Chapter Six

In chapter six Lindemann makes the point that “some assignments we give our students similarly are challenging because their worlds do not sufficiently over-lap… if our assignments tap subjects, purposes, and audiences familiar to students, their writing can be quite powerful”.  Many students do not relate to the material being taught in class, because it’s not their reality and typically it is not that they cannot do the work they have no connection or deep understanding of it. In high school my History teacher made history more potent to our lives by telling the stories we needed to know in terms and language we understood. He used real life situations so we could connect what when on then, to what goes on now. Example: Instead of explaining a king rode through on a carriage and was ambushed, he simply said there was a drive by shooting which many students could visualize and understand. Although that seems like common sense it’s often overlooked, and teachers have the responsibility or rather obligation to teach specifically what would be on state test or other requirements with little wiggle room to tap into creative or choice activities and assignments that will truly engage the students. It is important that the teachers gage a little of what world their students live in and try to adjust their curriculum to the students understanding as much as they possibly can, and then hopefully there will be better outcomes in students work.