Lamping, S, & Woodring Blase, Dean (2012). Trust Me! I Can Read: Building From Strengths In The High School English Classroom. Teachers College Press.
Reviewed by Garrett Davis
Who am I?
My name is Garrett Davis, and I am currently a student at Oklahoma State University. I am currently studying Secondary Education in English and in my final year of school. I will be doing my student teaching in the Spring of 2023 and then I will graduate.
Who are the authors and what are their beliefs?
Sally Lamping is an associate professor of English at Wright State University in Dayton, Ohio. Before her work there she was a high school and middle school teacher. Dean Woodrig Blase is a high school and middle school teacher who has taught nearly 2,000 students in Cincinnati, Ohio. She has created and presented many research articles on collaboration with foreign language teachers, gender issues in teaching literature, and using email in the classroom. They both believe that students should have passionate experience as readers and to have the English classroom be a place of possibility and power.
What problem does the book want to answer?
The book wishes to answer the problem of why there is no trust in the classroom for readers and teachers. When students and teachers are looking at literature together they need some kind of trust between each other before delivering into a book. Some students will just sit at their desk and not do the reading at all. If there is no trust then students will be uncomfortable with discussing readings with their teacher and have no interest in reading.
What are the answers to the problem?
Giving students the chance to work through the readings together in different ways, besides just using a textbook, they will be more likely to do the readings. Giving students a choice in what they read is also a possible answer to this problem. When the students can rely on the teacher to help guide them in choosing a reading it builds trust and shows that the teacher both respects and values their opinions.
Some good quotes.
“My students love the freedom that they get. They get the opportunity to have choice and that is something that they are embracing” (Lamping, 2012, p. 7).
This quote is from a teacher named Heather. It expresses how much giving students choices has impacted their experience with reading.
“She believed that if she could engage theme through dramatic role play; creative use of technology; small-group discussions and larger, student led-seminar; and through artistic responses that developed a reading and writing connection rather than use the textbook to do so, they might be more willing to do the reading assignments on their own” (Lamping, 2012, p.7).
This quote is from a teacher named Jeanine. It expresses her desire to not force students into doing everything through the textbook. She wants them working in groups and doing meaningful activities in order to promote reading trust.
Overall, this book provides a lot of examples and ideas for building trust with students. Just giving them the opportunity to make their own choices gives them a lot of trust with the teacher. We just need to show students that we respect them and will do whatever they want in order to have a great reading experience.