How can we possibly do both?

      While reading Gallagher’s Deeper Reading I found myself having an engaging conversation with the work. I have heard of this idea of having a conversation with a work, but here it finally felt like I participated in a written conversation. This conversation was triggered by my ongoing thoughts about the notion that we, as teacher candidates, are to strive to teach multiculturalism and diverse texts that aid student learning, yet there is also this goal, or aspect, to teaching that pushes the successes of choosing content that students can connect their prior knowledge too.

      On page 28 Gallagher presents an example where he explains the difficulty a teacher experienced teaching A Separate Peace to her students. He says, “though the book resonated strongly with the teacher, it did not connect at all to the past experiences of her students. Its unfamiliarity created a hurdle that the students were unable to get over. The setting and the characters were too foreign for them to buy into the book” (p.28). It is in my margin here that I jotted down the comment, “curious because ‘we’ are to introduce multiculturalism yet that content might not connect to their prior knowledge.” To my delight this interaction in my text became a conversation because Gallagher then proceeded to explain that teachers can include more “front loading” of the text so that students can get past the unfamiliarity and begin seeing universal truths (p.28). What a relief to have Gallagher address my conflicting ideas that shout, “we should really teach students about experiences and people around the world as this would support new knowledge and multiculturalism vs. wait a second we need to keep students attention by having them read what they can relate too and care about. How can we possible to both?”

      Gallagher’s argues that getting past the works unfamiliarity is the key to understanding and enjoying the work. Framing a text becomes an essential step for teachers to take when integrating potentially unfamiliar texts, as it will determine student’s level of motivation (p.37). As Gallagher proceeds to explain and map out methods to frame texts I begin to relax and think, “I can do this.”

       Thinking back to my own experience in grade 12 English I remember being in a predominantly white working/middle-class class were we studied Khaled Hosseini’s The Kite Runner. I remember thoroughly enjoying this novel and I remember there being a fairly high appreciation from most students towards this novel in which was unfamiliar to us. Here is a novel where the main character is a boy living in Afghanistan where elements from Afghanistan’s monarchy, the soviet invasion, and the Taliban regime come into play. So what did my teacher do to frame the text? Well I know my memory is not entirely clear, but I do remember learning about the Taliban regime in that class before we read the text. I do believe that because our teacher framed the text and incorporated parallel learning activities that we were able to appreciate this text for its universal and unique messages that we might never had understood on our own.

October 2, 2012