Tuesday, November 22, 2011

Miracle and Her Boys


I thought I'd made an excellent novel selection.  I should have known better.

For some strange reason, even though the reading level was accessible to all of my students- challenging for some, a "dessert book" for others - and the content seemed familiar to many of them, my students are not as interested in this book as I thought they would be.  It's skinny.  It's about teenage boys, which most of my students happen to be, and it includes realistic characters and dialogue.

After some deep thought, I realize that this particular text may be  a bit too poetic.  While it's lovely, and expressive, my students need something that is a little easier to grasp.  Much of the narrative consists of abstractions that many of my kids may not be totally familiar with. Also, all of the emotional content may be uncomfortable for them to have to deal with when they are trying to do something they don't particularly feel very successful with: reading.

Our next choice will hopefully be something that will motivate them to turn the pages.  I want to do all I can to instill a love of literacy, or at least an acceptance of its usefulness.

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