Should reading be assigned?

As you may know, I am teaching two classes of struggling readers. Many of them are at a third grade reading level. The book we were reading, Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry, is a fifth or sixth grade level book, but most of the class struggled to decode several words on each page. My dilemna is whether to assign any reading for homework. My instinct is to do all of the reading as a class -- this way, we can discuss the book as we encounter the difficult passages. However, reading the book in this way is so slow. Our classes are only an hour and ten minutes. It takes about that long to get through about ten pages, on a good day. With so much in-class reading, it is then difficult to do any engaging activities in class. In addition, it takes forever to get through the book. By the time we get into the book, many students are tired of it.

I have assigned reading a couple times, but most of the class did not complete the reading. The next day in class, only two students responded to the reviewquestions. One of those students had read the book in middle school and was answering from memory; the other student did the reading for homework. Since no one did the homework, the lesson flopped.

Toward the end of last quarter, with five chapters left to go, I broke the class into five small cooperative groups to complete a final project. Each group was assigned to cover one chapter we read as a class, and one chapter we had not read. The groups were responsible for reading the chapter on their own. Many of the students did the reading, but there were still at least five or six that did not do the reading, and depended on their classmates to summarize the plot for them.

I realize that they are struggling readers, and that reading may not be enjoyable for them, but how do I get them to read on their own so that we can do more interesting things in class? Should I be trying to do this, or should I just be focusing on reading in class, and let the other English teachers do the engaging activities?

When did students stop doing homework?

The quarter ends Friday and ten of my students are failing. That's a little less than half the class. They are not failing because they lack the skills necessary to be successful in my class; they are failing because I lack the homework assignments with which to give them points.

I reminded them two weeks ago that grades would be due soon and gave them each their current grade. I told them that they should make up their work. Nobody came to me to get missing assignments. I reminded them last Monday that eleven people were failing, and that they have exactly one week to make up any missing work. I gave each of them their current grades again. A total of six people came to see me about their missing assignments. I am curious to see how many assignments I will receive today. I am skeptical that I will get many. I feel bad saying that because that makes me feel as though I have low expectations for my students, but based on the current pattern of not turning in assignments, I will be happy if any of the ten makes up their work.

One one hand, I do not want to fail any student. On the other hand, if a student refuses to put in the work necessary to succeed, even after gaining the academic tools to do so, the student deserves to fail. I want to prepare my students to succeed in life. Maybe I failed miserably this quarter. Maybe I am oblivious to their academic needs. How do I know whether I am oblivious? If I teach a lesson, I assign homework, classwork, or tests to assess what they learned. Assessment is very diffficult when students refuse to take the assessments.

One solution might be to not assign homework. However, would that be giving way to low expectations? My students will not do homework, therefore I should accept that bleak reality and do something else? The real world is not like that. As much as I do not want to be a cog in the wheel of capitalism, students live in a capitalist society and must be productive. If they are not productive, they will not survive. I am trying to teach them survival skills. Students will not survive if they cannot perform on the job, whatever their job may be.

Maybe I am preparing them fo life in a capitalist society. As low income students of color, they go to a school that severely lacks resources. It is an alternative high school for students who have been expelled, dropped out, and been arrested, tried, and convicted. These students have had an educational history of being underserved. They are all bright and have all the potential in the world to reach their apex. However, everything works against them -- their lack of wealth, their skin color, their lack of academic skills, their experiences growing up in communities plagued with violence, drugs, and death. I became an educator and youth advocate to help youth succeed in spite of all that works against them. It is difficult to do this, sometimes, as an employee of an institution of capitalism. In order to thrive, capitalism needs people at the bottom. It needs people at the bottom so that the people at the top has something, or someone, to stand on. This society was founded on slave labor. In the absence of slavery, the country has sustained itself with cheap, and sometimes, undercover slave labor. Without that cheap and sometimes slave labor, this country would crumble. At least or socioeconomic system would. I am down for that to happen, but I often feel that I cannot change the system of oppression by working for the system of oppression. As a teacher in a public school, I am an agent of the government. So by having high expectations for my students, am I a double agent?