Mark Pennington

Posted on 7/02/09

You'll have a blast! I've taught high school ELA and am now in
my eighth year of teaching middle school ELA. Re: class
novels... As a reading specialist, I have some pretty strong
convictions that students should be accessing independent-
level-text independently. As Kelly Gallagher states in his new
book, Readicide (How Schools Are Killing Reading and What You
Can Do About It), “teachers are drowning books by
over-teaching them.”

I typically offer free-choice reading for student homework;
however, if we are reading a novel that is comprehensible to
the vast majority of my students, I will assign “on your own”
chapters. I assign and provide the book on tape/CD for
students who have independent reading levels below that of
the novels. Of course, we follow up in class. I do teach the
“literary nuances” and standards. We also re-read portions of
the novel that I deem to be “teaching necessities.” And no, I
don’t have students read Shakespeare independently. More on
what is "comprehensible" text and how to hold students
accountable for independent reading is on my blog at
http://penningtonpublishing.com/blog/reading/how-to-get-
students-to-read-at-home/ On 7/02/09, 1styearteacher wrote:
> My student teaching was with high schoolers, and my first
> job is teaching 8th graders in reading. Any advice about
> how things change from 12th graders to 8th graders? :) I
> know, a loaded question! I am mainly concerned with the
> curriculum. Any suggestions about how to read novels in the
> classroom? I am not sure how reading a novel as a class
> will go.... I know a little bit about Literature Circles,
> but I am open to learning more. Most teachers tell me to
> read out loud a lot, or to play tapes. I know there are
> more things that I can do.

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