounts in the book. Later they will be writing a reflective essay, so I felt it would be useful to read a reflective account that we can return to later.

Trying a Reading Program

I'm going to try keeping a regular reading program, something like an hour a day minimum or 100 pages a day. I would like to increase the amount of reading I do, and I've always done better if I set goals. Right now I am reading Johnathan Franzen's novel Freedom
In one hour, I read 31 pages. I don't know if that if particularly slow, but it seems like it is. I have been reading the novel off and on for a while, so part of my reason for setting a reading goal is that I might be able to read the novel before my 60th birthday, which is a year and 2 months away right now.

12th grade reading scores show little improvement nationwide

I teach two honors English classes at Oklahoma Centennial. I have students enrolled in those classes who are very reading resistant. They tell me that they don't like to read, will not read, and don't care if not reading lowers their grades.

Mainly, this is a defense mechanism they use because they feel that they don't read very well. I have never felt comfortable doing handyman work around the house, and so I avoid trying to do it if possible. It's the same with those who lack reading skills.

I have found that by making myself do home repairs and improvements, I have gotten better. I need to convince my students that they can accomplish the same with reading.
"High school seniors still have low reading scores" from MSNBC.com

I Begin My Summer Reading

The Kings of New York
This is the first book I've completed of my summer reading. It's about the chess team from Edward R. Murrow High School in NYC. They have won several national championships in scholastic chess. Mainly, though the story is about the boys on the chess team as they wrestle with life and adolescents.

The Third Man Movie v. Book

I recently finished reading Graham Greene's novella The Third Man. Greene wrote this books as a sort of a "first draft" for the screenplay he wrote for the movie directed by Carol Reed. As noted by Screen Online ,

The Third Man was never intended to be more than the raw material for a picture. The reader will notice many differences between the story and the film, and he should not imagine these changes were forced on an unwilling author: as likely as not they were suggested by the author. The film in fact, is better than the story because it is in this case the finished state of the story.

I agree that this is one of those rare cases where the film tops the novel. (Another example, IMHO, is the novel Forrest Gump by Winston Groom.) However, the book isn't a bad read at all. The novel is told from the point of view of the military officer/detective who has been dealing with Harry Lime, the blackmarketeer of bad penicillin and friend of the film's protagonist, Rollo Martin, (Holly Martin in the film). This gives the reader a much more sympathetic view of the plot's foil, and helps to show the changes that take place in Martin's opinion of Lime. I like books written from a minor character's viewpoint like The Great Gatsby, because they give a reader one more factor to consider when interpreting the plot and characters.

This book will probably be the last of my "summer reading" or reading for personal pleasure. It's now time to turn toward preparing for the next school term. So my next book will be When Kids Can't Read—What Teachers Can Do by Kylene Beers.

Back to Harry Potter

I am trying to read the "Harry Potter" series before the next movie comes out. I got half way through The Order of the Phoenix and got distracted by something, probably school. There was also the problem that Harry was starting to sound as whiny as some of my students! Of course, that's part of the genius of Rowling's books. Harry is a typical kids growing up with a few things through in that make him less typical (and his problems worse).

I can't understand why some evangelicals have had problems with this book. True, there is no mention of God in Harry's life, but the same can be said for The Lord of the Rings. Harry certainly displays many very good character qualities like courage, perseverance, and resourcefulness. He may not be a model of faith, but he is a model of grace under pressure.

Following the Harvest

I just finished reading a novel by former Oklahoma Senator Fred Harris entitled Following the Harvest. The novel is set in the summer of 1943 and follows the experience of a 16 year old boy named Will Haley as he works on a harvesting combine crew that goes from his home in southwestern Oklahoma up through the Texas Panhandle, eastern Oklahoma, Wyoming, finally ending up in North Dakota.

I have always enjoyed "coming of age" stories like this. Seeing a young protagonist go from youth and innocense to maturity and experience seems to me to be the very essense of our lives. The novel also has a real feeling for setting, of time and place. I grew up in or near many of the places described in the novel. Harris has a good "writer's eye" for geography. His description of the Caprock region in Texas matched my own feeling for the area's atmosphere and mood.

I would recommend this book for a pleasant reading experience.