As a political science content, it makes me sad to know that students graduating high school are unaware of who the sitting Vice President is and who al-Qaeda is. It is slightly ridiculous that the students who are old enough to vote (some who may have voted in the past election) cannot even say who they voted for. I remember asking my students (10th grade, so not quite old enough to vote) who the current Vice President was, because most of these students would actively talk about President Obama and wear t-shirts, or book bags with Obama on them. I wanted to know if they knew who his running mate was. None of them could answer me...Believe it or not, I was not surprised.
I thought that Gallagher brought up a good point that students coming from different backgrounds bring different experiences to reading. When he talked about the students from Wyoming and compared them to the students he taught in California their differences in upbringing affected what they knew about a word. Students prior knowledge on a subject truly does impact how they read something, I just was not aware of how much until I read this chapter.
I also found the statistics about adolescents reading for fun or just reading in general alarming. I agree that this generation of students prefer more instant gratification and would therefore prefer to read more "short" articles. However, I do not believe that schools and educators should be forced to take novels out of their classrooms. Reading and analyzing in depth novels are important and can be fun if implemented correctly.
As far as using reading in my content, I really like his idea of the article of the week. I believe that it is important for students to be aware of the world around them and know what they are going to be thrown into and responsible for. I mean, if they are clueless about who the VP is and what Congress does, then they've got a long way to go!
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I also find it very disturbing that students in High School do not know culturally important names like al-Qaeda and who the Vice President is. I agree with Gallagher that, as a society, wer are focusing way too much on passing these tests and hardly at all building our students to becoming meaningful citizens that can contribute to society. What is the benefit of trying to teach our students to pass these tests if they leave school and know nothig abou their own culture. I also find the article of the week idea very meaningful. I think that if we cn offer our students some cultural context for what they are learnging, they will be better off in the long run.
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