Reading Response 5

Summary:
Miller Chapter 6
Miller opens the chapter by creating the image of a classroom transformed into a poetry night at a coffee house. Students enthusiastically share poetry they have written with the intention of painting images in the minds of listeners. She precedes to talk about the unit she did was her students about painting images in readers minds. She spent a lot of time reading to them and asking them about what they see in their heads when she reads certain this. She seems to do a very good job of getting the kids excited about the topic. One of the things that stood out to me was when she brought in poetry written by her former students. She had them take the poems and draw pictures of what they saw in their heads. Then, she put them up in the classroom. She also had the students analyze how the images they saw changed after discussions and second readings. At the end of the Chapter, she lists the important aspects of mental images and helpful texts.

Miller Chapter 7
Miller discusses many things in this chapter that connect to having high expectations for her students. She expects that her students can have discussions on their own and facilitate their own learning. She also trusts them to make good decisions about what they do each do. She organizes them into book clubs where they get to start their own discussions and pick their own books. She also allows them to have free time during reader's workshop where they can read on their own, with partners, with a group, or they can work on projects that enhance their understanding of what they are reading. They also conduct research. Because Miller allows her students to have choice in what they are learning about, they are extremely engaged. She also taught her students different ways to engage with the texts they were reading. Instead of doing busy work type projects, she had them think about their thinking and take note of what they are taking in with sticky notes, notebook entries, Venn diagrams, and more. All of this was done to help the students elicit a deeper understanding of what they are reading.

Miller Chapter 8
In this chapter, Miller talks about helping her students learn to infer. In the beginning of the chapter, she shows the reader that her students truly understand how to make inferences because they apply it outside of reading time with a girl's broken cell phone. She starts to teach them how to make inferences by modeling how she infers the meaning of an unfamiliar word. Then, she has the students discuss what she did to help her infer. Next, she had the students work with her to infer things. Then, it was time for them to work on it on their own. The students really liked to look at poems as riddles. They tried really hard to infer what poems were really about. This seemed to engage them the most. Once again, she lists the important things to take away from teaching inferences and texts that are good for teaching inferences.

Smith
In this reading, Smith discusses how reading works in her classroom. During reading time in her classroom, the students do what they want to help them further understand their readings. They work together or independently. Later in the year she introduces literature study groups. She gets a small group together. They pick a book and spend the week preparing what they want to discuss. During the discussions, she serves as an encourager and observer mostly. She notes important concepts that students struggle with or feel strongly about and finds ways to bring those into the classroom. Smith finds that doing this as an assignment encourages the students to also do it on their own. She sees increased in depth discussions of what the students are reading. Overall, her work with reading seems to have increased the students interest in reading inside and outside of school.

This image of students working in reading groups represents the many aspects of good reading habits and skills that are discussed within all three chapters of the Miller textbook. In addition, the image demonstrates how a teacher can delegate responsibilities to individual groups while becoming an active member of the reading community herself.  

"I want students to appreciate literature as aesthetic experience and grow in their ability to respond to it in more sophisticated ways. I also want them to value literature for the roles it can play in their lives."

-Smith