Langer's Response Based Approach to Reading Literature

By Anna Papst

This has been another fascinating reading with provoking, challenging, and compelling strategies for teachers to use in the classroom. I am finding more and more that I am printing off selections of the reading, highlighting and taking extensive notes, so I won’t forget the points that I have read and want to put into practice. The point that stood out to me the most is the goal. The goal was stated after the explanation of what was going to happen through the new instructional approaches. But I love how it states “The thought-provoking class is an environment”. It is saying that the classroom is striving to be up to par with this well defined, well thought out approach. It is about the attack at the goal that will make it a success. They are aiming right for it and then follow it up with practical steps that they are taking towards making the goal a reality. The point of using class time for students to explore possibilities really stood out to me because I just had a conversation with one of my colleagues about that very same topic. She said that she gives the instructions and then lets the kids do whatever they want to in class. She said that she is tired of not having them do their work, while she is babysitting them during the period. I think this is a direct example of what we just read. Students need to be challenged in class. There needs to be prompts, discussions and something for them to do at all time. The kids want to be challenged. It is not fair for them to use the class time for their own personal agendas. The teacher is greatly reducing their chance at being successful, because their hardly is any instruction going on after directions are given.

Keep students’ understandings at the center of focus – This is huge in the classroom. Always be looking for understanding and confusions. As long as they aren’t learning, then our job isn’t at its potential or nearly where it should be. We need to be concentrating our lectures and discussions with our students’ in mind at all times. Teachers do learn in the process, but the instruction time in the classroom allows for the light bulbs to go on and for that clarification process to occur.