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I am joining Elisabeth from The Dirigible Plum in writing a Haiku-A-Day during the month of December.
Haiku-A-Day December Challenge #11: Break the Fake
Each of my high school classes begins with at least ten minutes of daily independent reading. Many of my sophomores are currently reading To Kill A Mockingbird as a requirement for their English Language Arts class. Although I encourage students to read a book that they like and want to read, I allow students to read books assigned from another class.
Yesterday, in between conferring with students in one of my literacy support class hours, I observed one of my students pretending to read To Kill a Mockingbird.
Yup, fake reading.
It is December and even after all of the book talks, conferring, and sincere conversations about the purpose of reading, fake reading still happens. This used to bother me a lot, but it just reminds me to not give up on my students.
Read about fake reading in my double Haiku below:
She giggles. Page turn
in To Kill A Mockingbird.
Book tilt. Pretend read.
Phone concealed inside
novel. Body shifts when I
walk by...break the fake.
HA!
ReplyDeleteClever!
ReplyDeletei never heard of fake reading! I will have to ask my daughter the librarian whether she's ever seen it. Thanks for tuning me into this phenom.
ReplyDeleteFake reading has probably been around since books were assigned to kids!
DeleteFake reading! I wonder if I've been overlooking that phenomenon in my classroom...
ReplyDeleteI am sure that we all have it in one form or another.
DeleteTen minutes of daily reading time is a contract with the students to READ, not pretend to read. I say it's ok to address the whole class so as not to "out" the student just yet, and tell them they need the benefits of free reading more than they need phone time which will not make them smarter. Then, if need be, "OUT THE STUDENT" and come up with an appropriate demerit. Fake reading is as old as the hills, by the way!
ReplyDeleteI fake-read my way through second grade, which helps me spot fake readers with eagle-eye precision (kind of like you did today). Argh! Yes, break the fake!
ReplyDeleteI did a lot of fake reading growing up too...
DeleteLife's too short for fake reading. I think I read that on a bumper sticker or T-shirt somewhere... ;)
ReplyDeleteLove that! I need that in my classroom!
DeleteI wish teachers would stop creating the conditions for fake reading. We really can stop this! I'm with Brian: life is too short for that nonsense. TKAM is a wonderful book.... but I can't imagine trying to drag a class of sophomores through it.
ReplyDeleteMost of our sophomore teachers use TKAM... I love this book too, but I have had a lot of students who don't really read it.
Delete