at the end

Nancie Atwell’s latest book, The Reading Zone, was my read this past weekend. She has confirmed for me a number I things that I have believed but not been able to put words to myself. She states: “students who don’t enter high school as skilled, passionate, critical, habitual readers have an even slimmer chance of experiencing meaningful literacy, there or ever.” (Atwell, 110) Her solution: frequent, voluminous, self-selected reading. This seems like an obvious statement and set of conditions for students to develop into “passionate, habitual, and critical readers”, but in too many classrooms, time to read is treated as a novelty or a privilege, and not as the core of effective reading instruction as it should be.

I began the year this year with a novel study (shame on me, I know). I thought I had sworn off of them last year—I thought. I don’t know what happened. There I was, without really thinking it through, reading a novel aloud while the class read along. What was I doing?

I swear, read it here and hold me to it, that I will never do that again. No one benefits from such a cruel act. I chose a book I love, one that most students love too, and I read it with passion—it was a flop. Novel studies all are.

Students want to read what they want to read. Each of them are different, and each of their tastes are different. There is no way that I could ever choose a novel that twenty-nine 11, 12, and 13 year-olds are all going to engage in and enjoy. Especially when I ask them to talk about it at regular intervals and interrupt the flow of a good story. Could you imagine on the weekend if the theatre put up the houselights every twenty minutes for you to answers some comprehension questions, to see if you’re making enough connections, to see if you are inferring in a meaningful way. No, you couldn’t. Have you ever laid out on the beach with a good worksheet?

That last five chapters of the novel was a race to the end. I closed it firmly and apologized to the class.

Students need time to read. They need a quiet space. They need to choose what interests them. They need to be left alone. The foundation of a student-centered curriculum is student choice. Atwell has given a very succinct and convincing argument about what those conditions should look like in the classroom.

It is not complex.

Since I have shifted my reading instruction to the workshop model, I have seen greatly increased engagement and enjoyment in our reading time. The kids look forward to it everyday. I look forward to it. Nancie Atwell’s approach to teaching reading has verified a hunch for me, and has given me something credible to refer back to when asked by parents or administrators what is happening in my classroom. She’s given me permission and enthusiasm to further venture in the direction I have already started myself and my students in.