I really enjoyed reading Salvatori and Donahue’s book about Difficulty, because I work with an ESOL population that often struggles with literature in my classroom. Ever since I can remember, I was never allowed to question the text as a learner. My teachers in high school would simply pull vocabulary, define the literary aspects and tell me the themes to look for. If I did not understand, they would simply tell me to look at the notes. I agree with Lauren that Francois’s comment that the text is not necessarily the authoritative final voice, because it’s not. Too many times students want me to tell them the meaning, especially if a text is difficult for them to understand. My students lack the cultural and academic language that is inherent in most American literature. I really feel like I have new ways to encourage them to question the text and realize that difficulty in literature doesn’t mean that the literature is incomprehensible.

I’ve been teaching for six years and I realized that when students don’t understand a word or even a section, they just don’t read it. In the past, especially in my ESOL classes, I encourage them to ignore words they don’t know and move on. We just finished reading In the Time of the Butterflies. At the beginning of our unit too many students would get hung up on a word or innuendo they didn’t understand and completely ignore the basic message from each speaker. After much frustration, I finally decided we need to have a discussion page by page for the first chapter. We summed up the overall message or point in the plot after each page. This was a bit tedious, but at the same time it showed them they didn’t need to understand each word to understand the plot. We did have times when we had to go back because some phrases or references were essential for the understanding of where the book was headed, but that was ok. I let them know that the book would be difficult for them. When reading, How People Learn: Brain, Mind, Experience and School, I really liked when the author acknowledged that, “expert teachers know the structure of their disciplines, and this knowledge provides them with cognitive roadmaps that guide the assignments they give students, the assessments they use to gauge students’ progress, and the questions they ask in the give and take of the classroom life (143). I feel that asking them to note the difficulties and determine how to handle them allows the students to learn better. I’m not saying I’m am expert teacher but when I read this I did think about why I do what I do in the classroom and I suppose I never thought about how much the mind works as an adult to assess a situation and attempt a solution. In my case, I base my lessons on my students. They change every year. I keep the content the same, but I also omit lessons that I know will not benefit my students. I think from now on all my students can benefit from realizing they don’t need to comprehend everything in a work to have a good understanding of the work.

After this activity they felt comfortable reading knowing they could understand the text. To understand any literature word for word would require an entire semester or year of intense study. Even then most of the archaic literature we are asked to teach cannot be verified because most authors aren’t alive to clarify meaning. My students feel comfortable knowing that they do not need to know each phrase to come up with their own understanding of the text. Also, they know that if they explain to me their understanding, I accept their opinions. The bottom line is that they know it’s hard and they do their best to understand it. I think it’s my job as a teacher to facilitate their questions and difficulty with text and I like the idea that they should embrace difficulty and I think they do now.

I would be curious to know who her audience was as well. Lauren clarified a bit, but I couldn’t find Salvatori’s essay, “Difficulty: The Great Educational Divide,” so I’m not sure if the book is directed toward beginning readers, second language learners or people who like to read, but I do think it’s nice that someone is saying that texts are difficult. Too many people ridicule themselves if they cannot understand a word or some ambiguous metaphor so I really liked that this book allows people to be human. This book and the sections of How People Learn: Brain, Mind, Experience and School really made me rethink how I teach. After a bit teachers get stale so it’s always good to learn new methods and create new meaning for learners.