Wednesday, June 30, 2010

A Reading Teacher's Thoughts

I don't often post things about teaching philosophy, and I probably still won't do it too often, but in keeping with yesterday's post...

The Rights of the Reader
By Daniel Pennac

1. The right to not read.
2. The right to skip pages.
3. The right to not finish.
4. The right to reread.
5. The right to read anything.
6. The right to escapism.
7. The right to read anywhere.
8. The right to browse.
9. The right to read out loud.
10. The right not to defend your tastes.
Source: Pennac, 2006.


According to Miller:

Book Review Criteria
• Quotes from the book
• Quotes from famous writers and reviewers
• Cliffhanger questions
• Personal reactions and opinions
• Awards the book and author have won
• Recommended reading age
• Other books by the same author
• Comparisons with other books

The following are my favorite reasons (by Jen Robinson) to read children's books, but I've linked to the entire list!
WHY YOU SHOULD READ CHILDREN’S BOOKS AS AN ADULT
By Jen Robinson

5. It clues you in on cultural references that you may have missed (both current and classical.)
9. It’s often inspirational – reading about heroes and bravery and loyalty makes you want to be a better person. And couldn’t we all do with some of that?
10. Did I mention that it’s fun?

Source: Jen Robinson’s Book Page, 2005.

4 comments:

  1. Dear Alyssa,

    I like your blog, and I'm glad that you found my reasons for reading children's books as an adult interesting. However, that list is from a post that is copyright protected, and I would appreciate you not copying it and posting it in its entirety. You're more than welcome to link to the list, and to quote one or two of the reasons. But I would prefer that you not copy and post my entire copyright-protected list (especially without any link to the original source material). Could you please remove this from your blog (or, as I said, just include an excerpt). I'm sorry for the trouble, but I am very protective of my material. Thanks very much!

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  2. P.S. The original source is here. I'm realizing that you must have seen this published in The Book Whisperer, which makes the lack of link make more sense... But I'd still prefer not to have the list included on someone else's blog, even though I did give Donalyn Miller permission to include it in her book.

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  3. Hi Jen,

    I've just edited it and linked it back to your blog!

    Let me know if it's okay this way or if you'd like me to take it off altogether. Sorry about that! I definitely gave you credit for it, but didn't realize it was copyrighted!

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  4. Thanks so much for understanding, Alyssa. That's perfect. And it made much more sense to me once I remembered that this was in the Book Whisperer. I really appreciate you changing it, and linking to the full list. I am glad that you liked it (and I LOVE the Book Whisperer). -- Jen

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