Now that the "dust" has settled a little after Mrs. Lazan's visit, I am wondering what y'all thought about the read aloud exercise. How did your students react? A couple of students told me that they liked the reading part, but they didn't like the different teacher voices. They said they kept getting confused because one teacher would read one way, and the next would sound different. That one surprised me, but it made sense.
Do you think we should try this type of thing again? Suggestions for improvement?
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Once again, my students didn't enjoy reading aloud in my class. They did make the comment that they enjoyed the read aloud more in other classes. A general comment when I finished reading was, " can we go to the gym now".
My 9th graders enjoyed hearing the novel read to them, but my 11th graders didn't. However, once again, I've got a class with only four girls; so the testerone level is very high. Half the class is even on the Rugby team. As such, they can't really enjoy anything or they won't be "cool." It's a shame, but what can you do?
I am not sure I would want to try this again. In PE, the kids really like the book but wanted to play the sport we were doing and were wishing it to be over. Many of the kids were quite disappointed in the guest speaker re-reading the book to us. The students wanted more beside the book and did not get it. I think it would have been better to have spaced out the pages a little better so 4th block did not feel like we were reading so many pages compared to 1st block.
There were mixed opinions from my students on the read aloud. I was disappointed when I found out that not all the teachers had been reading consistently which, of course, hinted to the students that the book that was not importatnt enough to read. Because of this, the teachers who did keep up with the readings faced complaints from their students...."Do we have do read this? We didn't read it in my last class." Too bad.
All in all, I thought the book would be a good book for a history class because it was mostly historical accounts instead of a memoir which is what the kids (and myself) expected. I was disappointed that there was no emotional connection between Lazan and the book. Because of this dense compilation of dates and places, the tenth minute of the read aloud became like a ticking time bomb for sighs and shifts. Even so, I figured the visit from Mrs. Lazan would be a treat for the students beause they would get to see, hear, and possibly meet the person from the book. Unfortunately, I got responses like, "Why is she coming?" and "Why would we want to hear here?" In the end, the students did enjoy hearing Mrs. Lazan tell her story. I think they enjoyed it more than they would admit but it was said that they could have done without the read aloud and just heard the speaker. In my opinion, this experience would have been more successful had it been a short novel where the speaker wouldn't retell the book ver batim.
Some of my students enjoyed the read alouds, but others did not. Part of the problem is that the segments were too long. If we were to do anything like this in the future we need to begin further in advance and break it up more. I think that brief five minute read alouds would be better than the ten or fifteen minute read alouds that we did.
In addition, my students also commented that they would have enjoyed Mrs. Lazan's presentation more if she had not basically read the book to us again.
It is hard to get students to sit still in gym class for a read aloud and this was no exception. My students kept asking when can we start playing badmitton,basketball,ect
Concerning the issue of the presentation and book being virtually the same...my students also commented on the similarity and said they would have enjoyed the presentation more if it had deviated from the book. I used the opportunity to get them thinking about which is the "original" source. Our conclusion was that Lazan has been presenting her speech for quite a while. Then Perl came across the presentation and thought about how great it would be to capture (or capitalize on?) the presentation by putting it in book form. I am pretty certain that the presentation came first, then the book stemmed from it. Yes, the presentation would have been more interesting if we had not read the historical text first. However, I put the "blame" for the close similarity between the two on Perl's shoulders, not Lazan's, because Perl was primarily responsible for cobbling/editing the book.
My students lost a lot of time in chemistry and marine science. After Ms Lazan spoke and basically reviewed the book, I really wished that instead of reading this book outloud I think that the classes would have benefited more from learning about some of the scientist that were persecuted during WWII or the science that was advanced because of research done during this time. I did not think reading like this was the purpose of this course. I would more enjoy reading material that is more relevant to the courses that I teach.
My AP Economics class really enjoyed reading the book. On the other hand, some of my Driver Education students thought it was boring.
Oooh, such controversy and discussion...Let's enjoy this for a moment. Playing devil's advocate, is it right to tell a science teacher to read a historical novel about the Holocaust? Does not reading the novel send the message to students that the book is a waste of time because "my other teacher didn't read it, why should we?" It's a fine line with no "right" answer. No, the novel didn't relate to science class at all. Having heard the presentation; yes, reading the novel was a bit of a waste of time. Who could know this, though? The kids would have been fine just hearing her speak about it. However, there is no novel out there that applies to all subjects--at least that I know of. I understand the frustration of other teachers. Next year, let's try to find a speaker to present to the student body that isn't history or english related. Then, we could read that person's book to the students. It's fair, and the students need to hear speakers because it brings the topic to life.
No one is pointing fingers because we all know the pressures we are under. Kids in P.E. are excited about playing sports. They don't expect to be read a book. They are going to respond better in my English class because we read all the time. Science teachers, math, and history teachers have a lot of ground to cover, especially the ones with EOCEP. Let's look at this as an experiment and see what can be improved upon for next time. Any thoughts?
My AP Economics class really enjoyed reading the book. On the other hand, some of the students in my Driver Education class thought it was boring. I think it's the maturity level.
My students really enjoyed the book. They didn't have a lot to say about the presentation. I enjoyed having the chance to review this period in history with my government students. Most of them did too. Before I read every period, I would have someone review what the last segment was on with the class because they may have had a sub. in the previous class and missed out on a chapter. I was impressed with how close attention they would pay to the details. These were all senior essential students.
I enjoyed the speaker and the students did as well. I hope that we can contiune to bring authors to our stage to bring life to the books the students are reading.
The students were most impressed that the author signed their books. She used their name and they could not believe it. One of the students made a comment, "When the author passes away, this book is going to be worth alot of money".
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