Chapter 3, "Driven to Understand"

In Chapter 3, “Driven to Understand,” Keene explores the ideal of “fervent learning,” and the reader is taken on a trip with the author and her daughter to an art museum. There, they try to understand some of the world’s great works of art, Ellin with her pen, her daughter with a sketch pad. Their different approaches illustrate the notion that we all get to the point of understanding differently, but what is important is that we get there. They agree at the end of the day that they have more questions than understandings. Again, the author reinforces another important concept in understanding—questioning. Keene comes to the conclusion that “great thinkers, great artists, great writers—not unlike more ordinary learners—use their work to better understand their worlds.” She refers to this intellectual exploration as “fervent learning,” and it is where we want to take our students in the classroom and in their lives, but how?
The “how” is the evolving theme of the book. We, as teachers, must show or model for our students what it means to be “captivated, rapt, engrossed, and resolved.” She asserts that our students must have models who can explicitly describe and show through their behavior what it looks and feels like to learn with persistence and PASSION. Keene refers to the “think aloud” model as a means of achieving this goal. I call it the “feel aloud” in my lesson plans. I will venture to guess that everyone in our class is practicing “feel alouds” or we would not be spending our time and money to engage young people in reading. Through reading, with resolve and passion, we come to understand our world—and I will take it one step further—ourselves. Isn’t this the ultimate objective of us all as we step into the classroom each day? Keene outlines a Literacy Studio model (a rethinking of the reader’s and writer’s workshop model) which focuses on creating a classroom culture of rigor, inquiry, and intimacy to achieve the goal of enhancing our students’ propensity to think and learn with excitement and inquiry. Although the reader is made to suffer some extraneous text—for instance, the death of the author’s mother—her call to create great thinkers and fervent learners of our students continues to make this a worthwhile read.