Going Below The Surface

            After reading Appleman’s text I realized the main focus was stressing the importance of deeper reading.  I really found it interesting that Gallangher used watching baseball as a metaphor as a parallel to students learning to read.  When first learning to understand baseball you have to know the basic rules, but once you begin to watch a lot of games you can become an expert on reading the plays. This analogy really put all of the concepts into perspective for me especially after reading Appleman’s text as it illustrates how students can read something for a class, but it does not mean they actually got any meaning out of it other than what the teacher says in class.  Students need to be able to go beyond the surface and really understand the reading using their own perspectives.

Chapter two of “Critical Encounters” gives examples of poems and the responses of the students.  It displays how there is not only one reading or meaning of a work and it is essential that students are able to develop their own process to arrive at their own interpretation of a work. I personally did not have a strong grasp on interpreting reading until I went to university because then we were expected to be able to analyze it on our own.  It is important that we, as future teachers, make sure that we prepare our students and give them the skill sets needed to pursue further education. Students, myself included, are usually not very comfortable with reading poetry, so it is important that I make it as easy as possible for them to gain the skills needed to comprehend the meaning(s) on their own. 

Some questions that arose during the readings are what are some of the ways we, as teacher candidates, can present the skills that are needed for students to be able to comprehend difficult readings? What are some of the ways we can use scaffolding for struggling student learners?  How are some ways that we can make reading poetry easier and perhaps fun for the students?