<A> Afterword: The Journey Ends For Now

Good teachers continuously reflect on where we are now in order to understand where we can go next.

MartinNystrand, Opening Dialogue

Although I have no immediate plans to return to elementary school teaching, enjoying my tenure as a professor of literacy education and children's literature, I know the challenges of starting over each fall from having been done so for many years. Summer provided opportunities for relaxation and a rebirth of energy necessary to start anew each September. As our journey Around the Reading Workshop in 180 Days comes to a temporary close, I would like to share a few final thoughts with you.

<A> Teaching and Politics

To begin, teaching children to read begins with faith. Not religious faith, but faith in children that they will work to make sense of the experiences we provide them. In addition, it requires faith in teachers, if allowed to make instructional decisions, they will do whatever is necessary to help students be successful. Although there are a few teachers that would be better served by leaving the profession, there are many more that do an outstanding job in the face of overwhelming challenges. Unfortunately, it seems that education today is not based on faith, rather it is based on accountability, mandated curricula, standardized testing and scripted instructional programs.

Plato defined "slavery" as people living to execute the purposes of others. By definition, it would seem that teachers today are becoming slaves, delivering the curriculum designed by others, giving tests created by testing companies and mandated by legislation, and being forced to follow narrowly conceived instructional scripts intended to have "No Child Left Behind." With this shift from professional development to training in commercial programs what we really end up with is, "No Teacher Left Reflective."

Bruce Pirie states, "there is nothing apolitical about silence." That is, by remaining silent about particular assessment and instructional mandates, teachers end up supporting the status quo. Hiding our proverbial heads in the sand has never worked, but it is especially contentious in today's political climate. Teachers must work through their fears of political involvement and learn to articulate their reasons for teaching as they do, and provide parents and stakeholders with information about children's progress and development to offset the stranglehold standardized testing has on assessment and instruction.

<A> Rethinking Comprehension

P. David Pearson and Linda Fielding describe four practical guidelines, created from a review of the educational research on reading comprehension instruction, for teachers to consider when establishing a quality reading instructional program. Their review of the research on reading comprehension instruction suggests providing: 1) large amounts of time for actual reading of authentic texts, 2) explicit instruction in comprehension strategies, 3) opportunities for collaborative learning, and 4) time for students to talk with one another, and their teacher, about their responses to what they read. These four guidelines have been addressed in each section of this book, establishing a connection to the research base associated with reading workshop approaches.

In addition to Pearson and Fielding's four suggestions, I have described throughout this book the four processes of generating, articulating, negotiating, and revising meaning in a community of readers. These processes are enacted in the context of a community of readers, where meanings is constructed, not discovered, by readers actively transacting with particular texts in particular contexts. I leave readers with the following definition of reading comprehension to consider, or as an impetus for discussion; reading comprehension is the process of generating viable interpretations and meanings in transaction with text, and one's ability to construct understandings from multiple perspectives.

<A> Picture Books as Resource

If you haven't already noticed, the majority of lessons I have described in this book utilize picture books as the primary resource for the instructional experiences provided in the reading workshop and across the curriculum. Teachers in the intermediate and middle grades need to move past the whole class chapter book read along as their primary instructional approach. In case you haven't noticed, picture books aren't just for little kids any more. They contain complex, quality illustrations and writing and can be used to support sophisticated thinking and discussions. As readers reach the second and third grades, we need to help them resist the "chapter book syndrome" that seems to occur around that age. The simple chapter books that readers select, for example Junie B. Jones books or The Magic Tree House series, will not challenge their thinking as much as the picture books created by Chris Van Allsburg or Anthony Browne. Of course, I want students to move into chapter books, I just don't want them to leave the world of picture books behind when they do it.

<A> Preferred Vision

In several chapters, I have explained the importance of teachers developing a preferred vision for their teaching, to be able to articulate the goals and objectives of their teaching and literate environments, and to reflect on evaluate these goals as they establish the various components of the reading workshop. The primary reason I have spent time talking about preferred visions is due to the fact that it is difficult to know when you are getting closer to your visions if you don't know what they are! By extending the articulation of this preferred vision to parents and administrators, teachers are making a case for the types of instructional experiences they deem most valuable.

In addition to creating a preferred vision of one's teaching, it is also valuable for teachers to articulate their preferred vision for the readers in their charge, and explain to students this vision to help them align with it. While this preferred vision must remain open to revision and allow readers of all backgrounds and experiences to find points of entry into it, to allow one's vision to remain a secret does a grave injustice to oneÕs students.

<A> The Reading Workshop Revisited

Donna Santman, in her book Shades of Meaning, suggests the reading workshop is not a curriculum, but a set of teaching structures and practices that gives students the opportunity to bring their reading lives into the classroom for the purpose of stretching themselves in the company of other readers. In order to "stretch" readers, we must provide the optimal blend of support and challenge to ensure readers are not frustrated or bored in our classrooms. Wayne Booth has called this process "co-duction," referring to literature discussion as the cooperative drawing out of ideas and interpretations. This is what the reading workshop is really all about, changing the nature of the thinking and talking that is associated with the reading of literature and other texts.

The reading workshop is an organizational framework for enacting the components of quality literacy instruction. It is a theoretical space for changing the way readers think and talk about what they read. In order for these changes to occur, teachers need to provide opportunities for students to read texts that matter to them, establish a community in which readers generate, articulate and negotiate meanings, understand various literary theories that inform what it means to comprehend, know the elements and structures of children's literature, set appropriate expectations for students to work towards, and provide the necessary support and challenges for students to grow into sophisticated, proficient readers.

Of all the things we can do as human beings, helping children develop to their fullest potential has to be one of the most challenging and rewarding. I shall end this philosophical journey reminded of the last line from Jules Verne's classic story, Around the World in Eighty Days, which states, "truly, would you not for less than that make the tour around the world?" Truly, for not less than the future of the children in our classroom would I travel around the reading workshop in 180 days.