But that is what we have to work with as part of our GVC. And while there are many good tools, it’s been a welcome challenge to roll up my shirt sleeves and get back to what I do well, and that is bridge what “has to be taught” with why is taught.
I cannot thank the wonderful educators on my query post who came to my rescue. Facing History and Ourselves: To Kill A Mockingbird is a breathtaking unit: simple, organized and incredibly rich. Anyone who loves to design curriculum should review it and cherish it as a masterwork.
Some things I’ve put together are co-constructed anchor charts on theme theories/inquiries, and my Chapter Expert Project. Hey, if I can get 120 students to jigsaw The Hobbit, I certainly can provide the structure for 60 to scaffold TKAM.
Inspired by Catlin Tucker: Thematic ThrowdownLearning is messyThis simple structure can help scaffold theme statements.
The process is fairly simple: have students work in pairs or groups of three, and find key words from the chapter. Collect those words, and then they choose three they think are the most important. From Chapter 5, many found ‘religion, religious differences, God, sin, garden, weed,’ etc. From this, one student thought that the noxious weed in Miss Maudie’s garden was important, and that led us to think that yes, it was–symbolic of the festering racism in the town and needed to be rooted out.
“Sometimes the Bible in the hand of one man is worse than a whisky bottle in the hand of (another)… There are just some kind of men who – who’re so busy worrying about the next world they’ve never learned to live in this one, and you can look down the street and see the results.”
We’re getting through TKAM with help of the graphic novel, audiobook, movie, and discussions. We haven’t had a chance to go too deeply into some burning questions and ideas that I have or Facing History explores. But we are getting there.
Slowly.
And all the while, we are hoping to be able to watch THUG if it comes out on Netflix, and I get parent permission slips. *Fingers crossed*
WORKING ON WHAT WORKS These ideas have not emerged out of the ether. My thinking about this approach stems from a program for the classroom, based on Solution-focused Brief Therapy, called Working on What Works (WOWW) developed by Insoo Kim Berg and Lee Shilts. In a nutshell, the program calls on students and teachers to notice and articulate specific actions that contribute to the success of an intervention. Students learn to observe, name and compliment the behaviors that have been identified as positive and nurturing. Two factors come together in this approach which turn out to be especially effective in building classroom confidence and community: First is a focus on strengths—in individual student behaviors, in the class group, in the observable results. The second piece is an emphasis on student input and feedback on their own progress individually and as a group. Taken together, while Working on What Works, students and teachers learn to keep their eyes and ears open for the good stuff: compliments, celebrations, breakthroughs, perseverance and how to share that news with each other. This video provides an example of the program in practice.
Someone gave me feedback last spring that I was ‘slightly negative’ during an interview. Dang. And it was my dream job, too. There may be some truth in that, although another colleague thought I was great. But in fairness, sometimes what others perceive as negativity is my internal dialogue of problem/solution pragmatism. Often I see there is a puzzle or problem and then work through possible solutions. Educators who are eternally optimistic are a joy to know, I just don’t seek them out for problem-solving sessions. But it is time for me to flip to see the positive first–and those moments are like glitter in the room–messy, everywhere, but really shiny and magical.
Life and events can be disappointing and discouraging, so it takes the wise words of one another to recognize and empathize the struggles, and then take action. There is so much to love about this post–please read it, internalize it, and make it happen. Off to write notes for students.
What are some of your #WOWWmoments in your classroom? I challenge you to tweet or post one a week, heck– one a day–I feel better already!
Here are some additional resources to my post ‘roadmap’ concerning learning targets, success criteria, and considering when and how to modify, abandon, or double-down:
Throughout that first week of school and on into the school year, Karen was reliably consistent with her students. Still, the thinking remained largely elusive, and the culture seemed never to approach a true culture of thinking. Classes started promptly with a review of homework. New procedures were cheerfully explained, questions answered, and new practice sets given for homework. True to her word, scores were posted on the bulletin board beside the door each week, and students were informed at the beginning of class if any assignments were missing or late. At times it seemed like each student in the class had made an internal calculation regarding how much attention needed to be paid to complete the homework successfully or prepare for the looming test. Each student operated just slightly below this threshold and rarely stretched beyond it, creating an atmosphere of compliance and passivity.
Abstract The ‘objectives model’ of curriculum planning, predicated upon behavioral performances, has become the dominant form of curriculum planning in Europe and elsewhere in the world. This paper argues that the objectives model is satisfactory for training or instruction, but falls down when applied to a true sense of ‘education’. The paper outlines 13 limitations on the use of educational objectives. It is argued that those interested in using objectives are guided by evaluation as an assessment rather than principles of procedure for education. Education is about the process of ‘travelling’ on an educational journey – not about ‘arriving’ at a destination. Keywords: instructional objectives, limitations of objectives, curriculum planning, process model.
Alcala also projects “favorite mistakes” on the board that they talk about as a class. And students get time to look at their own mistakes and figure out where they went wrong. The other advantage of highlighting is that she can call attention to things that she won’t necessarily take points off for, but that she wants students to notice. For example, she might highlight that they didn’t put the correct units in a word problem. They got the math correct, so Alcala is not worried they won’t be able to move forward, but she wants to remind them that units are important.
John Hattie’s learning target and success criteria work may be misused or misguided, and I am constantly searching on ways to improve these concepts of purpose for students.
One of my personal professional challenges is to practice and pursue the best possible use of learning targets and success criteria. And it’s come to my attention that most educators have strong opinions on their use, prescribed wording, and how students employ them.
Effective vs. ineffective goal-setting. The aim is to ensure that students understand goals and how current activities support those goals. Ideally, then, the student has perspective and sees value in the work: they understand the why of the current work in order to find it more meaningful and to facilitate purposeful learning, and they have a touchstone for gauging progress (and thus use of time).
Think about any long meeting. We have an agenda not only to remind us of what we must accomplish but what action items should follow. Why is that useful to provide a written agenda at the start – and, importantly, keep referring to? Because we easily lose track of time or focus unwisely on less important matters than the goals require. In other words, an ongoing reminder of larger purpose (and a double-check on whether current talk is on-task and a good use of our time) is always wise, given human propensity to get lost in the moment. True for teachers as well as learners.Thus, the bottom line test of the effect of any school policy about goal posting is whether or not students learn better and have greater perspective because of it. For example, when asked, can students say why an activity is being done and why it matters and how it connects to prior work?
Alas, having hundreds of times asked students in class Why are you doing and learning this? I cay say that the results are not pretty. I dunno is the most common. (Older kids sometimes sullenly retort: I dunno; go ask the teacher.) And this is often in schools where there are posters on the wall or objectives on the board.
Continually trying to encourage students to read–and talk about ideas. Why is this so hard?
Back to Learning Maps. The author of the article, Azima Thakor, is a French teacher in Canada. She and her colleagues are practicing a gradeless classroom. When asked, her students say:
“Place yourself where you believe you’re doing in the class. The Learning Map helps with self-evaluation. The Learning Map helps communicate how you think you’re doing, the teacher checks in, then we can talk about relating that to a number. I like doing it because I know where I am so there are no surprises – I got what I deserved; I expect the result because I talked to the teacher about it; I know how I’m doing in class.”
Learning Targets are not ‘activities,’ but they are assessments. The trick is allowing students to understand and maintain agency in their success. This doesn’t mean a wild-west free-for-all, but allow the continuum of progress. In a robotic world, a student would parrot the LT/SC and “get it.” I like the idea of reframing the “I Can” statements:
If a standard calls for multiple independent actions (e.g., I can identify a dog. I can identify a cat.), split it up into multiple learning targets.
Make sure all learning targets are in student-friendly language, because we ultimately want students to be able to leverage these targets to drive their own learning through self-assessment (assessment as learning).
To promote inquiry, present each learning target in the form of a question. (“Can I…?” instead of “I can…”)
What is your issue with Marie Kondo?” a respected colleague inquired the other day.
I have no particular issue with her personally, her show, her writing or ideas. Many of my friends touted her book a few years ago. There is some wonderful advice, and cleaning out physical clutter often helps us clear out emotional clutter, too. We Americans buy too much crap. And, this reminds me of years ago during one NCTAsia.org conference, the Eastern cultural notion of holding onto belongings, buying things of high quality that lasts instead of our Western consumer-trash was presented as an idea of cultural competency and contrast. Some have mentioned the backlash against Kondo is racially motivated, and there may be some truth in that. Americans consume and we expect the rest of the world to supply. Kondo gently but firmly makes us look at that.
Thinking back on my own rituals of cleaning up and out, during BFA days in my trailer/studio I took over–it was parked behind the print shop at the University of Delaware, abandoned. Since no one seemed to mind, I squatted all of my art materials there and created. It had running electricity, so my boombox played INXS, Robert Palmer, Peter Gabriel, and The Pretenders to my heart’s content. One of my creative rituals was to tidy up my dump of a studio before beginning projects. Part of the process to put the jars in a row, pick up litter and debris, pop paintbrushes in lined-up jars and cans, anything to avoid the big, blank canvas. Even when I learned the trick of coating the canvas with a wash of black paint and medium, (which I have since used as a writing metaphor with students), the act of lining things up still sits with me today. The challenge is even though I still often line things up, that’s often where I’ll stop. Instead of getting in the mental mud and truly, deeply cleaning, I go through the optics and mental trickery–the sad truth is I am overwhelmed, creative, and ebullient–so many things I want to do, share, create, think about, talk about and achieve–but then sometimes I just shut down.
The thing is– I need to acknowledge both my own stubbornness and agency when it comes to my stuff. My friend Sharon and I had a great conversation about this the other day. She is also an amazingly creative and intentional teacher. She creates the most incredible hallway displays and has an eye for theatrical and large mural-esque messaging. She has moved classrooms once in the 13+ years at my previous building. (I moved about 4-5 times during my 12 years there, and of course my big move to another district, so there has been some purging along the way.) People try to ‘manage’ her. And we both wish they would just stop. She knows how her classroom set-up works best for students and for herself. She holds kids accountable like no one I know (and I’m pretty good at it in my own way). But her desk area is undeniably cluttered. She’s too busy teaching, creating, thinking, and making to do much about it. But it does bother others. I’ve received that same message when an admin once looked around my thousands of dollars of books and essentially called it a roomful of crap. So–yeah.
And I just want to ask–“If this bothering you, how is that my problem?”
The issue is not whether or not I “Kondo” my classroom or home, the issue is other people’s comfort levels or discomfort, depending on their perceptions of my space, time, and creative energy. When they bring their bias and control in my space, I feel itchy and weird. I go to this immature place in my head, begin feeling stubborn and defiant.
My life is a mess right now. And I do take pleasure in the same victories, such as when I complete a grading task or fold towels. However, I balk and pushback a little too hard when others “tell me what to do.” In terms of my house, I’m lucky I can scrape enough together to pay the mortgage right now. We’re going through a rough patch. There are three other adults living in this house, all perfectly capable, and willing, to clean a bathroom, do their own laundry, and unload a dishwasher. But it’s taken 26 years of my emotional and mental labor to get them to this point. And I still have to say it out loud and ask. But in terms of the spaces where I work, play, rest and create, I’m doing the best I can. Back off, please. I know how good it feels to clean out a closet. My mother will tell you I’ve done this for years. I love to iron, straighten up, throw things away. I made a resolution once to put together all pairs of socks out of the dryer and didn’t lose a single sock for years. But now I have a husband who has his stuff, and two grown sons who also have theirs, and I’m not going to manage it along with my own. We’ve compromised that there are spaces in our home that require communal tidying, and all the other spaces are ours. In my classroom, I make it clear that I am sharing my resources out of love of creativity. Use accordingly.
Our little rituals of control help us when the world is out of control, and heaven knows it is so spun out now we are looking for any source of magic and joy we can squeeze out. And quite frankly, I’d rather be writing than cleaning out my drawers. You know you would, too.
Bom dia. What if we looked at obstacles as situations put in our path so we can get the blessings that come from overcoming them? How would our attitudes toward them shift with this change of perspective? #TuesdayThoughts— Julia E. Torres (@juliaerin80) January 15, 2019
My new sweet colleague ‘A’ bought me so many Secret Santa treats and goodies, it’s as if she sat next to my soul, chatted, and discovered what would delight me. I mean, dang, she really doesn’t know how much this meant. (The past two years at my previous school whoever was my Secret Santa didn’t get me squat. For real. Signed up, and bailed.)
One of the treats is a new travel mug from Starbucks, and the first day I used it I could not for the life of me figure out how to open it. Not wanting to let a travel mug get the better of me, I went as far as to look up directions on the ‘net and alas, nothing. In humble exasperation, I asked her — how do I open this thing? And of course, being the kind soul she is, she showed me, and in her funny, sweet way.
Teaching is about obstacles: observing them, reflecting, removing, and determining if they can indeed, be remedied. Most of the time I just get in my own way it seems lately, and I’m trying — sincerely trying — to keep things simple, impactful and focused. I not succeeding though. I am still caught up in the sharp threaded net of evaluations, panic over being in a provisional contract again, no tenure or safety, and it’s making me feel numb-headed and woozy. Occupational vertigo, as it were.
And as one of my favorite educational philosophers taught me, removing the obstacles and helping students discover their paths is our duty and joy.
“A teacher in search of his/her own freedom may be the only kind of teacher who can arouse young persons to go in search of their own.” – Maxine Greene
Maybe this is just what I needed: a low-risk reminder that I don’t know everything, reflection and adjustment are daily necessities and showing that vulnerability to grow and change will be my survival. While I envy those teachers who have a comfortable routine, status in their buildings, and security with their communities, students, and administration, I am not sure that is my karmic path. But at least I’ll have hot coffee while I’m on this trip.
Is anyone going to understand, aside from other teachers, how amazing what happened is? For all the ills of social media, there is so much good. Note to new and veteran teachers: find your PLN (professional learning network) via social media, and expand your thinking and horizons.
Here is what happened: my district uses packaged novel units based on another district’s work, or now a business, called EL or Expeditionary Learning. The program has many benefits, one of which each student (or scholar as they are known in the district) receives a copy of the central text. There are four modules, each with more lessons than is possible, and the intent is to provide some flexibility and professional judgment in the how to teach, but not the what, and the assessments are ironclad. We first taught Inside Out and Back Again by Thanhha Lai, and I followed the pacing guide and time frame and came out of it three weeks ahead of my PLC colleagues. No matter–I forged ahead with more essay and creative writing until winter break began on December 21.
Well, break is over on Monday, January 7th, and To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee is our next Module of Study, titled “Taking a Stand.” Being a Grants/Wiggins fangirl, I am all about the concepts of Enduring Understandings and Essential Questions. But–
…but–To Kill A Mockingbird?
My relationship with the novel is probably typical of a little white southern girl with liberal, progressive parents–I loved it. I loved Scout. I loved the bravery, and the characters, the mystery, the strength, and the suspense. I can’t remember when I first read it if it was a choice or assigned, but I see a wavering fog of memory of some teacher and I connecting over my lightbulb moment of why Mrs. DuBose chose to go off her morphine toward the end of her life. The novel taught me so many things, and I am grateful to Harper Lee for this novel. And to this day, it holds a special place in my heart. However, we paradoxical humans can and should hold two or more truths at once, and over the past year or so (long before I knew I would switch districts and be mandated to teach the novel), many respected educators questioned and criticized this novel. I learned and listened to new perspectives and considerations, many of which hold important truths. Truths about race, racism, misogyny, and injustice masquerading as justice.
I had this amazing professor in college. He was Sri Lankan, teaching the required Brit Lit class from the POV of colonized people. He gave us “Heart of Darkness” and said:— Tom Rademacher (@MrTomRad) January 2, 2019
“This book is a racist piece of crap. I want you to read it because I want you to know what a racist piece of crap it is.” We read the book and had amazing discussions, using it as a central text to talk about white gaze and other things. So, teach, but teach context.— Tom Rademacher (@MrTomRad) January 2, 2019
I’m just listening in but I do think if you have to teach a problematic text, then you teach it as a vehicle to learn a critical reading process that allows kids to identify other problematic texts out in the world. Because they WILL encounter them.— Jess (@Jess5th) January 2, 2019
When Jess@Jess5th tweeted this –I knew I found the center focus.
The responses received fill my heart. With the deepest of gratitude, I must acknowledge @MrTomRad, @Jess5th, @debreese, @Ebonyteach, @CrazyQuilts, @Caitteach, @ShanaVWhite, @JenniferBinis, @spencerideas, @TheJLV, @ValerieBrownEDU, @triciaebarvia and if I missed anyone, my apologies. You all came to the conversation, and this-this is what I’ll share with my scholars first — we are all learning together, and trying to do better, and ask the big, tough questions.
The plan, such as it is, when we come back on Monday, January 7, in the midst of adolescents who’ve been homebound for two weeks (most of them) caring for younger siblings and doing whatever it is kids do over rainy breaks when resources are limited, and the building expectations PowerPoints that must be shown, is to let them first take and get reoriented, but also–share what happened. How other teachers discussed their ideas, openly and freely. I intend to pair this text with my #projectlit collection, of course, and allow students to find their own relationship with To Kill A Mockingbird along with other paired texts and discussions. I want so much for them.
If you would like the resources and ideas shared, please go to Twitter and follow me, and click on the discussion thread: @mrskellylove
First, a terse, reflective question: what is my deal with learning targets and success criteria, anyway? * What, exactly, is my issue? Am I defensive and cranky because it’s “not how I was taught and I still managed to learn a lot of things anyway” notion? Is it the because it feels like another educational bandwagon that, including learning styles and grit, will be just another “this will fix it!” moment?
What do we get from learning targets and success criteria? Moreover, what do students gain? Because what I’ve witnessed are the following:
Students write down LT/SC in some kind of agenda/planner or notebook. Bike analogy: Today you will learn how to ride a bike. You will be successful when you ride a bike. (Specific: ride it several yards without falling down.)
Students sometimes reflect** on whether or not they met that metric. Several administrators have told me and other staff that the LT/SC must change daily. It is not a continuum of learning but a specific tight skill. Bike analogy: Put your foot on the bike pedal.
Evaluator comes in the room, notices if LT/SC are written in student-friendly language on the board, and will spot-check with students if they can parrot say what they are. Bike analogy: where the wheels fall off the bike is when the students are learning a new concept or skill, and have no idea really why they are learning it until they apply it. You are learning how to ride a bike: you have no idea where that bike will take you.
**This reflection is not automatic–it is one more thing to remind students to do. And it’s helpful — this is where we need to turn the conversation around.
Let’s try this:
Students write down LT/SC PLUS a reflection space for the why or possible application of the transferable skill.
Students focus on the mistakes that were made along the way –and the successes.
Evaluator comes in the room, asks them what they are learning, and then follows up with the teacher and students at a future date to read the students’ reflections and ideas about the mistakes, etc.
“Alcala also projects “favorite mistakes” on the board that they talk about as a class. And students get time to look at their own mistakes and figure out where they went wrong. The other advantage of highlighting is that she can call attention to things that she won’t necessarily take points off for, but that she wants students to notice. For example, she might highlight that they didn’t put the correct units in a word problem. They got the math correct, so Alcala is not worried they won’t be able to move forward, but she wants to remind them that units are important.”
Please notice that this is a math teacher. Math instruction is the go-to for learning target and success criteria conversations. Evaluators can easily pinpoint it, and perhaps we ELA teachers bristle* because our subject area is essentially more abstract than concrete. Learning targets and success criteria that don’t work:
Learning Target: “Today you will learn how to pull the wings off of a butterfly of poetry in order to deconstruct its meaning and then carefully put it back together and still enjoy the same sublime and ethereal beauty.”
Success Criteria: Explain the quality and essence of beauty in a five- paragraph essay.
Okay, so –now what?
Let me try this for two weeks, and do a little teacher-research: click on this link to a Google Doc.
The plan is to provide the LT/SC written out in advance for students, and then have them fill in the rest–it will be a gradual release process as they build their own autonomy and ownership. Stay tuned for results, late January.
Please read this post that provides an excellent example of then and now–before smartphones and their dopamine enhancers embedded into our psyches. I’ve been the classroom teacher who has witnessed this first hand. The students who find out that I have a Youtube channel and never, ever ask me what’s the content, but always “How many subscribers do you have?” (Currently 52.) The students who graffiti on any free surface: AMOS@(Snapchat username). The students who looked at me blankly when I suggested they use their Snapchat filters to create a monstrous portrait for a writing prompt. Here is one example using Snapchat, and another using Snapseed:
I can’t find the one using WordSwag to create a mini-quote print, but no matter. So many fun apps to make and create fun things, satisfying my artist’s soul. When they looked at their Snapchat and Instagram accounts with new awe and wonder: you mean, my work is my art, and it’s important and valuable simply because it’s mine? A shocking concept.
If you belong to this age of parenting where you don’t know this is the case for so many students because your family does things together, have built a culture of creativity and exploration then you may not see this issue. I am fortunate because my own family is a family of musicians, photographers, and artists. My husband and sons are excellent musicians, my husband and younger son love to photograph, and my older son is a skilled musician and actor. I just make stuff–I was an art major and I love tinkering with digital apps to create and blend new things. But that’s not what students are taught. Art is diminished. Conversations about making things don’t exist in many classrooms or homes. Be mindful of that: technology is not the problem. How it’s perceived is.
And here are my responses to his recommendations:
Propose that administrators and teachers stop using social media for school related purposes. In many districts, teachers are encouraged to employ Twitter and Instagram for classroom updates. This is a bad thing. It normalizes the process of posting content without consent and teaches children that everything exciting is best viewed through a recording iPhone. It also reinforces the notion that ‘likes’ determine value. Rather than reading tweets from your child’s teacher, talk to your children each day. Ask what’s going on in school. They’ll appreciate it. Propose that schools are diligent in terms of engaging, embedded technology used to create: more video and digital art production and know-how. But please: start talking to your children, even if they hem and haw and put up walls. That’s what adolescents do, it’s their job. But do what you can to find a common place to talk, even if it’s a drive in a car together, have them make the playlist for the drive or a family event/holiday. Have them start an Instagram account for a family pet or story. There are multiple tools to use to create: encourage creativity, not the likes.
Insist that technology education include a unit on phone etiquette, the dark sides of social media and the long-term ramifications of posting online. Make sure students hear from individuals who have unwittingly and unwillingly been turned into viral videos. Yes.
Tell your children stories from your own childhood. Point out how few of them could have happened if smartphones had been around. Remind your children that they will someday grow up and want stories of their own. An afternoon spent online doesn’t make for a very good one. And have them document those stories using the technology tools available: curating photographs, collecting sound recordings and videos of family members, bringing back the ‘home movie’ concept and most importantly, underscore WE ARE THE HEROS IN OUR OWN STORIES. We own our narratives.
Teach your children that boredom is important. They should be bored. Leonardo Da Vinci was bored. So was Einstein. Boredom breeds creativity and new ideas and experiences. Cherish boredom. Yes.
Remind them that, as the saying goes, adventures don’t come calling like unexpected cousins. They have to be found. Tell them to go outside and explore the real world. Childhood is fleeting. It shouldn’t be spent staring at a screen. Yes, again.
Ultimately, I would prefer that the normalization of technology is the normalization of creativity and creation, of making and doing, not the false idols of likes and followers. If you haven’t been in a classroom in the last three to five years you may not believe this is a reality for students. It feels like a Black Mirror episode some days. Flipping the conversation to “how many subscribers?” to “what do you create is a simple but important acknowledgment.
Together alone Above and beneath We were as close As anyone can be Now you are gone Far away from me As is once Will always be Together alone
Anei ra maua (here we are together) E piri tahi nei (in a very close embrace) E noha tahi nei (being together) Ko maua anake (just us alone) Kei runga a Rangi (Rangi the sky-father is above) Ko papa kei raro (the earth mother is below) E mau tonu nei (our love for one another) Kia mau tonu ra (is everlasting)
Once upon a time, there was a little girl who loved to read. Her mother read her books. When baby sisters came along she read books to herself. Her dad would take her to the library. Her teacher suggested books to her, including Are You There God, It’s Me, Margaret when she was in fourth grade. It became her anthem into adolescence. She read Harriet the Spythree times, long before there was a movie adaptation. She learned that some books were too cold, some too hot, but most just right, all without someone telling her. No context clues. No five fingers. No color-coded levels or reading logs. Nothing was forbidden or taboo. When her great-grandmother gave her The Secret Garden, she used her own judgment to put it aside until she connected with it a year or so later. She would read anything and everything. Stories and information fueled her imagination.
My apologies for using third-person point of view: I needed to get outside my own head for a while and look at the bigger landscape. What a pure joy, to develop and cultivate a reading life before it was a “thing.” Of my current 90 students, I have one girl who tears through my #ProjectLit books as if they’re a bag of Takis. She is a reader. She tested far and away the highest ‘level’ IRLA from the American Reading Company can test. She is proud of her reading and her intelligence, as well she should be. Meeting her mother at conferences I thanked her, and her mother said they read at home.
Now another 8th-grade girl said she doesn’t need to read The Hate U Give because she already saw the movie. She said this in a defensive, snotty tone, challenging me to push back on this notion. I didn’t try. And please don’t misunderstand: I am not critical of her: she’s a teenage girl who doesn’t see the value in spending time with the book, with the author’s prose and structure and doesn’t want to think beyond that. She saw the movie, and that’s enough.
(heartbreaking)
So we’ve had years of reading logs, and accountable talk, and for what? Now I’m in a district that uses a program called IRLA from the American Reading Company that says it doesn’t level readers, only books. When a representative from the company visited my room, she wanted to demonstrate the program with a student, and I chose a young girl who’s been reading anything scary I have in my classroom library. She was reading Through The Woods. The rep look at her computer screen leveled this book, and immediately told the student the book wasn’t at her level, “she was an orange level” and to go get an orange book. My student did what she was told.
That is a true story.
And what is also true is after the rep and group left my room, I went into damage control. I told her to never, ever worry about what level she or a book is in terms of what she wants to read. Read and talk about whatever she wants.
But I am left with my own accountability for using this program with students, and my evaluation is based on how much growth students show over this year. It’s on my TPEP evaluation goals, which my administrator crafted. I didn’t have a say in what my goals were or should be. Okay. This is the reality thousands of teachers face in schools across the country. I have the screenshots. We are required to teach and use instructional time for this program. The research I’ve done is dominated by the American Reading Company, so it’s difficult to find independent data. I am a solution-oriented person: if this is what I am required to use, then I will also tap into my professional expertise (by reading Donalyn Miller, Kylene Beers, Kelly Gallagher, et al) and make it work. Fortunately, Cult of Pedagogy addressed this issue: What are the best ways to use leveled texts?
And now, for those in the back: READERS ARE NOT LEVELS. BOOKS ARE.
Please: protect your readers. And be transparent about how and why you’re protecting them. You are fighting for their love of reading, but they need to learn how to do this, too, and advocate for their reading lives.
I’m returning to my Burning Questions unit soon. Not sure I ever stop, actually. Time to flip the script on reading instruction and give authentic and honest hope in our agency.
Postscript:
Classroom Library Tip Jar
Please donate so I can replenish my classroom library.
