Textbooks

toc =Textbooks=

Why We Use Textbooks
__Time__- it is time-consuming to create original curricula, and it is simpler to use the pre-packaged textbook curriculum to the already-overscheduled teachers.

__Money__-The amount of material contained in a textbook is cheaper in the mass-produced and printed form of the textbook than it would be for a teacher to compile a similar list of works seperately.

__Authority__- Textbooks have power, "the air of certainty and truth." Textbooks' apparent weight, both literal and figurative, is hard to resist when pitted against the authority of a lone teacher.

__Convenience__- Textbooks "define, codify, and organize. Textbooks are, essentially, one stop shopping." Textbooks put a whole lot of information in one place into someone's hands. It works really well for introductions, pictures, biographical blurbs, and reference materials. Certain parts of textbooks can be extremely beneficial, while other parts can be confusing or inaccurate. Sadly, however, you can't hide the bad information from students when you present them with the entire textbook.

__Control over Teachers__- "For some, textbooks represent a positive control over class content" and that loss of control to an individual teacher represents a loss of quality.

What Teachers Want From Textbooks
"For literature texts as a whole, we want information on implementing a reader-response classroom." This might include : Theory and research base Suggestions for handling large-group discussion Formation and management of small groups A variety of pre-reeading strategies Ways to use writing to teach literature Ways to use creative dramatices and oral performance Alternative forms of evaluation A portrait of a reader-response classroom Specific Information on Each Literary Selection : A specific application of a pre-reading strategy A stimulating group strategy Good, through-ptovoking questions Oral-performance opportunities Resources that would integrate the literary selections into a larger context.

Textbooks need to be better written. Textbooks will never make a best seller's list because they are dully written. They do not encourage students to read regardless of the subject.The purpose of textbooks is to inform, but they do not teach students a love of reading. Students learn to write based on what they read, and teachers to assign better written articles and materials.

Why?
Above and beyond any problems a teacher may or may not have with textbooks in general or the specific textbook his or her district uses, there is more need to supplement than any shortcoming of textbooks, because "We cannot anticipate which work of literature will catch fire with any group of students. We cannot know when a class will need more on a theme, from an author, or about a literary period. We cannot guess what social and political events will call for delving into literature for enlightenment and understaning. Supplementing the textbook is a natural event in the lives of responsive teachers."

Ken Holmes provides a list of supplement materials for some of his sophomore texts. He lists several things he uses in conjunction with William Shakespeare's //Caesar//. For example, he recommends the short story //Express Stop// to supplement the themes of betrayal in //Caesar//, and to make the text more accessible to modern readers.

With What?
Student Work Excerpts from longer works Hopeful author's novel-in-progress Older sets of unused anthologies Paperback or hardback novels Videos and films

How?
Reading Aloud Overhead Projector Posting on the Bulletin Board Class Sets Live performance Storytelling

Supplements and Alternatives
As "we learn to write partly by reading," teachers must allow their students to sample a wide range of good literature to help their students excel at writing. However, teachers often times fall short by providing kids with textbooks as the main source of reading. Because textbooks are poor examples of writing, students are turned off from reading and do not learn to be creative writers. In other words, textbooks should not be read as nonfiction literature but rather be considered as reference books. Textbooks should be consulted as a reference book. Grownups do not read textbooks, but instead read other forms of informative and engaging literature. Adult readers look for the following:

• content that is important or interesting • a narrative structure or chronological line • people you can care about • places you can visualize • danger, conflicts, risks, or choices • moral, ethical, or political dimensions • some ideas that reasonable people can debate, dispute, or disagree about.

Therefore, in attempt to move away from textbooks, the following three books offer teachers and students alternatives to textbooks while still providing solid content: Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side of the All-American Meal by Eric Schlosser (HarperCollins, 2002) Fever 1793 by Laurie Halse Anderson (Aladdin, 2002) Rethinking Columbus: The Next 500 Years edited by Bill Bigelow (Rethinking Schools, 1998)

Textbooks need to be supplemented by other genres of literature in order to be used effectively in the classroom. Other genres such as Historical accounts, reviews, novels, plays, and poetry can be incorporated somehow. This not only helps students stay engaged, but it makes the reading more enjoyable because it is not the reference type of material in textbooks.

Before-Reading Textbooks
Students generally do not enjoy reading textbooks. Moreover, students do not know how to approach expository text because often times the strategies of reading narratives do not function well as the strategies for reading textbooks. Two important questions to ask about expository texts are:

1) Why do middle school students have trouble reading expository texts?

2) What specific teaching strategies can we use to engage students with expository text?

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">The Before-Reading becomes vital for students to understand expository texts. These strategies include that students need to be given background knowledge and draw on their own prior knowledge to better understand what they read. They should also skim through the textbook and begin to make meaning from the pictures and figures in the book. They should establish a purpose for reading and their curiosity should be aroused. Lastly, unfamiliar vocabulary should be introduced/explained to the students.

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">5 Ways to Use Textbooks More Effectively: <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">1) Understand that this is the first time your students are looking at this material - have empathy. <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">2) Help get kids started. <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">3) Don't leave kids alone with textbooks - use group work <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">4) Choose what they need to read wisely <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">5) Use supplements well.