Literacy Builders

For the Love of Learning

Kim Yaris

What’s on Kim’s Reading Radar?

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As this school year winds down, I feel myself slowly exhaling as I downshift into a less frenetic pace.  I am very much looking forward to lazy days at the beach when I can poke around in some of the books that have accumulated on my night stand. I find that I have two categories of reading that I am looking forward to: “Fun Stuff” which, by and large, are fiction stories that have piqued my curiosity and “Stuff that Interests Me” which, as you will see, are an array of non-fiction books about things that I want to learn more about. As I look ahead to July and August, this is what’s on my reading radar:

 

Fun Stuff

Insurgent by Veronica Roth

During the school year, I read aloud Divergent to my own two sons and I’ve been dying to know what happens next!

Matched by Ally Condie

Way back in November, I sat next to Ruth Culham at a dinner sponsored by Scholastic and she told me that this is a must read YA series and I haven’t yet had time to start it!

The Education of Little Tree by Forrest Carter

Jan had this book with her last week when I saw her in Tennessee.  I read the back and she shared that it was a classic that her husband had introduced her to. I felt a bit ashamed that I had never even heard of it and decided it was something I need to read.

Elijah of Buxton by Christopher Paul Curtis

This is another title that Jan introduced me to.  She read me an excerpt about a woman hiring someone to make a plaque for her front door and a young boy revising her words and getting paid for it that darn near made me cry. That piece was so powerful, I HAVE to read this book. 

Open House by Elizabeth Berg

I recently happened upon a garage sale late one Saturday afternoon. The sellers were tired and wanting not to haul their books back into the house and told me take whatever I wanted for free. As I browsed, this one spoke to me.  I’ve already started reading it and so far, so good.

 

Stuff that Interests Me

Learned Optimism by Martin Seligman

Paul Tough talks about this book in How Children Succeed.  I’ve been interested in positive psychology ever since Jan introduced me this TED video by Shawn Anchor and it seems like a book that will help to mold a positive mindset for the upcoming school year.

Visible Learning by John Hattie

More people than I can count have recommended I read this book so this summer, I intend to finally make its acquaintance!

The Talent Code: Greatness Isn’t Born, It’s Grown. Here’s How by Daniel Coyle

I think this is another book that Paul Tough mentions in How Children Succeed.  If the recommendation doesn’t come from there, I have no idea where the inspiration for reading this book originated.  Either way, it sort of reminds me of Outliers by Malcom Gladwell which I loved.

 

Write Like This by Kelly Gallagher

I really love Kelly Gallagher’s work.  My teaching has been deeply inspired by both Readicide and Deeper Reading and I’m looking forward to hearing his thoughts on teaching writing.

The Way to Cook by Julia Child

Julia’s Kitchen Wisdom by Julia Child

Cooking is an on-again, off-again passion of mine. I’ve been in a bit of an “off-again” dry spell and am looking to reacquaint with something that I truly love to do.  My colleague and friend  Jennifer Cox from Tennessee recommended both of these books for re-igniting my cooking passion.

The Joy Diet by Martha Beck

As part of our New Year’s Resolutions, Jan and I read Finding Your Own North Star by Martha Beck. This is a companion to that book and as I am always looking for more balance and naturally, joy, in my life, I resolve to read this one too.

As I look at this list, I am thinking that the “Fun Stuff” list looks a little paltry compared to my “Stuff that Interests Me” list.  I know that my non-fiction reading is going to demand a lot more of me intellectually which makes me think I won’t be relaxing in the way I intend to.  If you’ve read something that fits a “Fun Stuff” list, please help me in my efforts to maintain balance and share those titles with me!

The Quintessential Learner

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A couple of years ago I saw the sisters, Gail Boushey and Joan Moser, present at the New York State Reading Association conference.  They shared many great ideas and teaching strategies that day, but the thing that stuck with me most is a story that they told about a chance encounter they had with the late Donald Graves at a conference years before.

 

As I recall the story, Gail and Joan were lingering in a hallway when Donald Graves stopped nearby to take a drink from a water fountain.  As starstruck literacy groupies, Joan nudged Gail and Gail nudged Joan to confirm that they were indeed in the presence of literacy greatness.  Throwing caution to the wind, they decided to seize the moment and strike up a conversation. With the niceties out of the way, the question that they asked Donald was this: So, what are you on about these days?

 

While I don’t recall Donald’s response (in fact, I can’t guarantee that I’ve got these details exactly right, either), that question has always stuck with me. People who commit themselves to learning are always “on about” something.  For example, Jan and I are constantly talking about unraveling the mysteries of children’s reading processes. We wonder if interventions and explicit strategy instruction are the best ways to address poor comprehension and decoding.  Are we missing a part of the big picture? And if so, what is it and what are the better ways to address it?

 

Being “on about” stuff is what drives our curiosity.  It’s what nudges us to stretch and unearth stones that might have otherwise been left unturned. It’s what causes us to read new things and talk to new people.  Lifelong learners are always “on about” something which leads me to ask you: What are you on about?

Professional Hugs

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I have the good fortune of spending most of my days in the company of great teachers thirsting to reflect and refine their practices. However, many of the conversations that I have with teachers about how to get kids to talk and think deeply and become stronger readers and writers are overshadowed by the current educational climate that places great emphasis on “measuring” progress.  Great teachers know that so much that happens in teaching and learning are things that cannot be measured and reconciling this with our data driven teaching world leaves us feeling a bit beaten and beleaguered.

Today as I talked with teachers, they began to share how it feels to teach in a world which demands things with which we don’t agree.  We talked about how important it is to find ways that help us reconnect with the things that we value as educators.  One teacher shared that one of the things that she does to help her reconnect with her visions of great teaching and learning is to read her all-time favorite book about teaching reading and writing.  When I asked her which book that was, she named Joanne Hindley’s In the Company of Children.

Her mention of this title and her practice of rereading a beloved book made me nostalgic because when I was a classroom teacher, this was my go-to book, too.  I had a ritual of reading this book every August before the new school year began. In a review I wrote several years after reading this book for the first time, I described this book as

…beautifully crafted to reach the practical yearnings of classroom teachers. It has the perfect mix of pictures and student examples and explanations that transport teachers into the classroom and help them envision what a workshop looks and feels like. Every word invigorates—no matter whether you are a novice or a seasoned veteran, this book is rich with layers of thinking that inspire new ideas about teaching reading and writing.

This was the book that helped me picture what I wanted my classroom to look and feel like–it reconnected me with my vision for great teaching and learning. When I asked the teacher who reminded me of this lovely book what it was about In the Company of Children that appealed to her, she said, “It gives me the hug I feel I need as a teacher.”

This idea of looking for professional hugs appeals to me, and I suspect different people do this in different ways, which has me wondering what do you do when your teaching batteries need to be recharged? Do you have a go-to book? We’d love to hear what reconnects you with your best vision for teaching and learning!

Assessing the Skeletons in My Closet

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Pssst…come closer.  I have a secret to tell you.

When I was a high school senior, I had grand aspirations of getting into a great college.  As part of the college bound set, I knew that part of my fate rested with my performance on the SAT and had adopted the following reasoning with regard to test scores:

Twelve hundred and above means I am smart. Every college on my radar would be interested in me.

Between a thousand and 1199 means I am average to slightly above.  My dream schools would still be within reach.

Anything below a thousand…well…I could set my sights on community college because only dumb kids got scores like that.

I was set to graduate third in my class. That made me at the very least average, if not slightly above, right? I didn’t even entertain the possibility that I’d get anything less than an 1100.

So, like every college bound high school senior, I took the SAT early in my senior year. When the results came back, I had scored a 980. As you can imagine, not even breaking my threshold for “average”  shook my confidence; however, it didn’t crush me.  I attributed it to a bad day and signed up to retake it the next time it was offered.  I knew I’d do better the second time because, after all, I would be more prepared.  I would understand the format better, and I could even study the parts I did poorly on and work harder to improve.  So, you can imagine the shock…and horror…I felt when I got my results from the second test and discovered that, not only had I not done better,  I scored 90 points lower than I did the first time! This time there were no excuses.  These scores could be attributed to one thing and one thing only: I was dumb. The people at ETS told me so. As a college bound, high school senior, they were obligated to tell prospective colleges just how dumb I was.

The weight of the shame was unbearable. In fact, it has been twenty-four years since I took the SAT and I still cannot talk about it without painful feelings of humiliation and self-doubt.  My husband wonders why it still bothers me after all these years.  He reminds me that I was a successful college student and am successful in my career, but still I can’t help but wonder if other people will wonder what business a woman who couldn’t break 500 on the verbal section of the SAT has teaching others how to comprehend better and build vocabulary? Part of me wonders if I do this work because I need to prove that I can read and I can understand and I do know lots of words. Either way, it is a burden that I bear to this day and it stands as a cautionary tale of the lasting impact that standardized testing can have on an impressionable psyche.

When I took the SAT the first time, I maintained a dynamic mind set.  I believed that my results could change with hard work and effort.  When I took it the second time and did worse, I adopted a fixed mindset.  As Peter Johnston says in Opening Minds, “…in this world, simple events, like mistakes or unsuccessful attempts, are indicators of fixed characteristics” (p.10).  In my mind, my failure was not an indication of what I hadn’t learned yet, it was a reflection of who I was and who I would be forever—someone who wasn’t very smart.

We are steeped in a culture of high-stakes testing.  Year after year, children take Language Arts  assessments and get scores that tell them who they are as readers.  A four tells them that they are smart and that they are a really great reader.  A three says they are average and a pretty good reader.  Anything less than a three is a painful reminder of their reading inadequacies.  This test used to happen once a year but now, because we need better measures of growth, we are testing students at the beginning of the year and the end of the year, and in some districts there’s a whole lot more testing in-between as well. Surely, our “threes” and “fours” will enjoy validation that they are “smart,” but what about the students for whom their scores reinforce that they are not? How long will they maintain a mindset that recognizes that the test score is not who they are and that they can change their scores if they work harder? I quit believing after my second failure and I can’t help but wonder if, in our haste to test, test, test so that we can measure, measure, measure, we have created a culture that perpetuates a cycle of devastating self-fulfilling prophecy.  Even the best teachers providing the best instruction face an uphill battle when legions of students believe they can’t.

On Raccoons and Educational Reform

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On Saturday morning, I went outside and found trash strewn all about my driveway.  Cursing the animals that feast on what I throw away, I went about picking up their mess. Eager to get on with the walk that I had originally planned, I hastily lifted the lid of my trashcan to dispose of the waste and discovered this:

Needless to say, I was startled to see a live animal in my garbage can–I screamed, slammed the lid down, and went inside and got my husband. Shaking all over and speaking animatedly about the creature that I had seen, my reaction fed my husband’s reaction. He jumped out of bed and readied himself to protect me from this potentially rabid, wild animal invader. He donned gloves and grabbed a shovel and stood back as he cautiously pried the lid off the can.

When it was open,  we both peered inside at the raccoon balled up atop our refuse.  He didn’t hiss or growl or make whatever defensive noises raccoons are known to make. In fact, he stood eerily still as he stared up at us with helpless, timid eyes.  At that moment, I realized how small he was.  After a night of foraging, he was the baby who was left behind.  And he needed help. He didn’t need me to stand dialing animal control to discuss options and possibilities. He was stuck and he needed me to tilt the can so that he could get out and find his family and go about living his raccoon life.

As the drama of this incident ended in the instant that we pushed over the trashcan, I laughed at both my reaction and its similarity to education. Children peer at us with the same innocent expression quietly asking for our help but instead of simply responding to their needs, we become paralyzed by fear.  If I help in this way, will it align with the Common Core State Standards? And if I do this, is it a tier two or tier three intervention? And exactly how will I measure the result so that I can be sure that it is reflected in my annual review of professional performance?  

All of the changes and educational reforms have us deliberating and questioning our sensibilities when meanwhile, the only way to make sure that children are not left behind is to be the kind of teacher who looks into their pleading eyes and gives them what they need as learners.

The Habit of Thinking

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Every family has its traditions and since my children were little, my husband and I have always made it a point to check in with our two boys at dinner by asking them to share their day’s “best” and “worst.” Through the years, we have been regaled with stories about what happened on the bus, school assemblies, games on the playground, and other highs and lows of their daily lives.  “Best and worst” has become an important family tradition, but as my children grow older, I wonder if reflecting on the day’s events is enough.  Might I need to do more to inspire their conversation and thinking skills? In mulling over my options, I decided to add a new conversation prompt at dinner and follow up “best and worst” with “What’s your new idea?”

When I began this, my children were perplexed.  After sharing a story of a music teacher who all but dashed his best friend’s hope of becoming a musician,  my sixth grade son, Matthew, looked at me with squinty, confused eyes, “What do you mean, ‘what’s my new idea?’” he asked, almost annoyed at the extra work required of this new layer of thinking. But I coached him to think about why that story struck him as the day’s low. As he began to reflect, he quickly shared that his new idea was that there’s absolutely no truth to the adage “sticks and stones will break your bones, but words will never hurt you.” He thought out loud about the pain of a punch versus the power of words and he decided that while a bruise or a bump might last for a week, words can stay with people forever.

I was struck by how a simple question had the power to elevate the quality of our conversation and wondered if I had stumbled upon beginner’s luck or if, perhaps, I was witnessing the beginning of a shift. Since beginning this ritual of asking, “What’s your new idea?”, we have had many interesting dinnertime conversations. We have talked about society’s infatuation with movie stars and have formulated the idea that perhaps we need to choose our idols carefully.  “Wouldn’t it be better,” my third grade son, Nathan, thought, “if we admired scientists and inventors and other people  who help to change the world?” On another occasion, my older son Matthew described his plan to construct a Lego universe, sharing that his big idea was that he’d need to create a capital city because after all, “all roads lead to Rome.”

As we’ve habituated reflecting on our living and learning, I’ve noticed that the practice of asking, “what’s your new idea?” has begun to spill over into other aspects of my children’s lives.  One night, my older son announced that his summer reading plan would involve rereading the Harry Potter series.  This time, he decided, he would read it much slower and flip back and forth between the pages to find how things connect. (His plan, I swear!) He told us that he had already begun to do this and “he had a new idea.” As he read, he noticed that when everybody else was referring to Voldemort as “You-Know-Who,” Dumbledore’s position was “…I have never seen any reason to be frightened of saying Voldemort’s name” (The Sorcerer’s Stone, p.11) which made him think that there might be some sort of mutual respect between Voldemort and Dumbledore.  It is his plan as he continues to reread to follow this theory and see if he finds other places that support this idea about Dumbledore and Voldemort’s relationship.

Time has helped me to realize that our dinnertime conversation is a shift.  In fact, it is a shift that mimics the fourth shift of the Common Core Standards that emphasizes text-based responses.   When I ask my children “what’s your new idea,” I am prompting them to regard their lives as text and question, analyze, interpret, evaluate, and integrate new ideas.  No matter whether individuals do this by thinking about what happened on the playground or closely reading the words or illustrations in a book, the benefit remains the same: they develop a habit for critical thinking. As a conduit to problem solving, innovation, and creativity, critical thinking leads not only to infinitely more interesting dinner conversation, but also to a higher achieving student body and even better, to a more insightful citizenry.

Writing the Standards in Haiku

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Let’s face it, reading the standards isn’t like reading The Hunger Games.  The Common Core is dense and saddles educators with the same requirement the standards demand of students: close, careful reading.  As a teacher educator, I feel the full weight of this responsibility.  If I don’t fully understand what the standards are saying, I will never be able to help others implement them with fidelity. So this charge has launched my mission to develop my own deep understanding of the standards, setting me on a course of finding ways to interact with the Common Core and expand my ways of knowing. This quest has led to many ahas but none of them compare to what happened this week as Jan and I explored the Common Core through the lens of poetry.

Poets relentlessly pursue words that convey just the right image or tone or emotion.  As I considered this, I realized that as educators we are all working to understand the standards with the insight of a poet and when I mentioned this to Jan, she wondered out loud what would happen if we tried to write the standards in haiku.

The standards in haiku?  That was a novel thought. I certainly hadn’t experimented with that lens for close reading so I decided to give a try.  I turned to the reading standards and randomly chose number four:

Interpret words and phrases as they are used in a text, including determining technical, connotative, and figurative meanings, and analyze how specific word choices shape meaning and tone. (Common Core State Standards for English Language Arts, p.10)

I read it.  I read it again.  I asked myself, “What is that really saying?”  And then it occurred to me: If I wanted to translate those words into a seventeen syllable verse, I needed to do more than read and reread the anchor standard: I also needed to consider what the standard meant at every grade level in both literary and informative text. I set to work, and after revising several times, I arrived at this poetic interpretation:

Take note: words matter.
Careful choice shapes tone, meaning.
Is a rock a rock?

I continue to revise the poem, looking back and forth between my words and the words of the standards. I still wonder if I have captured the essence of this achievement goal, making me realize yet again the focused lens haiku provides for closely reading the standards. In fact, it worked so well, I would recommend it to any educator wrestling with understanding the standards. We invite you to try your hand at writing the standards in verse and to share your poems with us.  Tomorrow we will post the latest versions of our haiku for the other nine reading standards.

Common Core Standards for English Language Arts and Literacy in History/Social Studies, Science, and Technical Subjects. Retrieved from http://www.corestandards.org/assets/CCSSI_ELA%20Standards.pdf

Asking “Good” Questions

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In a recent presentation at the Nassau Reading Council/Long Island Language Arts Council Spring Conference 2012, Kate Gerson, Senior Fellow with the Regents Research Fund in New York, spoke in depth about text-based questions and the need for close readings of text. In her presentation, she explained, “A good question is one that allows you to stay with the text.”

To give context to her assertion, Kate invited the educators in the audience to explore the impact of text-based questions by sharing a series of questions about Abraham Lincoln’s The Gettysburg Address.

One set of questions she posed was this: What does Lincoln mean by “four score and seven years ago?  Who are the “founding fathers?”  The footnote on the handout defined “score” as twenty, and there was buzz in the room as people talked about their responses.

But as people talked, I went back to Kate’s comment: “A good question is one that allows you to stay with the text.”

Once everyone had done the math and listed the founding fathers, the conversation stopped dead in its tracks. “Where are we supposed to go from here?” I wondered.

So I asked Kate to clarify the thinking behind this question because to me, while it is based on the text, it seemed rooted in background knowledge that some readers may bring to the text, but others may not.  She disagreed, she felt that this question lent itself to a rich discussion about Lincoln’s intentional choice to refer to this historical event—and that’s when I thought again about Kate’s words, “A good question is one that allows you to stay with the text.” And it occurred to me that Kate’s intent may have been good but she didn’t really ask the real question. Based on her response, she seemed to be asking “Why is mentioning ‘the founding fathers’ important to Lincoln’s message in the Gettysburg Address?”

Asking “good” questions is hard work.  Few would say that it comes naturally which means that if we aim to develop “close read” units of study for our students, then we must change the way in which we plan and prepare.  We can no longer pull books off the shelf a half hour before we intend to use them or come up with questions off the cuff as we share text with students.  Close reads require thought, reflection, intention, and revision.  To add to Kate’s comment “A good question is one that allows you to stay with the text,” I would say, too, that a “good” question is borne in the company of colleagues and unless we are working collaboratively with others to develop “good” questions, we may find we aren’t asking the questions we intended. Perhaps, instead of “good” questions, we should work together to ask “better” questions.