I'm down with ZPD--yeah you know me! by Susan Bistrican

I didn’t have the same qualms with this chapter as everyone else did. Gallagher’s ideas are highly accessible and well-organized. Some of his ideas may be obvious and if you think so, that’s probably because you’re a good teacher and/or have taught for awhile. I think Gallagher makes a fine argument when discussing the need for less choppy reading experiences. Gallagher isn’t trying to completely get rid stopping for analysis and checking for understanding; he is just making the case for more uninterrupted reading time. This will allow students the opportunity to become interested in what they are reading to ultimately lead to the intrinsic motivation to read. I think this produces life-long literate students: those who are able to transfer literacy skills to their daily lives in order to thrive in the real world. This should be the the primary goal of English teachers. 

The most useful portions of this chapter are the instructional strategies and activities he suggests and cites from others. Gradual release of responsibility (scaffolding) is a huge part of my educational philosophy so I am on-board with Carol Jago’s recommendation of the guided tour and the budget tour. I also agree with providing students with supplementary texts to accompany the novels they are reading, as Gallagher did with 1984. The “topic flood” is also a great idea as it provides students with a mixed sample of information on an array of current social and political issues. I especially like the idea of the teacher collecting the articles for the students because it serves as an early model of how to conduct research—yet another instance of scaffolding.

The “one pager” got me thinking the most; I think it is a perfect for accountability in recreational reading. It isn’t a daunting task and it is built in a way that preserves student agency because it allows them to respond to the book without heavily analyzing it based on the teacher’s prescribed prompts. Students are able to retain ownership of their self-selected books long after they finish reading it because they are responding to it on their own accord. I would extend the one pager to a blog or a wiki that the class gradually builds as the semester/year progresses. I think I would also have the students find songs, films, and images that relate to their self-selected novels to include in their one pager in order to get them thinking about comparison. This would serve as a front-loading activity in the future when students have to write more academic comparison and contrast papers.

This chapter was very helpful to me when contemplating reading instruction in my future classroom. Everything Gallagher proposes is feasible, even in a stifled test-prep setting. In my opinion, every set of ideas—academic reading v. high interest reading; literary analysis v. reader response—is well-balanced. I kind of feel awkward for not having any criticism to offer, but I’m pretty much behind everything in this chapter. Huh.