Learning Blog 6

I really enjoyed and learned a lot from Chapter 6 in our book, Reading to Learn in the Content Areas, and how the authors discussed incorporating other types of resources into the classroom instead of or in addition to the traditional textbooks used in schools now. I was really excited that the authors saw this as an important topic to be included in this book, which is mainly geared toward future teachers, because I feel strongly that as future teachers we need to diversify our resources in the classroom and incorporate diverse text forms as much as possible. The chapter discussed different multi-modal methods that can be used in the classrooms today. It showed the reader the importance of the use of technology in their classrooms to challenge students to become educated citizens in the 21^st century. The learning blogs we do for this class is a great example of this. As students we are engaged in the realm of technology that will give us as future teachers, a knowledge of and desire to integrate it into our curriculum as much as possible to help our future students succeed in the 21st century.

I liked how the chapter talks about why textbooks cannot stand alone. All textbooks have limitations. The strength of a textbook can provide one source of great information and over viewing of information of topics, but the inability to provide the depth of information on a topic or concept that is truly needed in terms of reading comprehension.  It is hard to draw a line when it comes to textbooks because educators say they do not go in depth enough, but complain that they can sometimes be too long or too difficult for the students to use.  If used as an overview source and supplemented with quality outside sources textbooks can be a great asset. A great way to supplement text books is through the use of trade books, or books that are considered to be in general use that the students can get from a library or book store.  They are useful when students are starting to write research papers, or reading stories on certain topics and subjects, because textbooks only give an overview of different topics.

I really liked the Literature circles strategy mentioned in the chapter. The literature circles are highly interactive, which I think is one of the best ways for students to learn, and are appropriate for a wide range of topics and concepts. As a future teacher I could definitely see myself using this in my future classroom along with some of the other strategies mentioned in the chapter.

Overall I liked this chapter because it was a very student-centered chapter. It encouraged me as future teacher to step outside my comfort zone the same as I would ask my students to as they read, spend time looking into the textbooks and clarify any problems that my student are having with any part of it, and encourage my students to be critical learners of what and how they read no matter what the content area was. It also has made me more aware of the importance of going beyond the textbook and traditional instruction models in the classroom and made me aware of how textbooks can no longer stand alone and need to be supplemented with additional resources and text.