Response to Nancie Atwell’s The Reading Zone Chapter 7

Like Nancie Atwell, I enjoy more of a casual, at home feel in the classroom. It pains me every day to look at the sterile desks that take up so much unnecessary space in my classroom. I would much rather have big, comfy chairs, dark wood round tables, and of course, bean bags, blankets, and pillows. The right setting creates an environment that envelope those inside and draws them in. Poetry aside, while classroom setting can seem superficial, it is important to me. Maybe that’s because I’m a visual learner and am stimulated that way. Even if I love the food at a restaurant, I will avoid eating there if the atmosphere is not warm and inviting. In my years of teaching, I have observed students, polled them, and played around a lot with classroom settings. In doing that, I put to rest my fear that I was “decorating” the classroom to my liking, not my students’. Students seem to prefer and excel in classroom settings that provide a warm, home-like setting. Of course, we work with what we have available to make the best learning environment; money, space, and practicality sometimes interferes.
When reading about Atwell’s letter essays, it reminded me of all the great reflecting, writing, and sharing that takes place in our classroom with a novel we just finished up. While we enjoy reading our personal choice books, it has been an invaluable experience traveling through a book together. Students have encouraged, shared, held each other accountable, and felt a sense of “team” reading this book as a family. It has opened up great opportunities (some accidental) for constructive debate on characters and the conflict(s) in the book; because they all read it, they had common ground. While reading this book, we took many opportunities to incorporate writing as a literary tool. It’s really helped to bridge the gap students sometimes feel between content areas.
Lastly, reading about checking students and knowing your readers, it brought to mind the status checks I do with my students in the classroom. Status checks take many forms in the classroom, one of which resembles Atwell’s roaming method. While it has served as a nice way for me to keep up with how students are doing, one thing has concerned me. When I’m checking student status (with 28 kiddos) or conferencing while students are reading, or in the zone, I am not reading. I think it’s important that they see me reading too, practicing what I preach. Just a thought, I haven’t yet figured out how to conquer that yet.