Category Archives: Books

To Recommend … or Not?

Books, Katie Maguire, Readers Writers Workshop October 15, 2018 Leave a comment

Have you ever recommended a book or done a book talk on a book you haven’t read? I know I have. Always, of course, with the caveat that I haven’t read it yet, but still. I have two examples of how this has backfired, one with minor consequences and another that could have gone terribly wrong.

riskThis year, I recommended Concussion to an athlete in my AP class, for his independent reading. I did so based on the subject matter and its popularity. AJ is loathe to pick it up during independent reading, but at this point (because it’s AP and they use their independent reading for analysis) it’s not practical for him to start something new and still be able to complete the rhetorical analysis work.

Effectively, what my faulty recommendation has done is to reinforce for this student that books are just a part of an academic life that one has to endure to reach a broader goal (AP college credit). Not only did I confirm that reading has nothing to do with his interests or identity, I hit the trifecta by reinforcing for him that teachers are clueless and wasting an opportunity to build his literacy skills. Indeed, I may have set them back. Maybe I should have recommended Junior Seau: The Life and Death of a Football Icon, which appears (appears is key) to explore the same issue but in a much more narrative and less esoteric way than Concussion. Plus, one of my footballers from last year read it.

But using previous student experiences with a text to recommend it forward is, at best, for-mature-audiences-onlyimperfect. Last year, a student was looking for “something edgy” and was willing to try transitioning into fiction from her obsessive poetry reading. So, I recommended a short story collection that a former student with similar interests had found on her own and loved, and which I subsequently added to our classroom library: Heartbreaker by Maryse Meijer. This current student took my recommendation, read her 20 minutes per night and diligently recorded her progress in her reading log, finishing it before we had a chance to conference. But when she handed it back to me she said, “Ms. Maguire, this book might not be for everybody.” She then went on to describe scenes of exhibitionism and lesbian prison sex.

I have become more reluctant to recommend to students books that I have not read myself. For 3TT readers, though, I’ll still take the risk. Here are a few titles I have recently added to our classroom library. Full disclosure: the first two I have read in their entirety; the third, about half.

This Way Home, Wes Moore and Shawn Goodman: This YA novel came out in 2016, but I only came across it recently, browsing the BookOutlet web site (which offers fantastic deals btw). Many students in my district are familiar with The Other Wes Moore, the true story of the divergent trajectories of two African American boys on the same block with the same name. This Way Home tells the fictional story of Elijah, who has pro-basketball aspirations but must cope with a dilemma brought on by the local gang’s interest in his neighborhood team. I HAVE read this one, so I can confidently say it is high-interest for striving readers.

Delicate Monsters, by Stephanie Kuehn: This novel by the author of the award-winning Charm & Strange, which I haven’t read yet, is darker than I expected, and from the very beginning. The -isms that this novel touches on are SO numerous: racism, classism, voyeurism, alcoholism, to name a few. Also included are bipolar disorder, bullying, suicidal ideation and suicide, gun violence, adultery, sociopathy, even Tourette’s and Munchausen’s-by-Proxy. And there is no happy ending. For anyone. Personally, I’m down with the darker, the better. But to recommend for students? Probably more on an individual basis than a book talk. But speaking of book talks, this next one could work.

Pride, by Ibi Zoboi (author of America Street): This YA novel is a retelling of Pride & Prejudice, set in present-day Brooklyn. I’ve read the first few chapters, and I’m hooked pride_zoboi(this from a reader who has little patience with the precious world of Jane Austen). What compels me to bring this text into our classroom, though, is the author’s response to a review in WSJ: the review suggested that the book would have limited appeal due to its “heavy use of slang,” ie, Afro-Haitian dialect. If I can do my job right, we might be able to examine excerpts of the text in conjunction with the WSJ review and the social media responses it generated, as we enter our second quarter focus on text analysis.

Sigh. Second quarter, really? Where did first quarter go? And there’s one of the main reasons books get recommended without them having been read, convoluted passive voice intended. I think in the writing of this post I have reminded myself–and I hope, you–to rein in the guilt, for not doing more, for not doing it all. I just asked my 11-year-old child for 5 more minutes to finish this post, and he patiently waits in his room for me to join him so we can continue reading together D’Aulaires’ Book of Greek Myths. 

 

Every Child Matters and Sharing the Stories that Matter

Books, Classroom Library, Mentor Texts, Pam McMartin, Readers Writers Workshop October 5, 2018 Leave a comment

residential-school-books-display_origEarlier this week we observed Orange Shirt Day at my school. Orange Shirt day is a day to recognize, remember, and reflect on the many Indigenous children who were taken away from their homes to live in residential schools. The residential school system has a dark legacy in Canada and the United States and the after effects still ripple through Indigenous communities today. In fact, the last residential school located in Saskatchewan did not close its doors until 1996 – a fact that is always shocking to my students when I share it with them.

The tagline of Orange Shirt Day is Every Child Matters and it is a tagline that has resonated with me as I participated in Orange Shirt Day, as we ran in the Terry Fox run as a school to raise money for cancer research, and as I plan with my student council for National Coming Out day on October 11th. While we promote the message that Every Child Matters and we hope our students feel that way as they leave our classrooms, the reality is that in the current world political climate and with the news stories our students are surrounded with each day, it is so easy for our female students, our LGBTQ students, our minority students, our refugee students, or any of our students who feel a little different to feel like they do not matter.

Last year I had the privilege of seeing author Thomas King speak at a conference. Thomas King is an American-Canadian First Nations author who has written numerous novels dealing with the First Nations experience. In his session, King was asked if he believed that story has the power to enact change in the world and his answer resonated with me. King answered that if you had asked him that question years ago, he would have answered with a firm yes, but now that he is older, he can not answer the same way. He was, like so many First Nations people, angry and fed up with the government’s inaction to follow through with promises they had made during the last election. He said that story is powerful, but often not enough and sometimes you just need to get angry and speak your mind. His final point was that if you are going to use story to change the world, you better find those voices that are strong, angry, and give voice to the voiceless because those are the stories with power.

King’s answer has stuck with me as I feel like too often I have used the empty platitude that “stories can change the world” with my students, but then I look at the stories they are being shared and the voices are often so heterogenous and not reflective of their voices and their concerns.

So, I have started a quest to diversify the stories I introduce to my students and to find those angry voices, those suppressed voices, and the voices that speak for them. In this post I will introduce you to a few of these powerful stories and will share others I discover in later blog posts.

The Inconvenient Indian: Thomas King

This powerful work is King’s reflection on what it means to be Native in modern North American. He discusses the historical events that have so impacted his people, but also ruminates on how popular culture has served to frame the narrative that many First Nations people are stuck in. King does not shy away from exploring the darker parts of history in this work, so it would be most suitable for Grades 10-12 students.

We Should All Be Feminists: Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Ngozi Adichie’s name may sound familiar. Perhaps you have seen her powerful TED Talk The Danger of a Single Story  (I love to use this TED talk to spark discussion about the missing voices), or have read her beautiful novel Half a Yellow Sun. Her work We Should All Be Feminists is a short piece, an extended essay, but it is an important exploration of the need for Feminism in the 21st century and how 21st century feminism must be one of inclusion and awareness. In fact, the Swedish government felt that this book held such an important voice for today’s youth that in 2015 they decided to give every 16 year old in their country a copy. We have used this book with Grades 8-12 students at our school and how found content accessible to all age levels in the range.

These are just two of many amazing books that share the voices and stories of people with powerful and important messages. Over the next few months, I will share some more I have come across and I would love it if you could share some of your own suggested titles in the comments below!

To read more about harnessing student voice in a time of political unrest and fear, check out Lisa Dennis’ powerful post.

Pam McMartin is a Senior English Teacher and Senior School Teacher Librarian in Tsawwassen, British Columbia, Canada. She is currently on a quest to help empower student voice through reading and writing and welcomes any suggestions you may have in regards to either.  Find Pam on Twitter @psmcmartin.

It’s About More Than Just the Skills

Affiliate links, Books, Readers Writers Workshop, Shana Karnes October 3, 2018 1 Comment

91w70Ax2LhL.jpgThe reading arc of a school year is a lovely thing to witness, but an even more enjoyable journey to participate in. We begin the year falling in love with reading: a first quarter of high-interest, riveting works that match each reader where he or she is. The first days of school are filled with YA, novels in verse, pithy nonfiction, and short-but-powerful texts.

Second quarter, we begin the stretch toward more challenging texts, whether because of their difficult vocabularies, unfamiliar genres, or tough emotional or intellectual subject matters. My booktalks nudge students toward books that will push them to become stronger, more widely-read thinkers. Our reading ladders begin to incorporate themes of choice as well as challenge.

So, as September wound down, I picked up Neil deGrasse Tyson’s Astrophysics for People in a Hurry. This outside-my-comfort-zone book sent me to Wikipedia many times during each reading as I attempted to make sense of some term I’d newly discovered (dark matter, the Fermi paradox, the multiverse). I found myself down the rabbit hole of Wiki-links many a time, landing on pages like this a little too frequently for my furrowed eyebrows’ liking:

There is no question that anyone who encountered this book might have done the same, and as such, I have ample Internet history evidence to support my claim that reading this book made me a stronger reader. I doubtless practiced reading skills like summarizing, re-reading, decoding complex vocabulary, integrating new ideas into existing schema, looking for outside information to aid my understanding, paraphrasing, learning about new text features and signposts, noting quotes, and more.

But reading isn’t done solely for the purpose of practicing skills. In fact, the purpose of reading is as far from skills-focused as we are from the edge of the universe (pretty freakin’ far, in case you haven’t recently read about astrophysics). Consider, for instance, this passage from the final pages of Astrophysics for People in a Hurry:

Screen Shot 2018-10-03 at 6.02.30 AMScreen Shot 2018-10-03 at 6.02.59 AMScreen Shot 2018-10-03 at 6.03.11 AMScreen Shot 2018-10-03 at 6.03.19 AM

Beautifully written, no doubt, and I’d use it with my students as a mentor text in a heartbeat. Look at that parallel structure, that use of one-sentence paragraphs, that thoughtful choice of diverse verbs! Lo, the effect of repetition, the deft uses of the dash, the pristine placement of commas! All of these are worth studying alongside our students, but they are mere stepping stones on the path to the true purposes of reading and writing:

Joy, engagement, transcendence, learning, growth.

The expansion of our minds, of our perspectives, marching onward as relentlessly as the universe itself (yep, it’s forever expanding, knowledge I have thanks to Neil deGrasse Tyson). This passage–this argument, for looking at life from the cosmic perspective–is valuable for so much more than the way it is written. The meaning is in what is written, and how the reader makes meaning of it.

Looking at our teaching, our students, our lessons from the cosmic perspective, we must consider our small effect on these students’ lives in the grand scheme of things. Why would we insist students read a certain book, or a certain number of books, or write a certain number of pages, when we consider our real goal for students: to help them access the vast wealth of reading and writing they can do in the world to achieve their true callings.

books-to-read-before-you-hit-30980-1459253850_980x457As we plan instruction for the second quarter, we must center our students’ reading and writing experiences on the highest purposes of those endeavors, and not remain too focused on the skills, structures, and rubrics we often get caught up in. We must not fall into the trap of sharing a passage such as this one with students solely to practice craft study, asking our students to replicate Tyson’s structure without appreciating what he’s trying to say to us by crafting it.

Let’s confer with our readers about not just how a text is doing what it’s doing, but also what their feelings are about that text, what they’re learning from a text on a holistic level, how they’ll insert this reading into their larger life philosophy.

Let’s coach our writers not just to become proficient in certain genres, but also toward authentic, purposeful, meaning-filled writing that they proudly craft and publish.

Let’s remember to harness the cosmic perspective in our work with students, as we consider not just what we know of them as readers and writers, but what we know of them as young adults who will go forth and change the world in some small way with their lives.

Let’s embrace the cosmic perspective when we consider reading and writing: those hallmarks of our intellect that make us uniquely human.

Shana Karnes is a lifelong reader and writer who daily tries to embrace the cosmic perspective in her work as a teacher, wife, and mother. She lives in West Virginia with her husband, two daughters, two cats, and five bookshelves. Connect with Shana on Twitter at @litreader. 

Please share your higher purposes for teaching, for reading, for writing! Let us know in the comments, on Twitter, or on Facebook.

Choice Reading Shouldn’t be a Choice Not to Read

AP English, Assessment, Books, Charles Moore, Conferring, Readers Writers Workshop September 24, 2018 1 Comment

I love that silence that permeates our reading time. A certain peace settles over the room as thirty souls lose themselves in the pages of their books, the only sounds: rustling pages, tapping feet, or contented sighs.  I also love that groan they emit when, after ten minutes, an eternity of silence, I implore them to mark their page and pause their reading for now.  That’s exactly what I say to them, “Alright kiddos, lets pause our reading and get out our reader’s/writer’s notebook.”

While we’ve practiced that transition dozens of times, they still plead begrudgingly, “Can we just have more reading time!!!”  “You can,” I tell them, “on your time.”  Some of them, the truly committed, make time for their self-selected independent reading, but most, for now, do not.  This reality, jarringly disturbing to committed readers like you or me, is something that keeps me up at night.  It prompts old teacher/football coach friends to text me on Sunday morning, asking for some kernel of knowledge that might help them move readers.  For this problem, though, there is only one short and fast answer: Hard Work.

I wrote about the difficult task of moving seniors into reading lives last year: here and here. The results, transformative for some, middling at best, and woeful for many, read like a Picasso.

I promise you this: We can’t afford not to give them everything we’ve got.  That thought spurred this tweet from me earlier in the week:

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We know reading and writing dovetail to form literacy.  If we instruct using whole class novels, we run the risk of alienating many who can’t engage with something in which they have no interest and as a result, we get nothing. If we encourage choice reading and we allow the kids to choose not to read, we get nothing.

We must engage in their self-selected reading lives and I believe that I can’t do that if I’m reading while they read.  While they read, I’m moving around the room, tracking pages read, asking the reluctant about their reluctance, asking the readers when, where, and why they are reading on their own, simultaneously serving both ends of the reading spectrum.  You won’t ever find me sitting behind a desk, because my desk is shoved up against the wall, relegated to table status, as a place where papers pile.

It’s hard work, like everything about our roles as literacy advocates.  It takes planning,  reflection, and intention to match every kid to the perfect reading conference question.

That’s part of it too.  One question does not fit all.  If a student isn’t reading, they can’t reach into their reading experience to share with me their opinion on the effectiveness of setting, for instance, in their selection.

Also, I have to give them the sobering news that this lack of reading life may hinder their writing life as well, and while I don’t take grades for self-selected reading, I do take grades for writing and their engagement from one directly affects their success in the other.  I need to tell them that, before their grades do.

Charles Moore loves conferring with readers, even struggling ones.  He loves concerts with his wife and when his son texts during the concert, he texts back, “We are having fun without you.”  He’s loving the new adventure with Pre-AP students and his freshman are growing on him; they are adorable.  Check out his book review blog at www.mooreliteracy1.wordpress.com and his far too frequent twitter rants at @ctcoach.

My Classroom Library Shelves went from Empty to Full . . . and Yours Can, Too!

Books, Classroom Library, Julie Swinehart, Readers Writers Workshop September 6, 2018 Comments: 16

My family took a big plunge five years ago, and made the decision to move from our placid, beautiful Central Oregon to Amman, Jordan. So much about Jordan was wonderful, but part of our decision to move away from our home, from Oregon, was about traveling the world. So after four years in Amman, we decided to move away from Jordan, to Managua, Nicaragua.

Between making the decision in January to move to Nicaragua and actually arriving this July, Nicaragua’s travel advisory from the US State Department went from level 2 to level 3 because of civil unrest, crime, and limited healthcare availability. Of course that travel advisory rating, combined with what we were reading in the news and hearing from people who lived in Managua gave us pause, and we carefully considered the choice we were making. Ultimately, we decided to move to Managua, and we are happy with our choice.

I share this background because I want to point out that while private schools often don’t share exactly the same issues and concerns found in public schools, private schools are not always utopian. Our school is wonderful, students are eager, teachers are welcoming and caring, and our facilities are beautiful. But with the current situation in Nicaragua, some families have chosen to leave the country, which ultimately means revenue from student fees is down, and the budget reflects that situation.

Everywhere I have ever taught has had budget concerns, public or private. I’m sure all teachers can relate to budget issues, which is why I bring it up.

Even in a time of budget concerns, my classroom library grew from empty shelves to full shelves in a matter of weeks, and it didn’t cost me an extra dime.

I walked into a nice, big, but empty classroom. The bookshelves were beautiful, but bare.

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Within a day or two of being in my new space, at my new job, in my new city of residence, I was having conversations with administrators and coworkers about how to build classroom libraries.

Our first step was to visit the book room. I think most schools have a book room, and in my experience they are full of books that are rarely in the hands of students for any length of time. We decided to gather a copy of each book for each of our five classrooms, and if a teacher needed one of those copies for teaching a whole-class-novel, we would give it to that teacher to use during that particular unit.

There were also books in the book room that were not being taught as whole-class-texts, and that weren’t available in high enough numbers to be used in that way. They might be titles that could be used in future book clubs, but we decided that getting these books in the hands of students sooner rather than later was the right choice, so they were distributed as well.

My classroom library was greatly improved by visiting the book room and reimagining the uses for all of the wonderful reads that could be found there.

My shelves after a week or two of procuring books

I found some small white boards in the closet in my classroom and repurposed them as book displays so that I could highlight titles that might be especially interesting to my students. I think the same thing could be done using repurposed cardboard and printer paper, so I want to encourage others to use what’s available in order to highlight high-interest books. There are many other ways to focus attention on desirable titles, but sometimes simple is easiest.

After raiding the book room, it was time for step two. We checked in with the main library at our school. The shelves in our library were packed tight, full of great titles, and because shelves were so full, we had the ability to pull books out of the library and redistribute them to our classroom libraries.

Our librarian has spent the last several days pulling titles from the shelves and delivering them to our classrooms. Every other day or so, a basket of books arrives, and we never know what we are going to get. What we do know is that we will have more and more books as this process progresses. There will be additional books in our classroom libraries and more room on our school library shelves. Reallocation of resources is working in a very positive way in our school.

Once I received the books from the book room and the library, I implemented step three. I organized the books. I don’t think it matters how the books are organized, just that they are organized.

I categorized my books into the following sections, and used markers and printer paper to make my labels:

  • award winners
  • historical fiction
  • classics
  • mystery
  • fantasy and sci-fi
  • contemporary fiction
  • nonfiction
  • romance and other fun reads
  • “orphan” series books (books that are #2 or later in a series when the others aren’t there)
  • short stories and essays
  • poetry and verse

As you can see, I didn’t spend a dime on any books. I didn’t ask anyone else to spend any money, either. I used what was already in my school and simply helped to redistribute resources.

In some schools or districts, asking students to bring in books, applying for grants, and asking the parent-teacher groups to support classroom libraries will be great options. However, I wanted to share that sometimes, maybe often, classroom libraries can be built with what we already have.

What do you do to help build your classroom library? I’d love to see your ideas in the comments below.

Julie has been teaching secondary language arts for twenty years, spending the first fifteen in rural Central Oregon, and the last four in Amman, Jordan. She’s thrilled to report that she and her family have moved across the world to Managua, Nicaragua this year, where a new adventure has begun.

Follow her on twitter @SwinehartJulie

Assigned Reading Works as well as Assigned Flossing

Amber Counts, AP English, AP Literature, Books, Readers Writers Workshop July 24, 2018 Comments: 2

Every few months, I notice a meme recirculate with some variation of “Judging teachers on their students’ test scores makes as much sense as judging farmers on their crops without accounting for drought, freezes, or disease.” Still reflecting on my students’ lackluster AP scores as I sat down in the dentist’s chair this morning, I considered this meme. Then, like most teachers I know, I still wracked my brain trying to figure out what I could do differently to help my students score higher on that exam. As I mused, and chastised myself for taking their scores harder than I should, I endeavored to distract myself a bit by trying to remember the other meme out there that connected the professions of dentistry and teaching based on clients’ results. Ultimately, I looked it up when I got home, and it reads: “We don’t blame dentists when we don’t brush properly and we get a cavity. So why do we blame teachers when kids don’t pass because they don’t study?” Or read enough prior to twelfth grade, I thought.

Screen Shot 2018-07-24 at 1.57.38 PMMy cleaning ensued – painfully, I might add, as my technician was unnecessarily rough, and I wanted to ask her if she remembered that a person was attached to those teeth, but I found it too difficult to ask such questions with someone’s hands in my mouth. I waited for the post-cleaning check-up with the dentist, knowing the only question I had for him was about the dark staining I’ve been experiencing lately despite my careful brushing and (sometimes) flossing regimen.

During the 3 minutes he spent with me (I see why he earns the big bucks compared to me, I thought cynically) he responded to my question with one of his own.

“Do you drink a lot of tea?”

“Well, I guess so. I gave up soft drinks a couple of years ago, and tea became my go-to beverage.”

“Well then, that’s why your teeth are stained. You should expect that if you drink tea. It’s the worst thing you can do to stain your teeth. It’s worse than drinking coffee for stains.”

I didn’t hear the rest of what he said because it devolved into chastisement. I didn’t Screen Shot 2018-07-24 at 1.55.01 PMexpect him to congratulate me on the steps I’d taken for my overall health in giving up on sodas, and I didn’t expect him to have sympathy for how hard that habit must have been to break, and I didn’t even expect him to think logically about how much less acid was wearing away at my enamel now that I don’t drink soft drinks, but I also didn’t expect to feel as though I had done something so very wrong.

That’s when my English teacher brain went back to thinking about what we do (or fail to do) for our students. I thought about how many students have been made to feel “less than” when they want to read a YA book instead of a classic text. Just as my dentist was so set on his vision of how I should live solely focused on the effects on my teeth that he forgot about the person attached to them, how many well-meaning English teachers are so hyper-focused on their well-chosen texts that they forget about their students’ needs? How many forget or do not understand what can be gained with YA or self-selected books?

Screen Shot 2018-07-24 at 1.58.46 PMMy teeth will continue to stain, I guess. I’ll brush with baking soda once a week to combat that. But I’ve gained better health and energy. I’ve lost the migraines I used to get when I drank colas all the time. And if we allow our students to read what they want and need to read, they might lose content knowledge of some of the classics that we read (or fake-read) in high school, but they will gain an authentic love of reading. They will find connections with characters in their books. They will connect with each other as they enthusiastically discuss their books. They will feel empowered and in control of their lives as readers. Their reading levels will improve. And yes, the test scores will follow.

Prescribing all the texts our students read, even when doing so comes from a place of good intentions, works as well as prescribing flossing. Everyone does that at least twice a day, right?

Amber Counts teaches AP English Literature & Composition and Academic Decathlon at Lewisville High School. She believes in the power of choice and promotes thinking at every opportunity. She is married to her high school sweetheart and knows love is what makes the world go around. Someday she will write her story. Follow Amber @mrscounts.

Let’s Talk Summer Reading–Without the Pressure

Books, Readers Writers Workshop, Shana Karnes June 27, 2018 Comments: 17

Summer is one of my favorite times of year for reading. I love lying out in the sun with a light paperback, curling up in the corner of the couch with a classic, or falling asleep with my e-reader in my hand under a whirring fan.

Summer reading should be fun for everyone, but especially for teachers and students.

Instead, it’s become such a controversial topic–a buzzword laden with hidden meanings and tensions and polarizing sides. Much of the discourse around reading, and education in general, feels exhausting to me lately. Banned books, mandated books, and everything in between can spark vitriol in teachers who profess to love our students, profession, work.

summer-reading_xs.jpgBut, as ever, reading is the great escape.

And we need that escape–I feel like I never get a break from teaching, and when I do, I don’t know how to seize it. But one thing I love doing in the summertime is reading a book without looking for craft mini-lessons, or thinking about a booktalk I’ll give, or which kid I’ll recommend that title to. That kind of reading can wait until August.

So let’s talk about summer reading, without the pressure. I don’t want to argue with anyone about whether students should be assigned books, or required to participate in book clubs, or the danger of the summer slide or the 20 minutes of reading per day.

I just want to talk books.

Here are some genres and titles I’ve loved so far this summer, and I would love desperately need your recommendations. Please leave them in the comments!

download-1.jpgMurder-Mystery

Still Life is the first in the Inspector Armand Gamache series by Louise Penny, and I’ll forever remember reading it in beautiful Canaan Valley, WV during an anniversary getaway. This beautifully written murder-mystery is set in a small town in Canada, and our hero, Gamache, is a quiet observer of human nature, which helps him solve mysteries. I adore the way Penny crafts his thoughts about what he sees, and how many lovely backstories are woven through each mystery in this series.

Page-Turners

download.jpgThe Word Exchange was completely, compulsively, un-put-down-able. Alena Graedon is a new author for me, and her tale of a world that loses its grip on language once a massive tech company monopolizes and commoditizes words was, for me, perfectly timed–I’ve been a little unsettled lately by my observations about how addicted to technology everyone is, and how afraid I am of what it’s doing to my students, and could potentially do to my children. This book spurred me to action in terms of deactivating my Facebook and Instagram accounts and making a conscious effort to leave my phone in another room–to make space to just be, and be bored, and have time to think and wonder and ponder.

download-2.jpgThe Power by Naomi Alderman was just wonderful. It had all the elements of a gripping adventure story, along with a powerful message about what corrupts us. In this novel, women develop an electrostatic power and a society shifts from patriarchal to matriarchal in the space of a few generations as a result. The effect of women suddenly becoming more physically powerful than men leads to widespread revolution in everything from interpersonal relationships to world leadership. It’s beautifully written, too.

download-3.jpgDear Martin was a book I’d been recommended a thousand times, it seemed, but after reading so many books that felt similar–The Hate U Give, Long Way Down, etc., I just couldn’t pick it up–but I’m so glad I finally did. Nic Stone crafts this novel as a series of letters from young Justyce McAllister to Martin Luther King, interspersed with transcripts of news reports and first-person narrative. It’s complex and thoughtful and plausible and readable and powerful. I loved it.

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Nonfiction

When: The Scientific Secrets of Perfect Timing is Daniel Pink’s latest offering, and as usual, he has an insightful book that has applications for me as an individual, a parent, and a teacher. Pink discusses all the elements of timing that govern our lives, from being a “morning person” to a “night owl,” to the power and importance of building in breaks, taking naps, and seeking out social and alone time. He frames this all in the usual compelling narrative style that makes his writing so readable and interesting to me.

download-4.jpgTeaching Books

180 Days is proving difficult for me to get into. I’ve had it on my desk for over a month, but every time I pick up this collaboration between Penny Kittle and Kelly Gallagher, I feel like I’m having an emotional battle. My former classroom teacher self wars with my preservice teacher professor self wars with my currently nonteaching summer self when I read about the decisions that go into planning for a packed, skill-building, book-loving, writing-doing, meaningful, 180-day school year. I think it just contributes to that overall feeling of exhaustion I have, so maybe I just need to pick it up when I’m a little more rested.

What are you reading this summer? What books and places help you take a break from teaching? Please share in the comments or on Twitter via @3teacherstalk.

Shana Karnes is enjoying summer reading in West Virginia with her two daughters. She spends lots of time at the public library, the university rec center, and Target–because books, running, and iced coffee while shopping are joyful things. Shana works with practicing teachers through the National Writing Project and formerly taught preservice educators and high school students. Let’s talk reading on Twitter–I’m @litreader for a reason!

3 Ways to “Wrap Up” Your School Year

Books, Classroom Culture, Community, Readers Writers Workshop, Shana Karnes May 30, 2018 Comments: 6

I am an unabashed gift giver.

I love tangible ways to express my appreciation for friends, students, family, colleagues, and anyone else I count as important.

…I also love shopping.

But with an impending move to Wisconsin on the horizon, I don’t love clutter in my home–so I am gifting left and right. That was part of the inspiration this year for how I wanted to finish the semester with my students–students I’ve been with for multiple years, in some cases, and others who I’ve only gotten to know and learn with for one semester.

Like any ending, this one tended to color the ups and downs of our school year into a tone more rosy than reality may have painted. With two kids under two, a hectic semester of required assignments, and the ever-present student mood swings offered by snow days, spring break, and finals week, we all struggled at times to stay committed to our work. No school year is ever smooth, or perfect, or simple–but I still like to celebrate its end annually with something tangible. As such, I give each of my students a gift at the end of every year, and have every year since I began teaching.

Here are three ways I “wrapped up” the ending of this school year–literally.


The Gift of Reading

Two groups of my students and I have been together for two years now, and in those two years, I’ve gotten to know these kids (I mean, they’re adults, but I will always refer to my students as “kids” when I think of them) incredibly well. They will be teaching in all content areas, in all grade levels, but still–I can’t seem to turn off my English teacher brain long enough not to say, hmmm, I know exactly what book that forward-thinking history teacher would like.

So this year, I pulled from my own bookshelves one or two books for each of my students–for their personal reading, for their classrooms, or both. In each book, I wrote the student a note, then wrapped each book individually. This time-intensive gesture has been rewarding in spades as my students contact me to tell me they’ve read and loved their books.

The Gift of Writing

We use Google Docs quite frequently, and one of my favorite activities to have students work on is to respond to a writing prompt on a collaborative Google Doc and proceed to write, think, and argue together on one page.

So this year, I printed out every collaborative Google Doc, group-written book review, team-created list of strategies, or class-crafted series of ideal classrooms, social justice non-negotiables, and pedagogically challenging teaching moves that we’d created and bound them together into a class “Anthology of Awesome,” which each student received.

On our last day of class, we shared the anthologies with donuts and coffee. I also brought thank-you notes for students to write to one another–personal messages they hand-wrote and hand-delivered to their critical friends, who had helped read and respond to their work all semester long.

With these pieces of writing in their pockets, my students left class with tangible reminders of the intellectual portion of our time together.

The Gift of Family

For better or for worse, with the end of each school year together, a class is like a family. Some members are dysfunctional, some are estranged, but in general, we’re a bunch of former strangers who now love, appreciate, and respect one another more than we did four quarters ago.

To help us remember this time together, I wrote my classes each a letter that highlighted each student by name, and comprised some of our memories together, our shared goals, and our funny moments. I added this letter to the beginning of our class anthology to serve as a reminder of our Screen Shot 2018-05-30 at 7.11.46 AM.pngstudents’ names and personalities. For my future teachers, I created our ideal school, in which we’d all teach and get to work together forever. In past years, I simply wrote a letter of well-wishes to my kids, and included each student’s name and a little compliment toward them all.

As we wrap up this school year, these simple gifts are things you might consider crafting to help end your year with students on a high note. It’s easy to get caught up in the end-of-semester hubbub of grades, exams, and packing up classrooms, but I hope you’ll pause to commemorate a year of learning as a group in some way with your students, as well.

Please share how you “wrap up” the school year meaningfully with your students! We’d love to know in the comments, on Facebook, or on Twitter!

Shana Karnes will soon be leaving the wild and wonderful mountains of West Virginia for the great lakes of Wisconsin. She is excited to continue her involvement in Appalachian education by leading institutes with the National Writing Project at West Virginia University this summer, but will otherwise be relaxing and devouring as many books as she can during her two daughters’ nap times. Connect with Shana on Twitter at @litreader.

What’s Your Book?

Amy Rasmussen, Books May 29, 2018 Comments: 3

I spent most of Monday trying to organize my books. It’s a bigger deal than it sounds. I love books. My husband loves books. Together we have a massive book-loving marriage. And a problem:  Room.

Recently, we moved across town into a space that is just a tad bigger than the one room apartment we lived in as newlyweds almost 33 years ago. So, today we’ve sorted, remembered, donated, and pledged.

“I read more when the books are our in front of me,” my husband said as he put his favorite sales and marketing books on the shelf. “These are the ones I read again and again.”

“I think you should read this book,” he said, showing me Paradigms. “It’s a fundamental

Toberead

Just one of my to-read-next towers. I’ve also got the AP Lit and Book Love Summer Book Club towers.

book for anyone who is an innovator.”

It’s now atop my to-read-next tower.

“What’s the one book that hooked you as a kid?” he asked as I tried (and failed) to narrow my children’s book collection.

“Anne of Green Gables. Easy. ” I said, “Yours?”

“My Side of the Mountain.”

Most readers know that one book.

And isn’t it a treat that by definition of our jobs we get to help kids find their books — the ones they want to read, the ones that helps them fall in love with reading — if they haven’t fallen yet?

Today, I’d like to ask you:  “What is your book, the book that made you want to read?”

Our books

Amy Rasmussen lives and works in North Texas. Her classroom library is home to books, books, and more books — all selected to help inspire a love of reading in every single student. Btw, she and her husband have had numerous conversations about the books that made them readers. It was pretty much a first date prerequisite.

What Should I Read Next? – How to Further Fuel Your Bibliophilic Ambitions

Books, Lisa Dennis, Readers Writers Workshop May 24, 2018 Comments: 4

Hypothetically, this post will offer upwards of 387,993 book recommendations for your ‘To Read Next List.” Honestly, I’m terrible at math, so that number may be a bit hyperbolic, but I bet it got your attention. Realistically, you may be cursing me by the end, because summer is NOT going to be long enough to explore all of these texts, even the mere fourteen I’ll link up to below may give me a run for my money (not in number, but I already have a lengthy “to read” list!), but oh my, my, did I hit the book recommendation jackpot.

My gal Shana who texted me just a few days ago suggested a podcast that has quickly become my latest obsession. Shana knows what’s what. She’s up writing at 5:00 A.M. almost daily, has rearranged her extensive personal book collection in a color-coordinated bliss that reminds me of High Fidelity, and is moving her family to Wisconsin to be closer to me. Ok, she may be moving to Wisconsin because of her lovely husband’s medical career, but she will be in the same state as I am. In short, she’s all kinds of awesome and I trust her recommendations implicitly. When she told me I needed to listen to this podcast, because it reminded her of me, I was tickled.

My husband is likely glowering as he reads this, knowing he has been trying with little success to get me hooked on podcasts for nearly a decade, but Shana’s suggestion that I check out the What Should I Read Next? podcast with Anne Bogel has my book list laden with enough literary lovelies that I’m going to need to take a sabbatical.

what should i read

Ms. Bogel is the author of the hugely successful, and likewise entertaining, blog Modern Mrs. Darcy, that explores countless angles to life as a modern woman.

Readers Beware If you click on the above link, you will land down a delcious rabbit hole of reading guides for book clubs, summer book lists, links to works of major authors, not to mention over one hundred podcast episodes talking about books and reading. It’s a biliophiles delight for sure.

After listening to only one episode of her podcast,  I wanted to someday be able to claim to have known Anne Bogel for years and chatted with her about books over a big bowl of Chex Mix with Peanut M&M’S, and I had a list of fourteen books that I want to check out. That’s a book recommendation every four minutes in a fifty-two-minute podcast. (My list from the followup episodes I’ve digested is likewise lengthy).

On this episode (one of four I have listened to in just the past three days), Annie Jones, owner of The Bookshelf bookstore in Thomasville, Georgia, chats with Bogel about recommendations for summer reading and the joys and trials of reading for a living.

As my workshop teacher senses apparently never go off, I not only mentally cataloged a lengthy list of book recommendations, but some advice I wanted to share with my students next year as we set reading goals and look to the future of our reading lives in the 2018-2019 school year: Never allow your reading life to be bogged down by a number. Whether you feel overwhelmed because your goal is so lofty that you end up flying through books instead of relishing them, or you nervously look at your elbow partner’s number and yours is nowhere near the depth, breadth, or drive of his/her reading life, don’t get discouraged.

Reading is all about finding balance.

The balance of goals with other parts of our lives.
The balance of genres.
The balance of what we feel we should read vs. what we want to read.

So, without further ado, here are a few suggestions from episode 132, “The books we can’t wait to read this summer”:

  1. I’m a huge fan of historical fiction. Last Christmas break it was America’s First Daughter by Stephanie Dray and Laura Kamoie (and their latest, My Dear Hamilton). In episode 128, Tracie Haddock recommends I Shall Be Near to You by Erin Lindsay McCabe. A woman disguising herself as a man to fight in the American Civil War? I’ll raise the flag for that!
  2. I often feel like I’ve got to read what’s hot. Well, what about what was hot a few years ago? Jump back a few years and check out these biographies of some seriously awesome women. Abigail Adams by Woody Holton and Wrapped in Rainbows by Valerie Boyd.
  3. Looking for a super hot memoir?  Educated by Tara Westover fits the bill. I had a student scoop this one up, but I am going to make sure to get it back and read it myself over the summer.
  4. Looking for last year’s super hot memoir? Try The Sound of Gravel by Ruth Wariner.
  5. That Kind of Mother by Rumaan Alam was named one of the most anticipated books of 2018 by everyone from Buzzfeed to Vogue. A text classified as “Women’s Fiction” that’s written by a man and recommended by Celeste Ng. I feel like name-dropping, in this case, is what it’s all about.
  6. The Royal We by Heather Cocks is the ultimate Kate Middleton fanfiction. So…yeah. Beach read, anyone? This is a quick downhill on the Penny Kittle reading roller coaster for sure.
  7. Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel was one of my favorite reads this year and disappeared from my classroom the day I book talked it with the quote “Hell is the absence of the people you long for.” Post-apocalyptic symphony, pandemic flu, and multiple plotlines make this a truly powerful read.
  8. For musicians, lovers of music, and those that buy books based on their covers comes The Ensemble by Aja Gabel.
  9. A Place for Us by Fatima Farheen Mirza arrives in June and introduces Sarah Jessica Parker’s new imprint, SJP for Hogarth.
  10. Tangerine by Christine Mangan is a delicious Gone Girl type historical mystery. And to take it up a notch…
  11. Social Creature by Tara Isabella Burton is apparently the R-Rated version coming out this summer.
  12. The Hazel Wood by Melissa Albert will most definitely be in my classroom library next fall as a YA fairy tale about fairy tales.
  13. The Widows of Malabar Hill by Sujata Massey follows a young lawyer in 1920’s Bombay as she tries to execute the will of a man who leaves behind three young wives. This book is a multicultural adventure that introduces a sharp new sleuth for mystery lovers.
  14. Coming in July, The Incendiaries by R.O. Kwon which is a “powerful, darkly glittering novel about violence, love, faith, and loss, as a young Korean American woman at an elite American university is drawn into acts of domestic terrorism by a cult tied to North Korea.”

There is certainly something here for everyone, and the few episodes of this podcast that I’ve listened to would suggest that there is something for everyone at What Should I Read Next? too. It’s quickly become my go to as I twiddle my thumbs and wait for my Libby library holds to catch up with my ambitions.

Happy listening and happy reading, friends! Summer IS just around the corner.

What’s on your summer reading list? Have you read any of the books in the recommendation list above? What did you think? Please comment below!

Lisa Dennis teaches English and leads a department of incredible English educators at Franklin High School near Milwaukee. Her current read is A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles and she’s eagerly awaiting her next Libby hold, Stephen King’s On Writing.  Follow Lisa on Twitter @LDennibaum.