Chapter 5

Chapter 5 is titled Why Am I Reading This? This chapter discusses the importance of defining the purpose of the readings before teaching. Tovani revisits the fact that teachers need to slow down and read what they assign as if they were in the students' shoes. She gives an example of a third year teacher, Molly, who admits that she is stuggling to read what she assigned. Molly explains that she is the one having the trouble, not the students. She says she is struggling because she is reading the book for the third time and everytime she reads it, it seems to be harder to teach. Tovani concludes that Molly has become an expert reader of this book and encourages her to read it as if she was reading it for the first time.

Molly's reason for struggling with this task is the fact that she is unsure of what to teach and what to leave out. "One of my biggest challenges is helping content identify a clear instructional purpose for assigned reading." One of Tovani's ideas of how to help Molly and teachers like this is having the students ask their own questions. This way the teacher will be able to create his/her lesson based on some of these questions.

Tovani discusses five points that teachers should consider when planning a lesson, to figure out what the instructional purpose is. These include:
1. Decide what students should know after reading the piece. Focus on essential information only.

2. Anticipate what might cause students difficulty. Some questions to consider are: Are they lacking background knowledge? Is the vocabulary too difficult to understand? Which concepts have the possibility of needing more explanation? Is the text about challenging subject matter? Is the text organized in a confusing manner?

3. Model how you would negotiate difficulty. Think out loud at one of the places where you anticipate students to find difficult.

4. What do you want them to be able to do with the information once they have finished reading? How will they hold their thinking so they can return to it later to use in their school work?

5. Model how they should hold their thinking and provide tools including marking text, using sticky notes, and completing a double-entry diary.

The next section discussed is What Do Readers Do When They Aren't Given a Purpose. As one can imagine, if students do not see a purpose of their reading they will have difficulty reading it or simply not read it at all. Tovani's list of determining possible purposes include:
1. Look for interesting details that could have multiple meanings.

2. Ask questions about the title and subtitle. Try to figure out how and why it is connected to the piece.

3. Read the author's opinion and compare and contrast it to your own.

4. Read a piece to learn new information.

5. Make a personal connection to the piece.

6. Figure out who the author is and what his/her writing style is like. Question if you know anything about the author or have read another piece written by them.

She finishes the chapter off by discussing the good and bad "voices" readers hear. These include:

1. Reciting voice: this voice is heard when they are only reciting the words and not gaining meaning from the piece.

2. Conversation voice: this voice has a conversation with the text. It represents the readers thinking while reading. This can take two forms
a. Interating voice: the voice inside a readers head that makes connections and asks questions
b. distracting voice: the voice that pulls the reader away or distracts him/her. It usually begins asking questions but is easily distracted.