Response to "I read it but I don't get it"

     I suppose that it is because of its age, but I think that I have previously read many of the ideas that this book is talking about. The concepts of teaching reading strategies and the intricate system of reading different genres are no strangers to me. At first glance, it was another book about the life of a teacher who guided kids whom felt they had no hope. So instead of focusing on that stuff in particular, I decided to focus on the reaction Tovani was given. Both students and teachers were, and some still are, skeptical of her methods and ideas. Some teachers scoffed at the idea that they would have to teach reading. After all, these history and science teachers expect the students to be able to read already. I can understand them to an extent because it is very likely that they do not have enough time to explicitly teach reading in their field of study. However, I personally feel that it is a great disservice to students if teachers are not teaching them the appropriate literacy required in order to comprehend these texts. It is not the job of a teacher to fill the heads of children with facts that they could simply use Google to find. Instead, a teacher's job is to help students understand whatever it is they are trying to do; for example, how the information in a text is applied to the world outside the text.
     A key step to teaching kids to understand is teaching kids how to read different texts, however, I also feel that it is also important to teach the reasons for being able to read multiple texts. Literacy brings the power of information that students need in this age where information spreads rapidly. More often than not, the information is not essential but has many interpretations or implications that add to it. Reading strategies equip the students with the ability to determine the different ways a text is interpreted and what those interpretations might imply. In the book, many students did not know how to read; they were reading the phonetic sounds of the words and perhaps individual words or sentences but not the semantics. The students were using one ability to read, but not the abilities to decipher the meaning which is crucial for interpretation and implication. Because of the wide range of text that the students will encounter in their lives, I would argue that multiple texts should be used in a literature classroom besides literary texts. These other texts could be supplementary to the literature focused on in the class.