Reading Is Transactional-Rosenblatt

Post this! Reading Is Transactional! Say What, Say What, Say What?

My slumber took over without any notice. Swept up into a dreamstate, outside of Texas, I kept thinking about some conversations that  I had today.  Kept thinking about things, somewhat perturbed, somewhat melan-melan-melancholic. Wondering into Patheticville, without Hope springing eternal.  Then I went to this fantabulous meeting at the 'Brook. Jazzed and stoked I was. So then, as I was saying,   I woke up in a trance- like state with the words rumbling through my head, my mind and my synapses and dendrites doing a happy, happy Hippo dance.....I kept thinking about it but the words and tunes trounced, rather unannounced like a Saturday visitor, ringing my door bell unannounced.....what?  No, not now?  Who's at my door? " I always feel like somebody's watchin' me....Rockwell 1983."(Song reference)  Why can't they just leave me alone?  So it was somewhat like that except it came with some beats and some rhyme.  I didn't know what to do so I grabbed my phone, sent out a crazy, crazy text just so that I could remember it.  The person that I sent it to must be thinking, "Gurrrllll you must be trippin'!"  Then I decided to record myself on my phone with sleep in my eyes.  One of my cats was on the floor yeowing and the other jumped on my bed to see what I was doing.  So I started the idea and it's got technology written all over it.  I don't wanna forget it.  So now it's on the blog.  It's an idea that is written down, which means it could come to fruition.  Maybe, maybe not.  Let's give it a whurrlllll!

I Said Reading!

Reading
Say what?
I said
Reading
Say what?
Now, now, now
Reading,
Reading,
Reading,
Reading
It's trans-action-al!

I said
Reading!
Say what?
Yea now
Reading!
Say what?
Yea now
Reading,
Uh-huh
Reading,
Reading,
Reading,
Reading,
It's trans-action-al!

I said
Reading!
Oh yeah
Now I said
Reading!
Say what?
I said
Reading,
Ya know?
Reading,
Reading,
Reading,
Reading
It's trans-action-al!

If you don't make the transaction,
nothing else can happen!
I'm saying
Nuthin'
Can happen
Without the transaction
Y'all
I said nuthin'
Gonna happen
Without
The transaction
Y'all
C'mon now
Nothin'
Gonna happen
without the
without
the transaction
Y'all

I said
now reading
just said that
Reading
'nough said
now
Reading
Reading
Reading
is
transactional

Make that transaction! (Say it in a Michael Jackson voice similar to his Man in the Mirror song-Make that change!)
Y'all!
By M Ucles

My thoughts go out to students who don't experience this transaction.  They may not even know that they are supposed to have a transaction with the text and thus they become the poem within this experience.  The poem is at the intersection with the Reader and the Text.  We could tend, in this time of year, commit readicide by thinking that the purple pill Nexuum, that we use for Acid Reflux, will help our students who struggle with the written word.  "Could I have some more, sir?"  "More, sir?" said little Oliver in Oliver Twist.  Picture now a struggling reader who is starving to become a better reader.  He wants more authentic reading, more reason to eye those words, make connections to negotiate meaning. He can't access the text because maybe he has tunnel vision and doesn't know he needs to read ahead and let his eyes sweep down the page.  Or maybe he needs more background knowledge and words, words, words in his backpack.  Maybe he needs to read with expression and prosody.  Maybe he needs to learn how to make mental movies in his head as he reads or some fix up strategies.  Yet we look into those beautiful eyes and hand him, hand him, not the purple pill for Acid Reflux. He doesn't have acid reflux. Let's see.  Wait for it. Wait for it. Packets and more packets of Khemico or  or STAARlike, STAARbite practice. "More, sir!"  "Yes, we have more!" I'd like to say to him. "Come near and let's share a poem! What do you think about....?"  Think, converse, make meaning!  Reading is TRANSACTIONAL.