Well, Fiction is Not Optional Either

September 14, 2012 — Leave a comment

Smartblogs recently ran a post by Bill Ferriter titled “Reading Nonfiction is not Optional ” where he argued that there is too much fiction in a student’s reading diet. “The sad truth,” he wrote, “is that fiction still dominates the literacy lives of young readers. Whether they are wrapped up in fantastic exploits written by guys like Rick Riordan or churning through the latest release in the hottest new vampire series, today’s kids rarely make room for nonfiction in their book bags.”

Sad truth? Why is this a “sad truth”? What is wrong with reading fiction? Fiction, like its counterpart non-fiction, offers our student readers valuable life lessons. For example, in an online article in guardian.co.uk September 7, 2011 Reading Fiction ‘Improves Empathy’, Study Finds, Professor Keith Oatly at the University of Toronto who studies the psychology of fiction reports that:

“I think the reason fiction but not non-fiction has the effect of improving empathy is because fiction is primarily about selves interacting with other selves in the social world. The subject matter of fiction is constantly about why she did this, or if that’s the case what should he do now, and so on. With fiction we enter into a world in which this way of thinking predominates. …. In fiction, also, we are able to understand characters’ actions from their interior point of view, by entering into their situations and minds, rather than the more exterior view of them that we usually have.”

Annie Murphy Paul noted the same study in her article in The New York Times, Your Brain on Fiction (3/17/12) writing that, “Brain scans are revealing what happens in our heads when we read a detailed description, an evocative metaphor or an emotional exchange between characters. Stories, this research is showing, stimulate the brain and even change how we act in life.” Apparently, our brains cannot differentiate between the fictional experience and the real life experience, “in each case, the same neurological regions are stimulated.” Furthermore, the simulation of social experience in fiction through a character’s point of view  helps prepare our brains for real-life social interactions.

In other words, while the genre of non-fiction may be the recording of real life, the genre of fiction is critical in preparing readers for real life.

In his post, Ferriter also quoted young adult (YA) writer Walter Dean Myers:

“We all know we should eat right and we should exercise, but reading is treated as if it’s this wonderful adjunct…We’re still thinking in terms of enticing kids to read with a sports book or a book about war. We’re suggesting that they’re missing something if they don’t read but, actually, we’re condemning kids to a lesser life. If you had a sick patient, you would not try to entice them to take their medicine. You would tell them, ‘Take this or you’re going to die.’ We need to tell kids flat out: reading is not optional.”

Ferriter’s paraphrase of Myers’s statement, the title of his post, “Reading Nonfiction is not Optional,” strikes the wrong tone. Myers, a writer of both YA fiction and non-fiction, did not specify as to the genre he endorsed for student reading. Myers was advocating reading, period. Both fiction and non-fiction are critical to our students’ growth and development, not one genre at the expense of another.

Independent reading means a student can choose to read non-fiction OR fiction

Yes, the English Language Arts Common Core State Standards (ELA CCSS) call for an increase in non-fiction. The authors of the ELA CCSS created a little chart on page 5 of the ELA CCSS that notes that students should be reading 70% non-fiction and 30% fiction by grade 12. But this is not the ratio for reading in an English Language Arts classroom. That is the ratio for a whole school curriculum.

I am particularly sensitive to the increasing number of attacks on fiction and the need to reducing fiction from the English classroom. Ferriter’s post makes a similar argument and could be associated with the myth that “English teachers will be asked to teach non-fiction”. This myth is directly repudiated in the ELA CCSS document:

“Fact: With the Common Core ELA Standards, English teachers will still teach their students literature as well as literary non‐fiction. However, because college and career readiness overwhelmingly focuses on complex texts outside of literature, these standards also ensure students are being prepared to read, write, and research across the curriculum, including in history and science. These goals can be achieved by ensuring that teachers in other disciplines are also focusing on reading and writing to build knowledge within their subject areas.”

In other words, reading must be offered in every discipline, students must read across the curriculum.While Ferriter’s Reading Nonfiction is Not Optional makes the important point that all teachers are responsible for modeling reading, he oversteps when he says, “If you want students to love nonfiction — and you should considering the important role that nonfiction plays in learning — you really do need to stop spending all of your sustained silent reading time figuring out what’s going to happen next to Origami Yoda.” Good SSR programs allow for independent choice in any genre by students. What Ferriter could have suggested that the expansion of SSR to other disciplines would increase reading of non-fiction while having the additional benefit of satisfying the ELA CCSS.

Of course, I often hear arguments from teachers in other disciplines moaning, “What do I drop out of my course to include reading?” which could be interpreted as the reason why the authors of the ELA CCSS felt the need to develop reading and writing standards for History, Social Studies, Science and the Technical Areas. These disciplines need to step up the reading in their classrooms.

But who said reading non-fiction was an option? I can assure Ferriter that English/Language Arts teachers are dedicated to improving student reading. They are not hung up on genre, but when they teach fiction, English/Language Arts teachers are teaching their subject matter. The adoption of the ELA CCSS means that all disciplines must offer for opportunities to share their subject matter. To re-frame Ferriter’s argument to align with the new standards, reading non-fiction in every classroom is not an option, and reading non-fiction in an English/Language Arts classroom can be a choice. After all, that growing body of research shows that fiction is just as important as non-fiction for our students, including what happens in Origami Yoda.

In Common Core-CCSS, Education, Independent Student Reads, Reading, Silent Sustained Reading -SSR, Young Adult YA literature , , , , , , , , ,
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Shhhhh, Be Vewy, Vewy Quiet….We’re Reading

September 11, 2012 — 2 Comments
Be vewy, vewy quiet….we’re reading!

Our new block schedule at Wamogo High School has made the school much quieter. We have alternating days, four periods of 85 minute classes; the traffic in the hallway is less, and, thankfully, so are the announcements. This quiet provides an excellent environment for us to continue our practice of silent sustained reading (SSR) at all grade levels, 7-12. We embarked on our SSR program two years ago, and we have noted both the anecdotal success with the program through participant surveys and the reading scores on the CMT/CAPT (State of CT mandated tests).

There are a number of texts on the incorporation of an SSR program in a language arts classrooms. Janice Pilgreen’s book (2000) The SSR Handbook–How to Organize and Manage a Sustained Silent Reading Program has an eight point checklist for successfully implementing SSR.

Using Pilgreen’s checklist (her suggestions in red), here is an explanation of how Wamogo is implementing the SSR program this year:

  • “Students need to be flooded with reading materials.”Our classroom libraries of whole class reads and independent reads are full. We have several carts that we can roll into classrooms of independent reading materials. Some carts are dedicated to specific grade levels or classes. For example, our Memoir class have a cart full of memoirs of all reading levels that students can select. Our school library is one of the few in the state to offer Overdrive® to all of its schools. Region 6 students and staff can easily download ebooks to a variety of devices from our Overdrive® catalog with over 15,000 titles. Students and staff can borrow free ebooks and read them on their iPod, iPad, laptop, Kindle or Nook. Creating a flood of reading materials is discussed also in Kelly Gallagher’s book Readicide. 
  • “Appeal: The reading materials should be geared toward the interests of the students who are reading them.” We are sensitive to the wide variety of interests in our school. Many of our students are vocational agriculture students who are interested in non-fiction selections. We include all genres: manuals, graphic novels, historical non-fiction, fiction (YA titles) in trying to find books that interest our students.
  • “Conducive Environment: The physical setting should be quiet and comfortable.” The new block schedule has benefitted the SSR program in an welcomed level of quiet in the school day. We do have the students read at their desks; we do not have “comfy chairs”.
  • “Encouragement: Students need supportive adult role models who can offer assistance in locating reading material.” Our English Department teachers read with the students. We read the books during SSR so that we can make recommendations and discuss books with our students. Our amazing library media specialist comes in and gives book talks. She has also successfully incorporated popular author booktalks, in person or on SKYPE, with popular writers such as Neil Schusterman, Gordan Korman,and  Laurie Halse Anderson. (I am hoping for a Jon Szeiska interview one day *hint-hint*)
  • “Staff Training: SSR doesn’t just happen; the staff of a school should be well versed in the goals and procedures used at the school.” Our department has seen the benefits of the SSR program, and we support each other with strategies to make the program work for us. There are teachers who use SSR time to confer with students, however, we found conferencing  distracted other readers. We also discuss the best times to implement an SSR activity in a block period, and how to measure results. 
  • “Non-accountability: This is perhaps the most controversial factor. Pilgreen found that students read more, and had more positive attitudes toward reading, when book reports and such were not required.” In today’s data driven classrooms, this is a difficult, even risky, decision. In 9th grade, we do require one book review per quarter to be placed on a shared class blog, and we do require students to read more than one book per quarter. I also record the start page and the end page (students provide this number) as a way of keeping track of their progress. But, there are no other assessments of their independent reading.
  • “Follow-up Activities: Pilgreen found that follow-up activities such as conversations about books read by students or the teacher encouraged other to try them out.” We do spontaneous book talks. “Anyone reading a good book?” I will ask, “Any recommendations?” Students will share their reactions to a book when asked.
  •  “Distributed Time to Read: A common error made by schools new to SSR is that they have one long SSR period a week, rather than shorter periods that occur daily. Pilgreen found that successful programs have students read for fifteen to twenty minutes daily.” We have found that 15-20 minutes of reading time is ideal. On an alternating block schedule, this gives our students 30-60 minutes a week of quality reading time.

A classroom book cart in Grade 9 with high interest titles

Robert Marzano’s book Building Background Knowledge for Academic Achievement, ASCD, (2004) references Pilgreen’s eight steps; he  suggests a 5-Step Process for implementing SSR:

Step 1: Students identify topics of interest to them.
Step 2: Students identify reading material.
Step 3: Students are provided with uninterrupted time to read.
Step 4: Students write about or represent the information in their notebooks.
Step 5: Students interact with the information.

The major difference between Pilgreen and Marzano is the use of a notebook (step 4) for recording which we may incorporate this year in having students respond to prompt. These prompts are centered on story elements (“What similarities do you notice between your character and the archetypal character we study who is on a journey?”) . Our students are using writing notebooks for free-writes (front to back) and notes/vocabulary/grammar (back to front). Their first assignment was to “decorate” the notebooks, and already there are some enthusiastic participants for both decorating and free-writes!Finally Doug Fisher and Nancy Frey make a case for including SSR as a means to acquire content vocabulary in their book  Word Wise and Content Rich, Grades 7-12: Five Essential Steps to Teaching Academic Vocabulary, Fisher and Frey consider SSR as a means to contribute to gains in both background knowledge and vocabulary.

One more reason to implement SSR? The world is noisy. Students have their individual soundtracks plugged into their ears wherever they go; all venues from public transportation to shopping to sporting events have soundtracks; phone ring tones abound. There is a cacophony of sound in a student’s brain during the waking, perhaps even the sleeping, hours.The daily 15-20 minutes we offer students to read may be the only 15-20 minutes in a day where they are forced to be quiet. SSR allows them to absorb information without distraction. Ultimately, SSR at every grade level provides the opportunity for students to shut out the noise of school; SSR teaches our students to be vewy, vewy quiet. They’re reading.

In Education, Reading, Silent Sustained Reading -SSR, Young Adult YA literature , , , , , , , , ,
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My Film Lessons Resources for a Substitute in the Block Schedule

September 6, 2012 — 2 Comments

Wamogo High School (Region 6)  in Connecticut finished four days of teacher driven professional development. There were a few “requested sessions” which were organized to address concerns about the upcoming block schedule; we are moving from a sequence of 38-45 minute periods to alternating days of 80 minute blocks. The question came up, “What plans can a teacher leave a substitute teacher for this length of time?”

I suggested that a lesson plan that incorporates film is easy to prepare in advance, so I organized the following links that teachers can use to prepare a substitute lesson that incorporates film.

The substitute teacher may have students who think they have the “day off”, but a film lesson organized with a written reflection can be an effective way to promote new learning.

Film lessons are popular with substitute teachers. They are usually engaging, and they are easy to implement as long as the substitute can access the video online or operate the hardware to run a hard copy of the video.

Video/film lessons also meet many of the Common Core Standards as stated in the Overview for the ELA Standards: “Just as media and technology are integrated in school and life in the twenty-first century, skills related to media use (both critical analysis and production of media) are integrated throughout the standards.”

Our school has a subscription to Discovery Education which is jammed packed with digital content: film clips and prepared lesson plans are available for every grade level. However, other school systems may not have this resource.

The following free websites were reviewed in the presentation for teachers to use in order to find videos, lesson plans to use with videos, and/or worksheets that can be completed by students watching videos.

One major source to start looking for all video materials is the updated Edudemic 100 Video Sites on the Edudemic.com website.This website is organized with sub-headings General; Teacher Training; Science Math & Technology; History, Arts and Social Sciences; Lesson Planning; Video Tools and true to its name there are 100 sites, each rich with links to videos of all lengths in all subjects.

To accompany a selected film or video, I strongly recommend students have a writing assignment. The writing assignment can be in a variety of formats: notes, critical analysis, or reflection. I am not a fan of the worksheet, but substitutes benefit from a well-designed worksheet that students can complete and turn in at the end of class. For that reason, I located a number of websites that can be used to either develop a worksheet or websites that have worksheets already prepared:

Video documentaries are also popular; since these are often shorter than a feature length film, many can be run during one block period. A note of caution: several of these videos will need to be vetted to assure content appropriate materials are used. Many of the video clips on these sites are current and can be associated with news articles to use to supplement the viewing as a comparison or a contrast. 

The Oscars.com website offers a generic documentary worksheet. This prepared sheet is organized around political discourse, but the sheet has questions that can be used with any documentary. 

The Ted Talks website describes the numerous video presentations as “Ideas Worth Spreading.” TED began in 1984 as a “conference bringing together people from three worlds: Technology, Entertainment, Design.” There are very entertaining videos on every subject, but most recently, there has been a new category devoted to education TED-ED. These short film clips at  http://ed.ted.com/ are offered with interactive quizzes and writing prompts.

My Film and Literature class used many of the lessons off the Film English blog devoted to film and English Language Learners (ELL) http://film-english.com/. The lesson plans are very detailed and involve critical thinking skills that can be used outside of the ELL classroom as well.

Our English Department has been phasing out the department’s DVD library; so many DVDs were scratched or went missing during the school year. We now use commercial “instant streaming” websites where we can purchase videos for safekeeping “in the cloud”. Unfortunately, this means that one of the best features used for showing a film, the closed-captioning feature, is not available. If we cannot locate a film through an “instant streaming” service, we check with OpenCulture.com http://www.openculture.com/freemoviesonline which has hundreds of movies available. Some are subtitled in English; most are classic films. Suppose the DVD case is empty? Teachers can check here to see if the film is available for free on this site.

Finally, the “motherlode” of film lesson plans is on the NYTimes Learning Network website. This is a one stop shopping for plans website (no subscription required) with lessons written by “[freelance] educators with deep and broad experience in the classroom and in curriculum development. They work with the editors, Katherine Schulten and Holly Ojalvo, who are also longtime educators, to develop the lessons.” The lessons are thorough, tied to standards, and so easy to follow that a sick teacher need only browse for a few minutes to find a lesson, film or otherwise, that can connect to a discipline.

This year, the 80 minute time block is new for our school and for our substitutes, and this longer class period demands even more attention to preparation. No teacher or administrator wants to lose 80 minutes (X) times the number of students in the classroom; do the math- 20 students in a class X 80 mins = 1600 educable minutes! A film/video lesson should not be offered as babysitting, but rather a lesson that extends learning in another medium. This quick presentation of information was designed to help teachers design lessons that can be easily implemented by a substitute teacher and meaningful for the students.  A well-designed film lesson can be effective even if the classroom teacher is not the one clicking the “play” button.

In Education, Education & Technology, Film, Teacher, Writing , , , , , , , , , , ,
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Teachers Built “It”

September 4, 2012 — Leave a comment

The claim “I built it” is being tossed around this political season.  I am not a fan of the unspecific pronoun “it”, but as “it” in this context stands for any one of a number of diverse businesses that power our nation’s economy, the inclusive, ubiquitous pronoun will have to serve.

While I agree that the success of our nation is due in large part to those who “built it [businesses]” in the past and to those individuals who will “build it [businesses]” in the future, I feel the need to point out that there is one profession that has more claim to this catch phrase then others. If America is a world power today because of those who “built it,” the individuals who “built it” are teachers. For example:

  • Teachers have “built it” by  teaching the reading and comprehension of texts in differing levels of complexity;
  • Teachers have “built it” by teaching formal and informal writing to communicate;
  • Teachers have “built it” by explaining the essentials of numeracy;
  • Teachers have “built it” by presenting the basic  laws of motion, gravity, and energy;
  • Teachers have “built it” by clarifying the organization of elements which compose the organic and inorganic on the planet;
  • Teachers have “built it” by explaining  science of colors and techniques of expression or the science of sound and musical techniques of expression or the science of drama and the techniques of performance;
  • Teachers have “built it” by presenting instruction in other languages to promote global understanding;
  • Teachers have literally  “built it” with hands-on lessons in engineering and industrials arts.
  • Teachers have “built it” by presenting lessons of history; the lessons of economic principles to budding businessmen, strategic principles to future military leaders, and political science to future politicians;
  • Teachers have “built it” by instilling an appreciation for civics and law to our nations’ citizens and to those who directly interpret and defend our Constitution.

Teachers at every grade level, teaching youngsters in kindergarten to teaching adults in graduate school, have had a hand in building our nation’s skills and developing our national brain trust. Teachers in all schools, public and private, have dedicated time and energy in the passing of information from one generation to the next. Teachers of all disciplines have shared their expertise in the hopes of building a better society.

Granted, not all teaching has been successful. There have been teachers that have missed steps in the building of knowledge; students may not have gained information that would have been beneficial. Some lessons have ended in failure, and despite best efforts, statistics on literacy for American adults vary over 80%. There is more that can be done to improve education, and so there are teachers working to “build” a better education system for all citizens.

Teachers are “building it” using the Bloom’s taxonomy of knowledge, comprehension, application, analysis, synthesis, and evaluation. Teachers are “building it” with an appreciation for the different learning styles of students from the verbal-linguistic to the  logical-mathematical; from the visual-spatial to the bodily-kinesthetic; from the interpersonal to the intrapersonal, and from the musical to the naturalistic.

In classrooms everywhere, whether a student is seated in an august university or in a home school kitchen, there are teachers who are at this very moment teaching students how to “build it”, whatever “it” might be. In each of these classrooms, the “building on” knowledge and understanding is critical to the success of what will be “built” in the future.

The phrase, “I built it” might even have its origins in the classroom. How often has teacher affirmed a student’s success with “You did it!” or “Look what you did!” rather than self-serving “Look what you just learned because a teacher taught you.”

Yes, our nation has been blessed with  inventors, industrialists, and entrepreneurs who can claim that they “built” successful economic enterprises. Yes, our nation has great artists, philosophers, and communicators who “built” our formidable culture.Yes, our nation is rich with independent and collaborative thinkers who now “build” pathways for our future.

But do not forget that there have been the teachers who “built it”in the classrooms where “it” stands for intellectual curiosity, understanding, and knowledge. The “it” that teachers build is education.

I am glad there are so many Americans of every political persuasion who proudly can state, “I built it!” Just so they remember that they “built it” because their teachers taught them how.

In Education, Teacher , , ,
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Common Core Missing Common Language

August 30, 2012 — 2 Comments

Going back to school means that teachers and students will confront two philosophical statements. One statement is the school’s mission statement that quite literally confronts them as they enter a school building. The second statement is the statement of purpose for the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) that currently guides the curriculum for K-12 teachers in states that adopted the CCSS.

Here is an interesting exercise. Below, there are three randomly selected school mission statements plus the mission statement from my own school, Wamogo Middle/High School. These statements are generic enough to be for any grade level; they could be for any school.  You could test your school’s mission statement as well. I pasted the combination of these four statements into a Wordsift.com word cloud generator that highlights the more frequently used terms. (illustration below)

_______School recognizes that each child is an individual; that all children are creative; that all children need to succeed. Therefore, _______ School respects the individual needs of children; fosters a caring and creative environment; and emphasizes the social, emotional, physical, intellectual development of each child.

Our mission at ____ High School is to provide individualized education that addresses students’ unique learning styles, cultivates independent thought, and promotes the building of character, enabling them to contribute to their communities in meaningful and positive ways.

The mission of _______Public Schools is to assure that, within a nurturing and stimulating environment, each of our diverse students and graduates achieves literacy and appropriate core competencies, and becomes a responsible and compassionate citizen.

The mission of Wamogo is to educate all students in a challenging, disciplined, and supportive environment. In cooperation with students, parents, and community members, we seek to empower students to be lifelong, independent learners and contributors in a diverse and ever changing society. (Wamogo Middle/High School)

Next, I selected an an excerpt from introduction that explains the purpose and goals of the Common Core State Standards; the text selected was about the same length as the mission statements. I pasted the excerpt  into another Wordsift.com word cloud generator that highlights the more frequently used terms. (illustration below)

The standards are informed by the highest, most effective models from states across the country and countries around the world, and provide teachers and parents with a common understanding of what students are expected to learn. Consistent standards will provide appropriate benchmarks for all students, regardless of where they live.

These standards define the knowledge and skills students should have within their K-12 education careers so that they will graduate high school able to succeed in entry-level, credit-bearing academic college courses and in workforce training programs. The standards:

  • Are aligned with college and work expectations;
  • Are clear, understandable and consistent;
  • Include rigorous content and application of knowledge through high-order skills;
  • Build upon strengths and lessons of current state standards;
  • Are informed by other top performing countries, so that all students are prepared to succeed in our global economy and society; and
  • Are evidence-based.

What is immediately  apparent is that the language in the school mission statement Wordsift wordcloud is very different than the language in the CCSS Wordsift wordcloud. For example, the words education and school do not appear in the CCSS wordcloud; the words skill and knowledge do not appear in the school mission statements wordcloud. The word standard is emphasized in the CCSS wordcloud; the  word child is emphasized in the school mission statement wordcloud. The word career is in the CCSS workcloud; its counterpart is citizen in the mission statement wordcloud. The words college, consistent, informed, provide dominate the CCSS wordcloud. The words creative, environment, individual, need dominate the school mission statement wordcloud. The word student is one of the few emphasized overlapping vocabulary choices. Neither mentions 21st century skills.

I am not a fan of school mission statements. They are usually written by committee, and each successive rewrite makes the language in the statement generalized or vague or bland; I believe that “please all, please none” is the problem with a mission statement. However, one would hope that the differences in diction between a generic mission statement and the Common Core would not be so striking. Ultimately, these two ideas contribute to a common outcome; there should be some commonality other than an emphasis on the word student.

Additionally, the difference is not only one of word choice, but also one of tone. The verbs assure, become, contribute, cultivate, foster, promote, and recognize in the school mission statement wordcloud differ in tone from the few verbs  build, define, learn, live, and graduate in the CCSS wordcloud. The adjectives caring, compassionate, diverse, individualized, stimulating in the school mission statement wordcloud differ in tone from aligned, appropriate, effective, expected, higher order, global and rigorous as adjectives in the CCSS wordcloud. The words social, public and character are not in the CCSS wordcloud; the words economy, benchmark and workforce are not in the mission statement wordcloud. Perhaps it is not a surprise that the language of the mission statements is more sensitive or empathetic in tone than the businesslike language of the CCSS.

My random selection of the three school mission statement plus the statement of my own school cannot possibly speak for all school mission statements. There may be mission statements that have vastly different vocabulary.  Regardless, this imperfect comparison highlights a gap in the language of these mission statements and the language of the CCSS. The goals and purpose of the Common Core should have something in common with goals and purpose of a school.

In Common Core, Common Core-CCSS, Curriculum, Education , , , , ,
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Arrrg! No Need for a Reading War on Common Core Text Complexity

August 27, 2012 — Leave a comment

To some educators, the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) could be consider the work of control freaks. To other educators, the CCSS could be interpreted like the line spoken by Captain Barbossa in Pirates of the Carribean, “the code is more what you’d call ‘guidelines’ than actual rules.”

At my core I am a control freak with strong tendencies towards being a perfectionist. However, 21 years of teaching in real classrooms with real students has informed me to deal with these tendencies in order to achieve realistic educational outcomes. I must teach the student in front of me, not the student I want to teach. I must deal with each student’s  particular mix of strengths and weaknesses. As I deal with that reality, I have learned to hand over more control to my students in their choice of reading and their choice to demonstrate understanding at each grade level.

When I give up control, the results are often unexpected, occasionally raw, and generally more than I planned every year. However, this  process is messy and individualized which is probably why policymakers cannot wrap their neat little statements around what really happens in a classroom. I have learned teaching  in the classroom is more like following the guidelines rather than following a strict set of rules.

But there are those policymakers who claim that following the rules is more important. One argument for this ideology recently was posted by Kathleen Porter-Magee who argues for text complexity in a blog post on the Thomas B. Fordham Institute website, “Common Core Opens a Second Front in the Reading Wars” (8/15/12):

But the Common Core ELA standards are revolutionary for another, less talked about, reason: They define rigor in reading and literature classrooms more clearly and explicitly than nearly any of the state ELA standards that they are replacing. Now, as the full impact of these expectations  starts to take hold, the decision to define rigor—and the way it is defined—is fanning the flames of a debate that threatens to open up a whole new front in America’s long-running “Reading Wars.”

Her missive across the bow of education uses the motif of war, the subject of a 2007 post “Reading Wars Redux”  which scratches at the scab of the phonics vs. whole language debate associating a student’s “natural” selection of a text with whole language; a student’s reading choice does not fit with scientifically-based reading research reading programs. Porter-Magee references that argument as part of a strict adherence to text complexity as outlined in English Language Arts Standard 10 and the complexity determining software.

The ELA Standard 10’s arc begins in kindergarten where students will, “Actively engage in group reading activities with purpose and understanding.” By grades 11-12, students should, “Read and comprehend literature, including stories, dramas, and poems, in the grades 11–CCR text complexity band proficiently, with scaffolding as needed at the high end of the range.” Determination of a text’s rigor is suggested through six different computer programs that factored in the research study: ATOS by Renaissance Learning; Degrees of Reading Power® (DRP®) by Questar Assessment, Inc.; Flesch-Kincaid; The Lexile® Framework For Reading by MetaMetrics; Reading Maturity by Pearson Education; SourceRater by Educational Testing Service; and the Easability Indicator by Coh-Metrix. These educational commercial enterprises (only the Flesh-Kincaid is in the public domain) are the means to determine what Porter-Magee argues is critical to developing rigor in our classrooms.

I would argue differently. A curriculum is not rigorous because of a text; a curriculum is rigorous because of what a student does with a text. Assigning students a rigorous text, say Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave in grades 6-8 does not mean the curriculum is rigorous. However, a curriculum with a lesson that has students read the narrative, compare this autobiography with  narratives from former slaves that were recorded in the 1930’s as part of the Federal Writers’ Project, and then have students conduct research on slavery and tell a story based on their findings could be considered rigorous. This lesson would be an example of a whole class read.

This lesson, however, does not promote a critical learning experience. The lesson does not address a student’s love of reading. Students may enjoy the Autobiography of Frederick Douglass, but I would venture that few 6-8th graders would choose to read the text independently. That is why there needs to be a place in every curriculum for independent choice where students may read above, on, or maybe even below grade level. Teachers are educating students so that we will be a nation of readers. My experience in the classroom informs me that handing a low level reader a complex text for close reading does not lead to a love of reading. Moreover, forcing rigor is not authentic; many adults do not choose complex texts, in fact, many admit to avoiding text complexity as a result of being force fed the literary canon in a misguided attempt to enforce rigor.

The ELA CCSS itself does not require the forced rigor that Porter-Magee implies. Appendix A of the ELA CCSS “Key Considerations in Implementing Text Complexity” notes the flexibility that educators have:

The tools for measuring text complexity are at once useful and imperfect. Each of the tools described above—quantitative and qualitative—has its limitations, and none is completely accurate. The question remains as to how to best integrate quantitative measures with qualitative measures when locating texts at a grade level. The fact that the quantitative measures operate in bands rather than specific grades gives room for both qualitative and quantitative factors to work in concert when situating texts. The following recommendations that play to the strengths of each type of tool—quantitative and qualitative—are offered as guidance in selecting and placing texts.

Quantitatively, a book may be at the level for a grade 10 student; qualitatively, the book may be too mature in theme, or the student may need additional support. The ELA CCSS recognizes this difference. That is why Appendix A offers guidelines rather than rules; suggested texts rather than required reading.

This is not a war. This should not be a skirmish. The ELA CCSS can be met with a blend of independent reading and complex texts. (see my earlier post  on blending independent student selected reading with whole class novels) Porter-Magee’s hyperbolic statement about a second front in a reading war is  one of ideology not reality. Teachers, even the most controlling, have an understanding of how text complexity can be balanced in the classroom today with the real students in front of them. Policymakers who see rigor through the addition of texts are distanced from the classroom. Magee-Porter’s post should be met with the same level of criticism as given to the pirates of the Caribbean, “You’re teachers. Hang the code, and hang the rules. They’re more like guidelines anyway.”

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English Teachers Need to Defend Literature from Myths of the Common Core

August 23, 2012 — 3 Comments

English teachers, defend literature in the classroom!

I teach English, and I am feeling a little defensive lately. In the past week, I have had two separate “literature-threatening” incidents.

The first came from a reader to an opinion piece I wrote that was featured in Education Weekly, 21st Century Students Need Books, Not Textbooks. The responder was repeating the myth that English classrooms need to abandon teaching literature in favor of teaching math and science texts:

“You need to look at the Common Core ELA [English Language Arts] standards and realize you now have a responsibility to teach reading and writing for STEM subjects. That is why this discussion is so wrong. Start reading math and science textbooks and start teaching what your students need, not what you love. I learned early on: the most boring subject is the world is another person’s hobby. Your hobby is reading “literature.” Your students need to learn to read and write STEM [science, technology, engineering, and math] topics, and those are found in textbooks. PERIOD!!”-Ebasco

This kind of response comes from the mistaken interpretation that the 70% of informational texts suggested by the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) need to be taught in English class; even the CCSS devotes a clarification to this on page 5 of their document in a footnote. Instead, reading is to be a critical part of all disciplines, generally 70% informational texts in all subjects and 30% fiction in English classrooms. However, English teachers can assign informational texts just as history/social studies can assign historical fiction; the genre assignment is fluid. An entire section of the ELA CCSS titled “Reading in History/Social Studies, Science, Math and the Technical Areas” is a guide devoted to improving the reading and writing standards in all disciplines. The push for reading informational texts is certainly a result of STEM, but literature is not being jettisoned out of the curriculum because it is a “hobby”.

Indeed, the benefits of reading literature is rooted in the second of the “literature threatening” incidents, in a WNYC Schoolbook blog post a piece titled Never Mind Algebra, Is Literature Necessary?  In this post, Tim Clifford made a compelling case regarding the stripping of literature from English classrooms in favor of Common Core, and again, the roots of this anti-literature movement are found in mistaken interpretations of the CCSS.

Clifford began his post with a multiple choice quiz based on the following quote:

“Now, what I want is facts. Teach these boys and girls nothing but facts. Facts alone are wanted in life. Plant nothing else, and root everything else out.”

Clifford posed the question “Who said the above?” and then offered three responses:

a. Bill Gates, Microsoft founder and educational gadfly
b. Michelle Rhee, staunch proponent of standardized testing
c. David Coleman, author of the Common Core standards

Then he offered the real answer,
d. Thomas Gradgrind, a fictional character created by Charles Dickens in the 1854 novel Hard Times.

The quote expressed the publicized sentiment of standardized testing advocates David Coleman, Bill Gates and Michelle Rhee. (I had chosen David Coleman as my answer). In discussing the correct answer, Gradgrind, Clifford explained that Dickens’s character was an attempt to skewer those utilitarian values in the mid 19th Century. Like today, there was a push for informational facts and statistics at the expense of creativity and imagination in public education.

Dickens’s novel Hard Times expressed his belief that an over-emphasis on facts over creativity promoted contempt between mill owners and workers.  Gradgrind’s name, like other Dickens creations, immediately expresses to the reader that he is an altogether unpleasant man, espousing that all one needs is “facts and statistics.” His daughter Louisa’s breakdown towards the conclusion of the novel brings him to the realization that fiction, poetry and other pursuits are not “destructive nonsense.”   Oh, if only Gates, Rhee, and Coleman were characters that could be similarly convinced.

In his post, Clifford described how his 6th grade curriculum has been altered to fit the ELA CCSS. He bemoaned the earlier loss of vocabulary and grammar in context and the most recent loss of creative writing which, “has been chopped clean away, to be replaced with unending persuasive essays that are the darlings of the Common Core standards.” He continues:

“Even reading has not been left unscathed. Many schools teach reading as a set of skills to be mastered rather than as a journey to be embarked upon. Children are taught how to predict, to connect, to draw inferences, and so forth, but they are rarely allowed the leisure to savor what they read or to reflect on the art of good writing.”

Clifford wrote about a successful novel writing project that, “engaged students on many levels and taught them story structure, characterization, use of dialogue, and exposition.” Unfortunately the project, “was jettisoned last year because of the national shift to the Common Core. It was replaced with an eight-page (for sixth graders!) research project.” He sadly noted, “The results were predictably dull and uninspired, but Gradgrind certainly would have approved. The papers were filled with facts but devoid of imagination.” In Clifford’s scenario, a successful unit of reading and writing was eliminated to favor lesson plans that do not have the evidence to prove success.

Where is the evidence that eliminating writing literature in favor of writing research papers will serve a mission statement of educating  “productive problem solvers and decision makers” who are “personally fulfilled, interdependent, socially responsible adults” ? Why are so many interpretations of the ELA CCSS rigidly eliminating what does work in favor of what might work? More to the point, why is there even a 70% vs. 30% split in reading genres, and why do stakeholders keep missing the point that the increase in informational texts must come by increasing reading in other content areas?

The positive impact of reading literature was discussed in the NYTimes article by Annie Paul Murray, “The Neuroscience of Your Brain on Fiction”. Reading fiction, “is an exercise that hones our real-life social skills, another body of research suggests. Dr. Oatley and Dr. Mar, in collaboration with several other scientists, reported in two studies, published in 2006 and 2009, that individuals who frequently read fiction seem to be better able to understand other people, empathize with them and see the world from their perspective.” To summarize, the data using neuroscience proves that reading fiction is good for you.

I teach literature, and my students make connections to the real word (Macbeth to Afghan Warlords; Frankenstein to the science of cloning) in my class everyday. Literature helps my students make sense of the world; they do not need to suffer under a despot, but they can experience a corrupt political system in Orwell’s  Animal Farm. They do not need to crash on a deserted island to understand how quickly very civilized young people can tun into savages when they read William Golding’s  Lord of the Flies. They can contemplate how precious is the relationship between a father and son who cling to decency and humanity without having to survive an apocalyptic nightmare  from Cormac McCarthy’s The Road.  They  can better understand the historical context of Jim Crow laws from Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird and in Kathryn Stockett’s more recent novel The Help.

And they can also learn about the utilitarian movement in England during the Industrial Revolution, the rise of the middle class, the frightening system of government-run workhouses, and the dangers of child labor in another Dicken’s novel,  Oliver Twist. Dickens’s literature demonstrates the power of fiction as a means of providing background information. Read a textbook of facts and statistics explaining the Industrial Revolution, and then read Oliver Twist. Which version will you vividly remember?

In Books, Common Core, Common Core-CCSS, Curriculum, Education , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
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Location Location Location-Reading Ethan Frome in a Heat Wave

August 20, 2012 — Leave a comment

The cold in “Ethan Frome” might be what we need in the long hot summer!

It’s 103 degrees here today in Connecticut during one of the numerous heat waves we have had so far this season. Tomorrow’s forecast bodes no better news. The garden has been drying up; even the most stalwart perennials are buckling under the sun’s intensity. Leaving an air-conditioned home or car means hitting a wall of humidity; my glasses fog over and I am temporarily blinded. A headline on the Reuters website reads, “Heat Wave and Drought Besiege Already Deteriorated US Crops” (July 18, 2012). Suddenly, I have a new appreciation for the heat of Steinbeck’s Dust Bowl in The Grapes of Wrath:

  • People in flight along 66. And the concrete road shone like a mirror under the sun, and in the distance the heat made it seem that there were pools of water in the road. (Ch 12)
  • They were tired and dusty and hot. Granma had convulsions from the heat, and she was weak when they stopped. (Ch 16)
  • The sun sank low in the afternoon, but the heat did not seem to decrease. Tom awakened under his willow, and his mouth was parched and his body was wet with sweat, and his head was dissatisfied with his rest. (Ch 18)
  • While the sun was up, it was a beating, flailing heat, but now the heat came from below, from the earth itself, and the heat was thick and muffling. (Ch 18)

I believe that where a reader has lived or visited contributes to an understanding of a novel’s setting. This does not mean that a reader cannot appreciate the descriptions of Mars in Ray Bradbury’s The Martian Chronicles or Panem’s District 12 in The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins or on the battlefields on the plains of Troy in Homer’s Iliad or the Congo River in Conrad’s Heart of Darkness. Indeed, the only way for the reader to “visit” and remember these locations is through the vivid descriptions the author writes. However, there is an advantage for a reader in being familiar with the setting of a particular story, especially where setting is a dominant character. Say, for example, the town of Starkfield in Edith Wharton’s Ethan Frome.

In the introduction, the narrator of the story explains how his employment has brought him to the aptly named Starkfield-“the least habitable spot”, where he “chafed at first, and then, under the hypnotising effect of routine, gradually began to find a grim satisfaction in the life”. Grim satisfaction indeed, as the winter weather in Western Massachusetts, where Wharton sets her ficticious Starkfield, can be mind-numbingly bleak.

“When I had been there a little longer, and had seen this phase of [December] crystal clearness followed by long stretches of sunless cold; when the storms of February had pitched their white tents about the. devoted village and the wild cavalry of March winds had charged down to their support; I began to understand why Starkfield emerged from its six months’ siege like a starved garrison capitulating without quarter.”

My most memorable image of the town was Wharton’s description of the graveyard that Ethan and Mattie pass on the night of the dance:

“They turned in at the gate and passed under the shaded knoll where, enclosed in a low fence, the Frome grave-stones slanted at crazy angles through the snow. Ethan looked at them curiously. For years that quiet company had mocked his restlessness, his desire for change and freedom. ‘We never got away- how should you?’ seemed to be written on every headstone…”(Ch 2)

This closing sentiment to this passage addresses the way I feel every winter when the dismal drizzle of freezing rain turns every trip in the car into heart-pounding sliding near-misses or when crusted mounds of filthy snow makes walking outdoors a life-threatening experience. My mantra becomes, “I’ve got to get out of this place.”

So how does a reader from Southern California really understand Starkfield? Yes, Wharton is genius at explanation, but that visceral understanding of January in New England is limited if the reader is reading her novel poolside on a sunny day, 78 degrees with a light wind blowing. Wharton can only stimulate the reader’s imagination to understand the kind of wet grey cold that chills to the bone until June. The memory of physically freezing in Western Massachusetts is an entirely different experience.

Conversely, a case can be made for other authors. How can the Wharton’s New England reader really understand the physical and cultural landscape for the characters of Faulkner’s  Yoknapatawpha County ? How does a student from the plains and mesas of Cather’s Death Comes for the Archbishop comprehend the mansions on Fitzgerald’s East Egg Long Island?  There are so many elements in creating the setting: the temperature and the angle of sunlight during the day, the architecture of the houses or buildings, the landscape and the vegetation, the dialect of the locals, the smell of the foods, and the sounds of the evenings. Each locale has identifying qualities that a great author captures in order to make a setting understandable to a reader. The author’s descriptions will resonate even more with a reader who has a first-hand experience in that setting.

Of course, reading Wharton’s novel in the in the middle of summer anywhere in the United States might be a form of mental air-conditioning. The mind can be a powerful tool into tricking the readers to feel cooler. Imagine the book display: “Feeling hot? Read Ethan Frome!”

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Recognizing Practice-The Olympics and Education

August 17, 2012 — 2 Comments

 How do you get to the  Olympics? Practice, practice, practice!

In this third post, my “tri-blog-a-thon”, connecting education to the recently completed London Summer Olympics 2012,  I ask you to recognize the significance of practice.

The 10,004 athletes from 204 National Olympic Committees (NOCs) who participated in the 2012 London Summer Olympics practiced for their athletic contests. There were incalculable hours of practice that contributed to each athlete qualifying for a specific event. Similarly, this fall there will be over 37.9 million primary grade and 26.1 million secondary school children* who will practice the skills taught in our nation’s schools. These students will have a mandated minimum of 180 days or 64,800 minutes of practice in a school year.

Practice by athletes makes participation in the Olympics possible. Practice makes education for our schoolchildren possible.

Of course, there is always a great deal of attention placed on the winner(s) of each Olympic event. Gold, silver, and bronze medals distinguish the best athletes on a given day in a given event. Similarly, our nation is obsessed with test scores in education, the final event in measuring specific skills on a given day.  However, there is often too little attention paid to the practice that is necessary to achieve high grades on these tests of skills. All skills, athletic and intellectual, can only be achieved through practice.

In preparing for back to school, teachers, parents, and students must recognize the importance of practice in education. Practice is to do or perform (something) repeatedly in order to acquire or polish a skill. Practice is to work at a profession; as in the exercise of an occupation. Practice is what athletes and students have in common.

Unfortunately, practice is often hard work. Practice requires attention. Practice means focus. Practice is demanding. And practice can be boring if there is no reason for the practice.

When my students complain about the amount or variety of reading they may have to do, I point out that they are engaged in a practice. Like a runner, they cannot win a race without running wind sprints or running longer more challenging race courses. They are practicing to be better readers.

Similarly, when they complain about the amount or variety of writing I assign, I point out that composing in various forms such as letters, essays, narratives, research papers or even texting is a practice. They will need to communicate in the future in numerous formats, handwritten and digital. They are practicing to be good communicators.

Student practice a wide variety of skills in different disciplines every day at every grade level. There are some skills that come easily to students with little practice; there are other skills that require more practice. The kind of practice a student engages in matters as well; repetition is not the only kind of practice to improve skills. There must be variations in the kinds of practice for a student to become good at a skill.

In his book  Outliers, Malcolm Gladwell  wrote extensively about  a “10,000 hour rule” where the key to success in any field is the practice of a specific task for a total of around 10,000 hours. Gladwell’s book called attention to the work of researcher Anders Ericsson. In TIME Magazine’s article “The Science of Experience” by John Cloud, Ericsson had become the world’s leading expert on experts, ” a term he distinguishes from ‘expert performers’ — those individuals, possessing both experience and superior skill, who tend to win Nobel Prizes or international chess competitions or Olympic medals.” But more important than routine repetition, varying the kind of practice had the most significant impact on skill improvement.

Cloud detailed how Ericsson found, “Experts tend to be good at their particular talent, but when something unpredictable happens — something that changes the rules of the game they usually play — they’re little better than the rest of us.” Changing practice to incorporate more complex tasks improved performance:

“Ericsson’s primary finding is that rather than mere experience or even raw talent, it is dedicated, slogging, generally solitary exertion — repeatedly practicing the most difficult physical tasks for an athlete, repeatedly performing new and highly intricate computations for a mathematician — that leads to first-rate performance. And it should never get easier; if it does, you are coasting, not improving. Ericsson calls this exertion ‘deliberate practice,’ by which he means the kind of practice we hate, the kind that leads to failure and hair-pulling and fist-pounding.”

This kind of deliberate practice can build confidence. Other desirable qualities associated with deliberate practice are motivation,  self-discipline, and commitment, all qualities we want to imbue in our students.

So, here is a goal for the new school year. Let the school year be filled with “deliberate” practice for every student at every grade level. Let the practice be frustrating. Let the practice be difficult. Let the practice be challenging. Let the practice lead to failure, so that the practice leads to success. “Let there be practice” should be the mantra for all stakeholders in our nation’s education system in this coming school year.

Now let the practice begin!

*2006-07 statistics from US Census

In Assessment, Curriculum, Education, Teacher , , , , , ,
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Stop Promoting Worksheets on EDsitement Lesson Plans

August 14, 2012 — 1 Comment

The EDsitement website, funded by the National Endowment on the Humanities, offers lesson plans that are aligned to the Common Core State Standards.  I have modified several of these lessons; other lessons on this site are familiar fare in English classrooms. One example is the lesson on Carl Sandburg’s Chicago  which asks students to pick a location and respond to prompts such as, “If this place were a person, what kind of person would he or she be? What noticeable physical characteristics would this person have? How would he or she act? What would this person wear and do?”  The lesson on Arthur Miller’s Crucible is also familiar, “Have students answer the following questions: What is John Proctor’s dilemma in Act IV? What motivates Proctor’s initial decision to lie?”

While there is always a need for more resources and support for teachers, I have two complaints about theEDsitement site. The featured lesson on the site this month is  Vengeful Verbs  in Hamlet for grades 6-8. The targeted age group and the objectives for this lesson are inappropriate; Hamlet is not for middle school students. That leads me to question the appropriateness of lessons for other students as well.

The second problem is a worksheet filter option on the site where lessons can be identified as offering worksheets or not.  Worksheets?  In the 21st Century, with all the digital possibilities, the National Edmowment for the Humaties is promoting worksheets? Why?

Many educators consider worksheets the “busy work” of education. Worksheets have correct answers; they are prescribed and limiting. Early childhood experts have pointed out that many worksheets do not allow the kind of problem solving that involves an element of risk, saying “if we want children to learn to solve problems we must create safe environments in which they feel confident taking risks, making mistakes, learning from them, and trying again” (Fordham & Anderson, 1992). Activities that require creative problem solving or critical thinking should be the goal of every teacher. The worksheet can limit both.

Additionally, worksheets are expensive. Paper and toner ink are the first expense, but the second expense is time. How familiar are teachers  with the number of hours that are wasted in front of copy machines copying worksheets?  Sadly, very familiar. What happens when the copier breaks down? Frustration. A teacher who relies on worksheets is forced to scramble when an unreachable tiny scrap of paper lodges into one of the copier’s feeders, or when the toner is low, or when code505 appears on the digital screen. In contrast, the increase of digital platforms in education allows teachers the opportunity to spend time more productively setting up documents that can be used by individual students or collaboratively.

Students have so many ways to record responses digitally, for example on Google docs or blogs or wikis, so why waste paper? The worksheet should be relegated to files of emergency backup lesson plans for a substitute.

The National Endowment of the Humanities should lead the way in weaning teachers off the worksheet. The emphasis on filtering lesson plans for worksheets should be eliminated. The availability of lesson plans aligned to the Common Core State Standards is a great resource that is cheapened with the pedestrian 20th Century tool of worksheets. EDSitement should not straddle  a 20th-21st Century divide. With funding support from  Verizon Thinkfinity, a foundation firmly in the 21st century,  EDsitement should lead.

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