Category Archives: Lisa Dennis

Try it Tuesday: Thinking Outside the Bubble

AP Language, Lisa Dennis, Writers Workshop April 26, 2016 Comments: 6

Testing season is upon us. Heaven help us all.

ACT, SAT, AP – insert your high stakes, hive-inducing, pencil-sharpening acronym here.

As students sit down to demonstrate, in bubble form, their proficiency as scholars (and sometimes in their own estimation, as human beings), we as educational professionals hold our collective breath.

Have we balanced real world application of skills and test prep as we should?
Will students be able to develop their ideas in the limited time provided? 
Do they know the specific language necessary to decode the test? 
Will they demonstrate growth reflective of the hard work of both teacher and student? 
What will these scores mean for my daily practice? My salary? My job security? 

It can sometimes feel desperately difficult to maintain the freedom, choice, and empowerment that workshop affords in the face of district expectations for test performance. Afterall, students aren’t given choice when it comes to test prompts or format, or taking the test at all. However, at the end of the day, the skill focus of both readers and writers workshop speaks pointedly to preparing students for whatever they might encounter on such tests, as learner investment in choice materials in often much higher. So if we work to illustrate key skills in mini lessons and have students work with those concepts utilizing texts they are enthusiastic about, research would suggest a solid return on investment, both scholars and the tests used to measure their “proficiency.”

For example, Greene and Melton’s book  Test Talk: Integrating Test Preparation into Reading Workshop stresses that successful test takers must be smart readers.

Many test taking strategies are simply good reading strategies, so as we work to build student skills in close reading, we are also building their test-taking skills. In this way, test review isn’t an isolated unit, but rather a daily practice that teachers can refer students back to as test time approaches. And because better reading means better writing, the need to develop students as careful readers is paramount.

So while the beauty of workshop is choice, our world of standardized tests demands the development of specific reading and writing skills; however, those two worlds can have more in common than we might initially think.

To illustrate, I took my AP Language students through a prompt review that challenged them with timed writing, analysis of student samples, self-assessment of their work, peer-assessment of their work, and then collaboration to arrive at a final score.

Obviously, part of the written test is one’s ability to write an argument, but in the case of this synthesis prompt, if students aren’t careful readers of the materials provided, they struggle to effectively incorporate the evidence. This specific test prep went way beyond the test in terms of skill development and it went down like this:

  1. Students wrote an AP Language Synthesis essay in class. This required 15 minutes to look at sources and 40 minutes to write an argument essay utilizing those sources to support their claims. AP Synthesis essays ask students to write an argument and incorporate at least three of the provided sources. Students must quickly read through the source material to locate information they want to use in support of their claims and then plan, organize, and write their essay.
  2. The following class period, we looked at student samples and the AP scoring guide from the College Board website. This gave students an idea of what the prompt looked like in action and the actual scores those students received. I divided the class into groups, had each group look at one sample essay and its score. They then had to justify how AP scorers came up with that score. We shared as a class that lower essays lacked organization and analysis, middle scoring essays were adequate in all areas but could be improved with more specifics and developed analysis of included source material, and the top scoring essays blend style and content in a mature fashion.
  3. Students then pulled out a clean sheet of paper and self-assessed using the provided rubric by giving themselves a score and justifying it.
  4. Here’s where I tried something new. Students folded over the top of their assessments and handed their synthesis essays and the reflection (without their score visible) to the person next to them. Peers read through the essay, scored it, and wrote several suggestions for improvement. We went around our tables of four until each student had his or her essay back.
  5. We then unfurled their feedback and engaged in collaborative discussion. I asked students to talk about what they saw in each other’s essays and to arrive at a final score. I recorded this in the gradebook as their formative score for the exercise. Anyone that was dissatisfied with what the table decided, could come and share their concern with me, which I am pleased to report, did not happen.
  6. Students stapled their feedback form to the essay with a final score on top, along with their thoughts on the exercise.

In the end, students said it was hugely helpful to compare their work to that of others and in doing so, realize what they could do to improve their own responses on the actual test.

Eva said she found the activity, “Really, really helpful. It’s good to get perspective and to be able to reflect from that feedback. 10/10 :)”

Sam suggested that it was helpful because he finds it “hard to critique” his own work. Having published student samples from AP and peer samples from his group, he was able to compare and contrast against concrete scored examples and try his hand at assigning a score on his own, with his tablemates to help justify that score at the end.

And Daaman said she, “enjoyed this activity as we were able to see others’ interpretations of the prompt and also see ways we can improve.”

I’m glad they feel more prepared for the test, but beyond that I am most impressed that in just two class periods they demonstrated skills in both reading and writing, analysis, synthesis, reflection, and collaboration. By analyzing student samples as mentors and applying that knowledge to their own work, students walked away with several examples of what to do, what not to do, and where to take their writing for the next argument we write. No bubbles or number two pencils required.

How do you bring workshop and standardized testing together? Please leave your ideas and comments below! 

Try it Tuesday: 15 Minutes to Make Time For Reading

Books, Lisa Dennis, Readers Workshop April 19, 2016 Comments: 5

My students don’t have time to read.  Just ask them. They’ll tell you.
In reflections, on their goal cards, to my face.

They’re sweet about it, mostly:
“I really wish I had more time to read, Mrs. Dennis. I’m just super busy.”
“The musical is just taking up all my time. I’ll get back at it soon. I promise.”
“AP tests are coming up and every time I sit down to read, I can’t stop thinking about the more important things I have to do.”

Ouch. That last one was like a swift kick to the shin. Or my soul.

But regardless of the reason, medium of delivery, or general sentiment, all of the excuses amount to the same end result: I need to keep reading at the forefront of every class period, or these kids are going to completely fall off the wagon.

As Amy alluded to yesterday in her post about personal reading challenges, we can’t always win the competition between getting our students reading and other homework, extracurriculars, or spring sunshine, but we can work to spark their interest and show them ways to make reading possible in their own lives.

Here’s what I tried at the end of last week and it took all of 15 minutes to create a buzz about setting goals, making time to read, and exploring a few new texts to capture student interest:

  1. I reminded my students how two hours of reading per week is the expectation, not just a cute suggestion. So, we started off a bit more serious. I reminded kids that I purposefully don’t give as much homework as I used to in order to help them have more time to read. We had an honest conversation (sort of one sided) about what it means to prioritize other things over reading and how it short changes their writing and their development as readers.I reminded them too that I’m busy, but I’m also a part of our classroom of readers. As specific examples can really help hit home a point (and including humor doesn’t hurt either), I shared with them that I read Columbine by Dave Cullen last week in six days (It’s honestly riveting. Unbelievably good), all while keeping my toddler entertained and alive, finding a few consecutive minutes to spend with my husband, trying to keep up with the recent release of Catastrophe on Amazon, preparing meals, doing laundry, cleaning up the house, and continuing to change their lives with my teaching each and every day (chuckle, chuckle).

    Then we took a look at this brilliant graphic from Tricia Ebarvia: 2 hours of reading

    I think it really helped kids to see that 2 hours of reading can be accomplished in a variety of ways depending on how they can work it into their schedule. I see my kids every other day on the block schedule, so I asked them to imagine establishing their 35 minute base either in resource period or through the 10 minutes we get to read at the start of each class.

  2. We then did a modified version of speed dating with books. My district has really come through in recent weeks with a surge of funding for classroom libraries and as a result, I have a delicious variety of new and enticing titles.
    IMG_0684

    Allison investigates Little Princes by Conor Grennan

    In place of our book talk, I asked students to take a “field trip” around the room and judge some books by their covers. Students were asked to take two or three books back to their seats based on interest in the title, a connection to the text (someone recommended it and curiosity was stirred), or any criteria that caught their attention. I asked students to spread the books out across the table and follow these simple steps:

    • Talk about the books! What do you know about any of the books on the table? Have you read it? Heard about it? Why did you bring a certain text to the table? Students chatted for 3 or 4 minutes and comments varied from “So many people are talking about this book” to “I picked it because the cover looked interesting.” Students were also making some great connections between authors. Several students picked up The Knife of Never Letting Go and The Crane Wife  because of previous experiences with Patrick Ness and one student specifically said she chose a text because it had a recommendation from John Green on the front.
    • Next, I asked students to choose a book from the table and read it for four minutes with a directive to look over the cover, search out accolades, read the back, and flip open the book to get a sample of the author’s style. When I called time, students who were interested in their books were asked to raise the book up over their heads so others could get a look.
    • The next round of reading went the same way, with students choosing books from their tables (either something they brought over or a text a peer put overhead).
    • For the final round, students could go swipe books from other tables. I told them to keep their eyes out for texts that had been put in the air by more than one person.
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I told them to act natural.

In 15 minutes we reconnected about making time for reading and explored our classroom library in search of a spark or two that could move us forward as readers. Students said they really enjoyed “shopping” for texts by looking at covers and then stealing books from other tables. They added to their “I Want to Read” lists, made some notes in their planners about scheduling time to read, and several books were checked out each class period.

15 minutes very well spent.

 

 

Try it Tuesday: Book Talks on the Big Screen

Book Trailers, Lisa Dennis April 12, 2016 Comments: 3

A few months back, my family was featured on a commercial for a local furniture store. We got paid handsomely to sit on a couch and look happy (easy) and cute (easy for my toddler). No dialogue. No acting. Just…sitting. It was well within my wheelhouse.

When the commercial ran, my daughter Ellie would race up to the screen in our living room, point excitedly, and exclaim, “LOOK! It’s ME!” Anytime she heard the telltale voice of the announcer, she would drop whatever she was doing and run to see if she was “in the television” again.

Her reaction was adorable (I’m biased), and pretty typical for a little kid who loves smiling for pictures and seeing herself in videos, but it would seem that as we grow, our perception of ourselves on screen tarnishes a bit. I mostly noticed how painfully true it is that the camera adds ten pounds. How cruel.  Thankfully, others often aren’t paying attention to such trivialities (I hope).

What’s important is the content.

In our classrooms, content takes many forms, but no matter the medium, we’re looking for the message to come through loud and clear. For example,  I teach my students when we work with speaking and listening standards that if we keep the message on pointe (Hurry in for the one day sale…) and organized (Hurry in today; it’s a one day sale), our audience will hopefully focus on the content (Wow, I could save serious bank on a sofa…today) and not our appearance (Hey, she looks like she packed on a few pounds. Ten. It looks like she packed on ten pounds). 

So, let’s consider what this means for readers workshop in our classrooms.

Book talks are central to a readers workshop. As such, many of us do them each and everyday. Amy and Shana recently discussed how and why they book talk in class, and one of the most useful quotes I took away from that post was when Amy reiterated the essence of a book talk, saying, “The best book talks are short, energetic, and introduce the book in some insightful or clever way.”

It’s simple: We want to hook our audience. The content is clear (This book is fantastic and you’ll love it too! ) and so is our mission (Read this book!).

With all this in mind, I’m going to ask you to come with me to a place that might make some of your a bit uncomfortable. However, in terms of risk-reward for the promotion of choice reading, this will be well worth the effort.

Let’s take our book talks to the big screen! 

Just as Ellie loved seeing herself on screen, students of the digital age delight in the visual medium. So, to add to our book talk repertoire, and even broaden the audience for books that delight our reading communities, here are three simple ways to switch up book talks in your classroom and keep things fresh and clever (personal screentime optional!). 

 

  1. Guest book talks caught on tape! Several months ago, I read and delighted in Jackie’s post on ways to stir up book talks. One of the suggestions I got rolling with was the guest book talk. Jackie insightfully wrote that “students need positive reading role models in all of their educators.” How true!

    I grabbed my phone and went down to Señora Ovalle-Krolick’s room. She had been speaking passionately just a few days before about Richard Wright’s Black Boy. I have yet to read this classic and I knew that her enthusiasm for the text would captivate my students. Before she could say no, I handed her the book and told her that I needed her passion. I asked her to tell me a bit about the book, her reading of it, and why she was recommending it. Her video, captured in one take, spoke beautifully about the text and her connection to it.

    Due to scheduling, it wasn’t possible to ask Alejandra to come to each of my classes, but with the video below, I was able to share it with all of my students. I’ve been working on my Social Studies neighbor next. He’s set to book talk via video next week. And all we need is my phone to get recording!

    https://www.facebook.com/lisa.n.dennis.7/videos/10154184296661549/?l=2213863947109559232

  2. Go big or go home – book talks on our school’s student newscast. Each week, the fantastic video production students at Franklin High School produce The Saber Roar. In recent months, I’ve helped an amazing student, Tasha Kappes, start a segment entitled Saber Reads. Students, teachers, and administrators (even a few from the district office!) have signed up to book talk some of their favorite selections!

    Here is Jessica Lucht, one of my amazing AP students book talking  The Young Elites by Marie Lu right around minute 2:45.

    In this episode, zip to minute 3:40 to see a book talk I did with my colleague, bestie, and partner in crime, Erin Doucette on Kristin Hannah’s The Nightingale. 

  3. Borrow brilliance from the internet. I learned about Reel Reading from Amy. Book trailers combine all of the elements of a great book talk, with the added bonus of moving pictures, music, and sometimes analysis or quotes.  In a post from several years ago, Amy’s students came through with some wonderful book trailers.Jackie talked about using book trailers in this post from last year, and I used a few of her links when I was feeling stuck in supplementing my own book talks recently.

    Just last week I wanted to book talk the Pulitzer Prize winning book The Road by Cormac McCarthy. I found the book trailer below the hooked several students with its haunting music and connection to the movie that was made from the book.

What ideas do you have for taking book talks to the big screen? What questions do you have? Please feel free to leave your comments and questions below! 

Try it Tuesday: Quick and Easy Formative Feedback

Classroom Culture, Community, Lisa Dennis April 5, 2016 Comments: 6

Remember last week, when I was waiting for spring?

Yup. Still waiting.

Meanwhile, it’s snowing outside my classroom window, and let me tell you, my students are (brace yourself for sarcasm) delighted. Not only is it a Monday, but it’s the first day back from break and it’s November-esque gloomy outside. Add snow to the mix and I’m staring down an epidemic of crippling apathy.

Needless to say, we have our work cut out for us today.

And yet…I have hope.

Simrah walked into last period with a smile and said, “Ah…Home.” She sat down, opened a book, and started reading. I almost cried.

It reminded me first and foremost how lucky I am to work with such wonderful students every day. In addition, it reminded me that an overwhelming number of  students value the choice a readers workshop model affords. It reminded me too that most students value the time we devote to that reading every class period and many have even said they look forward to it.

And really, it comes down to value. Valuing our students, their insight, their commitment, their time, and their drive. As the article “The Top Five Reasons We Love Giving Students Choice in Reading”from English Leadership Quarterly suggests, students feel valued when given the choice to read what interests them, and in turn, as we talk with our students about texts they have enthusiastically read, the relationship between teacher and student deepens as does their connections to what they read.  I referenced the above article in a previous post and Amy and Shana just spoke beautifully about choice in their workshop through EdCollabGathering this weekend. In short, choice empowers students. Who couldn’t use a little empowerment as third quarter crawls into fourth? My snow weary kids certainly could.

So, I felt it necessary to offer some encouragement and praise to my students to welcome them back from break and push us forward with our independent reading. It came in the form of a super quick formative that I was able to turn around within the same class period, providing feedback to each and every student and a quick snapshot for me to move our conferences forward purposefully in the coming weeks.

I found students that I suspected needed a push, and I was able to request that they come see me during our resource period. I found students that crushed their reading goals over break, their reflections brimming with pride, and I was able to congratulate them and encourage them to keep up the great work. I found students struggling to settle on a book, and I was able to list a few recommendations.

The prompt was simple: Give me a snapshot of your current independent reading life. What are you reading? How is it going? What do you need from me to help you be successful?

Below, you’ll see a few samples from students of varying abilities, interests, and commitments to independent reading. I am encouraged to see a number of students pushing themselves to meet the reading goals we are setting in class and so happy to be able to quickly intervene with those that need encouragement.

Bottom line: I was able to connect with each and every one of my students in only about ten minutes time. That is a huge win for the first day back from break. Bring on fourth quarter!

Formative 1

Eva often struggles to submit work on time. To see her excitement for My Book of Life by Angel made me smile. 

Fomrative 3

Nimmi cracked me up with this response. Apparently, it’s otherworldly to relate to someone as old as 30, but she’s making plans for her life based on her reading. Outstanding! 

Formative 6

Bennett is a brilliant (accelerated) student who admits that reading isn’t often his priority. I can’t wait to hear his thoughts on The Emerald Mile. 

Formative 5

Kathy is an extremely hard worker who tackles reading specifically to better herself and prepare herself for AP Literature. We read an essay from Virginia Woolf and it sparked Kathy’s interest. 

Formative 2

Cassie is a sophomore who struggles with analysis. I’ve requested her for resource tomorrow so we can talk through what might be holding her back with this book in order to help her move on and meet her goals. 

Formative 4

Several students responded with insights into texts they are loving, which afforded me the opportunity to recommend further reading. 

What are the quick formatives you use to provide feedback to and motivate students? Please leave your comments below! 

 

 

 

Try it Tuesday: Taking Your Classroom Library Digital

Classroom Library, Community, Lisa Dennis, Logistics March 29, 2016 Comments: 8

Spring break in Wisconsin is sort of a misnomer. Thank the heavens, it is a break. Time enough to make to-do lists that are far too long to actually do, but blessedly, reading time abounds and my tented texts are multiplying.

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Ice covered trees just last week

But Spring? Not so much. Not usually. The cherry blossoms may be bursting into bloom in Washington and roadtrippers to Florida are finding warm sunshine and sand, but in Wisconsin, we’re a bit…behind.

Mother nature likes to tease Wisconsinites. Sixty degrees one day and snow that evening. Literally. My toes are cold just thinking about it.

However, as is the eternal promise of rebirth in spring, there are signs. Robins have returned, tiny buds are appearing on the trees, and the first flowers have pushed their tiny heads above the snow and suggested that warmer weather really might be on its way.

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Crocus braving the elements

And so, with the hope that warmer days might actually be on the horizon, I get the undeniable and somewhat inexplicable urge to clean, organize, and pull my brain out of the numbing chill of winter. Throw open the windows (brr!), place hands on hips, and get to work. You’ll recall my to-do lists mentioned earlier? Several closets are in my sights and I geekishly delight in the thought of heading to the Container Store to finally wrangle the toys my daughter received for Christmas.

In the same way, before break, I surveyed my classroom (hands on hips and a waning desire to grade papers) and decided to tackle my number one organizational nightmare.

Mainly? My classroom library check in and check out.

With a recent influx in books for this library, there is excitement, variety, and chaos.

It’s new. It’s wondrous. It’s a big, ugly, mess.

As students clamour for new books (Yay!), their attention to our sign-out sheet has gotten messy at best, and completely ineffective at worst.

I was getting emails from kids weekly – Hi Mrs. Dennis, I accidently walked out of class with the book I grabbed. Could you sign it out for me?  or  Mrs. Dennis, I stole one of your books. Well, I didn’t steal it, I’ll give it back, but I have it and didn’t sign it out. Is that ok? 

Please, steal a thousand books if they are going to get read. However, it’s tricky. I can’t find books I thought I had. Students look for a texts and I don’t know if they are there or not. I go to book talk a text and it’s nowhere to be found.  #biblioissues.

But short of a full library scanning system and detectors that wail if you try to take out a book that’s not checked out, I was sort of at a loss.

So I turned to my friend Google, in search of different ways to handle the blessing of enthusiastic readers. And what I came up with has worked really well for my students that don’t always remember to sign books in or out during class, as they can now take care of it both in class and out.

I wanted it to be simple and provide me with some insights into both my students and the texts they choose. I needed to be accessible and easy for kids to use too. And, I wanted to try and create something that would run itself.

Enter – Google Forms.

Below, you’ll see the steps I took to digitize my classroom library, quickly and easily. 

  1. Create a Google Form that students can access easily. Forms provide you with a URL that can be sent to students’ email, pasted to a digital class syllabus, and/or shared on a class website. Once students fill out the form, all of the data is collected on a spreadsheet that you can alphabetize by student name, book title, or any category you like.

    Library 1

    The opening page leads students to differing questions depending on their need

  2. Differentiate questions on the form to gather the data you want. Below, you’ll see the questions I asked depending on whether a student was checking a book out (tell me what you are taking) or checking a book in (tell me how the reading went).
    • Checking out a book, I’m just looking for the basics:

      Check Out

      The basics so that I know where the book went.

    • Checking in a book, I’m looking to see if a student successfully completed the reading or didn’t, and why.

      Sign In 1

      The first page of the check in.

    • If students abandoned a book, I’m looking to find out why and if they successfully completed the book, I’m interested to find out what they thought.
      Abandon

      Reasons a student might have abandoned a text.

      Finished Book

      Insights once a student finishes a book.

  3. If you want it used, place the link to this form everywhere! I have the form linked to the top of my digital syllabus, I sent the link to students to save via Remind, I emailed it to their school account, and I made QR code for my classroom wall that students can scan, taking them directly to the form. Library Mangement
  4. Much like a mini reader’s conference, read what students are saying about they are reading. In the few weeks I have been asking students to use this form, I have taken away several key insights.
    • Book talks ARE making a difference. 

      Screen Shot 2016-03-28 at 9.56.27 PM

      Forms gives you data to help guide future text selections, book talks, and recommendations.

    • Students do read more simply because we give them time! Several students commented that they picked up a book for in class reading and then checked it out to keep reading.
    • Kids care about what their peers are reading. In the section where students suggest why they choose a book, many suggest that hearing their peers talk about a book, or simply seeing someone else read it, piqued their interest.
      Screen Shot 2016-03-28 at 9.57.24 PM

      You can take a look at student responses by submission, or…

      Screen Shot 2016-03-28 at 9.55.53 PM

      Go to a spreadsheet that you can organize to best supply data in any category you choose.

 

All in all, my organizational itch has been…digitized.  And as I sit and wait for spring during this week off of school, my closets may stay messy and I’ll never get through all the books I want to read (I did manage to start Animal Farm during my daughter’s nap today. A student recommendation and a sneaking suspicion I may be asked not to return to work if someone found out I haven’t ever read it have fueled my most recent read), but over 70 students have used my new classroom library form and that warms my heart, if not my toes.

UPDATE: Here is a link to a copy of my Google Form. Please feel free to make a copy of it for your own use! Enjoy! 

 

How have you made your classroom library run more smoothly? Other ideas on collecting usable data from readers workshop? Please leave your comments below! 

 

 

Try it Tuesday: 2 Simple Ideas to Promote Reading

Lisa Dennis, Readers Workshop March 22, 2016 Comments: 10

You know what I could use? A bookmark.

Actually, I could use five bookmarks right now.

I’m not proud and it’s not pretty, but I’m suffering from tented book syndrome these days. On my desk at school. My nightstand at home. The corner of the couch. The kitchen counter.

A vast field of tented texts. Books in progress. I know Amy can relate.
We share this affliction.

It always starts innocently enough. I’m between books. In the market for another. Speed dating texts to book talk, but not really committing myself yet. Then, I get sucked in.

It’s just one book to start. One book I want to come back to, so I’ll just leave it…here.

This time I blame Alyssa, one of my AP Language students. She enthusiastically book talked Anita Diamant’s The Red Tent. I immediately ordered it and it’s now flipped open on the coffee table as I type.  Shortly after,  Errin, an inquisitive sophomore, asked me to read Kafka’s Metamorphosis and that (to keep the creature in) is flipped upside down under a stack of papers.  Don Quixote has been languishing on my desk at school since the start of the year. I will finish it this time; I’ve just been distracted by about twenty-seven other amazing books since I started (I did read six whole pages today. That leaves 788 pages to go. So, I’m really cruising).

Penny Kittle’s Write Beside Them is eternally tented on the shelf behind my desk. And I’ve been flying through another ‘I can’t believe I haven’t read this text,’ The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros. Esperanza was actually flipped open on the front seat of my car last week. I started it during an oil change.

So…I have a problem. For a bibliophile, this is a good problem to have. It is both damaging to my books and a testament to my deteriorating organizational skills, but it does keep those books at my fingertips. It’s super nerdy, but I love to see them, open and waiting for my return.

However, while having a good book close at hand might excite those of us already full of passion for reading, it takes a little something more to get our students geared up to keep turning the pages day after day. Just ask the local library. If merely having the books available led to literacy, I might be out of a job. I bet librarians would  be willing to open and tent books if they thought it would get kids reading, but shockingly enough, few students are as willing to be as visually nerdy as the average English teacher.

What we need is to not only get the texts in front of kids, but keep them there in a meaningful way.

Bright. Catchy. Student-centered.

So, here are two very easy ways to appeal to our students’ goal oriented nature, if not their occasional tendency to let their eyes wander around the room during class. If we can’t hook them with tented texts, these approaches just might catch their eye.

1. Reading Goal Bookmarks

This is a hybrid of a number of measures I’ve seen and read about for helping hold students accountable for their reading. While I certainly want to keep track of what they are reading and how they are progressing, I wanted to try and incorporate a visual reminder of their reading goals into the experience.

In the rare occasions I get into an exercise regiment (regiment may be a strong word…spurt, perhaps?), I stay accountable, in part, because I make the routine visible and harder to ignore. I set alerts on my phone, schedule time on the calendar, and put my workout clothes out where I can see them. In short, I make it so I can’t avoid seeing what I know I should be doing.

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The sample card I made for my classes. Fiction start to finish, but it showed how things should be organized. Without the example a few weeks ago, it was a big mess.

In that same way, I decided to purchase neon colored index cards for students to record their goals and progress. I’ve marked my own calendar for the days when we should be setting a weekly reading goal, and ask students to record their current book, the date, the page they are starting on, a weekly goal based on reading for two hours per week, and reflection the following week as to whether or not they met their goals.

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We just started this new system, but I like what I see so far!

Students keep track of their reading, I use the cards to help guide conferences, and even more wonderfully, I have them put their cards in the book not where they are currently in their reading, but where they want to be by week’s end. The bright neon cards stand all week as visual reminders of where students are aiming for the week.

2. Recommendation Walls

Sometimes, it just takes the support of one’s peers to keep texts fresh. In the same way that a book talk from students allows kids a glimpse into the texts their peers are enjoying, visually displaying recommendations and books completed, by both teacher and students, keeps suggestions fresh for everyone. Get those suggestions up on the wall and let kids take a peek.

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Erin Doucette’s wall is adorned with her hand painted sign and book suggestions from texts she and her students have enjoyed this year.

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Catherine Hepworth has her students populate the recommendation wall based on genre.

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Brandon Wasemiller has students recommend books by creating their own analytical book covers.

How do you keep recommended texts at the forefront of your readers workshop? Please leave your ideas in the comments below! 

 

 

How to Book Talk 100+ Books in One Day

Community, Lisa Dennis, Readers Workshop, Student Projects March 15, 2016 Comments: 7

“Do you have a minute? We have an idea we’d like to run past you.”

My colleagues Amy Menzel and Leah Tindall were all smiles. Big smiles. The kind that suggest sincere enthusiasm, huge plans, a ton of work, and the possibility of incredible results.

And boy, did they deliver.

This past Friday, Franklin High School hosted our first ever Readers’ Showcase.

Over 100 students shared their enthusiasm for literacy through the course of the entire school day, creating a sea of informative posters, book talks, literary swag, and sweet treats for enticing passersby to stop and learn about books ranging from The Draft  by Pete Williams, to #GirlBoss by Sophia Amoruso,  The Devil in the White City by Erik Larson, and the biography of Alexander Hamilton by Ron Chernow.

Fresh off the heels of the incredible enthusiasm I detailed in this post about a choice reading frenzy at our school amidst the English department’s shift to readers and writers workshop, the showcase was a phenomenal way to keep students talking about books on a school wide scale.

As our Director of 9-12 Teaching and Learning Nick Kohn observed, “The love of reading was palpable throughout the entire building. I was particularly impressed not just with the depth and passion with which students talked about their books, but also with their excitement around the next book(s) they are planning to read.”

It was incredible to hear kids so excited to share their insights and recommendations with their peers and teachers and the organizers spoke passionately about loving to see their students engaged in “genuine conversations with authentic audience.”

I spoke with Brianna, a former student who read Devil in the White City. 

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Brianna handed out laminated bookmarks that looked like World’s Fair Tickets from 1893! 

“I wasn’t so sure about this book to start with, Mrs. Dennis,” Brianna smiled, “The detail. I thought it might get overwhelming, but it was incredible.”

“Right?!” I gushed, “Erik Larson is such a master with historical detail. Can you imagine his research process? Have you read Issac’s Storm? In the Garden of Beasts? Thunderstruck?”

“Whoa. How many books does he have? ”

And there, folks, is the power of reading.

One book, leads to one more book, leads to a student rediscovering reading.

And a showcase is one way to share over 100 books, in hopes that even just one more student finds that one book.

Even more exciting is the sheer number of students sharing their interests with those who might be new to a particular topic. My husband referred to it as “cross pollination.” For all of us dreaming of spring, I thought this was quite a fitting metaphor. Students interacted with the sincere enthusiasm of their peers in relation to a great variety of topics and took away with them ideas about texts that might never have reached their attention otherwise. Each new booth was a new opportunity discuss a book that their peers were already validating. Worker bees making something sweet to share!

Amy and Leah did amazing work to make this first annual Reader’s Showcase a success.

Here’s how they did it!

Start with a desire to promote reading with your students. We know that students are far more apt to read what interests them. They are human, after all. So, promoting choice texts is the way to go.

Last week, I came across an article in English Leadership Quarterly that spoke to this very principle. “Top Five Reasons We Love Giving Students Choice in Reading,” details what supporters of readers workshop already live and breathe. To allow students to choose texts, not only empowers them as readers, but shows that we as educators value their opinions. Once that confidence is built, it allows for the type of real and meaningful conversations around texts that we educators can’t get enough of, because it involves passion on the part of our students.

Build that excitement by having kids get out and talk with others about what they read. Interest is built around texts that are visible and accessible to kids. And while we do our darnedest to fuel the fire with passionate book talks in our classrooms (my students have noted me tearing up and actually jumping around while talking about books), posters advocating literacy, student discussion on choice books, “what to read” lists, and more, sometimes you need to go big.

The showcase put on by our College Preparatory Language and Composition classes (comprised of juniors and seniors) took place in our high school library and featured over 100 students. That’s big.

Organization for the event included: 

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The Reader’s Theatre

  1. An invite to the entire school to bring classes down for 20 minute showcase visits with their classes.
  2. Promotion via posters around school, a segment on our school news program, “Ask Me About My Book” buttons for all participants, and a fully decorated library to set the scene.
  3. A Reader’s Theatre book talk room to orient each visiting class where students entered, heard book talks from a rotating group of students, and were briefed on what they could find in the showcase.
  4. Book Booths manned throughout the day by students who supplied their insights and some sort of takeaway for guests (laminated bookmarks and themed treats were popular choices).

 

Students were expected to:

  1. Complete their text by the assigned day.
  2. Prepare a visually appealing tri-fold poster with the quotes they found to be most impactful, interesting facts about the text and/or the author, a recommendation section as to who might enjoy the book, and visual connections to the big ideas within the text. Students could also include reference to author blogs/websites that visitors might want to check out.
  3. Prepare several note cards with favorite quotes. Interested teachers could ask their visiting students to take a note card, find the corresponding booth, and ask the book talker to share why he/she chose that quote.
  4. Enthusiastically run their book booths throughout the day for the steady stream of classes that came through.
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Cameron, on the left said, “It’s so cool to see real interest in the eyes of people that come to your book talk. They asked questions and seemed to be really listening!” 

And while the event itself and student preparation, obviously took a lot of work, the day itself was focused on fun.

Students nibbled on cake and perused book selections.

Teachers watched their students dash from booth to booth playing Showcase Bingo.

There were even book and gift card giveaways throughout the showcase, generously donated by our school principal. Rachelle, one of my students was lucky enough to win the new book Binge by Tyler Oakley (I felt super old when half my class of sophomores could not believe that I didn’t know who Tyler Oakley was. We looked him up. My list of books to read grows again). When we got back upstairs, Rachelle said, “It’s like they knew exactly what I would want to read.” Yup. It seems great books are falling from the sky these past few weeks. It’s awesome.

Finally, set aside some time for reflection. Amy and Leah’s big smiles paid off in a big way. The event was incredibly well received by not only the students that participated, but the students, staff, and administration that visited.

We are all already chatting about ideas for next year’s event. For example, the ladies plan to incorporate even more opportunities for fellow teachers to provide feedback on conversations with students and analysis of their visuals, thus sharing the load of assessment.

It’s all about sharing.

Share your love of reading with your students.

Ask them to turn around and share their love of reading with their peers.

One book, leads to one more book, leads to 100+ books in one day. 

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Amy and Leah – masterminds of the 1st Annual Franklin High School Reader’s Showcase

Do you have questions on organizing a Reader’s Showcase or ideas from a similar event at your own school? Please share your questions and ideas in the comments below! 

 

The Winds of Change Smell Like Books

AP English, Classroom Culture, Lisa Dennis, Pedagogy March 8, 2016 Comments: 6

Everywhere I look, I see books. bookshelf

Open in the hands of students.

Shared at the hands of teachers.

I’m dreaming about books. Like the pursuit of the one that got away, I am chasing after unopened books in my sleep. Waking in a state of minor panic – When WILL I have time to read all of these books?  I need a prep period just to read. I need an extra hour in the day. I need a sabbatical.

In the days since TTT came to share their wisdom and enthusiasm with the English Department at Franklin High School, literary excitement is wafting through our hallways and it’s all about books, books, and more books.

Students are buzzing about books.

As I walked through the commons a few days ago, I saw one of my AP Language students, Maddie, reading during her free block. I smiled and walked on. Then, I stopped, turned around, and went back to talk with her.

It was the best move of my day.

Sitting on the table next to Maddie was a copy of A Monster Calls (Since I sobbed over this book and poured myself into sharing it  with students in a book talk a few weeks back,  I’ve acquired six copies for my classroom and not seen one of those copies in days. Kids are handing them off in the hallway. Meeting for coffee to discuss. Making their parents read it. It’s beautiful) and in her hands The Girl on the Train. I asked her how it was going. “Ugh! Mrs. Dennis! I can’t read fast enough. I need to meet my reading goal and finish this book so I can start A Monster Calls.”

I almost hugged her.
Okay…
I hugged her.
Maybe a second longer than was necessary, but I think we had a moment.

Only a few weeks earlier, before I had recommitted to book talks every day and conferring with kids about their independent reading, we had talked in class about how independent reading was going. Maddie had shared that while she likes to read, she wasn’t making time for it. She had been enthused earlier in the year, when getting time to read in class was something new and different, but hadn’t kept up with the expectation to read 2 hours per week.

I was reminded that Penny Kittle says teachers sharing their passion for books is contagious. In this area, I needed to do better.

While I was giving time to read, sharing lists of books to choose from, and piling books on the shelves, I had let my own passion for texts slip away into the haze of curriculum redesign, semester exams, and lesson planning. In essence, I was asking students to make reading matter without me. Not cool.

So, I grabbed a copy of Stiff, by Mary Roach and got reading.

Of course, I couldn’t put it down. Of course, I wanted to tell my kids all about it. So,  I shared my passion in a book talk, we ended up chatting about the use of humor in nonfiction, and my students were reminded that we are a community that makes time for what matters. READbooks

Reading matters.

And our commitment to that as teachers needs to be visible and constant if we are to have any hope in keeping kids enthusiastically discussing what they are reading and reaching for more.

My colleagues are buzzing about books.

I’ve been wonderfully lucky to work with brilliant and passionate English teachers for each of the thirteen years I’ve been in the classroom. In the past two years, I’ve even been lucky enough to be their department leader and do my best in recent weeks to facilitate our move toward workshop.

While we all share the very traditional love of To Kill a Mockingbird, Pride and Prejudice, and The Great Gatsby, our passion for reading runs so much deeper. In workshop, it’s our responsibility (and pleasure!) to get kids reading all manner of texts. Not just glancing in the direction of a book, but digesting it.

In short, we know that to get a majority of our students excited about reading, their teachers need to be readers.

Tickled to share a passage, can’t wait to see what you think too, ask a million questions, highlight in multiple colors, adorkable readers. The classics have a role in this, but so do countless other styles, genres, and soon-to-be classics.

Our district has blessed us with a huge surge in classroom library materials in preparation for our shift to workshop instruction. This puts dozens of books in the hands of teachers who are now chatting about Patrick Ness in the hallway between classes, feverishly searching for texts that are suddenly in high demand (Anyone have a copy of Columbine? They are ALL checked out! How about The Nightingale? I’ve got a wait list. With six names on it. For a book), and frequenting Thriftbooks.com to compare how much money they have saved to add even more titles to their libraries.

When in doubt, promote. We enlisted the help of some art students and had a poster made to show how super cool it is to read. A nicer group of people, you will never meet, but this poster says read, or else.

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The students think it’s a riot…and have asked on more than one occasion which books we are reading in the picture.

Mission accomplished.

So, as the wind ushers in both spring and a journey with workshop, let the books come raining down as well. The more I see, the more I want to read. And the more I want to read, the more excited I get to prove to kids that we can all be readers.

How do you keep the beautiful buzz that surrounds books going in your classroom? Please share your ideas in the comments. 

 

 

 

Doing More with Essential Questions: Where and How Do I Belong?

AP English, AP Language, Lisa Dennis March 1, 2016 1 Comment

As I read through Cyndi Faircloth’s post a few weeks back on Applying Essential Questions in Workshop, it got me thinking about the role of essential questions in my own classroom. As Cyndi said, I needed to do more. Using the essential question to choose mentor texts, guide quick writes, and frame discussion, we had done. I also encourage students to see the essential question as something answered by each and every text we encounter.

But this was about doing more. This was about students answering the question for
themselves; students lending their unique voices as “texts.” I was going to need to look at this from another angle.

My AP Language and Composition students recently finished a unit on community. Theyimageworked in and around the essential question, “What is the relationship of the individual to the community?” Through the study of a variety of essays, including everything from Henry David Thoreau’s “Where I Lived and What I Lived For,” to Scott Brown’s “Facebook Friendonomics,”  to student selected current event articles, I watched my scholars analyze text to connect author’s purpose with rhetorical strategies. However, beyond that, I was blessed to be able to witness a conceptual development in these classes too. 

Students seemed genuinely surprised when they considered just how many communities they are a part of: geographical, family, faith, school, sports, friend, experiential. But when they started to consider their roles within those communities and words like responsibility, conformity, and balance began to dominate class discussion, I knew they were really on to something.

Students spoke of the dangers of conformity alongside the necessity for it. They explored the freedom found in chosen communities and the often unwelcome responsibilities to those communities we fall into by default. I saw them wrestle with the concept that communities rise and fall based on the actions and inactions of their members, and then saw evidence in more than one journal entry of the very real concern students have for their own part in that equation.

image_2As these kids get ready to head off to a world beyond the insulated suburban existence most of them have known all their lives, they know many of their foundational communities will be changing. For some, this change can’t come soon enough. For others, I think it will be a rude awakening. And still others, a chance to move toward the authentic selves that they so desperately need to discover.

To bring this unit to a close, I wanted to harness all the unique inquiry that we had experienced. To do so, I borrowed from my American Literature class. Throughout this year, my sophomores have started each unit by doing a bit of research on literary movements in American Literature (somewhat of a snoozefest to many). I wanted them to have some contextual understanding of the mentor pieces we would study, and so they gathered information on historical events responsible for the movement, major themes of works at the time, elements of style popular during the period, connections to music and art, and famous authors working within that movement.

Students gathered and compared their research findings in small groups and then were charged with symbolically representing their research on poster sized paper. For the imaginative qualities of Romanticism, we saw Sponge Bob. The Transcendentalist faces of Emerson and Thoreau became flowers in a pot, watered by Walt Whitman. Mark Twain held up a mirror to a map of the American South. In image_1short, students captured the movements and we hung up the evidence to remind us of the context of what we were exploring.

And so, for my AP Language students, I chose to end their unit on community by bringing
them together in small groups as well, to choose a specific community and illustrate an answer to the unit essential question. I figured if they answered the question without a specific community in mind, we’d get a lot of generic posters with people holding hands around the world – thank you, Google.

Instead, they had to choose specific communities to show their understanding of the complexity of the essential question and then supply textual evidence from the mentor texts we explored in order to support those symbolic meanings.

imageStudents shared some phenomenal work and I was impressed not only with the depth of their thinking, but the synthesis of texts this activity produced. And, because my own artistic development was apparently arrested in the second grade, it was such fun to see some of my visually gifted kids shine through the use of a new medium.

Zoey and Alyssa, who created the Statue of Liberty visual said the exercise allowed them to express their “artistic qualities – which is many times put on the back burner in AP courses.”

Creative expression of understanding put on the back burner? Shame on us.

And I know for a fact that AP classes aren’t the only place to suffer a similar fate. If we are going to do more with essential questions, we need to not only have students to be directly involved in answering them, but also give our kids more voice in the demonstration of their learning.

Ultimately, it was an assessment that combined creativity, common core standards, direct connection to the unit essential question, analysis, entertainment, synthesis, and genuine student enthusiasm. Not bad for mid-February in the frozen North.

How do you use essential questions to effectively deepen critical thinking? Please share your comments.

TTT welcomes Lisa Dennis, inspiring teacher and innovative leader at Franklin H.S. in Franklin, WI, as a visiting contributor on this blog.