Pamela Henderson

March 5, 2017

Teaching & Learning 322

Professional Reading
 The Reading Zone: How to Help Kids Become Skilled, Passionate, Habitual, Critical Readers

By Nancy Atwell

1. Reasoning:

I chose this book for a number of reasons, one of which being that Nancy Atwell is

referenced in many of our other assigned readings such as in Spandels Creating Writers on

page 51. Atwell is a very influential writer and voice in childrens literature, in higher grades,

and the title The Reading Zone: How to Help Kids Become Skilled, Passionate, Habitual,

Critical Readers really intrigued me and made me interested in the book and learning more

about Atwell and her theories.

2. Summary:

This book is self-described as nothing less than a manifesto, and reads as such. (Atwell,

2007, pg 18) It is a riveting depiction of Atwells experiences in teaching and chronicles

what she has found to work best in literacy instruction for middle school aged students. The

first chapter, The Personal Art, sets the stage for the content for the rest of the book. It

discusses the importance of students choice in their reading material and emphasizes the

implications of reading workshops in students acquisition of literacy and strengthening their

reading. In this chapter Atwell describes that their mission is to help children to choose

books, develop and refine their literary criteria, and carve out identities for themselves as

readers. (Atwell, 2007, pg. 13) Reading in the Zone is the next chapter and this chapter

depicts what Jed a seventh grader in Atwells class coined the zone. (Atwell, 2007, pg. 21)

This zone is the fugue state that readers enter when they are fully engaged in reading and

interacting with the text in their own private, internal movie. (Atwell, 2007, pg. 21) This

chapter not only depicts this state and what it means to the students in Atwells class, but also
some qualifications needed for students to enter this state such as having book-talks and

mini-lessons, quiet in-class time to read, free choice of books, and a diverse classroom

library. The third chapter is all about choice and its importance in developing students love

for reading. Giving a student choice in what they read is one of the biggest points Atwell

makes in this book and her devotion to getting to know her students and creating a

comprehensive library to meet the needs of every students interest is inspiring. On page 27

Atwell includes The Readers Bill of Rights, which is a list of things she makes clear to her

class that is their right while reading; some of these rights include the right to not read

something, the right to skip pages and the right to not defend your tastes. In chapter four

Atwell discusses the different reading levels and how these reading levels affect what books

a student should read; a Holiday or easy read; a Challenge, which will require some adult

assistance; or a Just Right, that is, a book thats appropriate in terms of the childs current

needs and level of skill. (Atwell, 2007, pg. 40) This chapter also gives some helpful tips on

how to organize and keep track of books in a class library; Atwell suggests having a diverse

library with titles that can include all kinds of interests and have lists with the class name so

that students can sign their names when they check in and out books to lower the amount of

books that end up missing. Comprehension is the topic of chapter five. I found this chapter to

be the most interesting because it seemed to go against some of the literature instruction I

hade been exposed to in the past. Atwell suggests that telling the students to focus completely

on the comprehension strategies can negatively impact their reading and take the out of the

zone. Chapter six describes how to conduct a effective booktalking and the benefits that it

can have for your students. This chapter includes many student examples of what a good

booktalk looks like and some students opinions on how they go and how they feel about
them. Chapter seven, One-to-One, focuses on the importance and positive impact one on one

discussions can have with students in their literacy development. It talks about how letter

essays can be a very successful way to get students engaged in their reading and allow them

to focus on one book and really delve deeper into the text and really expand their knowledge

about the text. The next chapter, Boys, highlights the importance of providing books to

students that interest them and how anyones achievement, male or female, is driven by

interest. (Atwell, 2007, pg. 96) Atwell breaks negative misconceptions about how males act

towards reading in this chapter by giving detailed examples of a student, Cam, preformed on

writing pieces that had topics that interested him. Chapter nine is a plea from Atwell to high

school teachers to continue giving their students choice in their future education reading

endeavors and not just forcing them to read books because they are classics. Atwell recalls

a conversation she has had with many students who moved on through public high school

education and states that their schools often engage them in a version of reading thats so

limiting and demanding, so bereft of intentionality of personal meaning, that what they learn

is to forgo pleasure reading and its satisfaction and, for four year, do English (Atwell,

2007, pg. 107) And finally the last chapter, chapter ten, discusses the practicalities of

implementing her thoughts on literacy instruction in a normal classroom. This chapter is

broken down in to five key sections; time, guidelines, assessment, communication with

parents, and three kinds of knowledge. Each of these sections offers keys and strategies to

getting the most effective literacy instruction you can with the resources you are provided.

Finally the appendix has needs that must be met for a National Reading Zone to be

established and made the norm in classroom education.

3. Critique:

I found this book to be very interesting and practical to my education and future endeavors in

the classroom. There were hardly any parts that I questioned and her credibility in her work

is supported by the countless studies and research she references throughout the book as well

as her own experiences. I appreciated all the real world explanations she included in her book

such as in chapter eight, Boys, where she gives a variety of different pieces of evidence

supporting her claim about how all students can perform well if given the right tools and

choice. This makes her claims more credible for me because she is backing these claims up

with evidence brought from her own practice in her own classroom. This makes the work

easy to understand and comprehensive for future educators because we can see how results

can and should look so we can model our instruction off practices that show the desired

results. Atwells claims are also made by a teacher, for a teacher which makes them easy to

adapt and apply to countless different situations we may encounter in the classroom. For

example on page 38 she describes the way she tracks books in her class library and since this

is the method she developed over years of practice which makes it a good starting place for

our own class libraries and can be adapted to fit our specific needs. One part of the book that

kind of confused me though was chapter five, Comprehension. At first I was interested

because Atwell was basically denouncing the type of literature instruction that I have become

used to being taught and I was intrigued by this new concept of literature instruction, but as I

continued to read I became confused because it seemed as though Atwell was saying that

teaching comprehension strategies is both distracting but also necessary. At parts it seemed

almost like Atwell was contradicting herself in whether she thinks teaching comprehension

strategies is helpful or distracting. From my best interpretation of that chapter I came to the
conclusion that teaching the strategies is important but it should never be put above reading

for aesthetic purpose and getting into the zone. Atwell states that there is a time and a place

to pull the mechanics of reading comprehension out into the light and to parse them again,

in a history class or a science lesson or when unpacking a difficult poem. And then there are

all those other moments with books when the story, the language, and the reader are all that

matter. (Atwell, 2007, pg. 64) I personally think that in literature acquisition explicitly

teaching students the comprehension strategies can be helpful if they are struggling but I

agree that during aesthetic reading the students should be focused entirely on reading for fun

and getting into the zone. Another critique I had was the chapter titled boys. Although I

ended up liking a lot of the content of this chapter I was initially turned off by the title, and

the specific gendered chapter. I can see where Atwell was coming from by addressing all

these negative stereotypes and assumptions but to me it almost read as if there was some

validation to these inaccurate claims because of her inclusion of them in the textbook. Atwell

gives plenty of examples of a students writing in her class that proved these assumptions

wrong but the fact that she felt a whole chapter needed to be devoted to doing this makes the

claims seem more real. Also if Atwell is going to devote a whole chapter to just the negative

stereotypes about boys why not address all kinds of negative stereotypes surrounding girls, or

children of color, or children who identify as a minority group because there are just as many

if not more stereotypes surrounding those groups of people and not just boys, and primarily

white boys at that. Something I really liked about this book though was its practicality. This

textbook offers a multitude of different resources on where to find and look for good books

for your children. For example on pages 31-32 Atwell lists several authors and book awards

on where teachers can begin looking for high quality childrens books of all different genres
and styles. Also on page 44 Atwell lists more authors that will attract a different group of

readers; for this list specifically inexperienced and challenged readers. Having resources and

lists like this at your disposal is invaluable for teachers because it gives us a place to begin

our search for quality childrens books. This is one of the most important things teachers can

do for their students; provide a wide variety of childrens books in their library that tailor to

every students need and interest. Atwell states to make reading easy for students, the

bottom-line requirement is an inviting classroom library, organized so its simple for children

to find good books and return them. (Atwell, 2007, pg. 37) This kind of information and

advice is so important for starting teachers, and teachers of all experience, because it gives us

a place to start and begin building and organizing our library so that we can best suite the

needs of our students. As well as having helpful resources to build your library Atwells book

also has many examples of work that can be done with students that she has found successful

in the past. On pages 29-30 there is a reading survey that Atwell gives her students at the

beginning of the year so that she can begin to get to know them as readers and see what their

interests are so that she can pick books that will hopefully encourage the students to

aesthetically read more. I have seen reading surveys in almost all of my literature classes and

it is something that I think is very helpful not only just for literacy but all subject and aspects

of teaching and learning and the relationship between student and teacher. She also includes

templates and examples for letter essays, such as on page 76, so that teachers can see what a

good letter essay looks like and how it can be an effective tool in helping students delve

deeper into a book and really get the main ideas and comprehension out of it. With all of

these examples Atwells book is a gold mine of resources for teachers to use and learn with

but I think the most important thing to do while reading this text, and any text in general, is
 to take these suggestion and ideas with a grain of salt and to think critically and use these

resources but adapt them to fit best with your class and find the best method for your students

so that they can be as successful as possible.

4. Reflection

Overall I found this textbook to be very interesting. I felt like it offered a lot of examples and

support to back up its claims and Atwells credibility to be very strong. I think this book is

practical and many of the ideas found in it could be taken and applied to any classroom

around the world. One of the ideas that I really connected with was the books-we-love stand

found on page 33. This is a shelf or designated area that students and teachers can put books

they love or would want to suggest to other people to read on so that everyone has access and

can get ideas any time they dont know what to read. I like this idea so much because it

fosters a community sense to your classroom with peers and teachers all interacting together

and showing their likes and differences in tastes. I think this will create a more positive

attitude around reading because it will allow students to see that everyone has a different

taste in books and that sharing a book that really touched you can be exciting and can create

empathy between students because they may feel the same way about a book or an

experience they had with a book. This idea is also great because it ties in perfectly with

booktalks. Booktalks are another excellent idea Atwell gives us with this textbook. She

shows how powerful it can be for students to share books they love with other students and

really try and convince people why they should read a certain book. I think in my own

classroom implementing both booktalks and a books-we-love shelf will be successful and

allow my students to develop their love for reading as well as foster a sense of community

and resect in my classroom. It will allow the students to share their likes and interests with
their classmates as well as encourage them to get excited about reading and deepen their love

for it. I also really liked Atwells inclusion of books I dont-wont-stock section on page

38. I am a strong believer that there is a lot of great literature out there for all kinds of

students and interests and that students need to be surrounded by quality literature so that

they will learn while reading. Sure the argument can be made that all reading is helpful, even

People magazine, but I think that more can be gained from reading well written books than

from magazines etc. One of the biggest messages I took away from this textbook was the

importance of choice in reading. This is something that has been told to us over and over, but

I think this time it just really stuck with me and I realized how extensive and impactful

choice is for these students. It is so difficult to foster a students love for reading if youre

forcing them to read books they dont enjoy or have any interest in. In my class I will give

my student choice in every aspect that is possible so that they will not feel confined to fit

inside a prescribed box someone is telling them to fit into. Overall I really enjoyed this

textbook and feel like I gained some valuable information from it that I will carry into my

own classroom in the future.

 Citations

Atwell, N. (2007). The reading zone: How to help kids become skilled, passionate, habitual,

critical readers. New York, NY: Scholastic.