My Thoughts on... "I Read It, But I Don't Get It"

After reading the first chapter of this book, I had found myself very interested in what the author Cris Tovani had to say about comprehension strategies. Tovani talks about having students come in on the first day of class with expectations of how the English class would go. Tovani explains to the students in a very honest way that she knows pointless assessments and how much students hate them. She understands all of their hate towards writing and empathizes with them. She tells the students that as much as they don't want to write a book report, he doesn't want to grade 30 of them. She talks about knowing how students fake reading and writing all of the time, and how she did so as a kid. Her approach was new to me. I have never heard of a teacher being so honest to their students before. She does this to get all of the things in student's heads out in the open. Her approach to creating readers and writers who critically think and analyze vs. students who fake read and write. Tovani offers many examples of how to create these types of readers and writers as well. One of the best parts about this novel are the examples. Not only is the reader reading about what Tonavi's methods are, but they have a physical examples as well. This book however, does provide more of a step by step, and if someone has established a certain way of directing critical thinking and comprehension. For someone like me (a future teacher), this book is very helpful because I am establishing the way I want to create purposeful instruction. Overall, this book has a lot of great ideas to not only get students engaged in their learning, but also creating meaningful outcomes as well.