Orwellian seems the best word to describe this paradox: a program whose chief product is culturally illiterate students actually calls itself a literacy program? It's not that the College Board people don't try to help students become more sophisticated readers; it's just that they have them read so very little.
I taught at a school once where the football coach had the players spend lots of time visualizing the perfect block, the perfect tackle, and the perfectly-executed dive play. They didn't spend all that much time actually blocking, tackling, and running dive plays, but they knew the techniques. The end result was predictable: they lost with great regularity.
How will it be any different for my students if they read only one or two short novels a year; but--if I follow the instructional plan--they spend lots of time TP-CASTTing and K-W-L-ing through song lyrics and movie reviews? Instead of meeting Steinbeck, London, Richter, and Orwell, my students would be framing movie shots through notebook-paper camera lenses.
So, what do my students do? They read the novels prescribed in the programs and they write about them. They write in journals and in essays; and I actually grade their work on the evidence of thoughtful reading. Then I sneak in a few more short novels and buy time by skipping pages in the SpringBoard book. I'm just lucky that the SpringBoard room police that I've heard about in other districts aren't walking the beat here.
But it all feels so treasonous, sneaking in some Orwell here, a punctuation lesson there, and and essay or two over there.
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