I love that this experience was so positive for these students as well as the researcher. This just proves that meeting students where they are, even if you need to modify things a bit, is totally worth it because they benefit so much from it.

I love that this teacher was able to find books that her students could actually relate to. If students have a difficult time understanding stories, it helps to provide them with books that are about things that they have experienced personally. Understanding literature is so important and we need to help our students accomplish this.

If students are not engaged in lessons teachers need to modify their approaches so that students are engaged. The job of educators is to teach children and this cannot be done if we ignore the fact that they are not taking in any of the skills we are trying to teach them. Learning can be fun, and when it is students are able to gain so much more knowledge.

There are always going to be students who find required reading material uninteresting. As educators we need to provide alternatives for these students that teach them the same skills as the other readings, but in a way that they can enjoy and relate to. Teaching is abut meeting the needs of students, and sometimes that requires being flexible with required materials.

This student's comment shows why it is so important to provide reading for your students that they can connect to. If a student feels like he/she cannot relate to a story it will be very difficult for him/her to stay engaged in the reading.

This is such creative idea for a teacher to allow happen. If a group of students do not wholly care about what they are learning or do not find the meaning in it, allow that group to take on a different perspective and find their own meaning.

Literature as a whole provides a sort of third party view of experiences and events. In class the other day, Dr. Marx said, "reading is like magic, you get to read the words of somebody you may never meet". This really struck me and I instantly thought of it when I read this sentence. When you read something by someone you don't know, it shows how there is a world around you in which people do see the struggles and tribulations you are going through in your world. It brings to light for people that their trials are not only theirs, but instead shared by others, and there is something really powerful in that because people begin to see that they are not alone.

This is very true, especially at the college level. As an English minor, I know from my higher level classes that when I admitted that I had not read some classics, I was often met with the response, "How could you NOT have read that!" This made me more hesitant to share my opinions because I did not feel that my reading portfolio was comparable to my peers, and therefore my opinion was less important.

The fact that the author of this article included this detail about themselves really struck me and I couldn't pass by without annotating it. This may be because I just completed Dr. Marx's class in which we discussed how the vast majority of educators are white females, reading from the point of view of someone who is considered a minority in the field of education really piques my interest.

This is one of my greatest fears as a teacher. I know it is inevitable that students are not going to enjoy every single aspect that they are taught, but I am concerned that students will become so out of touch with the material that they will cause themselves to fail.

I think this activity is absolutely amazing. You can see how reading meaningful literature created a whole new world of understanding and deep thinking for these students.

This is absolutely incredible. What a teachable moment this must have been. Here, it is evident that the readers are further developing their critical thinking skills by asking deep questions relevant to the issues in the text as they appear within society.

I think this is an important part of this reading. Reading becomes more comprehensible as the readers can infer about the issues the characters are facing.

This is an awesome thematic concept for fostering perspective taking skills and analytical thinking skills.

I think this is a strong point that should be taken note of. It is critical to keep students involved and focused in learning material, especially when it concerns literacy. It is important to provide all students with material that is appropriate for their learning. If it is meaningful, students can grow intellectually.

While classic fairy tales and other sources of literature can still hold strong meaning within literature lessons in early childhood classrooms, I do agree that more contemporary themes need to be transcended in literautre throughout the elementary, middle, and high school years as the reader's abilities are developing and social interactions are changing. Moreover, themes in literature should be meaningful to the reader as he/she grows in school.