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.