The first few pages...

I started reading Chapter One of Gatsby today, and I had forgotten how difficult it was to get through the first two pages. Maybe I skipped over it when I read it the first time around many moons ago because it was simply too confusing. I can better understand now why students would be quick to give up on the reading if it was simply assigned as an individual endeavor. I really value in class reading, where the teacher can model the tone of the narrator in the beginning and allow students to take over. Reading the first few chapters of the NCTE book helped me to realize how very important it is to provide students with enough background of the time period information using a variety of modes to create a jumping point into the text. When you already have some of this knowledge under your belt, when it is encountered in the text, it will be a little less daunting, allowing you to focus on the bigger ideas being conveyed.