Catching up from 2-26 (part II)

Learning with Trade Books

Reader Response   Chapter 11

Content Area Reading Text

 

My content area is science. I guess it never dawned on me that trade books could be used to enhance my curriculum. The school bought sets of text books are the only reading materials available within the classroom. I often find stories from National Geographic or NSTA and make classroom copies for student use. I’m not sure a three page article out of a magazine counts as a trade book as much as supplemental reading material.

 

I couldn’t agree more with the statement that textbooks are, for most teachers, essential classroom tools. I know they are for me. They provide the baseline of my lesson plans for a standards based outline and curriculum mapping. The drawback of textbooks is their inability to update with yearly advances in science. Sometimes, the textbooks are a bit outdated and tend to be a source of entertainment for the students with their antiquated technology references.

 

I believe it is the responsibility of the teacher to acquire supplemental materials to present within a lesson plan. Trade books allow alternate perspectives from the academically heavy textbooks. Fiction or nonfiction trade books will promote an alternate view of a topic with the hope that slight discrepancies will provoke healthy discussion.  Not only that but I believe that teenagers are expecting the “same old same old” every school year. They are expecting to get the same textbook in seventh grade that their older sibling had three years prior. It stands to reason that these same students will display a new found excitement when they are asked to read a nonfiction account on the creatures of the Galapagos Island while studying about Darwin’s theories in the school text book. Providing trade books shows a respect for their needs and desires. In some cases, differentiated instruction is required to grasp concepts in a lesson. The text books don’t always provide adequate alternatives to do this. Trade books, on the other hand, can be used due to their rich text and story lines as well as drawings, photographs, and charts that may not be easily understood through the usual text book format.

 I do have a question for the authors. On page 362 in Content Area Reading; Vacca, Vacca, and Mraz write,

“Of all the goals for literacy instruction, there is none more critical than creating students that read independently. Independent reading provides practice and pleasure and develops a passion for books. It affords students an opportunity to “get lost in a book” –to be so engaged in reading that one loses track of time, of place, of everything but the power of a text to transport and transform us.”

 

My question is, what about the students that don’t like to read? The ones that lose track of time, of place, of everything through a video game, sports, or just being outside in nature. Loosing track of time in a book is OK but not in the others?  I respect the need for literacy in students but I can also respect that not everyone likes to read and that needs to be OK too.

I guess it has to be the right book. Text books are standard issue in a classroom with little or no variety. Trade books on the other hand open up new avenues for inquiry based learning. Figure 11.2 on page 367 offers a short list of nonfiction trade books that could be used in science. While not strictly objective in content, I can see how using these books in a classroom would provide a much needed spark to some often mundane topics.

 

The greatest “take-away” I can boast from this chapter is to give it to the students. Early in the year, at the onset of the distribution of textbooks, I could see an assignment connecting to research and computer use. Pull some topics from the text book and have the students select trade books that could be utilized in the curriculum. Topics unite and students agree. They are then involved in their own education and hopefully more engaged due to