Tovani Chapter 5

In chapter 5, Tovani discuss responses to the question "Why am I reading this?" He recommends that teachers, when choosing a curriculum, do not expect students to cover and analize huge amounts of information on the first read. He sympathizes with history teachers, because they have such a magnitude of information to cover in a limited amount of time. Tovani implies that perhaps curricula should require less information be covered at a time, so that teachers will not feel obligated to require students to "read" so much information, without actually understanding what they read. The book discusses different mental voices that students may encounter while reading material. The first is a narrative sort of voice, where the student does not truly engage, they simply recite the text in their head. The second is a more discussion-oriented type of voice, in which the student has the opportunity to engage, but must avoid the temptation to go into a distracted mindset. The author claims that students should be the ones responsible for setting the curriculum, so that they can move at their own ace and truly gain mastery of the presented material. Tovani's recommendations for ways to keep students on top of curriculum material, and away from their reciting mental voice, involve being selective about what you present for your students to read, and provide students with a projected way in which you will manipulate the information that they gain from the reading. I had the honor of studying under a teacher in high school in honors English who truly understood the concept of selective reading assignments. Because of her choices of pieces that were unusual but interesting to the students, we were all able to do more than just pass her class, but attend it with enjoyment.