FROM
FAMINE
TO
FEAST:
ENRICHING
READING
INSTRUCTION
IN
SECONDARY
CLASSROOMS
Sara
L.
Crump
&
Karen
J.
Kindle,
Ed.D.
Reflective
teachers
have
moments
that
disrupt
their
teaching
equilibrium-‐those
moments
when
“business
as
usual”
is
challenged
and
which
result
in
thoughtful
consideration
about
one’s
practice.
For
me,
one
of
these
moments
happened
a
few
years
ago
during
a
class
discussion.
My
students,
high
school
juniors,
were
studying
Mark
Twain’s
Huckleberry
Finn
and
MT
Anderson’s
Feed
that
semester.
Frustrated
by
their
lack
of
engagement,
I
posed
a
question
for
the
class
to
consider,
never
anticipating
that
my
students’
responses
would
cause
me
to
grow
as
a
practitioner
and
transform
my
interactions
with
students
and
texts
in
the
classroom.
I
glanced
about
the
29
faces
and
said,
“Who
can
tell
me
why
the
discussions
of
Titus
and
his
motivations
in
Feed
are
so
animated
and
lively,
and
the
only
time
we
had
energy
like
that
during
Huckleberry
Finn
was
during
our
class
debate?”
For
an
uncomfortable
minute
or
two,
there
was
silence.
Then
Megan
(pseudonym)
bravely
said,
“Well,
we
like
Feed
because
it’s
about
teenagers
like
us.
I’m
pretty
sure
most
everyone
in
here
read
that
book
while
I’d
bet
no
one
finished
Huck
Finn
past
chapter
10.
I
know
that’s
where
I
stopped
reading.”
Megan
took
an
impromptu
survey
asking
who
had
finished
Huckleberry
Finn
in
its
entirety.
Out
of
29
students,
only
3
had
read
the
novel.
Needless
to
say,
this
was
not
what
I
was
expecting.
But
if
you
don’t
want
to
hear
the
answer,
you
shouldn’t
ask
the
question.
I
realized
my
practices
needed
to
change
immediately
and
drastically.
My
efforts
to
prepare
a
Sara
Crump,
a
public
educator
for
19
feast
of
meaningful
literary
experiences
were
falling
short
years,
teaches
10th,
11th
and
12th
and
my
students
were
starving
as
I
continued
to
“force-‐
grade
English
classes
at
Blue
Springs
feed”
the
classic
canon
using
traditional
methods.
High
School
in
Blue
Springs,
MO.
She
is
a
doctoral
student
at
the
Like
many
educators,
I
thought
that
I
was
doing
a
University
of
Missouri-‐Kansas
City
good
job
of
teaching
reading.
I
used
all
of
the
standard
where
she
teaches
methods
courses
methods:
graphic
organizers,
before-‐during-‐and-‐after
in
reading
and
English.
reading
strategies,
and
making
relevant
connections
to
the
curriculum.
Megan’s
comments
challenged
me
to
examine
my
practice
more
closely.
In
reality,
I
was
assigning
chapters
Karen
Kindle
is
an
assistant
professor
and
students
were
doing
a
great
job
faking
their
way
of
literacy
and
reading
education
at
through
literary
discussions
because
I
was
asking
loaded
the
University
of
Missouri-‐Kansas
questions
with
a
single
acceptable
answer
in
mind.
This
City.
Her
work
at
UMKC
builds
on
18
pattern
of
instruction
was
not
only
ineffectual;
it
was
years
of
experience
as
a
teacher
and
counter-‐productive
to
developing
critical
thinking
skills,
and
to
develop
a
reading
flow
(Csikszentmihalyi,
1991,
as
cited
in
reading
specialist
in
Texas
public
Guthrie
&
Wigfield,
2000)
wherein
students
are
highly
schools.
involved
in
the
reading
and
engaged
with
text,
becoming
independent
and
critical
thinkers.
32