Wilhelm, Chapter 6

I found this chapter to be very helpful for new teachers or teachers just starting out at their first school. Wilhelm brought up some essential questions that all teachers should be aware of. The questions have changed my perseption of how a teacher should approach certain situations and how to be a reflective and researching professional. The question that brought up the most realizations for me was the question that asked, "What measures, in what situations, best capture the sorts of learning we hope for in schools?" I always imaged just planning a lesson and acting it out. In reality it seems like it is a little more complex then that. You really have to know what you want your students to learn before you approach the lesson. Teachers also need to be researchers as well, because they are dealing with a wide variety of students with different needs as learners. Teachers need to research all types of learning disabilities or issues students may have. Different methods and strategies need to be realized to stay current in the field and also learn from teachers who have taught students with a particular need.

Wilhelm, Chapter 5

Some people tend to be visual learners. This means that they learn best while their seeing and experiencing things by seeing. This is true with some readers as well. There are a couple of teaching strategies that Wilhelm describes in his chapter that work with visual learners. The symbolic story representation strategy involves using cut outs of characters , setting, ideas, and forces that are important to the story. The students are then suppose to act out and describe the action of the story using the cutouts. The cutouts,according to Wilhelm, bridge the gap between visualization and drama. This strategy can be revised and criticized in many different ways all would help the students gain different realizations about the story. Students could also picture a part in the story that they have a good visualization about. This helps the students use the authors words and their minds to portray a visual image in there heads. Another strategy that the book describes is using the collage to portray ideas presented in a novel or passage discussed in class. Particular words or pictures can portray meanings and would help visual learners piece together the story better. All these strategies would be helpful in my future classroom, and I believe that discussing multiple intelligences is a great idea when planing lessons in a literature based class.

Wilhem, Chapter Four

Wilhelm's points of view in this chapter I found to be very interesting as a future teacher of literature. His ideas on the reader as an actor was a great analogy. The reader uses their own voice like an actor to interpret the script or text. Using prior knowledge and their own experiences readers, without knowing it, relate to one or more characters in the story or text they are reading. The essential question of the text is how to gain apathetic readers an appreciation of the literature in class. The main focus in the literature world has been on how a reader interprets, evaluates, and reflects on what they read. However, little focus has been on what readers do beyond simple comprehension of the text. I think that Wilhelm is right on in the respect that simple comprehension is not the answer to gaining students attention and respect in reading. If students are going beyond comprehension and gaining a deeper knowledge in relating to characters and situations in the literature. Readers need to be active readers, this means that they are constantly searching for meaning in the writings. Students who are actively engaged in their reading and applying the reading to their lives are actually learning. "Less proficient and less engaged readers must learn to think differently about the reading act and learn how to participate in the experience of literature and construction of literary meaning. By modeling expert reading strategies these students might have a better chance of success.