Is it just me or do I feel that the first page of Chapter 1 has, for lack of a better word, negated what we are learning in multimodals. "Too many students are doing everything but reading" (Jago 1). I literally giggled just a little after reading that first guiding principle. I am glad, however, that it was followed up with "While these projects may help to engage students in their reading, they must be used sparingly and should always be accompanied by a writing assignment" (Jago 1-2). This whole guiding principle reminds me of a teacher I had in high school whose idea of an assessment on Poe was "Draw a family crest for the Usher family and present it to the class" and that was all. I remembered even as a student being outraged that I was going to do something that was not engaging me at a higher level, especially since it was HONORS English!
Something else I really found to resonate with me about this chapter was in the 5th principle. Jago wrote something to the effect about how she showed her students a short clip of the 1939 film The Hunchback of Notre Dame and never finished watching the rest of the movie. She said it was just to help the students start having a visual image about the text they were reading. I think this is a tactic I would want to use in my own classroom because I know some students may have a hard time creating visual images in their head.
I am glad you like this book!
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