Chapter Thirteen: Creating the Confidence to Respond

I really liked in this chapter how Beers made the text relevant to the students. Instead of providing worksheets or answer logs about what the text meant, or what it was supposed to mean, they let the student decide. By asking "What do YOU think..." instead of "What happened in the story that caused..." you are allowing the student to interpret the text the way that they perceived it. This is very important to me. I want the students to feel connected to the text in any way that they can. Like Chris Tovani's videos mentioned, you need to be a selfish reader. You need to take what you want or need from the text, and not what a test tells you to take. This is one good reason why varying the types of assessment you use after reading is important. If the student has to answer questions to a test that are basically just there to prove that they have read the book, then they probably are just going to memorize the character names and the plot. If you provide them with either a different form of assessment or with questions like Beers suggests, they can SHOW you that they read the text through their personal connections and answers. These questions that she included in the text are definitely something I will take with me when I teach.