Search results matching tags 'american lit.', 'reading', and 'study'

Teaching Fahrenheit 451

Anonymous — Thu, 29 Apr 2010 03:19:33 GMT

I just thought I’d throw out into cyberspace what I like to do when teaching Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451.

First, we read Bradbury’s “The Pedestrian” and talk about Bradbury’s views.
I begin the next few days by sharing a number of statistics about television and media in general. Each day I provide 5-8 stats or statements by researchers about the effects of technology, television, and media on people. Then, I have the students compose a reaction which kickstarts a daily discussion. We do this for 3-4 days.
Each of these 3-4 days I show a clip from I Love Lucy, Alfred Hitchcock Presents, The Honeymooners, and Leave It To Beaver to see what types of shows Bradbury may have seen on TV.
I share the article “*** Is Other I-Pods” with the students. First, we pull out the thesis statement, identify the evidence provided, and other essay elements. Then, the students discuss the article as part of a Socratic Seminar.
I also shared this linked article this year. This interview with a neuroscientist fascinated my students.
All the while I spread out the reading of Bradbury’s novel.
Lastly, I show the students interviews with Ray Bradbury from his website.

My students told me this was their favorite unit of the year. Maybe it was all of the technology and TV use.

Filed under: American Lit., Lessons, Literature, Pop Culture, Reading, Study, Television, Writing

Reading Statistics

Anonymous — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 13:06:22 GMT

Is teaching reading, and more particularly literature, a losing prospect? There are days when I feel this way. Yesterday I took an anonymous poll and found that 1/3 of my College in the High School students were behind in the current reading and 1/4 admitted not finishing at least one of the books read in the class.

Is something wrong when even the highest level students aren’t finishing their reading assignments? Are they too busy with other activities? Do they put the assignments involving “just reading” last on the priority lists? Is it the literature taught (though 85% of the students in my classes said the books we have read were at least “interesting or enjoyable”? Here are some reading statistics to consider.

From The Literacy Company:

46% of American adults cannot understand the label on their prescription medicine.
It is estimated that as many as 15 percent of American students may be dyslexic.
50 percent of American adults are unable to read an eighth grade level book.
There are almost half a million words in our English Language - the largest language on earth, incidentally - but a third of all our writing is made up of only twenty-two words.
In a class of 20 students, few if any teachers can find even 5 minutes of time in a day to devote to reading with each student.
Out-of-school reading habits of students has shown that even 15 minutes a day of independent reading can expose students to more than a million words of text in a year.
The average reader spends about 1/6th of the time they spend reading actually rereading words.
When the State of Arizona projects how many prison beds it will need, it factors in the number of kids who read well in fourth grade.

Those are some sobering stats! How about these I got through this site’s search function:

1/3 of high school graduates never read another book for the rest of their lives.
42 percent of college graduates never read another book after college.
80 percent of U.S. families did not buy or read a book last year.
70 percent of U.S. adults have not been in a bookstore in the last five years.
57 percent of new books are not read to completion.

Posted in American Lit., Honors, Literature, Reading, Study

Where is the Joy of Reading?

Anonymous — Mon, 24 Mar 2008 16:22:01 GMT

According to a new study in a Washington Post article: At a time when more authors are writing more books for young people, fewer children are reading for pleasure. A recent study by the National Endowment for the Arts showed that the percentage of 13- to 17-year-olds who read daily for fun dropped from 31 percent [...]