Author Archives: Amy Rasmussen

Resources to Make Your Move to Readers and Writers Workshop

Amy Rasmussen, Pedagogy, Presentations, Readers Writers Workshop June 1, 2015 Comments: 3

When you believe in the power of the workshop classroom, research that supports it starts jumping at you like my dog when he sees me put on my running shoes. “Okay, Jag, give me a second. You can go with me.”

So when educators ask me for resources that support my Readers and Writers Workshop instruction, I am happy to share. Come, go with me — and bring all of your students!

Of course, a pretty good resource is Three Teachers Talk, right? The four of us who write here all practice this pedagogy in our unique classrooms in WV, NH, NY, and TX respectively. Erika wrote a great post of our Year in Review that reads like a highlight reel.

Of course, we have different teaching styles, but we all value specific things that never change in our practice:  choice, time, talking, reading, writing, conferring, modeling, sharing, publishing. I wrote about these 7 Moves in My Workshop Schedule recently.

Our presentation at NCTE last fall was all about starting and maintaining workshop in high school English classes. Jackie shared A Reader’s Workshop Starter Kit to Jumpstart the Process. Erika shared Landscape of Workshop: We Have Arrived. Shana shared Non-negotiables Across the Landscape of Workshop. And I shared The Landscape of Workshop in AP English.  (Our proposal for 2016 was not accepted, but we are mostly over the bitter and will keep advocating for RWW every chance we get.)

If you need research to back the why of readers and writers workshop in addition to what we might share in our posts, you might start with Donalyn Miller’s blog post: “I’ve Got Research. Yes, I Do. I’ve Got Research. How About You?” — Donalyn shares a list of articles and books that support why readers workshop is the best pedagogy for all students.

My colleagues and I believe the best book for secondary readers workshop is Book Love by Penny Kittle. Her argument for independent, choice reading resonated with me the moment I read it.

Donalyn Miller’s the Book Whisperer is another great resource for readers workshop. Although Donalyn taught middle school, many of the ideas she shares work with my AP English Language and Composition students.

For writers workshop, Write Beside Them, also by Penny, is my favorite. That is the book that changed me as an educator.

Another excellent resource for writers workshop is Learning Through Teaching by Don Murray. This is the most recent book Penny recommended to me to help with my own writing. Oh, boy, is it helping!

So, yes, please ask for resources. And if you are already a workshop believer, please share them. Every student I know will thank you.

Do you have resources you share that we might find valuable here at TTT? Please leave your thoughts in the comments.
©Amy Rasmussen, 2011 – 2015

Shelfie Saturday: My Ideal Bookshelf

Amy Rasmussen, Books, Classroom Library May 30, 2015 Comments: 4

shelfieAT UNH Literacy Institute 2014, Penny Kittle gave us a handout so we could create a depiction of our Ideal Bookshelf. The idea comes from a lovely book that features articles where “100 cultural figures” describe the books they read and love.

Here’s a sampling from Brainpickings: My Ideal Bookshelf: Famous Artists and Writers Select Their All Time Favorite Books.

I keep an Ideal Bookshelf in my room. This is a place for my favorite, books. They touched me, molded my thinking, changed me in some way.

I talk about these books often, and many of my students read them. We share what we like and what we don’t. I encourage them to craft their own shelf of favorites.

From Awesome to Shakespeare to Girlchild and Great Expectations to On Writing and Portrait of a Killer by Patricia Cornwall — this is my personal canon, my Ideal Bookshelf.

What do you keep on your Ideal Bookshelf?

Please leave your favorite titles in the comments. They might just fill the next shelf in my classroom library.

©Amy Rasmussen, 2011 – 2015

Guest Post: The Case for Teaching Reading in High School

Guest Post, Readers Workshop May 29, 2015 Leave a comment

cherry-blossoms-from-our-bedroom-window-april-2014As spring arrives, the cherry blossoms start to bloom, the daffodils open their petals towards the sun, and high schools across the country begin their own feverish rite of spring, end of course test intervention and remediation. Schools will hold after school opportunities to help students prepare for a reading test that they must pass. In my state, Virginia, if students don’t pass the test, they don’t graduate, the school’s graduation rate is affected, and accreditation is considered. All this is not to say that schools don’t want to do what is absolutely best for students, because we do. We know that a high school diploma can make the difference between a mediocre job and a career. But we don’t grant a high school diploma unless a student passes the reading test. The irony is that, undoubtedly, when we sit down with these students to help them prepare, we will be doing little reading at all.

What are the costs of not reading well? The Alliance for Excellent Education, estimates the cost in terms of lost wages over a lifetime due to low literacy skills is around $335 billion per year. According to Reading at Risk, a survey conducted by the National Endowment of Arts, there is a sharp divide in reading skills of incarcerated adults versus non-prisoners. On the flip side, those who read more for pleasure exercise and volunteer more. They even vote more. And students are not going to read more, are not going to become avid readers, if they are not reading. Students should be engaged in what they are reading in order to become more competent readers. Not surprisingly, reading more makes us better readers. The Department of Education reports that frequency of reading for pleasure correlates strongly with better test scores in reading and writing. Students who read outside of school see more vocabulary, reading comprehension, verbal fluency, and background knowledge growth, all of which are skills students need in order to pass the reading test. Right now, there is a decline in voluntary reading rates among teenagers while at the same time reading skills in schools remain stagnant or worsen. A required reading test is not the problem. Students graduating from high school should have the skills and strategies to pass the test. The problem, instead, is that in this era of high stakes testing and accountability, schools, divisions, and states have lost track of the original goal of the test, to ensure that all students who graduate from high school in the United States are competent readers. Instead, we are focused on teaching for and to a test.

According to the most recent National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), our country’s 4th grade reading scores are slowly moving up and are the highest they have been in the past 33 years. This is great news as it shows the achievement gap is shrinking with our elementary school population. Unfortunately, the numbers are much different for our adolescent learners. The 2013 average reading score for adolescents has gone down from the first assessment and remains unchanged since 2009. In Virginia, only 36% of eighth grade students scored at or above proficiency level on the NAEP reading test. Students with disabilities and English language learners are often struggling readers, and schools have a difficult time meeting accreditation as these subgroups continue to score poorly on state reading tests. In fact, the achievement gap among high school seniors with and without disabilities is growing.

In our current era of accountability, it is required for states to have a reading test in order to be accountable to the federal government. States need to show that students are making adequate progress in reading. These scores are not only used for accountability at a state level but also on a more local level. Community members look at these scores in an effort to understand the needs of a school or division. Unfortunately, when we look at the demographics of the students we are currently cajoling to stay after school for extra test preparation, we don’t see good results. Last year, although 90% of students in Virginia passed the end of course reading test, only 62% of students with disabilities and 70% of limited English proficient students passed. This, in turn, is affecting Virginia’s accountability score for the federal government, as students with disabilities and limited English proficient gap groups did not make adequate progress.

Instead of prepping students to pass a specific test, schools should focus on teaching students how to girl-reading1read better. Schools can do this by teaching students at the appropriate reading level and using explicit instruction while at the same time increasing teachers’ professional development on literacy. Students need to be reading high interest books that aren’t too difficult or they will give up and not read at all. English language learners may start school with little literacy preparation which, according to the NAEP study, results in only 3% of English language learners in the 8th grade scoring at or above proficient in reading. These students will not pass a test by having test prep. Instead, they should be reading, analyzing, and talking about books and passages that they can read so that they can do the rigorous work asked of them.

In Reading Next, a Carnegie Corporation report, researchers map out fifteen elements of effective adolescent literacy programs, none of which include test preparation. Instead, this report focuses on the importance of explicit instruction in comprehension, vocabulary, fluency, writing, and motivation for struggling readers. Schools should be providing these literacy interventions in the school day every day, not just after school as the test looms near. Time must be spent in class with texts in order to read and write effectively. Research suggests that these texts should ideally consist of good literature on and slightly above students’ reading level to grow as readers. Professional development should be provided for teachers so that students who struggle can work on strategic reading skills in all their content classes.

boy readingWe cannot better prepare students for the test by having them practice process of elimination in answering the multiple choice questions. Instead, we must require a shift in instruction to do the hard work of teaching students to be more strategic, aware, and yes, avid readers. We can do this by helping students where they are, providing support where they need, and allowing them time to read. Schools should shift our focus towards real reading in order to better prepare for the reading test. We need to prepare stronger readers to help them be successful both in their professional lives as well as in their community. So as spring is upon us, we cannot get caught up in the flurry of test prep remediation but instead should teach reading by having students read. What a better season for it? For surely, it is not a coincidence that a perfect way to enjoy this spring weather is to sit outside and read a good book.

References Pfautz article

Jeannie Pfautz is a reading specialist in Charlottesville, Virginia.  She loves the opportunities she gets to work on reading and writing every day with her students.

Book Clubs in AP English: Just let them talk

Amy Rasmussen, AP English, Book Clubs, Community, Readers Writers Workshop, Talk May 27, 2015 Comments: 9

Some of it was great. Some of it not so much. I’m talking about the book clubs in my classroom this Screen Shot 2015-05-02 at 5.42.03 PMyear. The great was actually my students reading and talking to one another about that reading. The not so much — the way I did assessment.

This is what I learned and what I will change for next year:

Book Clubs serve as a way to challenge my readers into the more complex books that many of my students would never choose for themselves. Book Clubs also allow my readers to talk about books in an authentic way without the strictures of guided reading questions or anything else that might lead to Readicide. (‘Read-i-cide: noun, the systematic killing of the love of reading, often exacerbated by the inane, mind-numbing practices found in schools” –Kelly Gallagher) I wrote about the importance of balance literacy and how book clubs fit into that in this post.

I provide a short list of titles that I know contain fantastic stories of resilience, survival, hope, courage, and any other trait that prods readers to relate to the human experience. I introduce the books, usually with book trailers or video interviews of the author’s, and I include either on paper or a projected slide the synopsis and ratings from Goodreads or Amazon.

Students select their books, often talking with one another and making selections together. I ask students to purchase their own books, so they can annotate anything “interesting, intriguing, puzzling, contradictory, or you just plain do not understand.” Since most of my students come from less affluent families, we talk about the importance of libraries and surrounding ourselves with texts that can inform and influence our thinking. Often, students will purchase more than one of the books I introduce for book clubs. I also have a few copies of the texts in my room that students may check out if they cannot purchase their own. I always think my copies will be used more than they are, but I’ve learned that my readers like to buy books. Most feel the sense of ownership that I want them to feel.

Our first book club this year, I gave students a choice of the following titles, all centered around themes of family and parents and how they influence our upbringing and our choices:

Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safron Foer

Swamplandia by Karen Russell

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time by Mark Haddon

Girlchild by Tupelo Hassman

The Glass Castle by Jeanette Walls (literary non-fiction)

More students read The Glass Castle than any of the others, but every book was represented in at least one book club of three to six students. Students loved The Glass Castle, and they told me that they could relate to much of Walls’ upbringing.

Screen Shot 2015-05-02 at 5.42.19 PMAssessment:  For this first book club, I asked students to read with an eye looking for theme. They would work with their book clubs to craft a mind map that included numerous quotes from the book that contributed to the theme, and they would analyze these quotes as part of the mind map. They could create the mind map as a paper poster or online. As they read the book, they were to mark the text like I had taught with the short passages of text we’d read together in class, and they were to also look for sentences and phrases and passage that pointed to theme.

My students did not have a clue how to do that. Most did not mark their books, so when the project time rolled around, they ended up scouring through the book or searching for quotes on Goodreads or elsewhere to find enough quotes that they could plop into their mind maps. I needed to provide more guidance in annotating, and in reading for beautiful sentences, and in making thematic connections, and so much more.

Also, I allowed students to work in groups to create their mind maps. This did not work because no one in the group would rise up and be the leader. They were new in the class and new in their friendships with one another. Group work is a topic for another post, really. This time it failed, and I’ll need to do a lot more prep work before I spend as much class time on this kind of project ever again (if I ever do).

Our second book club, students choice a title from this short list, all centered around themes of culture and how these cultures influence us:

The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri

Little Bee by Chris Cleeve

Sarah’s Key by Tatiana de Rosnay

The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini

A Thousand Splendid Suns by Klaled Hosseini

More readers chose Sarah’s Key than any of the others. Students find stories of the Holocaust fascinating, and that shelf is a popular one in my classroom library. (Erika’s, too.)  Many students read The Namesake, and at least one book club read each of the others.

Assessment:  This one was even more lame than the first. Sometimes I feel the pull to get back to a Screen Shot 2015-05-02 at 5.42.33 PMmore traditional pedagogy. I am the only one on my campus who fully implements readers and writers workshop, so I listen in often to what other teachers have their students do. If you teach AP English, at some point, you have probably had students write a hexagonal writing over a piece of literature. (Hexagonal because student write thinking about their knowledge, comprehension, application, analysis, synthesis, and evaluation as it relates to the book. It sounds like a great assignment.)

It was the worst writing my students completed this year — if they completed it at all.

I know why. There was no authenticity in it. Follow the structure I gave you. Each paragraph should be about this… No wonder they didn’t care about writing well. I was their only audience, and I was making them write something worse than a book report.

We wasted a lot of time. (The grading policy in my district requires that I reassess major grades. Hey, let’s write this paper again since you cared so much about it the first time. Right.)

Screen Shot 2015-05-02 at 5.42.45 PMMy readers would have benefitted more from a gift of time to talk about the books more. Shana posted about the value of book clubs for talk earlier this year, and after two subpar experiences I began to agree:  “asking students to keep the conversation [about their books] going for 20 straight minutes provides valuable time for students to build relationships [around conversations about their reading.]”

I would just let them talk.

Our third book club students selected titles from this short list, all centered on war (or internal war) and its influences on individuals and humanity:

The Yellow Birds by Kevin Powers

Room by Emma Donoghue

Where Men Win Glory by Jon Krakauer (literary non-fiction)

The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath

The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien

The majority of my readers chose to read ROOM or The Bell Jar. They loved Room, and didn’t think The Bell Jar lived up to its hype.

I scheduled more opportunities for students to talk about their books. I wandered the room, sitting at Screen Shot 2015-05-02 at 5.42.57 PMgroups and listening in as conversations circled in and out and back again. Often, I placed a stack of TableTopic cards for book clubs in the center of their table, and students used these to guide their discussions. (Looks like the book clubs version of TableTopics is no longer available. Sad.)

Next year, I will do this again. I might ask students to look for significant passages so they can practice analysis on a page they select for themselves. Here’s a post that I’ll probably show them with a sample passage for craft study.

I might have them create a found poem or a black out poem.

Or I might just let them read and talk and read and talk some more.

That’s what I do in my own book club.

 

If you have your own suggestions for improvement, please share them in the comments.

 

©Amy Rasmussen, 2011 – 2015

Okay, I Will Share My AP Testing Data

Amy Rasmussen, AP English, Community, Conferring, Pedagogy, Readers Writers Workshop May 26, 2015 Comments: 14

A new friend asked me if I would share any AP testing data that I’ve gathered since embracing Readers and Writers Workshop. I had to think about it since I rarely think about it. I do appreciate the question though because it led to this post.

I need to tell you right up front:  While I appreciate the AP exam as a high-stakes test, I do not lay a lot of value on testing data for many reasons.

So many factors figure into how a group of students tests each year, and looking at figures from one year to the next, and trying to compare numbers with different groups of students has never made sense to me. The only real valid data is the growth I measure from the fall when students walk into my door until they leave me in the spring. However, I can tell you that the first year I implemented Readers and Writers Workshop and gave up whole class novels in favor of encouraging students to read books of their choice and taught skills with short, sophisticated, complex texts, my students’ scores were 12% higher than my students’ scores the year before.

The best I can do to respond to your question is to quote Stephen Krashen in the article “Free Reading:”  “. . .research strongly suggests that free reading is the source of our reading prowess and much of our vocabulary and spelling development, as well as our ability to understand sophisticated phrases and write coherent prose. The secret of its effectiveness is simple: children become better readers by reading.”

And…  “Research has . . .shown that SSR is at least as effective as conventional teaching methods in helping children acquire those aspects of reading that are measured by standardized tests, and pleasure reading provides a great deal that these tests don’t measure.”

The first two years I taught AP, I tried to do it like I learned at my APSI. I assigned the traditional novels taught in American literature: The Scarlet Letter, Huckleberry Finn, The Great Gatsby, The Awakening, The Grapes of Wrath — because the other AP teacher on my campus did. I can tell you, my students did not read. They even told me later that they didn’t — lots of joking about that on Facebook a few years after they left me. They knew how to play the fake-reading game perfectly.

I know Krashen’s research centers on much younger grades than our students in AP English; however, reading is reading, and students gain skills by doing it — skills that improve their lives far beyond those tested on one day in May as they sit for the AP English exam.

My students just wrote end-of-year reading evaluations on their blogs. Here’s a few of the highlights about reading this year in their own words. This is the kind of data I value:

“Being apart of a reading community has benefited me deeply within my entire life. Even though I didn’t read as much as I wanted to, the reading that I did do was very beneficial. Reading helped me expand my vocabulary a lot. Sometimes when I would speak to my mom I would use a word that I learned from the book I was reading and she would just look at me like she didn’t know who I was. Reading also helped me become a better writer. So many different books that I read helped me use different structures, understand how to use rhetorical devices, and use my upper level vocabulary.”  DeDe, currently reading Thirteen Reasons Why by Jay Asher

“Being part of a reading community as a student opened my mind how others thought of the book we were currently reading together. Occasionally, I’m an ostrich that’s always in the ground; thoughts to myself, ideas to myself, and the “this is what this means” mentality. I’ve slowly learned how to use the point of view of others by implementing it into my own work. In addition, this year’s English class did not feel like a burden compared to previous years. The freedom of choice we were given provided us with the decision to pick a book we enjoyed.” Doreen, currently reading The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt

“I believe the place I need to improve as a reader is being able to find the hidden meanings or putting everything together in order for me to understand a book. Sometimes without me noticing I just read to read and I forget what I read and have to read the paragraph or page again in order for me to understand it. I need to read and take everything under consideration and understand what it is that I’m reading and at the end put it back together. Maybe my problem is that I try to read too fast.” Johnny, currently reading The Alex Crow by Andrew Smith

“Being part of a reading community benefited me because I always felt like I needed to be reading a book. It felt splendid being a part of something, especially something I would of never thought I would be a part of.  I understood the importance of reading. The more you read, the better writer you will become. I realized what genre of books I liked and which ones I didn’t. Most importantly I explored a different variety of books and read a minimum of 12 books. Something I had never done before. Usually I would read a minimum of 3 books every year.” Lizbeth, currently reading Playing Dead byJulia Heaberlin

“My journey began with Escape From Camp 14. I moved through different genres and difficulty levels thereafter: Anna and the French kiss, Allegiant, High School Bites, The Glass Castle, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, Where’d You Go Bernadettte, The Art of Secrets, The Hot Zone, Little Bee, The Joy Luck Club, Down the Rabbit Hole, Room, Incendiary, The Wright 3, and most recently, Y. During this time, I abandoned The Kite Runner, The Thirteenth Tale, Ready Player One, Saving Fish From Drowning, Telegraph Avenue, and Station Eleven.   Even I find it odd, that out of the entire list, I enjoyed The Joy Luck Club more than any other. I say this because I’m not the patient type- I like constant action, fueled excitement. The Joy Luck Club almost counters that expectation, and if I had to describe it, I might even consider calling it boring.” Nawoon, currently choosing — just abandoned Station Eleven

This evaluation by Jasmine is too good to not share the whole of it. And this one by Shaniqua.

I just need to share one more thing, a little gift I got today as I read student reading evaluations. I know most teachers get these at one time or another.

It is the thing that keeps us going.

Laura wrote:

“I still need to improve on not judging a book by it’s cover. For us to GROW as people, we must get out of our COMFORT ZONE and pick up a shattered book because it needs someone to appreciate it’s language. As much as reading conference were sometimes nerve wrecking for me, they helped me get a second opinion on my progress in class as a human and not merely as a student. I can never thank Mrs. Rasmussen enough for dedicating chunks of her life to her students. Positivity in a world were criticism is many people’s issue is so rare and pure. She truly cares about each of us and sees past our struggles and attitudes and tries her best to help us understand it’s okay to have emotions and display them for others to see.  I’ve learned it’s more important to turn our conflicts into beautiful gifts instead of becoming a bitter person.”

Don’t you think that is better than any testing data?

©Amy Rasmussen, 2011 – 2015

 

7 Moves in My Workshop Schedule

Amy Rasmussen, AP English, Community, Conferring, Pedagogy, Readers Writers Workshop, Talk May 18, 2015 Comments: 31

Quite often teachers ask me what the daily schedule looks like in my workshop classroom.

This is a hard one. I think mainly because it is not about the schedule as much as it is about the routines, or manners, we start putting into place at the beginning of the school year.

I’ve had a lot of adapting to do this year. Moving to a new school and adjusting my lessons to fit 85 minute class periods where I see my students twice a week for sure and every other Friday — sometimes. This is quite a change from 50 minute class periods where I saw my students five days a week.

Our normal routines  — and these are non-negotiables that make workshop work — consist of reading, conferring with readers, talking about books, writing in our notebooks, revising in our notebooks, sharing a bit of our writing, and learning or reinforcing a skill, then….it all depends on our workshop task. That’s why writing about my daily schedule is hard.

Here’s the best I can do without going into a long explanation — that has to wait for my book (Penny keeps telling me that my book will never get written if I keep writing on this blog, and I know she is right. Only so much time.)

READ — 10 to 15 minutes. This is sacred and silent reading time. Students choose books that interest them. I CONFER with my readers, always with a specific focus, depending on my reader.

TALK about books. Sometimes I do a book talk, reading a few pages of the book, or holding a book interview like Erika does. Sometimes a student does a book talk, if I’ve talked to her first and know she’s passionate about the book she’s just read. Sometimes I ask my students to just talk about the books they are reading. Shana wrote about the Value of Talk, and I agree completely: “Talk is one of the most valuable tools at work in my classroom.”

WRITE in our writer’s notebooks. Everyday we need to have our students thinking on paper. When I forget, or think we do not have time, to open our notebooks and write — in response to a poem, or a video, or a story, or about the book students are reading, or about whatever — I regret it. Discussions are richer when we write first. Discoveries are more insightful when we write first. Writing is better when we write, just thinking about our ideas, first.

Then, something I learned from Penny Kittle, we always read what we wrote and REVISE. Penny modeled revising with a different color, and I ask my writers to do the same. I simply say, “Read over what you just wrote. How can you make your writing better? Maybe add a phrase or two that develops your thinking more. Maybe change a word or two that adds a punch. Maybe you can remove some words and make your thinking more concise. Where can you add figurative language or a list or an interesting style move?” (When I check writer’s notebooks, I always look for evidence of revision. We work on establishing the habit of revision, daily.)

SHARE some of our thinking. Sometimes we pair up and read our writing to a shoulder partners. Sometimes I ask for volunteers to share out their writing. Sometimes I randomly call on someone (and I usually allow them to opt out at least once if they are uncomfortable reading aloud). Sharing is an important part of our community, and from the first day of school we work on establishing a safe and respectful environment where we can all grow as readers and writers.

Learn or reinforce a skill via MINI-LESSON. (If I introduce something totally new, like one of the AP English Language exam prompts, obviously the mini-lesson will not be so mini. On these days, the mini-lesson time and the workshop time allotment swap places. Sometimes I need the focused direct instruction time because it saves time in the long run.)

Our routines usually take about 35 to 45 minutes. That leaves us about half the class period to hold a workshop. This might be a readers workshop if we are practicing close reading or if we are preparing for a Harkness discussion. This might be a writers workshop if we are composing a piece of writing or studying the moves of a favorite author.

Of course, if we are writing, I change my hat and confer with my writers.

I would love to know the workshop routines you establish with your readers and writers. Please share in the comments.

©Amy Rasmussen, 2011 – 2015

 

Guest Post: How a High School Improved Reading by Building Little Free Libraries

Books, Community, Guest Post, Readers Workshop May 8, 2015 Comments: 3

busLast summer, I became a Penny Kittle convert. I originally didn’t know what I was signing up for, but something kept driving me to be sure I was where she was. Turns out, it’s been the best hunch of my teaching career. The mind shift I was searching for. A complete game-changer. And this is year eighteen.

After 2 ½ days with Penny, I spent the rest of my summer trying to keep up with my churning brain. I wrote more than I have since I was a slightly over dramatic, totally drowning-in-love teen. I read. And I read. And I read. I rediscovered that lust for story I had almost forgotten. I freed myself from the idea that pleasure reading was fluff and gripped the concept of reading what speaks to me as a means of improvement – just like I would soon ask my students to do.

In the midst of my mid-career crisis (maybe crisis is too harsh?), I found a tweet about the site littlefreelibrary.org. The various clever wooden boxes built for books captivated me. I loved the idea of a take-one-leave-one system designed to build community. What fun! I wanted one! Maybe a home project with my own children? Then, I had a thought. What if we put these book boxes in the hallway at our high school? What if this could be the reading take-over Penny Kittle encouraged? So, on my wild whim, I retweeted the link with that very suggestion.

Soon (which means mere seconds in the Twitter world), my teacher peers of all disciplines — math, sharkscience, history, technology, world languages — responded with enthusiasm! They wanted to build wooden cubbies! They wanted to donate books! They were all on board! So, the fun began…

In an August inservice session, I presented the idea to the full faculty, highlighting the importance of choice-reading in ALL classrooms. I used so many of Kittle’s words in an effort to begin a movement. We have to get all of our kids reading – the rich, the poor, the gifted, the challenged, even the ones who don’t eat their vegetables. And, in a school as diverse and unique as ours, we couldn’t wait another second. Of course, there was one small glitch; I didn’t know or have the means yet to build the little libraries. But I knew we could.

Following my first session, our new theater tech teacher immediately approached me, and he offered to have his tech class build the first set! I cried. I usually do at most sentimental things, but I just didn’t expect this outpouring. Books began to appear in my classroom from teachers and then parents. Some opted to write an inscription inside their favorite books, explaining to the future reader the special significance of that particular tale.

#hebronreads was born.

The theater tech class created the first five Book Nooks, as they are now called, from lumber and Slide2supplies donated by our community. In true theater style, the Nooks have flare – a shark, an Alice in Wonderland, a school bus, the Parthenon, and, of course, a book! All student created! All on pedestals in various niches in our halls. At our fall open house night, books poured in from parents who heard our call to promote literacy, and books continue to appear in my classroom like gifts from the Tooth Fairy.

Students in our advertising and marketing classes competed to create a campaign for the program. On World Read Aloud Day in March, we paused to read to our students, and we passed out bookmarks and talked books during lunches. Students have daily choice-reading time in math classes and business classes in addition to English classes. Another book drive is slated during our spring football game in May. A spring literacy night with former Hebron High School grad now YA author Lindsay Cummings is in talks.

alice


This is only the beginning.  

In my hopes and dreams, we will build more Book Nooks and litter the building with choices. We will continue the book drives until all classrooms have some sort of libraries. We will keep talking reading and promoting ideas via @hebronreads. And one day, when we are feeling pretty confident in our literacy push, we will make Nooks and take them filled with books to neighboring schools who need more stories in their lives too. Hebron High School is now a thriving community of readers, and it is truly glorious!

Parent quote:

“My son has always loved to read (‘loved’ is probably an understatement), so when he found these books in Hebron’s hallways, he was very excited.  He came home telling me what a neat thing this was — books for the taking, any book, all kinds. Once he understood the program, he commented on what a great idea . . . read a book, replace a book, or just bring it back. Great idea, Hebron!”    Carolyn Sherry

Donna Friend teaches at Hebron High School in Carrollton, Texas. She is making readers out of English III students and leads her department into the chaos of educational risk-taking. Currently, she is honored to be her campus as well as the Lewisville Independent School District’s Secondary Teacher of the Year, an accolade that, despite her 18 years of teaching, she doesn’t yet feel old enough to have earned! Her current favorite book is Jandy Nelson’s The Sky is Everywhere, and she is practicing being a regular reader and writer along with her students. She has a 9 year old son, a 6 year old daughter, a hubby, two cats, and a few fish. She once dreamed a young adult novel and still regrets not writing it down immediately after waking. Find Donna on Twitter @mrs_friend

Yes, I’ll Share my Reading List

Amy Rasmussen, AP English, Book Clubs, Pedagogy, Readers Writers Workshop May 5, 2015 Comments: 6

Awhile back I wrote Aim Higher™: A Case for Choice Reading and a Whole Lot More in AP English. I am pretty sure I thanked everyone individually for the comments. If not, thank you for helping me think through this pedagogy even more. One reader asked for my reading list, and I’ve been derelict in posting that. I am sorry.

Since my classroom instruction centers on helping students identify themselves as readers and writers, I being Readers and Writers Workshop on the first day of school. We read and workshop a short piece — sometimes my AP English Language syllabus one-pager. We write and usually do a short revision workshop. Students learn quickly that writing requires revision.

In years past I’ve even provided each students with a writer’s notebook — just so we could get started taking ownership of it on the very first day. (That was the year composition books were 10 cents. I haven’t seen them so low since.)

I give students the following list of books and tell them that at each quarter they will be responsible for getting their hands on one of the titles. They may purchase the book, borrow it from a library, download it to their device, or in extreme circumstances, check out one of the few copies of each title I keep in my room.

We are a classroom of readers, so reading is the only option.

Note:  I didn’t facilitate four book clubs this year. We only had time for three, and we never got to the first list of books below. It took me a long while to learn how to fit my instruction into the schedule at my new school:  a 90 minute period where I see my students every other day and then every other Friday. I lost some time figuring it out.

Next year, I am going to put this list first, and we will analyze author’s craft as we learn about argument. I’m also thinking of only introducing Gladwell’s books. I’ll add David and Goliath:  Underdogs, Misfits, and the Art of Battling Giants, and maybe What the Dog Saw: And Other Adventures after I read it this summer. That way students will still have choice as to which book they select, but all students will be reading books by the same author. This should work well as we study the moves of one writer, something I waited way to late to do this year.

Book Club One:

Outliers, the Story of Success by Malcolm Gladwell

Blink, the Power of Thinking Without Thinking by Malcolm Gladwell

The Tipping Point, How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference by Malcolm Gladwell

Freakonomics by Steven D Levitt and Stephen J Dubner

Quiet:  the Power of Introverts by Susan Cain

 

Book Club Two:

Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safron Foer

The Glass Castle, Jeanette Walls (non-fiction)

Swamplandia by Karen Russell

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time by Mark Haddon

Girlchild by Tupelo Hassman

 

Book Club Three:

The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri

Little Bee by Chris Cleeve

Sarah’s Key by Tatiana de Rosnay

The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini

A Thousand Splendid Suns by Klaled Hosseini

 

Book Club Four:

The Yellow Birds by Kevin Powers

Room by Emma Donoghue

Where Men Win Glory by Jon Krakauer (non-fiction)

The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath

The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien

Billy Lynn’s Long Half-time Walk by Ben Fountain

I am always reading some piece of compelling literature, always on the look out for the next book to add to these book club lists. My students did not enjoy The Bell Jar, although many students chose to read it, and no one chose to read The Things They Carried, even though I made as big a deal out of it as all the other titles. I just added Swamplandia this year, and then I forgot to talk about it, so it is still not vetted with students.

If you have any suggestions for compelling, complex, rich literature that engages adolescent readers, please share your titles in the comments. Thank you.

 

©Amy Rasmussen, 2011 – 2015

5 Ways to Enjoy the Last Month of School

Amy Rasmussen, AP English, Conferring, Readers Writers Workshop, Talk May 4, 2015 Comments: 2

Today we start a fun two weeks. Texas state exams and AP exams dual for the attention and time of most every student and teacher in the building.

Two weeks of juggling tests with students in and out of classrooms. Teachers putting on hats as proctors and hall monitors, shuffling to teach in different rooms so students can test in theirs. Stress can make cranky even the calmest souls.

Two weeks until the end of school after that. June 6 is our last day. Some days that sounds like the equivalent of enduring 12 long winters.

smart-goals1I must make the choice daily to be optimistic, to see the possible in all the end-of-year chaos.

5 Ways to Enjoy the Last Month of School:

1. Talk about Books. I will double the amount of time my students and I talk about books and reading. Summer slide is real, even for students in high school and AP English classes. I wrote some thoughts about summer reading here. I want my students to enjoy the reading they do this summer. Most have read double, some even triple, the number of books they read last year. I cringe thinking that many may not read even one book this summer. (The AP English Literature required summer reading holds little promise with Brave New World and Beowulf.) If we talk about books enough, and if my students write down titles that sound interesting enough, and if maybe I allow them to take enough books from my classroom library home for the summer — maybe even my most reluctant readers will read at least one book before they come back to school in August.

2. Sit and Listen. Last week a student tapped on my door during my conference period. “Mrs. Rasmussen, are you busy?” I was but I waved her inside. I shut my laptop and turned my chair, and Mikaila began to talk. She told me that she’d been in her business class when an idea for her writing project “burst in my brain, and I started writing it down, and the more I wrote the more I imagined and the more I began to cry, and then the teacher looked over my shoulder and got worried about what I was writing. I told her, ‘I’m okay, I just need to go see my English teacher.'” Grinning, she finally took a breath. Mikaila stood and talked with me for the rest of the period. She’s got a lot of hurt in her, and she needed someone to hear it. That is all I did. I listened. I still had essays to read and leave feedback on, but that afternoon with this sweet young woman was the best I have had in weeks. I felt needed. During the next few weeks I will try to be still, open my door, and listen. I doubt Mikaila is the only one who needs to talk.

3. Allow Students to Self-Assess. When my students care about their topics, their writing is always better, but after 11 years of school, so many of my writers care more about the grade they’ll get than about the quality of their writing. I’ve tried to change that all year. For the next few weeks, my students will read and revise their own work again and again. They will read one another’s writing and offer feedback, and then they will revise again. We have done two rounds of this already, and with the exception of just a few kids who put forth little effort and scored their work high, most everyone wrote an honest assessment of their writing process. They are thinking about the thinking they do as they write on the page. That’s the best kind of assessment possible.

4. Begin Planning for Next Year. Not full-on planning, mind you. That would make me crazy, but I have started a list of things I will change. I know I need to do a better job with organizing writer’s notebooks and teaching vocabulary. I know I want to read more poetry, although I added a lot in my primarily non-fiction AP English Language class this year. I know I need to do the lessons we did just last week early in the fall. I’ll add tabs in a writer’s notebook that I can use as a sample with my new students in the fall, and I’ll tinker in Drive as I make notes in my lesson plans. Planning gives me energy, so it makes sense to note changes I want to make now instead of hoping I remember them later.

5. Confer and confer and confer. Like you and your students, the relationships my students and I have built all year are strong and trustworthy. I want to utilize this trust and push my students further in their reading and writing than I would have been able to do earlier. The only way to do this is to talk with them more one-on-one. Every day as students read their self-selected books and write their self-selected projects, I will pull up a chair and we will talk. “What are you thinking?” I’ll ask, and they will open up and tell me. They know I will listen and offer feedback that they can take, or not. That’s the beauty of teaching students to take ownership of their learning.

©Amy Rasmussen, 2011 – 2015

Dumpster Diving for a Book Shelf

Amy Rasmussen, Books, Community, Readers Workshop, Readers Writers Workshop May 2, 2015 Leave a comment

shelfieMy husband called, “Hey, there’s a book shelf by the dumpster. Do you want it?”

Funny that he asked. I know he knew I’d say yes.

I put the tall black shelf by the door to my room, which was pretty much the only open spot. But most of my classroom library sat cozy on the opposite side of the room. I did not know what books to put on this new shelf.

It sat empty waiting for three months.

There’s nothing quite so unsettling as an empty shelf in a bibliophile’s classroom, but my husband made me promise not to buy any more books. This is hard.

Finally, I got smart and labeled the shelves “1st period Suggests You Read,” “2nd Period Suggests You Read,” etc.

Slowly, I started moving books that students talked about, the ones they told me they liked. Then I Favorites book shelvesnoticed that a few students started returning their books to these shelves, and after we did Speed Dating with a Book a few weeks ago — we put all of our to-read-next titles on these shelves.

Now, instead of having most of our book choices on the bright green wall across the room, students walk past this shelf as they come and go.

Pretty good deal for a dumpster find.

©Amy Rasmussen, 2011 – 2015