Chapter Four: Sonny Williams

In chapter four of "Readicide", Kelly Gallagher discusses the importance of finding the "sweet spot" when teaching reading to students. It can be easily summed up by what I think is a pretty obivious statement: don't under or over teach your students, give them just the right amount of guidance. I believe this philosophy should apply to any lesson we teach, not just reading. Gallagher goes on to explain that "readicide" occurs from two common practices: giving the students a complex text to read in its entirety without guidance, under teaching, and stopping so frequently to teach the material that it becomes a chop-chop approach, over teaching. While I think the idea is a pretty much straight forward concept, I did appreciate the examples he gave for finding this “sweet spot”: What Good Readers Do Chart, pre reading activities, close activities etc.
I found it interesting, and somewhat refreshing, to see Gallagher make a case for the importance of reading the classics and break stride from the philosophy of Nancy Atwell who he references often throughout the text. Gallagher notes that there is value in the entire class reading the same title, that classics build a shared cultural literacy, and classics give students adequate practice in reading difficult texts, and when studied together “produces richer conversation and deeper thinking than occurs when the work is read individually or in small groups.” (Gallagher p 92) I think that in today’s educational circle, there is sometimes too much emphasis on moving away from the classics and using contemporary YA. However, as Atwell points out “schools too often engage them in a version of reading that is so limiting and demanding… that what they learn is to forgo pleasure reading and its satisfaction for four years ‘do Enghish’” (p 91) For me, finding the balance between classics, and contemporary free choice selections is another example of where we need to find the “sweet spot” for our instruction.
Finally, the part of the chapter that gave me that “a-ha” moment was in his discussion of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Gallagher states that “Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde prepares my students to understand that everything has two sides, and when they are able to recognize this they become much better equipped to read politicians, to read advertisements, to read ballot initiatives” (p. 99) I think this would make an excellent unit on information literacy, and I would love to teach a collaborative unit with either an English or social studies teacher using this theme.