A Balanced Reading Diet and Reading Techniques

Chapters 4 and 5 of Daniels and Zemelman talk about two major aspects of assigning reading.  The first is that students learn best when they have a varied "reading diet," meaning their reading assignments aren't all text book readings but "real" books and articles are included.  The stress here is on a multi-genred approach.  The argument against this idea is time constraints, but Daniels and Zemelman argue in favor of student's deep understanding of a concept rather than a brief glossing over of many different topics.  One thing that surprised me was the suggestion to use non-fiction works outside of English class.  For example, they suggest to use non-fiction works to set the scene and peak interest in students studying history. This really got me thinking about how I could do this, and how it could benefit my students.  I then remembered a series of books I used to read when I was little, around the age of 10. They were called "Dear America" books, and each book is written like a diary of a young person. While fictional, they are based on historical research and seek to portray things like living conditions and major events, and they are written in the style of a primary source.  The end of each book contains pictures and examples of primary sources, and they are all pretty short.  I wonder if any students would benefit from reading these fictional first-person accounts, especially if they struggle with reading textbooks or find history boring.

Another concept was letting students have some choice in the books they read.  Daniels and Zemelman argue that lifelong readers decide what they want to read, therefore, "in every subject area, some reading materials should be chosen by kids for themselves, selections that reflect their own view of the topic, their own connections, and interests" (56). I feel like student choice has long been the domain of English class, but I don't see why history teachers can't also allow some student choice.  One way to go about this is to have a classroom library full of relevant reading material.  Students can choose what they want to read from here and know that it is relevant to history.  Students can also, with some guidance, choose a book outside of the classroom library.  Students are more apt to digest and enjoy a material that they choose, and by being able to digest and enjoy the material more, they will also be able to learn a lot.

The second aspect of assigning reading is to teach students reading strategies.  One strategy stuck out to me as particularly helpful in assigning reading for history: the "Bookmark" strategy, where students create a bookmark to mark their place in a book, and to also write notes directly on their bookmarks as they read.  After they read, they will have notes to look back on to study with.  For example, I could ask my history students to write down examples of technology in the book A World Lit Only By Fire as they read. This will help direct their focus and know what to look for in the text.  This reading strategy falls in line with our UbD reading, because I would be identifying the desired outcome (what was technology like in the middle ages?) before students even start reading.  If I didn't identify this desired outcome, students would most likely have just skimmed through the book, and not have been able to answer the question "what was technology like in the middle ages?" as thoroughly.