Discipline Specific Reading

I am a social studies composite teaching major. That means that I will be certified to teach history, geography, psychology, government, sociology, economics, etc. However, I feel like my emphasis is history and geography. The "typical" texts I read in these two disciplines are historical primary/secondary documents and maps.

The most unconventional reading I have done in college, was a graphic novel that I read part of, called Maus. It is about the Holocaust, but the Jewish characters are mice, and the Nazi characters are cats. The graphic novel is very dark and morbid. I had very mixed feeling on whether I thought it was beneficial or not. On the one hand, I felt like it was good that it helped take the edge off of the horrors that occurred during the Holocaust. But at the same time, I feel that the Holocaust should not be sugarcoated for students sakes. Students have the right to know exactly what occurred. I also felt like the use of animals created a sort of detachment from those that died in the Holocaust and students today. Overall, I think a graphic novel could be very beneficial to students that struggle reading typical texts, but I do not think I would use Maus to teach WWII.

The reading I did in college that had the greatest effect on me was The Slave Ship, written my Marcus Rediker. This book is filled with primary sources of many differing parties that participated in the slave trade. The book also had excellent insights written by the author, who is without doubt an expert on slavery. The book was so well written, and had so many great primary sources, that it opened my eyes to the horrors of the slave trade.

The most unpleasant reading I have done in college was reading The Cold War. I already mentioned this in an earlier post, but I really hated the book. I felt like the book was way out of my comprehension level, and we never talked about it in class. The teacher had us read it, write a paper on it, then turn it in. We never did any more than that. This book was also an example of a text I did not understand. I felt like I had no background knowledge of the book prior to reading it, therefore, nothing made sense when I read it. It also was a very dull book, and I had a difficult time paying attention to what I was reading.

Something that has been a huge help to me in reading texts in my classes, is what we did in class a few days ago, GROUP DISCUSSIONS! I feel like when I read many things, I only understand certain aspects, but group discussions really help me explore the other sides that I may have missed. This will definitely be a tool I use when assigning reading. I will also try and assign readings that are at the same level as the students I teach.

SCED 4200 Blog Post #3

Affective Dimensions of Reading

Am I a good reader? Yes and no. I have a problem with my attitude when it comes to reading. When it's something I actually have a desire to read, then i'm a good reader. I am able to read quickly and efficiently. However, if i'm assigned a reading in something which i'm not interested, I have a really hard time concentrating on what I have read. My mind tends to wander. This causes me to have to read and re-read to understand it. I like to read books.

I like to read fiction, adventure, western, young adult, and horror books. My favorite author is Cormac McCarthy. He wrote No Country For Old Men and The Road, two of my favorite books. I also love audio books. Ever since I was in elementary school my parents would take my siblings and I to the Logan library to get books, movies, and audiobooks. This instilled a love for reading books in the years to come. My family would go on long road trips, and we would listen to audio books the whole time. I loved that as a child, and I still love audiobooks.

When I was a senior in high school a english teacher assigned my class The Grapes of Wrath to read. He gave us a strict reading schedule, and I stuck to it and thoroughly enjoyed the book. Reading it helped me gain an appreciation for fine literature. I loved the vivid descriptions and the "real" people from the book. That was a time when I truly loved reading.

Two years ago, a history teacher assigned our class to read a historical book on the Cold War. It was the hardest thing for me to read, because I had little background knowledge on the war, and I had little interest in the subject. The teacher asked us to write a paper on the book, and I received a poor grade, because I failed at thoroughly understanding the key aspects to the book. That was a time in my life when reading was tedious task.

I never felt like my friends or family thought reading was nerdy or stupid. I feel like I was surrounded by people that read so much, that it made me too want to read a lot. In able to get students interested in reading I think that students need to see others doing it, and enjoying it. I love going into schools, and seeing the teacher has a paper on their door that states what book they are currently reading. I think this is a good way to show students that reading is an important thing, and can be a major source of entertainment. In order to build a students view on themselves as a reader, I think the teacher needs to start with book that is at their level, that they will like. This will give them a taste for success. The teacher can incrementally increase the amount and level of books for the students, and by suggesting books in their interest area, this should help them gain a desire to read.

SCED 4200 Blog Post #2

Connecting School and Home Experiences

(question #1)

My mother is a folklorist for USU. She loves oral histories. I have very early memories of my mother transcribing audio recordings that she had taken from people she interviewed. She was always interviewing people for work and for our family. I am very grateful that she interviewed people like my great great Grandma Sarah and Grandma Maurine. These are women that were very important in my family, but I was young when they died, and never had the privilege to know them in person. However, because my mom interviewed them and had it recorded, I am able to listen to them and get to know these wonderful women that made up my family. I never thought about these oral histories as being historical. I always just thought of them as being cool stories about my dead grandmothers. However, when I was in the 11th grade, I had a brilliant history teacher that taught U.S. history in a way that made it come alive to me. No longer was history just a boring subject you read out of drab textbooks, but it was stories just like those of my grandmothers, that made the subject suddenly so exciting to me. After that connection that I made in Mr. Soffe's class, I have been passionate about History.

As a teacher, I hope to do the same as Mr. Soffe did for me. I want the students to be able to connect with history, or even people from history. A way I could do this is to have students put themselves in the shoes of a historical person, and give them a writing prompt on what they would do or say. I believe when students make these connections they will learn, as I did, to love history too.