"Real Rigor"

One of the reasons I really like Tovani’s book is because she is concise and gets right to the point she wants to talk about in each chapter. For this chapter titled “Real Rigor”, she emphasizes that every student in our class will have different reading abilities. Even though we must provide them a textbook that they will all read, we can ease the anxiety some of them will have and find other methods for them to understand the material we are studying and not fall behind.

I know all of us have been in a situation where the information we are reading, just doesn’t stick, but that doesn’t mean we will never understand it. To this Tovani suggests to “provide a choice of reading materials. Don’t limit students’ ability to think about your content because the textbook is too hard. Collect accessible text related to your field” (pg: 49). Sometimes all we need to do is find the right material that will teach our students in a way they comprehend. I know the textbook will be their primary resource for any given topic that will be dealt with in the class, but we shouldn’t limit them to only go by the book, this is the beauty about reading.

Tovani has explained that her methods haven’t always been seen as correct by teachers she has gone to help “…Some teachers might be confusing rigor with unrealistic expectations. Is it rigor to assign a tough textbook chapter when no one in the class can understand it?” (pg: 40). The author also states that there is a chance teachers can find “alternative texts” for cases where the comprehension of an assigned reading isn’t working for a student. Alternative texts serve the purpose of addressing very similar readings that the teacher can substitute for students that are struggling with a required text. An example presented in book was that of the case of a student that was struggling with Huckleberry Finn, Tovani suggested to the teacher to allow the student to read Finn, which she does confess that it “…doesn’t have the same literary genius as Mark Twain’s … but it does give students something that’s a bit easier to read, as well as a way to explore similar themes” (pg: 43).  Obviously, in order to give the correct alternative text, teachers must do some research to identify books like this that will serve the same purpose, which is not an all that easy task, but it surely can be worth it.

Giving them other resources, which she calls “accessible text” will deepen their comprehension, and often causes them to have more curiosity. Accessible text is simply a tool that we can use in any given situation, but its main purpose is that of helping students understand something that isn’t making a connection to them after reading it off the textbook or an assigned reading. Tovani states that “when I use text that is interesting, well written, and appropriately matched to the level of my students, my life as a teacher gets easier” (pg: 39), because of course the main purpose is to teach our students and teach them right, but having a class of 25 or more students will be difficult to make sure that we teach every student right. Why not look for an easier way to make it happen? Why not help them help us make it happen?