"You Gotta BE the Book": Teaching Engaged and Reflective Reading with Adolescents / Edition 3

by Jeffrey D. Wilhelm

Overview

This award-winning book continues to resonate with teachers and inspire their teaching because it focuses on the joy of reading and how it can engage and even transform readers. In a time of next-generation standards that emphasize higher-order strategies, text complexity, and the reading of nonfiction, “You Gotta BE the Book” continues to help teachers meet new challenges, including those of increasing cultural diversity. At the core of Wilhelm’s foundational text is an in-depth account of what highly motivated adolescent readers actually do when they read, and how to help struggling readers take on those same stances and strategies. His work offers a robust model teachers can use to prepare students for the demands of disciplinary understanding and for literacy in the real world. The Third Edition includes new commentaries and tips for using visual techniques, drama and action strategies, think-aloud protocols, and symbolic story representation/reading manipulatives.

Book Features:

• A data-driven theory of literature and literary reading as engagement.
• A case for undertaking teacher research with students.
• An approach for using drama and visual art to support readers’ comprehension.
• Guidance for assisting students in the use of higher-order strategies of reading (and writing) as required by next-generation standards like the Common Core.
• Classroom interventions to help all students, especially reluctant ones, become successful readers.
• Online resources, including inquiry unit templates, tools for teaching with drama, and tips for using visual techniques.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	2900807757986
Publication date:	08/31/2016
Pages:	320
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 1.25(h) x 9.00(d)

About the Author

Jeffrey D. Wilhelm is an internationally known teacher, author, presenter, National Writing Project director, and distinguished professor of English Education at Boise State University. He is the coauthor of Teaching Literacy for Love and Wisdom: Being the Book and Being the Change and The Activist Learner: Inquiry, Literacy, and Service to Make Learning Matter.

Table of Contents

Foreword to the Third Edition Michael W. Smith xi

Preface to the Third Edition xiii

Acknowledgments xxvii

Introduction: Really Among Schoolchildren 1

The Reading Struggle 1

Personal Readings 4

Children's Hour 6

Compelling Questions 7

Tentative Answers 8

Setting the Task 10

Commentary: The Human and the Cultural 12

1 Moving Toward a Reader-Centered Classroom 22

The Bottom-Up Approach 23

Why Johnny Won't Read 24

There Is an Alternative 28

Getting Started 30

Building on Rosenblatt 33

Commentary: Be THAT Teacher 36

2 Looking at Student Reading 48

The Year Begins 49

What Makes Valid Reading? 50

Studying Student Response 51

Three Highly Engaged Readers: Cora, Joanne, and Ron 53

Why Read Literature? 62

Commentary: Looking Toward Tomorrow Instead of to Yesterday-The Power of Teacher Research 64

3 The Dimensions of the Reader's Response 81

Classroom Research Methods 81

The Dimensions 87

Surprises 90

Evocative Dimensions 92

Connective Dimensions 108

Reflective Dimensions 117

Epilogue: What We Learned Together About Reading 129

Commentary: Literary Theorists, Hear My Cry! 131

4 Using Drama to Extend the Reader 143

Why Drama? 145

The Students: Kevin, Marvin, and Libby 150

Before Drama 152

Dramatic Happenings 156

The Moves They Made 159

Reading as Pleasure: "You Have to Live the Story" 167

Epilogue: The Potential of Drama 169

Commentary: Motivation, Materials, and Methods 171

5 Reading Is Seeing 183

Still Struggling: Tommy, Walter, and Kae 184

Seeing the Visual Possibility 187

The Visualization Project: Art in the Classroom 191

The Art of Reading 195

Moving Toward a Reflective Response: "The Book Said All That" 206

Epilogue: Opening Doors with Art 209

Commentary: Seeing the Substantive Possibilities 214

6 Expanding Concepts of Reading, Response, and Literature 224

Reading as Engagement 225

Alternate Texts as Literature 226

Using Student Experiences: Art and Drama Activities 227

The Role of the Teacher 228

The Teacher as Researcher 232

Toward a Critical Literacy 233

Commentary: A More Humane and Democratic Classroom-For a More Humane and Democratic World! 238

Appendix A Questions and Activities for the Ten Dimensions of Reader Response 249

Appendix B Revolving Role Drama Lesson Plans for The Incredible Journey 262

References 268

Stories and Poems Cited in the Text 278

Index 280

About the Author 292

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

"This book points the way for us to understand how we can help our students enter a story world through drama, symbolic story representations, and the use of visual art and other non-traditional texts. It points the way for us to cast our students as experts and collaborators in the educational enterprise."
–From the Foreword by Michael W. Smith, associate dean, Temple University, College of Education

“You Gotta BE the Book" is one of the most important books for anyone interested in adolescents and reading. Simply put, it is a classic—timeless in its basic approach and yet full of relevant ideas and strategies for the era of Common Core in which we currently find ourselves. If you are a teacher, you gotta have 'You Gotta BE the Book!'”
—Deborah Appleman, professor, Carleton College, author of Critical Encounters in Secondary English, Third Edition

“Based on years of research, this edition provides extensive activities on how to engage reluctant readers. This book is essential reading for any literacy teacher.”
—Richard Beach, University of Minnesota

“Wilhelm's book is one of the essentials for a literacy educator's bookshelf, because it shows in detail how teachers can help readers really inhabit texts instead of remaining disconnected and distant from what they read. ‘You Gotta BE the Book’ offers a pathway beyond comprehension to real engagement.”
—Randy Bomer, The University of Texas at Austin

Editorial Reviews

"This important book remains on the must-read list for literacy teachers working with adolescent learners."

—CHOICE

"Exceptionally well written, organized and presented, this new and expanded third edition of "'You Gotta BE the Book'': Teaching Engaged and Reflective Reading with Adolescents" is a fundamentally critical and important addition to college and university Teacher Education collections and supplemental studies lists."

—Midwest Book Review

"I hope this book is read and considered by all the stakeholders who can make a difference in education by following Wilhelm's lead of improving instruction to enhance students' lives."

—Journal of Adolescent and Adult Literacy

“New readers of ‘You Gotta BE The Book’ will find Wilhelm’s work around adolescent reader response to be powerful and informative. Familiar readers will find the opportunity to consider his work in new ways and the updates refreshing.”

—Teachers College Record

From the Publisher