During this chapter, one example in particular put the whole subject of students' confidence in perspective for me. It was when Beers was talking about a workshop that she did where she asked educators to share with the rest of the people their responses. They were hesitant to do so and when asked why replied that they were afraid to be wrong and be embarrassed. Beers responds, "So, how are those feelings different from the feelings your students have in your classroom?" This is such an eye opening question. Teachers get so frustrated when students don't want to answer, but do they ever think about why the students choose to remain silent.
What I really got out of this chapter is that we need to make it our job to make students feel comfortable in our classroom, whether it is from put-downs or with reading confidence. I loved the example used to demonstrate how to stop put-downs in the classroom. The bell idea was great! It really made students understand how often they were using them without even realizing it.
It was also very nice to know that their are stages to literary appreciation. This can help when selecting books that might interest different young adults. It also can explain why some YA are getting more out of certain books than others.
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