They Kept Reading

After 20 minutes of reading, I quietly said to my students, “OK; time to move on.  Find a good place to stop.”

But, they didn’t stop.

They wouldn’t.

And I practically fell to the floor in shock when James yelled out, “No!  I can’t stop now!  Please, can I keep reading?”

This was the boy who, on the first day of class seven days ago, claimed, “I don’t read.”  The boy who, on the second day of class, when I took them to the library, couldn’t find a book to read, and insisted that he hates books.  The boy who, for the past four days, every time I had the students take out their books to read, would do everything that he could to avoid reading.

Over the course of the past four days, I had given him a selection of books to try out, I had quizzed him on his favorite movies and TV shows to get an idea for the type of books he might like, I had tried to redirect him to read every time he was doing anything but, I had ordered him to read.  But every single day for the past four days, he had resisted.

But today he reopened the book that I gave him on our third day, and started reading.  20 minutes later, he was begging me to keep reading.

This is why I love how I’m teaching English now.

In this same class is Cheyenne, who, on the third day of class, came in and said, “This book is so good, Mrs. B!  I was actually reading it at home yesterday.  My mom came in and saw me, and had to look twice because she couldn’t believe that I was reading!”

Also in this class are five other students, most of whom, when they filled out a reading survey at the beginning of the semester, indicated that they never read and they hate reading.  Just seven days ago they filled out that survey, and today they didn’t want to stop reading.  I gave them 10 more minutes, but they still didn’t want to stop.  I ended up completely changing my plans for the day, and letting them read the entire 80 minutes.  I couldn’t bring myself to make them stop.

I’ve been teaching 15 years now, and up until last year, felt very little reward from my job.  Yes, students learned.  They passed tests.  They improved.  But I was teaching what I had to teach and they were learning what they had to learn, and as much as I tried to make it fun and interesting, frankly, it was still pretty boring.  We were all just going through the motions.

Last year I completely changed my style of teaching so that my classes are run as a reading/writing workshop.  My students choose the books that they want to read (with a lot of help from me), and they choose what they want to write about and the types of writing that they want to do.  And as a result, they are excited about the work that they are doing in class.  They don’t want to stop working.  It’s amazing to see.

I will never, ever go back to the traditional way of teaching.  Never.