Every once in a person's lifetime, a person reads or hears something that elicits an epiphany. My epiphany occurred when my sister recommended the book The Reading Zone by Nancy Atwell. She claimed it would change my life. I have heard this occasionally before, so I wasn't really expecting to have a life altering event; however, I did. To simplify, the main idea I found to be that we, as English teachers and educators, are killing our students' love of reading. How can we, as lovers of literature, be doing this? By focusing extensively on strategy instruction, dissecting every aspect of a piece of literature, and taking our students out of the zone of becoming entranced by a novel.
This rang true to me as I remember disliking many of the novels I read in high school such as The Great Gatsby and Great Expectations. It isn't that I don't enjoy classic literature, but not being able to just read the book affected my enjoyment of the book. Having to be ever mindful of theme, plot, metaphors, analogies, etc. and then stopping to answer questions after each chapter definitely took me out of the reading zone.
As fate would have it, the next book recommended by my sister was The Art of Racing in the Rain. What is the art? Keeping your focus on the goal and being in "the zone" while navigating through life's challenges. Again, there was that phrase, "in the zone."
As I embark on a new year at a new high school, I realize that there is likely a better way to teach English than I have in the past, a way that increases students' skills but also engenders a love for reading and life-long learning. I want to find the art of teaching in the rain; I want to restructure my class so students find their zone.
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