How do you choose the texts your students will read?
An English Education article discusses the results of a survey on the factors that influence teachers’ decisions about instructional texts in the English classroom:
“results indicate that teachers attempt to make careful decisions about texts, weighing curricular factors as well as student needs and interests. However, teachers make these decisions in complicated contexts where resources are tight and practices such as whole-class novel study make these decisions difficult to make well.”
Well, you knew that, didn’t you? But did you ever consider your selection of texts for your students as advocacy for their learning? Because it is.
“Critiquing and Constructing Canons in Middle Grade English Language Arts Classrooms” points out,
“Teachers quickly recognize that text selection is not as simple as drawing from one universal list or a single “canon” of literary texts.”
And in “Beyond the Stacks: Why High School English Teachers Should Be Talking about Books,” Kierstin H Thompson describes the results of her interviews with teachers about how they select books:
“The fact that high school English teachers consider a variety of factors such as genre, literary era, student interest, student ability, aesthetic value, and point of view as part of their evaluation indicates that they have a lot to say about how they read and frame learning in their ELA classrooms… Teachers as part of their knowledge and experience can heighten students’ consciousness and interests through the nuances of the text, a skill critical to creating dynamic learning.”
Think about it–when you choose texts for your students this Advocacy Month, and all the other months of the year, you advocate for their learning.