Archives For Kelly Gallagher

Talking to Penny Kittle

April 9, 2018 — 2 Comments

I was talking to the author Penny Kittle for several hours the other night…in my head.

Admittedly, it was a bit one-sided…she and her co-author, Kelly Gallagher were doing most of the talking. I was listening, agreeing with head nods and an occasional audible “yes” as I flipped through the pages of their recently published book 180 Days. Their new book features cross-collaborations in classrooms using book clubs and independent reading. Our conversation was one of a series that I have been having with them individually for years, beginning with Write Beside Them (Kittle), Readicide (Gallagher), through Book Love (Kittle, again), and now with 180 Days.

I have had practice in conversing with authors since I first learned to read. My leisurely discussions with Louisa May Alcott or Madeline L’Engle gave rise to exchanges, arguments, or small talk with other kinds of writers: poets, historians, journalists, biographers, researchers.

I still return to engage in a chat with Mary Shelley or to mutter a sidebar to Shakespeare. But neither of them was exiting the ladies room last Saturday at The Early Literacy Conference ….and Penny Kittle was.

Which explains why I began a conversation in media res.

“I think the daily schedules in the book are very concrete,” I commented to her, ” I know the teachers in my school appreciated seeing them.”

Penny seemed to understand. I am (hopefully? probably?) not the only educator who has greeted her in this fashion…but I didn’t stop there. In the minutes that followed, I blabbed on trying to provide a snapshot of how I was still reading and planned to use her book with other teachers.

I think I commented on teacher interest for independent reading. I remember something like “teacher buy-in.” I know I mentioned a video conference with a student on American Sniper (YouTube: What If I Haven’t Read the Book?) and heard “the movie came out later.”

The rest of the conversation is a blur, except that when it ended, I ran to my car to grab my copy of 180 Days. Finding her again, I thrust my copy for her signature; she obliged.

It is during reading when an author gets to play with your empathy neurons…how she turns a phrase, how he crafts an idea.  So meeting that author in real life is meeting someone who has shared your personal brain space.

The experience can be inspirational…OR substitute any of the following synonyms: affecting, animating, emboldening, exciting, galvanizing, heartening, impressing, motivating, provoking, spurring, stirring, swaying, touching.

AND.. awkward.

Let’s not even get started that during the conference there was an additional interaction with author/educator Bob Probst (Notice and Note, Disruptive Thinking both co-authored with Kylene Beers) who spoke about the power of a text to change a life.

Now, I do know several authors, and I am fortunate when I can spend time speaking with them or listening to them talk about their books or sharing topics outside their work.

But, to be honest, that first face-to-face experience with an author has the unfortunate effect of reducing one to fan-girl status, something generally associated with Beyonce.

The luncheon during the conference also offered time for a teacher-to-teacher tribute. Student teachers-to-be at Central Connecticut State University took time to recognize the real-life teachers who inspired them. Their personal, heartfelt recognitions were then followed by Kittle’s powerful keynote on how matching a kid with the right book can make a reader.

The only conclusion the audience could make in return is:

Educators own a brand of rock-star.

 

I have returned to reading 180 Days. I have picked up on the page where I had left off, and this time, the conversation in my head is one in which I am infinitely more poised and articulate. Penny and Kelly are setting off neurons as they explain their purposeful choices in their cross-country collaboration, and I am nodding (again) in agreement. It’s not awkward at all.

In Books, Education, High School Classroom Library, Reader, Reading , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
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Survey Data: Agree-Reading is Important; Disagree-Reading is Fun

September 5, 2014 — 1 Comment

The 7th and 8th grade teachers who administered our own  “How I Feel about Reading Survey” to teams of students have collected some contradictory data. The survey is based on questions suggested by Kelly Gallagher in his book Readicide. In this book, Gallagher uses the term “readicide” to define “the systematic killing of the love of reading, often exacerbated by the inane, mind-numbing practices found in schools.”

The student body is divided into four teams at each grade level, and each team has taken the survey these first few days of school. Each team’s survey provides a snapshot for  a group of students and their attitude towards reading.

The results are contradictory. Take for example the results on 8th grade team in student responses to two prompts: I think being a good reader is important for success in life juxtaposed with the results from I read everyday and look forward to my reading time.

Screenshot 2014-09-04 22.19.16

Yes, students agree that reading is important, but the data shows they do not feel that the practice is important enough to do every day. Moreover, most students do not think reading if pleasurable with over 50% voting they “rarely” look forward to reading. This results from these questions were repeated throughout the grades 7 & 8, team by team.

This data suggests Gallagher’s diagnosis that students could be suffering from “readicide”, an unfortunate consequence of education’s current culture of assessment. The requirements to assess student learning often means employing reading practices that include worksheets, quizzes, or tests; none of these are “fun.”

To counter this, teachers at the middle school are implementing an ambitious independent reading program- 20 minutes a day in a block period- where students are encouraged to read whatever they want from classroom libraries. There are no quizzes. There are no tests. There are no worksheets.  The students will have time built into their day to read, but most important, the students get to choose what they want to read. They can choose from the school book collections or bring in their own book. They will talk about their books with each other, and teachers will visit and conference with them to listen about the books they choose.

In fighting the toxic effects of “readicide”, teachers already have the data that gives them an ace up their collective sleeves…most students have admitted that reading is important for success in life. Guaranteeing that success will be the goal of the 7th and 8th grade teachers who will be working this year to change that high percentage of students who are “rarely” looking forward to reading to a higher percentage of students who “usually” looking forward to reading. Hopefully, teachers can add an “always looking forward to reading” survey choice as well.

In 7th Grade, 8th Grade, Books, Education, Independent Student Reads, Reader, Reading, Silent Sustained Reading -SSR , , ,
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Thanks for a Giving Conference: NCTE and CEL 2013

November 29, 2013 — 1 Comment

Screen Shot 2013-11-29 at 12.50.41 PMThe National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) and the Council on English Leadership (CEL) met for a convention last week (11/21-26/13) at the Hynes Convention Center in Boston, Massachusetts. Thousands of English teachers and educators (happily) put aside their piles of essays and their red pens in order to attend to participate in a nationwide conversation on teaching English/Language Arts at all grade levels. This annual conference runs the weekend before the Thanksgiving holiday, and this year there were many reasons to be thankful that such a great opportunity exists. Here are our specific thanks to all of those who made this conference amazing.

Thanks to our Regional School District #6 in Connecticut for allowing us to attend:

Our first and most important thanks is to the administration, Board of Education, and staff from Regional School District #6 that allowed five members of the English Department at Wamogo Middle/High School to attend the conference and select from over 700 sessions offered from Thursday night-Sunday afternoon.  District support for such great professional development is truly appreciated!

Thanks to the program chairs who selected our proposals:

Members of Wamogo Middle/High School English/Language Arts department submitted a variety of proposals last year to demonstrate how we use technology in our classrooms. We are grateful that four of our proposals were chosen to share as presentations for other educators. The explanations of our presentations with links to these presentations are included below:

The Blog’s the Thing! (NCTE) roundtable discussion

This presentation demonstrated the use of the blog platform for students to engage in thoughtful discussion on characters and themes from Hamlet by having students “stop the action” of the play to offer advice to characters during different scenes.

Reinventing the Writing Workshop with Digital Literacy to Improve Student Engagement (NCTE)

Technology has reinvented the Writing Workshop in meeting the needs of 21st Century learners with the addition of digital literacies. This presentation features open source software platforms appropriate to the different tasks, purposes and audiences for writing instruction along with examples of student work and grading criteria.

How We Mooo-ved Our District from Cows to Computer (CEL)

This presentation illustrated how professional development in our district was organized on the ED Camp model to allow any teacher who would like to share their expertise or simply discuss a problem with fellow staff or faculty members.These technology initiatives have allowed members of the English Department to help teachers assess, organize, deliver context materials and related readings (fiction and non-fiction) that improve students’ digital literacy as well as foster independence in each student’s growth in reading.

Digital Writing with Collaboration (CEL)

This presentation showed how preparing students to write for the real world  (21st Century skills) must include the collaborative experience, from the initial creation to the final product. The use of digital platforms allows students to be college and career ready through the production and distribution of collaborative writing.

Thanks to the many teachers and educators who presented:

We are also thankful that so many other classroom teachers and educators from all over the USA shared their best classrooms practices. Our collective regret is that we could not attend every session that appealed to us; the jam-packed schedule defied our best attempts at strategic selection. We agreed, however, that quality of the presentations we did get to attend was amazing and relevant to what we do every day. The conference reinforced the importance of teacher-to-teacher professional development.

Thanks to the book publishers who made books available for classroom libraries:

The NCTE Convention offers book publishers opportunity to put advanced reader copies of fiction and non-fiction into the hands of teachers at every grade level. While publishers hope to catch the attention of teachers who will recommend the book to students, teachers look for books to add to their classroom library collection. Many publishers also make books available at a reduced cost  for the same reason. For example, I picked up several copies of books in the “After the Dust Settled” series (apocalyptic young adult literature) by Jonathan Mary-Todd for $2/copy, a purchase made necessary because these books keep disappearing off our classroom library shelves.

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Our “haul” from the NCTE Convention from book publishers and authors…headed for our classroom libraries.

 

Thanks to the authors who gave away signed copies of their books:

The tote bags distributed free to all registrants bore popular author Nicholas Spark’s imprimatur, a visual testament to the celebrity draw of authors at this convention. Authors are the rock stars at this convention: the children’s book authors rock, the young adult authors rock, and the educator trade book authors rock. Attendees stood in lines snaking around booths on the convention floor waiting to meet authors and have books signed. In the past, my request to an author is to have the book signed with the phrase “READ ME!” on the inside cover. I had the same done this year, so when a student asks what to read, I will point that the author has already made a suggestion to read the book.

There were also a number of authors representing a variety of genres who served as keynote speakers including: Neal Shusterman, Teri Lesesne, Laurie Halse Anderson, Kelly Gallagher, Walter Dean Myers, Ishmael Beah, and Robert Pinsky. 

We are so thankful to have the opportunity to personally meet and mingle with the rock stars of the convention!

Thanks for the Tweeters:

Finally, the fingers of dedicated Tweeters attending the convention kept us abreast of all the events at the conference. There was a steady stream of information from sessions we could not attend, summaries of keynotes addresses, and updates as to upcoming book signings. The hashtags #NCTE13 and #CEL13 were invaluable sources for notes and quotes during the convention and for well after we left Boston.  For example, some Friday session tweets were archived onto the Storify platform for later use.

Next year, the NCTE Convention is scheduled for Washington, D.C., which gives me one more reason to be thankful…the convention is within driving distance!

In Books, Education, Education & Technology, Professional Development, Teacher, World Literature, Writing, Young Adult YA literature , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
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Why I Blog: The One Year Anniversary of Used Books in Class

July 3, 2012 — 10 Comments

A bit of self-indulgence here. I have been blogging for a year on July 3, which means that the Used Books in Class blog is a one year old “toddler.”

I started this blog for two reasons. The first was a response to Kelly Gallagher’s Readicide, a book I have mentioned numerous times in posts on this blog. I was determined to increase reading in the classroom per his suggestion through “book floods,” and I began purchasing used books for the classroom libraries at Wamogo High School (Region 6 in CT). Fortunately for me, in the Fairfield and Litchfield counties in Connecticut there are numerous sources for excellent quality used books available for $1.00 (or less) through public library book sales held generally in the summer and Goodwill or other thrift stores.  I wanted to share how I had added entire class sets of books ( for example: The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, The Kite Runner, The Bluest Eye, A Walk in the Woods) or increased books in classroom libraries for independent choice reading in grades 7-12.

The second reason was that this past year I required students to write using blogs. At each grade level (9-12), the Wamogo English Department teachers used blogs in the classroom in order to increase student reading and writing collaboration. Our Lord of the Flies unit included “survival activities” on team blogs for 10 graders. The freshmen classes used a blog in different ways: to record individual book reports and to respond to questions associated with whole class reads.. The journalism class’s newspaper format is a blog, and we have also had students blog responses to Hamlet or record their progress on Capstone projects. If I was requiring that students blog, I needed to know how to blog as well.

I researched the use of blogs in the classroom. According to Trey Martindale and David A Wiley,  in their paper Using Weblogs in Scholarship and Teaching, “Clearly two keys to effective blogging are knowing who one’s audience is, and knowing that that audience is in fact reading one’s blog. My students were motivated and willing to write regularly and with clarity, knowing that fellow students and the instructor were reading the blogs.”  I recognized that most student writing is read by the teacher, so our students needed to understand how to target an larger audience. I emphasized this question for my students by having them identify the audiences of other blogs, and then consider the question  “Who am I writing this blog for?” and “Who will be able to read this post?”.  Similarly, I had to apply the same consideration for this blog.

I also researched whether blogging was an effective strategy to increasing reading and writing in the classroom. Would student blogging rather that standard writing (papers, essays) improve comprehension skills? In one study by N.B. Ellison and Yuehua Wu, “Analysis revealed no significant differences in comprehension between blog and paper assignments, although students reported spending less time writing in the blogging condition.” However, in another study by R. MacBride and Lynn Luehmann using blogging in science and math classrooms, “Findings indicate that (1) teachers’ intentions focused on creating additional forms of participation as well as increasing student exposure time with content; (2) blogs were used in a wide variety of ways that likely afforded particular benefits; and (3) both teacher and students perceived the greater investment to be worthwhile. ”

I found the same to be true for this blog, Used Books in Class. My first post (7/3/11)  received 8 hits! I was surprised anyone would be interested in this blog about used books, but those first hits motivated me. Now, after a year, the focus of the blog has shifted from “used books” in class to posts discussing “how books are used” in class. I have drifted into other areas of education, namely the English Language Arts Common Core State Standards, but these issues directly or indirectly impact teaching in the classroom.  26,518 hits later, I still am still surprised at the interest this blog has received. Honestly,  it’s not like readers could use yet one more education blog; there is some serious competition for attention!

Yet there is one more reason that I discovered for blogging as I wrote over the course of a year. I found other blogs to be informative on issues in education, and their comment sections were one way to enter into online discussions. I had followed Shelly Blake-Plock who authored Teach Paperless from 2009-May 2012. In his post, Why Teachers Should Blog, he offered one line that stood out:

Because to blog is to teach yourself what you think.

I had no idea how true that statement would be for me this year. Blogging has allowed me to frame an evolving philosophy of education, and I had to think about my own teaching practice every time I sat down to write. Blogging has provided the platform for me to articulate my responses to issues in education, and I had to think about how public my response would be every time I sat down to write. Blogging has let me practice my writing voice, and I had to think about how this voice needed to attract the reader and keep the reader reading every time I sat down to write. In summation, blogging has taught me over the course of this year how to think in order to write about education.

Thank you for reading posts on this blog. I am heading into year two with this “toddler”. When I started, I wondered if I would have enough topics to write about. I do not worry about that any more because this blog has taught me how to write what I think, and I  am thinking all the time. I think, therefore I blog.

In Education, Friends of the Library Book Sale, Independent Student Reads, New Milford Goodwill Store, Writing , , , , , , , , , , ,
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“Statistically Significant” Increase in 9th Grade Readers’ Attitudes with Silent Sustained Reading

June 13, 2012 — 5 Comments

Shhhhh….We’ve been very, very quiet in grade 9 this year with our Silent Sustained Reading (SSR) academic experiment in the college prep 9th grade class. 77 students were asked to read a minimum of eight (8)  independent reading books of their choice as part of the curriculum, and to facilitate reading, students were provided 20 minutes twice a week (40 mins total/week) of SSR.  Responses to the independent books were recorded later on blogs or presented in class.

The inclusion of independent student choice texts with the time made available for SSR meant a reduction in the number of whole class reads; four texts remained in the curriculum: Romeo and Juliet, Of Mice and Men, Speak, and selections from The Odyssey. Classroom libraries were augmented with high interest texts (used books in class) with support from the school library and Overdrive software to allow for a wide selection by students.

So, what were the results? At the beginning of the school year, students took a survey based on questions suggested in Kelly Gallagher’s Readicide. This week, (June 2012) the same students retook the same survey. In order to account for percentage differences in attendance and enrollments, results were also checked using a t-test calculator to determine statistical significance. While there was only little change in students viewing reading as “fun” or “easy,” 57% to 59% or a 2% increase in the affirmative, the other data gathered from the survey indicates a positive shift in the attitude of our students towards themselves as better readers coupled with an increase in time spent reading  outside of class.

According to our September survey, 39% of our students rated themselves as “good” readers, 42% rated themselves as “average” readers, and 21% rated themselves as “poor” readers. The difference in June was very statistically significant (t-test) with 66% of students rating themselves as good readers; 30% of students rating themselves as average readers, and only 8% of students rating themselves as poor readers.

Responding to the prompt “I read independently every day and look forward to my reading time” in September;  9% of students responded “usually”, 35 % of students responded “sometimes”, and 56% of students responded “rarely”. However, by June, the difference in student attitudes her was also very statistically significant (t-test) with 19% of students responding “usually” (up 10%),  53% of students responding “sometimes” (up 21%), and 33% responding “rarely” (down 23%).

Finally, not only did the SSR program did increase the number of books read  by students for class, students indicated (very statistically significant) that they increased the number of additional independent books they read over the course of the year. Students reading no addditional books dropped from 32% to 11% while students reading 1-2 books increased from 52% to 58%, students reading  3-4 books increased from 13% to 22%, and students reading over 4 books increased from 3% to 8%.  These numbers complemented the finding of students who increased their overall “not for school reading/reading for pleasure” for 60 minutes or more (5%), for 30-60 minutes (17%) , and for 30 minutes or less (17%). The number of students who admitted to doing no additional reading dropped from 22% to 15%.

So what are the implications of this data? There are numerous studies that support independent reading for academic achievement. Students who read independently may also have an advantage as adults in the workplace. Author Stephen D. Krashen writes in The Power of Reading:

What the research tells me [about SSR] is that when children or less literate adults start reading for pleasure… good things will happen. Their reading comprehension will improve, and they will find difficult, academic-style texts easier to read. Their writing style will improve, and they will be better able to write prose in a style that is acceptable to schools, business, and the scientific community. Their vocabulary will improve, and their spelling and control of grammar will improve.

Additionally, high school is not too late to start an SSR program. Author  Steven Gardiner defended the practice when he  responded to questions about his book Building Student Literacy Through Sustained Silent Reading and discussed the use of SSR at the high school level:

On more than one occasion, I’ve started class by simply reading aloud. I didn’t explain what I was doing or why, I just started reading. They may be 15 or 17 years old, but they quickly get quiet and listen, trying to understand what is going to happen next, just like youngsters in story hour. They aren’t too old for reading aloud, and they aren’t too old for SSR. Most students are grateful for the time. When I look at changes in modern society, I understand why.

So do I. Our students occupy a digitally distracting universe: tweeting, texting, tethered to some instant communication that generates a almost compulsive nervous response. Carving out time, 10-20 minutes a class, for quiet SSR is necessary for students who need to focus when they read. Sadly, this may be the only time during a day when students read.

The significance of our efforts to increase our students’ independent and voluntary reading is addressed in the 2007 NEA report To Read or Not To Read: A Question of National Consequence:

Voluntary reading involves personal choice, reading widely from a variety of sources, and choosing what one reads. Aliterates, people who have the ability toread but choose not to, miss just as much as those who cannot read at all. Individuals read to live life to its fullest, to earn a living, to understand what is going on in the world, and to benefit from the accumulated knowledge of civilization. Even the benefits of democracy, and the capacity to govern ourselves successfully, depend on reading.

Our practice of  good reading habits,  SSR provided twice weekly with student selected texts, can lead to improved attitudes towards reading, and we now have the data to prove that one academic year of SSR has improved our 9th grade student attitudes towards reading. SSR will be included as an important part of our literacy efforts at other grade levels as well.

In 9th Grade, Independent Student Reads, Silent Sustained Reading -SSR , , , , , , , ,
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Balancing Whole Class Reading with Independent Choice Books

February 11, 2012 — 7 Comments

Current efforts to improve our students’ love of reading is allowing them the opportunity to choose what they want to read.  Since the amount of time available to teachers in a school year is finite, the inclusion of independent choice reading materials in a curriculum means that some things, usually whole class novels, have to go. In the case of our 9th grade students, the curriculum has been reduced to  three whole class reads: Romeo and Juliet, Speak, and Of Mice and Men. The remainder of the year is devoted to student choice, fiction and non-fiction. In other words, I am running a blended reading curriculum of student choice with whole class novels. I am convinced my students need this balanced approached to literacy.

Balancing between whole class novels and independent reading

Those who advocate student choice in the classroom make some excellent points. Last fall (2011), Kelly Gallagher (Readicide) in an audio interview with Mike McQueen on the Reading on the Run website said,

” I want to know does my child’s school have expectation that my child will read recreationally? Do they support that by giving kids time to read? Do they support that by giving kids interesting books to read not just academic books to read? Those are kind of questions that I would ask in looking at my child’s school.”

Gallagher’s most recent tweets on his KellyGtogo@Twitter demonstrate his continued campaign against language arts curriculum that are limited to whole class readings:

  • gr. 4-12: half the books our students read should be recreational in nature. We don’t want to raise test takers; we want to raise readers. 
  • more books = more reading = better reading. nothing happens without books.
  • Dear Common Core, where are recreational reading expectations? 

Yet, Gallagher still recognizes the importance of the whole class novel stating, “I am a proponent of academic reading, I do believe that kids should read you know, rich academic text. You know, I want my 9th graders to read Romeo and Juliet or my 12th graders to read Hamlet.”

There are, however, some educators who have eliminated whole class reading in an attempt to either engage students with choice only or as a differentiated approach to addressing reading levels in a class. In an article in Education Week  (7/2011) titled, Against the Whole Class Novel, Pam Allyn takes the position that whole class novels do not encourage reading and instead lead to alienation and isolation. She writes, “We have now reached a point at which teaching with neither the whole-class novel nor the basal reader, in which the whole class reads a selection together, is viable. We must end these practices. They are not benefiting our students.” She illustrates her position with the story of Sam who struggled with To Kill a Mockingbird saying, “…no way was this book a refuge for him, or an inspiration. It did not help him learn to read, nor did it help him to become a lifelong lover of text.”

Instead, Allyn suggests,

“If a student has found 16 blogs about boats, let him read those in school. And maybe that student will follow one of those blogs to a newspaper series about a regatta, or to Dove, Robin Lee Graham’s personal account of sailing around the world as a teenager. In these ways, our students will be exposed to a wider variety of genres than the whole-class novel ever allowed, and they will be more compelled to think critically across genres, as the common-core standards will require of them.”

While I agree with Allyn that not every book will make a student a lifelong reader, I believe she is clouding the issue of whole class reading with bad teaching of a whole class novel.Yes, it is true that some books are very difficult for reluctant or low level readers, so it is surprising that she suggests a student may choose Graham’s Dove  (RL 6.6) given her earlier reference the isolation a low level reader may have with to To Kill a Mockingbird (RL 5.6)  Regardless, a low level reader will struggle with a high level text unless there is some instruction or support. And while I agree that her suggestion of more inclusive reading materials (blogs, magazines, non-fiction) is important,  I also believe the communal experience that occurs in the reading of a whole class novel is equally important.

I am not suggesting the unit that beats a novel to death for week upon week, or what I refer to as the “it takes as long to read The Hobbit as it did Bilbo to get to his confrontation with the dragon, Smaug”. I am promoting the whole class novel experience where students work collaboratively to decode a text, share opinions, make comparisons, or criticize plot points. I promote the whole class novel with support for the low level readers and supplemental activities for the less engaged students. Reading levels should not limit student accessibility to a text when there is support available, for example, an audiobook. Please note: I did not say vocabulary and worksheets are supplemental activities.

Ideally, I advocate the whole class novel to capitalize on contexts or issues in other subject areas. Students can read All Quiet on the Western Front while they are studying World War I in Modern World History classes. Students can read Silent Spring as a companion piece to an enviormental studies course. Students can share the stories in Warriors Don’t Cry or Mississippi 1951 when they are studying a Civil Right’s unit. Whenever possible, I advocate a interdisciplinary read as a whole class novel.

I see great benefit in asking students to recall the themes, characters, settings or plot points with something they read earlier in their lives, particularly with the more complex texts at the middle or high school level. I will ask about the dystopia of The Giver when we read Brave New World, or the societies represented by animals in Charlotte’s Web when we read Animal Farm. A shared understanding of a previous reading experience with others provides immeasurable insights into a new reading experience.

Another argument for whole class reading comes from educator, Mrs_Laf in her blog post Confessions of an English Teacher who recently admitted that while, “I am the first person to champion individual and small group reading and used to be the first to decry the whole-class novel…I’m teaching a whole-class novel.”

She explains that her immersion into choice only reading resulted in many students selecting reading that did not challenge them. Students chose “fun books”, which she compared to beach reads noting that her students were not reading as closely as she wanted. In other words, “not all reading is the same.”  She decided that many students still needed to be taught to read a novel, just the same as students are taught to read a poem or short story. Her solution? Well, first she picks high interest books (The Hunger Games) which students purchase for annotation. Students make notes in the margin, put question marks next to the text they find confusing. In using this approach, “The trick is to get them to be patient with it.  This is a different kind of reading and we are reading for a different purpose.” Her point is a good one. Many students may need to be taught to read a more challenging text if all they read is what interests them.

I see reading as a community for my students as both academic and social.  I need to prepare students for the rigors of college and the real world since there is an expectation of cultural literacy  in our society. Students will encounter references to texts that compare relationships to the doomed Romeo and Juliet or the awkward Holden Caufield or the fair-minded  Atticus Finch or the the skin-flint Ebenezer Scrooge; they should understand those references. Teaching complex texts that students would not select independently ensures they can be included in conversations that extend beyond the classroom.

Teaching a whole class novel can be successful if, like any subject matter, students can be engaged. Language arts teachers need to seek a balance in in allowing for student choice while still teaching students how to read a challenging text. Every wave of innovation in teaching such as the recent calls for independent choice has an opposite one, such as traditional whole class novel instruction. Maintaining balance with these waves is what makes education successful. Balance means emotional stability; calmness of mind; harmony in the parts of a whole. Providing for independent choice plus whole class reading equals a balanced student.
In Curriculum, Education, Independent Student Reads , , , , , , ,
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Step Two: Create the “Book Flood”

September 14, 2011 — 7 Comments

Classrooms are several feet deep in a “book flood” at the Wamogo Middle and High School.

Junior classroom library created with used books

While there has been a torrent of late summer rains that have closed roads and delayed schools in the Northwest corner of Connecticut, our students are experiencing a deluge of an entirely different nature. Gently used books spill over in classroom bookcases; they slop on to counters and swamp several double-sided carts.

The term “book flood” is used by Kelly Gallagher in Readicide.  He states, “Let me be clear: if we are to have any chance of developing a reading habit in our students, they must be immersed in a K­12 ‘book flood’–a term coined by researcher Warwick Elley (1991)” (43). Book flood is a theory, recently tested in countries (Fiji, Sri Lanka, Singapore) where English is not part of the culture.  The theory is that students exposed to quantities of literature will learn English as a second language more effectively.

The abstract for The Potential of Book Floods for Raising Literacy Levels by Warwick B. Elley states that “the evidence is now strong that it is possible to double the rate of reading acquisition of Third World primary school pupils with a ‘Book Flood’ of about 100 high-interest books, per class, and short teacher training sessions. The benefits for reading skill and enthusiasm are consistent across diverse cultures, mother tongues and age levels, and they appear to generate corresponding improvements in children’s writing, listening comprehension, and related language skills. Such skills are typically found to develop very slowly under traditional textbook styles of teaching.”

Gallagher suggests that American educators do the same in their classrooms by asking, “Do students at your school have access to a wide range of interesting reading materials? Is providing access to interesting text a priority among your administration and faculty? Are students on your campus immersed in a book flood? Are we giving them every opportunity, via reading, to build vital knowledge capital?” (49).

Well, we are.

11th grade choices that accompany the Contemporary War unit with The Things They Carried

Over the course of one year (June 2010-2011), the Wamogo English Department had added 2,500 books previously used books to the classroom collections. Many of these books are familiar titles that are taught in grades 9-12 (EX: The Great Gatsby, Lord of the Flies, Animal Farm, Speak, The Glass Castle, A Lesson before Dying, The Bean Trees, To Kill a Mockingbird, The Handmaid’s Tale) or titles taught in  grades 7 & 8 (EX: Stargirl, Nothing but the Truth, The Giver, The Light in the Forest, The Outsiders, No More Dead Dogs).

Additionally, class sets of books (20 -30 copies) that were already purchased as new books were expanded with used copies for each student at grade level. For example, the 10th grade library started with 20 copies of The Kite Runner. After two years, there are now 116 copies for 10th graders, one for every student, plus all teachers and teachers’ aides. There are also 15 copies of A Thousand Splendid Suns for students who would like to read another novel by Khaled Hossani. Similarly, 20 copies of Mark Haddon’s The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time were purchased new in 2009. An additional 67 used copies have been added since; 13 more copies will make a grade level set of 100 copies.

Books offered to Advanced Placement English Literature students for independent reading

In order to offer independent choices for the Advanced Placement English Literature and English Language classes, newer titles have been added including multiple copies (4-30) of  The Plot Against America, Alias Grace, The Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, Middlesex, The Story of Edgar Sawtelle, The Poisonwood Bible, In Cold Blood, Love in the Time of Cholera, Paddy Clarke Ha-Ha,  Dinner at the Homesick Restaurant, The Elegance of the Hedgehog, Cold Mountain, Ironweed, The Wide Sargasso Sea, Gertrude and Claudius, Atonement, The Hours, and The Memory Keeper’s Daughter.

There are thematically connected texts for 10th grade World Literature such as a unit centered on adolescents growing up in conflict. These books include A Long Way Gone, The Power of One, What is the What, and First They Killed My Father. Students can choose to read one of these titles in literature circles. There are also thematically connected texts for non-fiction (A Walk in the Woods, Into the Wild, The Perfect Storm, Touching the Void, The Hungry Ocean, Between a Rock and a Hard Place) and fiction  (The Bluest Eye, Their Eyes Were Watching God, The Color Purple, Invisible Man, The Known World, Monster, Precious, Native Son) for students in English III American literature to read independently or in groups.

10th grade "choice" books for Adolescents in Conflict unit

But, it is in the area of providing book choice for independent reading that the largest gains have been made in the classroom collections. There are book series (Percy Jackson and the Olympians, The Ranger’s Apprentice, Maximum Ride) available for 9th students to choose during Silent Sustained Reading (SSR) sessions. There are many different titles from popular teen authors: Meg Cabot, Anthony Horowitz, Jodi Picoult, Sarah Dessen and Scott Westerfield.

There are several (5-10) copies of books such as The Lovely Bones, Dairy Queen, So Be It, Where the Heart Is, and The Thirteenth Tale. There are pairs of books such as The Chosen, The Good Thief, Bad Kitty, Shadow of the Wind, Sleeping Freshmen Don’t Lie, Prom, and Life As We Knew It. There are single copies of The London Eye Mystery, The Off Season, The Compound, The Maze Runner, Black Duck, and Copper Sun.

Independent reading texts for SSR Grade 9

More Independent SSR choices for Grade 9

At the conclusion of the summer of 2011, after trips to thrift stores and public library book sales throughout Connecticut, another 1,700 copies of books have been added to our shelves at a cost of  approximately $2,300.00.

The “book flood” straining the banks of Wamogo’s classroom shelves is, as Gallagher suggests, wide-ranging; it is a flood saturated with interesting material to read. Our students are now inundated with titles; our teachers have an overflow of suggestions. We have created the one flood in which I could happily watch students drown.

In 10th Grade, 11th grade, 9th Grade, Advanced Placement Literature, Independent Student Reads , , , , ,
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Response to “We Can’t Teach Students to Love Reading” – Part I

August 9, 2011 — 1 Comment
In my inbox this past week was an article by Alan Jacobs titled “We Can’t Teach Students to Love Reading” published July 31, 2011, in The Chronicle of Higher Education. The title grabbed my attention; I rankled seeing the combination of “We Can’t Teach” with the word “Reading.” I have been reflecting on his argument and on one statement in particular:  “No novel or play or long poem will offer its full rewards to someone who consumes it in small chunks and crumbs. The attention it demands is the deep kind.”
But first, let me address the title.
The “We” in the title could  mean many different stakeholders: parents, teachers, administrators, education policy makers, academics. For the purposes of this response, however, I will generalize “We” to mean the teachers in the classrooms; those “boots on the ground” educators.
We can’t teach students to love reading does not mean that we cannot teach students to read, or to read better, or to appreciate what they read. I would argue that no one can teach anyone to love something or someone; love is a choice of the heart or the mind.
But that is not Jacob’s argument. He argues that there have always been people who read deeply as opposed to the shallow readers or grazers of information. He suggests that literacy today is not altogether different than the practice of literacy from the Middle Ages through the 20th Century. There have always been few readers in the past who engaged in long and focused reading, states Jacobs,  “Serious ‘deep attention’ reading has always been and will always be a minority pursuit.”
As a high school English teacher, I confront readers and non-readers every day in the classroom. Most students do not read with “serious deep attention.” I also appreciate how difficult deep reading is for my students given the hyperactive environments of school and the hyper-connected environments after school: digital devices are distracting; sports are demanding; jobs may be necessary. However, reading is the skill that is paramount in education.
So, I believe schools must carve out time for reading. I believe that teachers and administrators need to set aside time for reading in all disciplines. I believe adjustments must be made to schedules in order to provide quiet time for students to read, and for teachers to demonstrate how one can read deeply in such environments. Once students have developed the skills to read and acquired a positive attitude towards reading through practice, they may choose to read out-of-school. They may read for fun.
The National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) found that “students who read for fun almost every day outside of school scored higher on NAEP assessment of reading achievement than children who read for fun only once or twice a month,” and much higher than students who did not read for fun at all.
I also believe that teachers should offer student choice in reading as suggested in Kelley Gallagher’s Readicide (a philosophy which is the driving force behind this blog) at every opportunity.  We should allow for student choice in reading coupled with reading for fun, as Gallagher says, “not for analyzing the author’s tone…not for the multiple choice question. Reading for fun.”
At the middle school and high school levels, we can offer students a choice of contemporary coming of age novels when they are assigned JD Salinger’s Catcher in the Rye. We can offer students a chance to read real life adventures when they are assigned Homer’s The Odyssey. Or, we can simply let students pick a book they want to read. These combination of factors can help improve student reading.
Jacobs himself admits he has “retrained his brain” and recovered his ability to read deeply through the technology of the e-book; he speculates that students who have, “never seriously read for information or for understanding, or even for delight—can learn how.” Yet, we owe our students the opportunity to develop a desire to read for fun beyond the school day, since Jacobs notes that, “Slow and patient reading…. properly belongs to our leisure hours.”
There are many factors which lead Jacobs to his conclusion, “All this is to say that the idea that many teachers hold today, that one of the purposes of education is to teach students to love reading—or at least to appreciate and enjoy whole books—is largely alien to the history of education.” While Jacobs may be correct about teachers and education’s historical role in contributing to the love of reading, there are teachers today who are promoting choice, providing time, and welcoming new technologies in improving student reading. Perhaps their response to Jacobs could be in an article titled, “We Can Make Students Better Readers Who Have Developed ‘Deep Attention’ By Offering Time and Choice.” Deep reading should not be a minority pursuit.
In Independent Student Reads , , ,
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How Readicide Has Changed My Teaching and Purchasing Practices

July 13, 2011 — Leave a comment

Readicide is defined as, “the systematic killing of the love of reading, often exacerbated by the inane, mind-numbing practices often found in schools.” I fear I was a Readicide practitioner in my early years of teaching, but I am now trying to recover and adopt practices suggested in Kelly Gallagher’s book Readicide.

Gallagher points to a crisis in America’s schools that we experience in our classrooms at Wamogo.  Our students do not read well; our test scores (recently released) are low. My English Department members hear all the time, “I hate to read” or “This book is too hard” or “I don’t have time.”

Readicide advocates for student choice in reading

Readicide (160 pages) was published by Stenhouse Publishers in 2009 and has been influential in many discussion on educational reform. Gallagher recognizes several factors have contributed to the reading crisis. One of these factors he discusses under the heading “There is a Dearth of Interesting Reading Materials in Our Schools.” In this section, Gallagher poses the following questions:|

  • Shouldn’t schools be the places where students interact with interesting books?
  • Shouldn’t the faculty have on-going, laser-like commitment to put good books in our students’ hands?
  • Shouldn’t this be a front-burner issue at all times?

Gallagher advocates for interesting materials saying, “Let me be clear: if we have any chance at developing a reading habit in our students, they must be immersed in a K-12 ‘book flood’-a term coined by researcher Warwick Elley (1991). Students must have ready access to a wide range of reading materials. This goal should be the priority of every faculty….We must start all discussions about the state of reading on our campuses with a simple, direct question: do our students have ample access to high interest reading-materials?”

I know that the increase of titles I have purchased in the secondary market is a step in the right direction. In two years, English Department members have added over 200 titles to our collection; some in small sets of three copies and other sets with as many as 60 copies.  We will continue to teach “core texts”, but we offer independent reading books as well. We organized titles by theme and now let a student choose which book he or she would like to read. We have noted that our students are more enthused -and therefore more likely to finish – when they select a text. We now organize literature circles around student book choice….and we are offering more and more choice in a cost-effective way by using used books. We are changing how we teach and what we teach in order to stop the practice of readicide. We hope that others will too!

In Curriculum ,
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