Reading Responses

We've recently started focusing on reading responses in all of my classes. A question I am frequently asked is, "Mr. Leckrone, why do we have to do this? How does this help us?" This is often connected to the belief that the book (or the method) has no relationship to the student's actual life and, therefor, cannot possibly teach the student anything.

The purpose of reading responses is to get students into the habit of thinking about anything and everything they read. Some students, of course, do this already; many students, however, do not.

According to Wolfgang Iser, "The significance of the work...does not lie in the meaning sealed within the text, but in the fact that the meaning brings out what had been previously sealed within us....Through gestalt-forming, we actually participate in the text, and this means that we are caught up in the very thing we are producing. This is why we often have the impression, as we read, that we are living another life." (Iser, The Act of Reading, pp. 157, 132)

In other words, while texts may have meaning in and of themselves, the more profound meaning is the one that is created when the reader actively considers what the text could possibly mean in relation to his or her own knowledge, life and context.

A great deal of information is available on this subject, from wikipedia pages to individual school and teacher web sites. I found several sites particularly useful when investigating this technique:

http://www.vcu.edu/engweb/home/theory.html
http://www.centralischool.ca/~bestpractice/response/index.html
http://www.teachersnetwork.org/ntol/howto/adjust/improvereading.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reader-response_criticism

The methods I am currently using for reading responses are very simple- low-tech, if you will. Students read from their text and, as they read, they write down sections of the text that they have questions about or that they find interesting. Ideally, students could use sticky notes to mark the place in their text, thus limiting the interruption of their reading processes. After marking the places, they go back and write a single sentence about each section they've marked. Responses should demonstrate a variety of different kinds of thinking- musing, prediction, analysis, comparison.

Parent-Teacher Conferences

Once again I would like to strongly encourage any and all parents to send me a quick email- even if it's just to make sure the links work- through the Telesis website. In order to do this, follow these simple (I hope) directions:

1. Go to http://www.telesis-academy.org/

2. Hover your mouse over the menu that reads "About Telesis"- this should bring up a list of options.

3. Select the link that says "Contact Us"

4. Click on my name on the page that comes up (I'm the fifteenth name from the top.)

Thank you for your support- this will allow me to send you up to date information regarding assignments and potential problems so you don't get blindsided.

Descriptive Writing

Students are working on descriptive papers in all of Mr. Leckrone's English classes. What characterizes descriptive writing, you ask? Simply put, it is used to describe a person, place or thing in vivid detail.

From The Writing Site.org (www.thewritingsite.org):

Goal: Descriptive writing vividly portrays a person, place, or thing in such a way that the reader can visualize the topic and enter into the writer’s experience.

Uses: Descriptive writing appears almost everywhere and is often included in other genre, such as in a descriptive introduction of a character in a narrative.

Characteristics:

• elaborate use of sensory language
• rich, vivid, and lively detail
• figurative language such as simile, hyperbole, metaphor, symbolism and personification
• showing, rather than telling through the use of active verbs and precise modifiers

MyGradebook Login

Students and parents can log in to My Gradebook at any time to see how they are doing in Mr. Leckrone's English Classes. To do so, you need first to visit the website, then to type in the Classword and the student's password.

Website: http://www.mygradebook.com/

Classwords:
American Novels: TEL_NOVELS
Academy English: TEL_SR_ENG
Junior Academy English: TEL_JA7_ENG

Passwords will be provided to students during classtime and may be adjusted through the website.

Class Blogs

Where to go and how to get there...

American Novels: http://amnovels.blogspot.com/

Academy English: http://acadenglish.blogspot.com/

Junior-Academy English: http://jaenglish.blogspot.com/