Lit-Crit

I flipped through quite a few pages before I started to realize that I kept focusing in on the “Customized Instruction,” particularly for the “less proficient readers.” With each question and possible response I read for the less proficient reader, I began to get more and more frustrated. The questions the book suggests to ask less proficient readers to answer are very basic and cause very little thinking to take place. When it comes to Bloom’s Taxonomy, the questions are all at the very bottom level, knowledge. There is not critical thinking that is being asked to take place what-so-ever.

On page 487 of the ninth grade version of The Language of Literature, I found a customized instruction that went along with an excerpt from I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings. The instruction was for the teacher to ask the less proficient reader the following questions: “What are the ‘gifts’ that Mrs. Flowers gives Marguerite?” and “How does Marguerite react to these gifts?” Both of these questions ask for a very simple response, where the student could simply look in the text and answer straight from the text. Neither question inspires a thoughtful answer.

It frustrates me that people do not realize that by labeling students “less proficient” not only lowers their moral, but discourages them from trying to learn or putting forth any effort. When little is expected from you, you are going to show little in return. Also, the book does not do anything to try to encourage the less proficient readers to think critically. If a question can be answered by taking a sentence or two straight out of the text, then it is not a good question!

Actually, now that I think about it, every time I have ever had to read something out of a textbook and answer follow-up questions, I can remember taking direct sentences and copying them as my answer. All that does is cause a student to remember where they heard that same thing before and go back to that spot in the text. It certainly does not ask a student to go through their own thinking process to come up with an answer. I do not think that when I am a teacher I am going to want to make my student just answer the questions from the text, because they are not very reflective of learning and understanding. And the less proficient readers need to have more encouragement, and need to be answering the same things as everyone else, or else their learning will be inhibited.