My project discusses the idea of whether or not basil textbooks should be used in a classroom. Several questions that I asked myself about this topic are:
1. How are students able to grasp the concepts of stories when there are only small pieces of the story in the textbook?
2. Would students rather read from a textbook or from novels and handouts?
3. Is teaching through these books a successful way of getting certain points across to students?
4. do these textbooks cover what students will actually need to know in their lives (good reading and writing skills)?
These questions a general view of what I have been thinking about for my project.
I have found several articles that will help my with their research project, including:
1. The Textbook: Aid or Hindrance to Modern Language Teaching
2.The Trouble With Textbooks: A View from the Profession
3. The Textbook Canon: Genre, Gender, and Race in US Literature
*I might also use the book "In The Middle" for this paper, as well.
I am interested in researching this topic, because I know how I felt about textbooks in school. They were so big and heavy to carry around all the time and the stories in them were not very interesting. I was someone who loved to read in school, but I hated reading from those books, because most of the time, the stories that we read were only short pieces to whole story. After we would finish reading, we would answer the questions at the back of the book and turn them in for homework. I didn't find this to be effective and helping me to learn how to write and analyze a piece of literature at all. I enjoyed reading novels and complete short stories, because I would actually know what was going on and I would be able to understand it better.
I know that there are other people who feel the same way, but I also know that there are people out there who defend teaching from textbooks. I am excited to see what I can find. Of coarse there is not definate right or wrong answer, but I'm curious to see if there is more of a pull to one side or the other. It will be interesting to see.
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Kayla,
ReplyDeleteFascinating questions. I'm curious what actual students might say or how they would respond to these questions. It might be interesting to see if you can poll a class on one of your observations. I too struggled with many of these questions as a new English teacher. It looks as if you have a strong start. You will likely need to narrow your questions a bit more, but this should come with ease after you engage in some more reading on the topic. Let me know if I can help you in any way.