Literacy Memories of middle school and high school
Since I was young I always had a love for reading. The problem, however, was that I struggled reading out loud.
I was lucky enough to have a mother and father who read to me, bought me books as a toddler and beyond, and encouraged me to go to the library and book fairs. Because it was encouragement rather than enforcement, I read for pleasure, voluntarily completed summer reading, and enjoyed reading new books throughout elementary school. As an avid sports fan, I was blessed to have the newspaper opened to the sports page as a daily fixture in my house. All these factors helped me grow as a reader who enjoyed all types of genres. Fiction or historical non-fiction took me into the past or to places and worlds far beyond the realm of my reality. I enjoyed being transported into another place or someone's else's story.
I was never the quickest reader as a child, but reading silently didn't bother me. When it came time to reading out loud in class, however, it was a stressful and somewhat embarrassing time. Having struggled with speech at a young age, I was taken out of class regularly each week to work on pronouncing my -l, -s, and -r sounds from first grade to sixth grade. Upon graduation from elementary school and entering middle school, I was confident in myself to enunciate sounds of letters and words properly thanks to years of help from speech pathologists.
In middle school, I started viewing books and stories in a more critical sense. The Outsiders was the first book I remember truly enjoying on a deeper level. It made me think of books in a sense that was beyond the front and back covers. Mrs. Arcobello, whose son actually went on to play in the National Hockey League, and Mrs. Roche were my English teachers during my two years at Hamden Middle School. From Hatchet to Their Eyes Were Watching God, my teachers taught the relevant themes, impact, and underlying meanings or the books in such a way that it encapsulated my attention.
In freshman English class, my teacher Mrs. Birmingham taught Great Expectations in a unique way that made the text seem less daunting. When Charles Dickens' work was originally published, it was released in a way that resembles a weekly television series. Chapters were printed in newspapers and periodicals each week while readers read the previous release while anxiously awaiting the next "episode." Mrs. Birmingham used a similar manner, emailing or printing out each chapter making the text simpler while giving the technique of teaching historical significance. Although the book wasn't one of my favorites of all time, the manner it was taught to my class made it more interesting.
I still struggled reading out loud throughout the rest of high school. Even though my speech had improved, nerves would take over while reading aloud and I'd stutter, misspeak, or stumble over words. I still kept my face in a book though, and thanks to Ms. Kane, a teacher I had for English sophomore and senior year, I was introduced to new and unique texts. My favorite book I read in high school was The Catcher in the Rye. The works I read that made the most impact with me wasn't what Ms. Kane taught sophomore year, but senior year. There was a unit centered around literature written by homeless people. The biggest takeaway was that anyone, from any walk of life, could be a writer, an artist. Reading works by people with nothing, seeing their perspective, learning their experience broadened mine. The class unit helped to wrap up my high school experience by breaking free from works by the "conventional author" I had read up until that point.
Although biographies, sports stories, creative pieces, and short stories are my preferred genres to read for pleasure now, like in middle school and high school, reading a variety of genres always gives me a new aspect of life to consider or a new perspective. That would be one of the main strategies I'd have as a teacher. Give the students texts that strike a chord with them or that they can relate to their own experience. And if the text wasn't up their alley, hopefully I could use the lessons and techniques teachers taught me to make the reading memorable.
Photo sources:
http://entertainment.time.com/2005/10/16/all-time-100-novels/slide/the-catcher-in-the-rye-1951-by-j-d-salinger/
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