Reading and Writing

I am writing in my first period Freshman English class. I am a teacher so it about time that I write something about the curriculum I am doing. In ninth grade we are reading "To Kill a Mockingbird", a book that I have taught maybe six or eight times. Many of my students find this book difficult to read, and indeed the vocabulary, ideas and humor are subtle and sophisticated. There is something called the CLOZE test that I am using to assess the reading ability of my students. Take a passage from the book, create a blank for every five words and see if students can fill in the missing words. The creation of this test is brilliant, as a good reader will skip words automatically and still come up with a good understanding of the text. Many of my students, just as every year are struggling with this book, so I wanted to sort out who is having the most difficulty. I have done the same thing with my sophomore. It is ironic that sophomore are reading an young adult book, Ender's game and the Freshmen are reading the adult book.

I struggled with reading as a child and it wasn't till I dated a reading specialist in my early thirties that I found that I had a certifiable reading disability. She tested my tracking of words on the page and said, "No wonder you had difficulty with reading." Nevertheless by the time I was a sophomore in high school I pushed myself along with all the difficulties I had. Yet today I still have difficulty finishing a novel and prefer books on tape. Although I read profusely non fiction- loving especially the New York Times, news and science journals, novels are still a struggle for me.

As I wrote here, I noticed that most of the students were done. I got up from my chair here and said, "I could write all day." One of my students says, "Yea, let's write the whole period." I said, "Seriously?" She said, "Yea, we can write stories in pairs." All the students seemed enthusiastic for this idea. So what are my students doing now? They are constructing stories in pairs. They are asking for some help in coming up with ideas. But mostly they are working cooperatively together creating stories. I asked for at least two drafts of what they are writing. What more could I ask for than a class that loves to write!