Kelly Gallagher > Quotes

“...Shouldn't schools be the place where students interact with interesting books? Shouldn't the faculty have an ongoing laser-like commitment to put good books in our students' hands? Shouldn't this be a front-burner issue at all times?”
― Kelly Gallagher, Readicide: How Schools Are Killing Reading and What You Can Do About It

“I also talk a lot in Deeper Reading about the importance that confusion plays. When my students come to me, they think confusion is bad. They are wrong. Confusion is the place where learning occurs.”
― Kelly Gallagher

“I am not simply teaching the reading; I am teaching the reader.”
― Kelly Gallagher, Readicide: How Schools Are Killing Reading and What You Can Do About It

“To become a lifelong reader, one has to do a lot of varied and interesting reading.”
― Kelly Gallagher, Readicide: How Schools Are Killing Reading and What You Can Do About It

“What do teachers and curriculum directors mean by 'value' reading? A look at the practice of most schools suggests that when a school 'values' reading what it really means is that the school intensely focuses on raising state-mandated reading test scores- the kind of reading our students will rarely, if ever, do in adulthood.”
― Kelly Gallagher, Readicide: How Schools Are Killing Reading and What You Can Do About It

“Both of these students- both high school seniors both old enough to vote in the upcoming election- thought 'Al' Qaeda was a person. At that time the United States had been at war for five and a half years and here were two students two young adults leaving the educational system who had never heard of al Qaeda. Both by the way had passed the multiple-choice reading section of the state's high school exit exam.”
― Kelly Gallagher, Readicide: How Schools Are Killing Reading and What You Can Do About It

“I want my students to understand that the ability to evaluate and judge is not a school skill; it is a life skill.”
― Kelly Gallagher, Write Like This: Teaching Real-World Writing Through Modeling and Mentor Texts

“WYTIWYG” (pronounced “witty-wig”): What You Test Is What You Get.”
― Kelly Gallagher, Readicide: How Schools Are Killing Reading and What You Can Do About It

“Valuing reading” is often a euphemism for preparing students to pass mandated multiple-choice exams, and in dragging students down this path, schools are largely contributing to the development of readicide.”
― Kelly Gallagher, Readicide: How Schools Are Killing Reading and What You Can Do About It

“What do we mean when we say our school 'values' reading?”
― Kelly Gallagher, Readicide: How Schools Are Killing Reading and What You Can Do About It

“Authentic interest is generated when students are given the opportunity to delve deeply into an interesting idea.”
― Kelly Gallagher, Readicide: How Schools Are Killing Reading and What You Can Do About It

“The sheer number of standards is the biggest impediment to implementing standards”
― Kelly Gallagher, Readicide: How Schools Are Killing Reading and What You Can Do About It

“rewriting is where good papers emerge.”
― Kelly Gallagher, Write Like This: Teaching Real-World Writing Through Modeling and Mentor Texts

“Clearly, if we want students to perform well on standardized reading tests, our top priority should not be on narrowing students into a test-prep curriculum; our focus should be on providing our students with the widest reading experiences possible.”
― Kelly Gallagher, Readicide: How Schools Are Killing Reading and What You Can Do About It

“Instead, I designed the unit with one question in mind: What is in the best interest of my students?”
― Kelly Gallagher, In the Best Interest of Students: Staying True to What Works in the ELA Classroom

“Instead, to develop agency, our students would be better served if we created what Judy Wallis, a veteran teacher in Houston, refers to as a “three-text” classroom: a place where students encounter texts we all read, where students encounter texts that some of us read, and where students encounter texts that they read independently. Our students need a blended reading experience, and in Chapter 8 I discuss a model for developing this kind of a classroom. I”
― Kelly Gallagher, In the Best Interest of Students: Staying True to What Works in the ELA Classroom

“In the real world, writing is not artificially separated into specific discourses. It is blended for effect.”
― Kelly Gallagher, In the Best Interest of Students: Staying True to What Works in the ELA Classroom

“National Writing Project sites: “Students need to read like writers and they need to write like readers.”
― Kelly Gallagher, In the Best Interest of Students: Staying True to What Works in the ELA Classroom

“writing can be used as a vehicle to express ourselves as we negotiate the journey through our lives.”
― Kelly Gallagher, Write Like This: Teaching Real-World Writing Through Modeling and Mentor Texts

“Writing has become foundational to finding meaningful employment across much of the workforce.”
― Kelly Gallagher, Write Like This: Teaching Real-World Writing Through Modeling and Mentor Texts

“What does it matter if teachers sprint through all the standards if at the end of the year their students still cannot write well?”
― Kelly Gallagher, In the Best Interest of Students: Staying True to What Works in the ELA Classroom

“The key point here bears repeating: I have decided on an argument (“Technology has weakened parenting skills”), but I didn’t start with that argument in mind. Instead, I started by reading lots of data under the umbrella of the unit of study, and it was through the reading of this data that my research question emerged.”
― Kelly Gallagher, In the Best Interest of Students: Staying True to What Works in the ELA Classroom

“the reading of fiction facilitated the development of social skills because it provides the reader with the experience of thinking about other people.”
― Kelly Gallagher, In the Best Interest of Students: Staying True to What Works in the ELA Classroom

“ELA teachers to cut back on the reading of literature and poetry. This trend of moving students away from literary reading is antithetical to good ELA instruction. Kids need more literary reading, not less.”
― Kelly Gallagher, In the Best Interest of Students: Staying True to What Works in the ELA Classroom

“the teacher should model by writing—and think out loud while writing—in front of the class.”
― Kelly Gallagher, Write Like This: Teaching Real-World Writing Through Modeling and Mentor Texts

“If I want my students to work toward becoming real-world writers, I need to shift the focus of my writing instruction toward real-world writing purposes.”
― Kelly Gallagher, Write Like This: Teaching Real-World Writing Through Modeling and Mentor Texts

“When we think about how to move our students into deeper levels of reading, it is helpful to remember an expression that has been used for years at National Writing Project sites: “Students need to read like writers and they need to write like readers.” The first half of that statement—“Students need to read like writers”—is especially true when it comes to getting students to recognize what a text does. To”
― Kelly Gallagher, In the Best Interest of Students: Staying True to What Works in the ELA Classroom

“Teach your students real-world writing purposes, add a teacher who models his or her struggles with the writing process, throw in lots of real-world mentor texts for students to emulate, and give our kids the time necessary to enable them to stretch as writers.”
― Kelly Gallagher, Write Like This: Teaching Real-World Writing Through Modeling and Mentor Texts

“Grading doesn’t make my students better writers. Lots of practice coupled with meaningful feedback makes my students better writers.”
― Kelly Gallagher, In the Best Interest of Students: Staying True to What Works in the ELA Classroom

“When students are taught to approach argument through inquiry, good things happen: they choose topics worthy of arguing, they gain ownership (through choice) of their writing, and their teacher is not stuck in Groundhog Day reading the same argument paper over and over. Key”
― Kelly Gallagher, In the Best Interest of Students: Staying True to What Works in the ELA Classroom