1. As a student in grades K-12, how often did you read?

a. How often did you read for pleasure?

2. As a college student, how often do you read now?

a. How often do you read for pleasure?

3. Do you feel that you learn more now (or have learned more in the past) from reading for pleasure as opposed to reading assigned work?

4. Please share, if comfortable, your standardized test scores from elementary, middle and high school.  (ITED, ITBS, etc.)

a.  Do you  feel that reading for pleasure increased these scores?

b. Do you feel that assigned reading increased these scores?

5. Do you view yourself as a good reader?

a. Why, if you answered yes, do you define yourself as a good reader?  Standardized test scores?  General consensus?  Love of reading?

6. do you view yourself as a good writer?

b. Why, if you answered yes, do you define yourself as a good writer?  Standardized test scores?  General consensus?  Love of writing?

7. Please provide your year of birth.

8. Do you feel that your grades are indicative of your abilities as a reader?  As a writer?

9. Please note any issues/problems you may have/have had with standardized testing.

Thanks for your help and participation

As both Patrick Hartwell (“Grammar, Grammars, and the Teaching of Grammar”) and Edgar Schuster (Breaking the Rules: Liberating Writers through Innovative Grammar Instruction”) address in their respective research on the subject of teaching grammar, finding a universally accepted way to teach this topic has been debated since the coining of the term “grammar,” itself.  The participants of this debate, according to Hartwell, have even gone as far as to resort to name-calling, defining the two diametrically opposed sides in this obviously dire battle as the “alchemists” and “magical thinkers” (Hartwell, p. 108.)  Now, correct me if I’m wrong, but after conferring with the infamous dictionary.com, “alchemy” refers to “any magical or powerful process of transmuting a common substance, usually of little value, into a substance of great value.”  Interesting – that definition, in my opinion, appears to be a synonym to “magical thinker.”  It kind of seems like both sides, blinded by their argument, are barking up the same tree; the grammar-is-hard tree.

Take Schuster’s Breaking the Rules for example.  This is a text that will definitely find a home for itself in my personal “teacher” library, however definitely not for the author’s intended purpose.  Although Schuster exhibits great intentions for his publication by urging readers to step outside the confining bounds of antiquated “traditional school grammar,” lesson plans (Schuster, p.1) and, even as his title says, “break the rules,” Schuster’s text will remain in my library simply because it serves the purpose as a quick reference for the rules.  Although I admire Schuster’s holistic ideals, I feel that through the extensive lesson plans he provides, conveniently located textually next to the very rules we’re supposed to be breaking, Schuster undermines his entire argument that “traditional school grammar definitions do not define… they do not offer meaningful help to students”  (Schuster, p. 19.)   Although Schuster’s definitions do differ from the “non-defining” examples he provides from some of the earliest published Grammars, in my opinion his definitions sound dangerously similar to rules.  Yet, this entire presentation of definitions and rules, once more defies one of the first arguments he makes, that “we [students] acquire native language without being taught” (Schuster, p. 3.)   If students acquire language (and therefore grammar) through cultural, literary, and linguistic immersion, then what’s with the rules?  Hartwell even exemplifies that some grammar rules are learned via the immersion approach through his “the four young French girls,” example (Hartwell, p. 111.)  So, if this is the way to go Mr. Schuster, then what’s with your rules?

Although I’ve thoroughly bashed Schuster and Hartwell’s arguments, I will admit that I share their belief that grammar is learned best through linguistic immersion.  However I remind you that as teachers of writing (and teachers of grammar,) we must be realistic.  As much as we all want to find ways to rid ourselves of these obviously ineffective grammar rules, as teachers we’re all stuck struggling under weighty district and NCLB requirements mandating our jobs and salaries, and we’re all going to be forced to dole out grades to students that will be expected to perform at ridiculous proficiencies.  Adding these road blocks into the mix, I will admit that I will, without a doubt, end up teaching Schuster’s simplified definitions because when the test is looming, linguistic immersion just isn’t enough.

Here’s the final draft of the memoir.  Enjoy:

Sweat drips down my back in Mrs. Mill’s un-air conditioned first grade classroom.  I shift slightly to one-by-one un-stick the bare backs of my legs from my blue plastic chair.  Rip!  Rip! The noise resonates across the room, reverberating down the sweaty pipes and off the hard tops of the faux wood tables.  Everyone is reading their books silently; the same books that we got during our first class trip to the library, the trip marking the first point in our lives that we were allowed to check out our own book.  The first book ever. The trip was symbolic.  The trip was important.  The trip meant we could read. Everyone was allowed to pick out whatever it was that might spark even the tiniest amount of interest in our first grade souls.  “Pick out something that you’re interested in, something you’d share with your classmates and parents,” Mrs. Mills had said.  I scoured the shelves, running my fingers over the spines of picture books, chapter books, anything with words.  Something I was interested in, Mrs. Mill’s words echoed through my consciousness.  I was interested in it all.  I hungered to devour every spec of literature that graced the walls of the tiny library.  I wanted to consume each book one by one… if only they would let me.  As I trailed my hands over title after title the plastic covers seemed to whisper “read me” in joyful unison.  Selecting a book, I cradled it in the space I created between my scabby elbows and sweaty chest as if I was afraid someone might pluck away my precious find.  Slowly, I approached the librarian so as to not make any noise.  I carefully placed the book on her desk, relishing in the slight slap the plastic cover made once it reached contact with the wooden surface.  Shhhhhh… I slid the book slowly towards her, not wanting to let go of the glossy bound pages, even for a second, still fearing the book would be whisked away.  The librarian opened the front cover, holding the scanner so it was hovering ever so slightly above the barcode.  “Oh, this is a difficult book,” she said, “But you’ll like it.  You must be quite the little reader.”  Just as the librarian winked, I was found.

Mrs. Mills: Oh, no, no, no, Katie!  We have other reading for you to do, remember?

Me:

Mrs. Mills: Remember sweetie?

“Not much of a talker,” Mrs. Mills sighed, directing her comment towards the librarian.  Patting me on the head, Mrs. Mills took my precious book from beneath the barcode scanner and returned it to its home.  Feeling the need to offer some compassion, the librarian flashed a crooked little smile in my direction as I heard Mrs. Mills whisper “remedial reading group” as she placed her hand on my shoulder.  My stomach rolled as I almost wretched overhearing the injustice of my placement issuing forth from Mrs. Mill’s mouth with no more resistance than that of an airborne viral infection.  Through the tears that threatened to spill onto my checks, I watched the rest of the class trudge one by one to the librarian’s desk, checking out books containing much simpler reading than mine.  My cheeks and ears blazed.  Everyone could check out a book, Mrs. Mills had said.  Sure, everyone but me.  Granted I wasn’t the only one that couldn’t check out a book.  There was Mike, and Austin, and Mindy and Keely, the rest of the “remedial” reading group, but I felt so alone.  I wasn’t supposed to be here.  It just wasn’t fair.

Yet here I am, sitting at the round table in the back of the room with Austin to my left and Keely on my right, watching Keely’s blonde hair blend into the yellow back of her plastic chair.  Across the table Mike struggles to read the short few sentences that Mrs. Mills picked out for him in the thick paperback reader.  He finishes and breathes a sigh of relief, the left end of his mouth curling into a crooked grin as he basks in Mrs. Mills’s enthusiastic praise.  I cough and the Dinty Moore beef stew I had for lunch begins to creep back up my throat.  I know that I am next.  I’m always called on to read after Mike.  I turn my face towards the book, letting my brown curls spill over my face creating a curtain between me and the world.  Swallowing hard, I scoot lower and lower in an attempt to sink into the blue plastic supporting me, but it does no good.

Mrs. Mills: Katie, we haven’t heard from you yet today.  Why don’t you pick up where Mike left off?

Me:

Mrs. Mills: Come on Katie.  There’s no reason to be afraid.  You’re among friends here.

A bead of sweat emerges from under my bangs and mixes with the tears that are beginning to drip down my cheeks, blazing salty paths across my lips.  I imagine that by this time Mrs. Mills’s laser-like stare has begun to leave scorch marks about an inch above my eyebrows.  How will I explain those to my parents?  They would not approve.

Mrs. Mills: Keely, could you help Katie find her place in the reader?

Keely leans in her chair and places her finger on the spot that Mike left off.  I wish I looked like Keely.  Maybe if my hair was blonde like hers it would be easier to disappear into the chair.  I’ll sit in a yellow chair next time.  It’s less noticeable than the blue.

Mrs. Mills: Katie, you need to read something for us.  I know you can do it.

I cough once more and tasting the after effects of the beef stew, contemplate for a fleeting second the bargaining powers that Dinty Moore vomit might provide in freeing me from this “remedial” entrapment.  I imagine Mrs. Mills cleaning up my acidic mess of half digested carrots and potatoes, and decide even clean-up duty for beef stew vomit doesn’t come close to achieving equality for the injustice of my incorrect placement.

Mrs. Mills: Katie, you need to read something.

I let my head sink even lower, still preparing to release the Dinty Moore.

Mrs. Mills: Katie, we’re waiting.  [Pause]  Alright group, why don’t we help her out with the first word.

Together, the group creates an awful compilation of sounding out the word “plants,” creating a big enough ruckus to turn the heads of most of the other first graders.  More laser-gazes scorch my down-turned head this time accompanied with giggles and whispers, loud enough the speakers might as well have been shouting.  Maybe I shouldn’t harness the Dinty Moore.  How would I explain the “round-two beef stew” and my scorch marks to the nurse?

“Maybe she’s just dumb,” Shelby says to the person sitting next to her over the top of her library book, her unmasked voice carrying across the entire length of crowded classroom.  “My Mom says the remedial kids should just be sent to another class.  Mrs. Mills shouldn’t take time away from the smart kids teaching scum like them.”

Scum like them. Scum like THEM?  Who is Shelby, the girl who flunked three spelling tests in a ROW last year, to classify me as scum?  Remedial… I’ll show them remedial.  Shoving back my chair, I climbed on top, hauling the big basic reader up with me by a corner of the front cover, not carrying that I was ripping the binding.

“PLANTS ARE A BIG PART OF OUR PLANET.  SOME PLANTS ARE BIG, AND SOME PLANTS ARE SMALL.  SOME WE CAN EAT AND OTHERS WE CANNOT.  PLANTS ARE ALIVE, JUST LIKE YOU AND ME.”

I paused to catch my breath, looking around the silent room.  Twenty-five pairs of eyes gazed stunned at my body, still erect on my blue plastic chair.  I had read the sentences flawlessly, letting them scream out of me in one big breath.  I struggled to pull back the suffocating curtain of hair that was glued to my tear-stained face.

Mrs. Mills: Great… great job, Katie.  See what happens when you just speak up?

The reader slips out of my fingers and I let it fall on the table with a thud.  One foot at a time, I step down from my makeshift podium and walk away from the table.  “I’m going to the library,” I proclaim as I trudge out of the room, thrusting the toe of my sneaker sharply into the leg of Shelby’s chair.  I close the door hurrying to the library before the afternoon bell rings, the shoestrings of my purple Keds trailing behind me.

http://www.my-english-writing.com/

The “Good Little Reader”

From the moment my infant fingers possessed the dexterity to grasp my chubby cardboard books; I was a “reader.”  Even before I could tie the shoestrings of my Keds, I remember traipsing across the threshold of my first grade classroom, as confident in my abilities to read as I was in remembering my own name.  Before my birth, my father read to me in the womb, relishing in the series of calisthenics Dr. Seuss would induce, remarking that someday I would become his “good little reader.”  Sure enough, as soon as I was old enough to form words into phrases, and phrases into thoughts, I could repeat my favorite nursery rhymes while flipping the pages of my big Mother Goose Book of Rhymes. “She’s such a good little reader,” my grandmother would say.

“Such a good little reader,” the words, reverberated through my head as I sat outside my first grade classroom, reading page after page of various volumes of The Bernstein Bears. “I’m sure it’s a misunderstanding… she’s a perfectly good reader at home…”  The words floated to me on the warm, stuffy air that filled the hallway.  Mrs. Mills, my first grade teacher, had called in my mother for a special conference regarding my placement in a remedial reading group.  “You don’t understand,” my mother argued, “just because she’s shy doesn’t mean she can’t read.”  Yet there I was, sitting at the round, faux wood table in the back of the classroom, the bare backs of my legs sticking to my blue plastic chair, listening to the other members of the “remedial reading group” struggle to read from our thick paperback readers.  My tears melded with my sweat as I sweltered in the injustice of my situation and the heat of the unairconditioned room.  The confidence I once carried with me across the threshold of the classroom had vanished, leaving me with nothing with which I could even use to characterize myself.  To my family, I had always been their “good little reader.”

Once I hit first grade, I was prepared for everyone else to define me in the same way.  I was sure that I would be recognized as a “good little reader.” My competency, however, was measured seemingly not by my ability to read and comprehend or even pronounce the words, but in my willingness to read aloud.  Even though I was immensely shy, my mother spoke truthfully when she stated that I definitely possessed the skills to read.  The lack of encouragement I faced from the school system at such an influential age, however, impressed a lasting effect on my desire to read aloud and share my interpretation of texts.  As Mrs. Mills had told my mother, the “remedial group” was designed not only for those that struggled reading, but for those than needed “extra encouragement” as well.  If slapping me with a label such as “remedial” was encouragement, even at age six I could see the negative effects this could have on a student, especially in the change in the way the “remedial” students were treated by their peers.

Every week, the class would trudge, single-file, down the long corridor to the school library.  Week after week, I would walk down each isle, running my fingers down the spines of picture books, chapter books, anything containing the literature I so longingly hungered to devour.  I stood watching as each student approached the librarian, carrying their choices as if it was their god-given right to check out whatever book they pleased.  Some students made snide remarks as they passed, some simply smiled sheepishly, but it gave me the feeling that being in the remedial reading group was not unlike having leprosy.  Everyone was permitted to check out a book, everyone, that is, except me.  Of course there were the three other students in the “remedial” group, but I felt my case was different.  I actually possessed an accelerated ability to read, not a need for a silly remedial group to encourage me to “share my reading abilities” with my teacher and classmates.

One day during these weekly torturous trips, I found a book that sparked a particular interest.  Mother’s Day was quickly approaching, and under my father’s advisement, I decided I would read my mother a book.  This book was perfect.  The cover was decorated with iridescent golden fish swimming in cool blue water.  It had to come home with me.  I clutched it under my arm and crept to the check-out desk, fearing I would be discovered and prohibited to take home the book.  As I slid the book across the large wooden desk, the librarian said “Oh, a difficult book, huh?   You must be quite the little reader.”  I was overcome with joy for someone else to once again define me as I had been defined my entire life, as a “good little reader.” Unfortunately, split-seconds before the librarian scanned the barcode and the book was mine, I was found.  Mrs. Mills whisked the book from my gasp, explaining I had other reading to do, remedial reading.

Fortunately, the day before Mother’s Day, my father took me to the public library, and we found the same book.  That Sunday, still dressed in my church attire, I felt confident in my abilities as I settled into our big white couch.  With my mother on one side, and my grandmother on the other, I began to read aloud a story about an emperor’s golden carp.  Unfortunately, at age six, I knew no difference between “carp” and “crap,” reading the entirety of the story about a pond of golden “crap.” To my horror, even my family laughed at me.  This was the first time I truly doubted that my identity as a “good little reader.”

My fear of reading aloud followed me through high school and middle school; however I broke free from the “remedial” label before I hit second grade.  My junior year, I took AP Literature, a class that I had been itching to take since I sat foot in the high school.  The summer before the class started, I devoured the books on the required reading list.  I read The Scarlet Letter, and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, and a few other classics I had yet to explore.  I was passionate about what I had spent the summer reading for that class, but I began the first day terrified that I might once again encounter the humiliation I had experienced in first grade.  As the class discussion grew more in-depth, I felt compelled to speak, sharing my opinion and interpretation of the text.  In the midst of my excitement, I wasn’t afraid to read aloud, citing passages I had marked throughout my reading.  After class my teacher, Mrs. Hetzler, stopped by my desk on her way out the door.  “Great job in discussion today,” she said.  “You have the mind of a great reader.”  Once again, I had become someone’s “good little reader.”

Surprisingly, that one compliment changed my directive as a reader and as a student.  As a junior in high school, many years after my first grade experience, I now felt comfortable enough to share my opinion and my skills once more.  As I grew more and more confident with my skills, I was finding that I was able to offer not only decent opinions, but that people valued my thoughts and ideas.

In high school, I enrolled in “Read N’ Rap,” a mentoring program that pairs high school students with fourth and fifth grade females to discuss empowering adolescent literature via e-mail and other computer technology.  Having been a part of Read N’ Rap as a fifth grader, I understood how important my opinion was to my fourth grade buddy.  Within the first few emails, my partner exhibited immense intelligence and aptitude for reading.  I made sure to compliment the fact that she was a good reader, hoping that was a term in which one day she could identify herself.  At the end of the program each year, the pairs met at a large conference to meet an author from one of the selected books as well as to discuss the literature the program had exposed us to.  At the end of the day, we exchanged picture frames with the pictures we had taken at the conference.  My partner had signed hers “Alecia, your good little reader.”  With a parting hug, Alecia claimed that she would never forget me.

Needless to say, these experiences have shaped the way in which I see myself presenting literature to students, as well as the kind of teacher I feel that I need to be.  Through personal anecdotes I understand how labels such as “remedial,” are detrimental to a child who may need nothing more than encouragement, or to express themselves in a different way than his or her classmates.  By labeling a student as sub-standard, it sets a precedent for what the student believes needs to be accomplished, or what they think they can accomplish.  When I was labeled a “remedial” reader, I felt no more sense of encouragement to excel than the grocery cart labeled “damaged goods” at the local Wal-Mart.  Had my first grade teacher taken a different approach, perhaps by assessing my reading comprehension through a less public means, the response would have been drastically different.

As I plan to teach secondary education, I fear that I am not the only student that has felt suppressed by the aftermath of a bad reading experience at a young age.  Although it may be years after a traumatic or even embarrassing event for these students, I feel that at the secondary level, psychological stigmas can still manifest themselves, shaping the reader and student that they are.  Through my experiences, I have developed a manifesto focusing heavily on encouragement, and I believe that even at a high school level, it is never too late to rectify a bad habit, or to change the way a student defines him or herself as a reader.  As a teacher, I hope to instill in all of my students the sense that they are good readers and that their opinions are valuable.  Simply because someone is less comfortable speaking publically than their confident peer, in my opinion, should not be stigmatized as a negative aspect of the student, nor should it be reflected in his or her grade.  In the future, I will strive to have the “Mrs. Hetzler effect,” because you never know how much a strategically placed compliment can do.

Compare the following:

Lets eat grandma

Lets eat, grandma.

Punctuation saves lives!