Tompkins Chapter 7

This chapter reminded me about a lot of the things we are talking about in CEP301, particularly about how a balanced language arts program is so important. I feel like good teachers are going to try to pull from many different kinds of activities and that this, coupled with an awareness of what a balanced program, will make implementing a balanced program not very difficult. I felt like the chapter hinted that going beyond a textbook and worksheets will get you halfway there. I like the strategies they talked about in the book and many of the activities to teach those strategies, but I think I wouldn't spend as much time as the teacher in the chapter did on teaching these strategies. I agree that good readers use multiple strategies at one time, but I don't think that every good reader uses every comprehension strategy, and especially in a classroom, teaching comprehension strategies means that there are going to be kids who aren't getting anything out of the lesson because they won't use the comprehension strategy. Having a few stragglers every class might be distracting. Kids should still know what the strategies are, but perhaps spending more time emphasizing using multiple strategies rather than on each particular strategy would make the most of every student's time. Another thing I liked about this chapter was the description of comprehension as being a series of behaviors. We cannot teach students how to understand, we can only teach strategies and behaviors that will hopefully lead to understanding. This puts a lot of pressure off of students to think about comprehension in this way. Finally, I liked the idea of a grand conversation. I think conducting a discussion in this way will encourage participation and get kids thinking about what others in the class are thinking.