The book I chose to blog about is:
Illuminating Texts: How to Teach Students to Read the World
by Jim Burke
http://books.heinemann.com/products/0497.aspx
About the book:
Today's students face such a barrage of competing texts in so many different forms and media that it's almost impossible to know what to trust and where to turn anymore. So it's now up to teachers to help students determine not only what should be read, but how it should be read.Illuminating Texts, Jim Burke's most ambitious book yet, addresses this issue. It explores the powerful idea of "textual intelligence," offers both practical and theoretical information on teaching and reading, and explains how to incorporate the newest ideas and techniques into actual classroom practice. Jim also presents an important argument for teaching what students will need to know, and be able to do, in the future—one of our primary responsibilities as educators.Each chapter has a clear focus—e.g., Reading the Internet, Reading Textbooks, Reading Literature, Reading Images—and all follow a similar format, including background information and rationale, standards connections, questions to ask, classroom connections, elements of the text, and additional resources. You can turn to the book for a five-minute read and find some questions to use in your next period. Or you can read an entire chapter, to help you clarify your thinking.Illuminating Texts' accompanying website—www.englishcompanion.com/illuminating—continues and complements the book by providing additional resources, all of which are frequently updated.
sounds like a great text I am looking forward to future posts about the specific ideas in this text. The youtube video you posted is awesome!
ReplyDeleteYour book sounds so interesting... I'm thinking I may be looking for it on the Internet. Students of all ages SO need instruction and guidance in figuring out texts of all kinds. And we are in the millenium of technology, where much of that comes from the Internet or electronic technology. What do we trust?
ReplyDeleteFor some reason, reading your description of the book's beginning, I am remembering my 4th graders going to a website in computer lab and having an advertising pop-up saying,"You've just won a laptop computer!", and getting all excited, not understanding it was a marketing ploy. That was a simple thing, but something they had not been taught to be discerning of.
I wonder what the author has to say in regards to reading the internet. We mentioned in class about the Marvit lecture and how open sources are allowing a constant flow of information but I wonder what he would say about the authentication for such information. There is so much skepticism involved with the web that it is always hard to determine what is fiction or nonfiction while most is usually in between.
ReplyDeleteSounds like an amazing book. I spend a great deal of time in my classroom introducing kids to different types of texts and then try to help them understand the elements of each. With such a text rich society our students are really going to need to have the skills to maneuver them all.
ReplyDeleteColin,
ReplyDeleteThe author devotes an entire chapter to Reading The Internet. I just posted about it this morning. He provides great questions for evaluating information on the Internet.
: )
Giving the students the tools to understand information for they can learn is good. The book seems to give information on new technology. It would probably good for teachers that are lacking in the technology field. I love math but working on computers is hard and some of the new technology is fun but difficult to get used to.
ReplyDelete