Readicide

            Let me preface this with, I love Kelly Gallagher. I enjoy his books. I find them to be incredibly helpful and always appreciate his ideas for effectively teaching students. I’ve read four of his books now and I actively use two of them to help me with lesson planning or strategies for working with struggling students. Gallagher’s philosophy about teaching and the way it should be done has definitely influenced my own philosophy. To me, Gallagher is an educational guru that I will defer to throughout my career.

That being said, I am not a fan of Readicide. I do not know what it is about the book, but I struggled reading it. It took me three weeks to force my through this, and even then I had to go back and re-read most of what I’d done because none of it stayed with me. Maybe I didn’t like this because I feel like I’ve read everything in this book in other books written by Gallagher. I didn’t feel like I got anything new out of it. To me, of four chapters, the third one was the most interesting. I enjoyed his take on “avoiding the tsunami” of academic reading that our students will inevitably face. I think focusing on one main factor within an academic novel is a great idea. I know there have been times when I’m asked to analyze so many different things in one essay that I don’t know where to begin. I like focusing on one thing at a time and digging into that one thing as deep as possible, making as many connections to real life and literature alike, and truly understanding that aspect of the novel. I think concentrated focus like that gets left out of the classroom because there’s so little time to cover so much. That’s why I also appreciate Gallagher’s “One-pagers” in appendix c. It’s a great way to keep students focused on one event or character, their purpose, and the intent and audience of it. In three questions, Gallagher has a way to effectively focus students to one analytical skill at a time.

I may not like this book, but I always appreciate Gallagher's worksheets, and this book is no different. I probably won't ever read this book again, but I will definitely us it.