Reflecting on Chapter Two of Readicide by Kelly Gallagher

First of all, let me just say that I love Kelly Gallagher's writing style. It is so readable and engages my mind. I find myself nodding my head as if someone is sitting before me having this conversation with me. The description of being on the other side of the airplane while those on the right hand side of the plane got to experience an "amazing" view of the Grand Canyon is priceless. I have felt that same sense of wishing that I could see the view. We weren't over the Grand Canyon but I do recall being on the plane headed to Toronto and the pilot telling the passengers to look out and see the beautiful view of Niagara Falls as we passed over. Well, I did not have a chance of seeing out from where I was sitting on the aisle. I saw lots of clouds.
The illustration of the Bridge to Prison in the book is an excellent depiction of being in that same "blind" state. I did not know anything about the story of Senator Stephens from Alaska. Once I read what the background information was about, I understood. Word Poverty is a tough place to be and hard to get out of, in my opinion. If you have spent the first six years of your education absorbing vocabulary like a sponge then you are better prepared for middle and then high school. You have the foundation necessary to build upon with an advanced curriculum. However, if you have grown up in a home with little or no reading materials then you need access to materials to "catch up" as much as possible and you need INSPIRATION! Students often shut down when they realize they have a deficit in some area, especially middle school students. Middle school students can be super sensitive about their own inadequacies. In order to combat this, the techniques used to approach their vocabulary development needs to be exciting to them, something that they can feel successful with, and then they will be "hooked". The "endangered minds" of our youth in America is staggering to me. They are the ones that are going to be in the work force in the next decade. It is essential that they learn how to find information and read/comprehend that information before voting, operating machinery, or any other serious task. I can remember years and years of reading current events, recipes, magazine articles, and brain teasers. These items gave me a variety of types of reading to experience along with the fiction, non-fiction, and reference materials that the library provided. My teachers provided supplemental materials in their classrooms either at their own expense or the school's. My husband and I subscribe to various publications for ourselves and our children and rather than throwing them out or putting them into the recycling bin, we take them to our classrooms to enrich the reading lives of our students.
In my classroom, vocabulary is a big part of what I teach. Describing words for art, cultural awareness, and expressions are filled with vocabulary. We look at works of art and talk about who created it and where they lived. We discuss what life was like for the artist and how they did that particular technique. I use language arts references like nouns being a person, place, or thing and how we can use that same definition for the subject matter in a work of art. Spatial concept, geometry, and symmetry are vocabulary terms that cross over into math. I love it when they make the connection that art can incorporate all of the academic subjects and apply them into a new creation.