whole class reading

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Home : 2004 : December : 1

whole class reading
By Tracey

I suppose whether "whole close reading of an important novel" being blasphemy depends on how it's approached. There would have to be an awful lot of if's involved for it to work well. Think about it, the novel would have
to be easy enough for your lowest readers to understand, yet challenging enough for your highest readers to not be bored. That alone is a challenge for any book! Even if you had that, you would simply have different expectations of your students depending on where in the spectrum they fell. I have book discussions in my class, and if my lowest readers make a connection that the cat

in the book looks like their cat, I'm thrilled. If my highest readers made that same connection, I would be disappointed that they didn't delve deeper into the material.

I think that you would have to know going into the novel that you are going to expect different things from different students, and perhaps level assignments to go along with the book to reflect those expectations, but have the same grading guidelines for everyone to keep away from any fairness issues.