Reader Reflection

Over the years I have learned to come to enjoy reading more than I used to. When I was younger and in school I never enjoyed reading because I felt that it was forced upon me. I can remember especially in high school I never wanted to read because I was told I had to. Even if I did like the material I was never fully involved in it or engaged enough and always wanted to just finish the book to get it over with. I realize now that this was immature of me to act in this way as I was only hurting myself by not reading the material.

It is normal to not love everything you read in school, especially in older years like high school and college when a lot of it is based on text books and lengthy articles. I still find some books that I have to read now for school may not be exactly what interests me, but since I am older now I can appreciate reading more as I like to learn new things and want to further my education.

I enjoy reading biographies about others lives and find it more captivating when a book is a true story or based on a true story. Reading is something that is so important from the time you are young and all through your life. I think it is necessary to get children today to really appreciate reading and get them to realize that it is a skill they will need and should value for the rest of their lives. Instead of constantly reinforcing that you have to read this book, as a teacher I want to get my students to want to read the book and be able to discuss it with me. I really like the idea of casual book talk as we use in our Perspectives class as it seems to stem a lot of different points from people and gets a great discussion going among the class.

Creating community in a classroom is not an easy job as the Story Walking Trees has showed me. All students have different backgrounds, socioeconomic status's, beliefs, family values, learning styles, interests, hobbies, and personalities. The schools that Ralph Fletcher worked in were very diverse which made it more difficult sometimes to create a community in the classroom. I feel that in order to create a community among your classroom you need to keep a positive attitude and have faith in your students. A teacher should also not want students to be all the same and as they should embrace and learn from their differences. The one thing that Ralph Fletcher does in the book is that he is constantly trying to motivate his students by getting them excited about the writing process and letting them know they are free to write about what they want. In doing this, the class begins to form a common bond with one another by sharing their stories and learning they may even have similarities with each other. Ralph's students are enjoying this writing process and wanting to learn which is also creating a community in itself. The children begin to work together and from relationships by their writing and sharing of stories. If a teacher can get the class interested as a whole in a certain topic this is the first step in building a community among the classroom.