I Read it, But I Don’t Get It Book Review

            I felt this book should be called I read it, but I don’t care about it. To me, that seems to be the bigger issue. I agree with Tovani that there are some readers who are comprehending and losing meaning, even I do that. The biggest problem I have faced though, is lack of interest. Last week my students wanted to talk about Ebola all class hour and that didn’t tie in really well to The Things They Carried. We read for a while, but we ended up talking about Ebola, it was inevitable. This begs the question: what can I do to make class as interesting as Ebola?

            Initially I didn’t think it was possible, but my master teacher has met Tovani and discussed with me what she has said. We discussed how Tovani wants EVERTHING connected to modern events and society. Sheila, my master teacher, even thought she went a little overboard with how much she wanted to connect text with modern events. We talked for a while and decided we had better give it a try. The next day as we discussed Thoreau with our 11^th graders, the discussion turned to dreams, Russia, George Orwell, and several other things. I discussed right along with them, but near the end I asked simply, “What would Thoreau say?” To my delight, the class erupted with opinions on what Thoreau would say about selfies and war and modern news. The students showed a high level of understanding ank knowledge of the text. For future readings I thing we will continue to let our discussions sway and let the class continue to make connections to any text or event they want.

            My seniors were just assigned a connection project for “The Things They Carried” I expressly told them that it was totally in their control and I had no say in what they choose. I hope we get the same reaction and connection with the seniors than I did with the juniors.