Wilhelm, Chapter 1

Wilhelm, Chapter 1

The first thing that I thought of when reading this chapter, was my pre-internship. Most students absolutely hated to read. I just could not understand where these kids learned to loathe literature so much, but then I went back and through of my worst English teacher. After I did this, it all made sense. New Criticism, is drilled into students head from the beginning of their literature careers. This theory, although a very good theory to know, it is not the only thing students needs to focus on when dealing with reading literature. Students need to know that they can interpret literature any way they want. There is not always one overall meaning to a piece of literature. Instead of the students interpreting the literature how they want then working from that, students are constantly trying to guess this certain meaning that the New Criticism theory points towards.
Rosenblatt summed up my view very well when she defined "valid reading". It must be two things, one being that the interpretation is not contradicted by any element of the text and that nothing is projected for which there is no verbal basis.
I was very interested in the bottom up approach that had the idea that "once students have understood and mastered, the sub skills of reading, they can apply these in context to decode letters and words." I agree with this approach to a point. I wouldn't want the students to believe that this is the final step of reading. Yes, this is a great way to learn how to decode, but I would want my students to make sure they know that decoding is NOT reading. Many students believe that since they can decode very well, they are very good readers. I hope to steer away from just mere decoding in my classroom.