In class today small groups started to present information about the historic tribes of Ohio that they had been learning about since Wednesday. As the groups shared students were keeping track and making a timeline of when the different tribes arrived in Ohio.
When we were done listening to half of the groups share, I showed the class a map of North America from the 1700's and a list from a General Store in Ft. Wayne Indiana from the early 1800's. While we were looking at these two texts I started to think of all the different types of texts we had read in the last two and a half days.
We had read a commercial, a how to video, poems, a text book, a map, a list (that happened to be a primary source), our independent reading books, dictionaries, and the class is filled with small reading groups that are reading all kinds of books. I was happy to see such variety in such a small period of time.
One of the new shifts in education is introducing students to a variety of texts and making sure that there is an increased emphasis on nonfiction texts that students read. I think that this shift could have a huge impact on our students. I know that when I was in school during Language Arts time we only read stories. This was great if you liked stories, but I loved reading nonfiction. The lack of variety of texts that I was exposed to was startling.
Hopefully by exposing students to a variety of texts more and more students can find texts that they love. Also the exposure to multiple types of texts will better prepare the students for what they may read later in life. Now even though I am all for exposing students to new types of text, I do want to make sure that I keep exposing the class to quality literature. After all I am Language Arts Teacher and literature is an extremely important part of my life. I hope that by sharing some of my favorite authors and books that our students will develop a lifelong love of reading.
When I think about some of the books and authors that we have read together or aloud, the list is quite impressive. In read aloud we have read last years Newbery Medal winner, then we read Starry River of the Sky by Grace Lin. Grace Lin is an author who has won her fair share of awards. Our next read aloud book is going to be from Kate DiCamillo who just last week was named the National Ambassador for Young People's Literature.
In reading groups we have groups reading books by DiCamillo, Lin, Cynthia Lord, Beverly Cleary, and so many more amazing authors. And then there are all the authors we have read in poetry. This year we have read Frost, Hughes, Heard, Prelutsky, and Sandburg just to name a few.
I hope that by surrounding our students with all of this quality literature and also exposing them to all the different types of texts that exist in the world that our class will be filled with lifelong readers.
Hope you all have had a great week and will get some time to relax this weekend.
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