Ending of Readicide

The end of Readicide is actually helpful to me in my placement right now.  I am in general Ed 10th World Lit.  The students are asked to read a good bit on thier own or in small groups.  I am not familiar with most of the readings because they are in a book that I wasnt taught from.  I read the stories before I get there to prepare and so that I am able to help them.  To me, these stories are quite easy to read and follow, I have to remind myself that not only am I a grad student, but that I also like Literature.  The students are struggling-STRUGGLING to read these simple stories.  They arent laced with facts, figures, and small details that are barely noticable, they are good, interesting short stories.  My host teacher gives them guided reading questions to have as they read and I hate them.  The students dont read the whole story(which is only 4 pages long).  They look at the question and they skim the material until they see the keyword and then they read that part.  They are missing the entire plot, setting, point of the story.  They answer the questions, they assume they know what they just read, but if they were asked to recap the story, they certainly could not.  In the chapter of Readicide, I liked when he pointed to the fact that you can ask the students to demonstrate thier thinking through written and oral responses (like a brief recap with a requirement of two specific facts mentioned, maybe) instead of filling in bubbles.  I know that "comprehension" has never been explained to these students.  Why am I reading this?  You arent reading it because it is the greatest story known to man, you are reading this to learn meaning associated with words.  What was just said? What does he mean by that?   Not: "What color was Sophie's childhood puppy?"