Reading Response #1 by Burleson, Alyssa (MU-Student)

What Should We Be Reading?

afrh7g — 2025-09-11 00:02:58 UTC

As mentioned in Beers and Probst article many teachers don't want to change how they are teaching to keep up with the modern world. In Buehl Chapter 1 they say, "Certainly, there is a wide, and growing,

variety of print and electronic texts that can be accessed to learn more about the disciplines we teach." I think this phrase captures the choice that we have as English teachers to evolve our classroms to suit the literacies our students need to develop. Students in the workforce or in college mostly need to know how to read and access content digitally, so we should incorperate that into our classrooms.

Why Do We Teach English?

afrh7g — 2025-09-11 00:20:13 UTC

According to Beers and Probst writing is the common purpose of recording and transmitting language. That is obviously something that is important in all of our lives even more important today than in other ages since we mostly communicate over text or instagram. That is the way many students are practicing writing. Those fluencies are sometimes overlooked and I think that is in part to the Standards and Standardized testing that is such a big tool for us as teachers. Buehl's why for how we should be teaching English seems to be more about perfomrance and achievement in English, which is great, but makes it less about students and more about their performance in academics.

How often should we use Digital Text?

afrh7g — 2025-09-11 00:32:12 UTC

I've been wondering if we should always use digital text in order to teach students. The standardized test that Buehl references mostly are still on paper, but are transistioning to digital. In Beers and Probst article, they mention how some teachers would rather purchase the entire study set. I think that this is probably much more expensive for the school than aqquring ebooks. This also allows students to be able to take the text home and revisit it or catch up outside of class if they missed instead of having to wait for extrasa classtime. However, students also need to know how to utilize paper for the straggling systems and test that are on paper, or for those that switch back due to AI usage. I think that due to the points raised in both articles we should incorperate smaller articles on paper, and mostly due bigger text as Ebooks.

Helping Students Find Books That Help Them Engage.

afrh7g — 2025-09-11 00:53:41 UTC

Buehl writes that, "comprehension relies on a mental construction that assimilates what is on the page with what is already known." So, students learn better if they are working in a range that they already have information in. That is why I think we should utilize our ability as teacheres to show students that there is books that connect with what they are interested in. If students struggle with literature and books in the canon, find something that's in their niche and try to teach them those literary coincepts in a books that they are more open to because of their prior knowledge. I think as teachers we can also help students socialize by grouping students with similar interest and giving them a novel that appeals to that interest. Beers and Probst talk about how online rading has allowed reading to get more social, adn I think this is one way we can utilize these digital libraries we have in order to help students engage and learn.

Is the Purpose of Education Performance/Achievement?

afrh7g — 2025-09-12 17:16:51 UTC

While reading Buehl and our other readings, I think that there is a very big focus on making sure that students all achieve certain academic goals. A lot of learnings in my other classes pointed out that this approach as a main point for Teaching can lead to some negative outcomes such as students caring more about grades than learning the content. I think that academic goals are important, we want students to get good grades and get into college. However, I think that if teachers only focus on the accomplishing standards there might be less enjoyment and knowledge that sticks for students. I think it will take a conscious action to involve students in their own learning in order to overcome this. Some solutions could be like Buehl's recommendation that we use literacies students are familiar with in order to build on students' skills. Using movies or podcast in English can help students who struggle to read large books, still engage well with English concepts and standards. Another thing that has been pointed out is that it puts a negative narrative on students who are not achieving as much as we think they should, which could lead to students not having any faith in what they can accomplish. I'm not sure what the answer is, but I'm interested to see if later chapters deal with this idea.

English Evolves

afrh7g — 2025-09-12 17:23:40 UTC

I think that we are going past eBooks like how Beers and Probst talked about. English Classrooms use Taylor Swift songs, movies, legal podcast, and music videos to teach English Concepts. Songs can be taught as an introduction into poetry terms such as lines, symbolism, and motifs. The technology we have at our fingertips can help us reach out to students to meet them where they are and bring them into the standards that we need to be getting them to according to Buehl.