Category Archives: Shana Karnes

10 Pedagogical Must-Reads for Workshop Teachers

#FridayReads, Boys & Literacy, Pedagogy, Readers Workshop, Readers Writers Workshop, Shana Karnes, Writers Workshop January 8, 2016 Comments: 18

IMG_0650I met with my new student teacher a few weeks ago, and he asked me to borrow any books that might help him get going on the readers-writers workshop–the “theory” version of Jackie’s starter kit.  He’s been in my classroom before, so he knows the general routine and character of our work, but he wanted to know the ins and outs of how I thought and planned and conceptualized the whole thing.

I sat at my desk and looked at all of the titles I had on hand, remembering how influential reading them for the first time had been.  As a result, it was hard not to just dump my entire professional bookshelf onto a cart for him, but I managed to pick out a few titles that have guided me most adeptly in one aspect or another of my current classroom practice.

  1. Book Love by Penny Kittle – This was the book that helped to solidify my vision of an ideal classroom.  Before I read it, I had already been doing many of the best practices Penny mentions–writer’s notebooks, choice reading, personalized writing.  But I didn’t know how to bring it all together until Book Love.  As such, this is my #1 recommendation for any teacher looking to jump-start their individualized workshop curriculum.
  2. Write Beside Them by Penny Kittle – This book introduced me to the concepts of mentor texts, reading like a writer, and best draft/publication of writing.  I learned about quickwrites, constant revision, writing conferences, and a great deal more of what are now standard routines in my classroom.  This is the book for anyone curious about the big picture of writing instruction.
  3. Finding the Heart of Nonfiction by Georgia Heard – I was raised in the tradition of literature as containing mostly fiction and poetry, but Penny’s books helped me see the great value of nonfiction.  I wanted to know how to integrate it well into my thematic units, and this book helped me do that.  Georgia’s book is full of wisdom about finding the soul of good nonfiction writing and matching it to your students’ needs.
  4. Choice Words by Peter Johnston – This book taught me how to talk to students.  It is my #1 recommendation for anyone looking to address those pesky Speaking and Listening standards in the Common Core–this book teaches you about the delicate, volatile power of a few choice words between you and your students.  I re-read it every year, and it might be the most important book in this stack.
  5. Holding On to Good Ideas in a Time of Bad Ones by Tom Newkirk – This book is subtitled “Six Literacy Principles Worth Fighting For,” and Tom Newkirk certainly made me want to engage some of my former teachers in fisticuffs when I finished it.  This text is full of common-sense brilliance that will transform the way you think about why we teach reading and what kinds of texts we teach.
  6. Boy Writers by Ralph Fletcher – Why do my students keep writing about violent gun battles?  Why do they always ask if they can swear in their writing?  What’s up with the complete unwillingness of my boys to be vulnerable?  If you’ve asked yourself these questions…this book is for you.  Ralph writes about everything you ever wondered about boy writers and how to move them forward in their writing.
  7. Readicide by Kelly Gallagher – Schools have been killing reading for many years, Kelly argues, and then presents ways you can stop the slaughter.  He fires away at pop quizzes, assigned chapters, multiple-choice tests, and all the practices that steer our students toward SparkNotes.  Then he reveals ways to get students authentically engaging in literature in a way that doesn’t kill their love of reading.
  8. Falling in Love with Close Reading by Chris Lehman and Kate Roberts – After finishing Readicide and wanting to abandon the eight or so whole-class novels I once felt chained to, I wasn’t sure how to teach close reading skills.  This book answered that question for me, and more.  Chris and Kate reveal how to use poems, articles, short stories, and selections from novels to get kids interacting with the beauty and power of language in all kinds of texts.
  9. Reading Ladders by Teri Lesesne – When all of your students have finally found a book they will actually read–then what?  Teri Lesesne taught me how to help students climb a reading ladder of text complexity with this book.  It’s a tough battle to get all kids reading, but it’s even tougher to get them to all challenge themselves once they are.  Reading ladders are the solution to the increasing complexity question–now they’re a consistent part of my instruction.
  10. Revision Decisions by Jeff Anderson and Deborah Dean – After reading the first nine books on this list, I still wasn’t sure where grammar instruction fit in.  I knew to have students read like writers and learn from language and sentence structures that way, but I wasn’t sure how to structure my mini-lessons, until I read this book.  Jeff and Deborah helped me find strong craft study lessons and bring them into the classroom in a way that appealed to students and also benefited them immediately in their writing.

This is by no means an exhaustive list–That Workshop Book by Stephanie Harvey, Read Write Teach by Linda Rief, The Book Whisperer by Donalyn Miller, and many other integral titles were simply not on my shelf when I gave this stack to Mike.  But these top ten are ones I wouldn’t be the same teacher without.

What other titles are essential to your practice?  Please share in the comments!

Update:  Here are must-read folks that readers have suggested via Twitter and Facebook, as well as in the comments:

  1. Lucy Calkins
  2. Nancie Atwell
  3. Linda Rief
  4. Katie Wood Ray
  5. Donalyn Miller
  6. Don Graves
  7. Donald Murray
  8. Peter Elbow
  9. Ariel Sacks
  10. James Moffett
  11. Louise Rosenblatt

The Best Gift You Can Give Your Students

Classroom Culture, Community, Readers Writers Workshop, Shana Karnes December 22, 2015 Comments: 2

A few weeks ago, when I sat down to confer with Asia, she told me that she bought me a Christmas gift. She was really excited about it. “I’ve never bought a teacher a gift before!”

She’s a senior in high school.

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My scarf from Asia

I asked her why she’d never bought a teacher a gift before. She thought for a moment. “No teacher ever gave me respect automatically, like I deserved it.”

It breaks my heart that in twelve years of public education, this girl never felt that a teacher respected and cared about her.

“How did you know I respected you?” I asked her. A few other kids sitting with us answered this question too.

“You talk to us every day, like we’re adults, about our learning, and you really care what we say.”

We confer.

“You do all our assignments with us so we know they’re not busywork.” This from Shailyn.

I write beside them.

“You always expect us to know more than we do, and you don’t take BS excuses about why our work isn’t done,” Jocelyn said.

I have high expectations.

“You know exactly what your students are capable of,” Jocelyn further explained.

I know them, well, through frequent talk about their choice reading and writing.

“You just seem to really like me, and see me,” Asia finished.

A few days later, she eagerly presented her gift to me, and waited eagerly for me to open it.  It’s a lovely seasonal scarf much like the ones I always wear–a very thoughtful gift that, when I thought about her reason behind giving it and combined that with my pregnancy hormones, made me completely bawl.  I love it, because Asia gave me much more than just this scarf–she gave me proof that my teaching is important, if only just to her.

Readers and writers workshop is about more than just nurturing literacy skills–it’s about nurturing people, their thinking and creativity and confidence.  Conferring isn’t always about teaching into a standard–it’s often about just talking with another person about what’s in your mind, helping to flesh it out through talk before writing.  Writing beside your students isn’t just valuable because it’s modeling–it’s essential to creating a true community of learners committed to growing as readers and writers and thinkers.

This holiday season, give your students the best gift possible–respect, love, value, and the equal footing that comes with shared learning and the collaborative creation of knowledge.

Mini-Lesson Monday: Mining Memories to Begin a Writing Unit

Common Core Writing, Narrative, Prewriting, Shana Karnes December 21, 2015 Comments: 3

Narrative is, to me, the most powerful genre of writing one can do.  Whether the narrative rests in a fictional or true story, or acts as an anecdote within an argumentative text, or helps to illustrate a concept in an informative one, story is central to great writing.  Students know and live this, and are natural storytellers once they get going…but sometimes knowing what story to tell is easier said than done.

I find that stories students have rehearsed well through talk or reflection are the best stories to get them to write.  As a result, we mine our memories to harness our most powerful topics for writing all narratives.

Objectives — Using the language of the Depth of Knowledge Levels:  Identify memories that are rich with complexity to write from. Or, from the Common Core:  Write narratives to develop real or imagined experiences or events using effective technique, well-chosen details, and well-structured event sequences.

Lesson — My students in West Virginia are well familiar with the concept of a mine.  For them, a mine is “an abundant source of something,” while to mine means “delve into (an abundant source) to extract something of value, especially information or skill.”  Using this metaphor for brainstorming topics is comforting for them, since they know we’re digging for existing ideas and knowledge–not crafting something new.

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My scars maps

One of my favorite activities for mining memories came from Tom Romano, which he simply calls “Scars.”

I begin by drawing a stick figure on the board and then turning to my students.  I point to my knee, then draw a small dot on my stick-figure knee.  “When I was about eight,” I begin, “I really thought I could jump down a whole flight of stairs and land on my feet.”  I get them laughing as I tell them the story of how I got that particular scar.  Then I draw a little dot on my left stick-figure eye, and tell them the story of how I got chicken pox so badly that it went into my eyeballs.  They cringe in horror, so then I draw a little dot on my left wrist and tell them about how my new kitten just really won’t stop using my arm as a scratching post.

We laugh together.

“All scars have a great story behind them.  Draw a stick figure in your notebook and label your own scars.”

They do this, unable to keep silent as they show their neighbor their stick figures and begin to tell their stories in brief.

After a few minutes, I draw their attention back to the board and draw a large heart.

“All scars have stories, but not all scars are visible.  Sometimes we carry scars on our hearts, where no others can see.”  The classroom always gets eerily quiet at this point.  I write the name “MeMe” in my heart on the board, and tell about my awesome Tennesseean grandmother and her fabulous Southern drawl and feisty persona, and how she passed away on my very first day of teaching.

“It was basically impossible to get through my very first day of this career that I so love,” I share.

Then, I write the word “miscarriage” in my heart, and tell about that worldview-shifting event in my life.

“Go ahead and draw your own hearts and label your own heart scars.  We all have them.  Don’t be scared.  This is just for your notebook, for now.  It will stay private.”

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My scars story

The classroom falls silent and I open my notebook under the document camera while they scrawl, not telling any stories to neighbors this time.

“Beneath your stick figure and your heart, let’s take eight minutes to write about any one of these scars.  Tell the story of how it came to be.  It could be a funny story, or a sad one, or a scary one.  But tell the truth and tell it well.”

We write together, revisiting a routine that has become commonplace in our classroom–I model not just the act of writing, but the act of vulnerability, and my students dive headfirst into the tough stuff as a result.  This is just one practice that builds a strong community of readers and writers.

Follow-Up — After we write, we revise briefly, then elect whether or not to share at our tables only.

The next class, we mine another set of memories by creating a map of our childhood homes, then telling the story of one of the places on the map–a Penny Kittle gem.

Another day, we go through our playlists, choose a song that is the soundtrack of our life, then tell the story that made it so.

We continue with five seed prompts in a row, five class periods in a row.  Then we select one of those stories to refine and workshop into a narrative.  I teach a mini-lesson each day about a narrative skill, so that by the time we’ve really committed to a topic, students are well-versed in pacing, dialogue, descriptive detail, and the like.  We confer and workshop and revise.

I’ll employ this routine when we return from break, focusing on reflection and rejuvenation and resolutions in the new year, working to craft multimodal “This I Believe” essays as we read Siddhartha together.

How do you get your students to come up with meaningful topics for writing?

5 Non-Negotiables When Designing Writing Instruction

Common Core Writing, Readers Writers Workshop, Shana Karnes, Writers Workshop December 9, 2015 Comments: 9
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First draft of a unit plan in my notebook

I plan my units of instruction in three-week chunks, alternating between a reading-focused unit and a writing-focused unit.  In every unit, and in every class period, I keep some routines the same, much like Amy describes here.  While I do most of the big thinking about a unit up front, I do leave some holes in the plans to make space for mini-lessons that are responsive to what I discover students need during our conferences.  And every year, I design brand new units.

While each unit is unique, I was reminded while at the NCTE Annual Convention of five non-negotiables to keep in mind when designing writing instruction.

Writing should be low-stakes.  Students need to write a lot, and a lot of that writing should be ungraded, unread, or worth very few points.  I have felt liberated in terms of grading writing since I read Kelly Gallagher’s research-based statement that students should be reading and writing four times as much as a teacher could ever grade.

I think, since I embraced that philosophy, that my students also feel liberated.  Their notebooks are a “safe place for regular, ungraded practice,” as Penny Kittle described in her Ignite session.  While we write in our notebooks every day, and outside of class in one-pagers, I only collect notebooks every two weeks, and only carefully read and respond to one or two pieces my students have marked.  Indeed, 80% of the writing we do stays in our notebooks and never makes it to ‘published’ form.  This takes the pressure off writers to produce something perfect or error-free, because “our classrooms need to be a safe place to fail,” in the words of Taylor Mali.

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The first two weeks of Kelly Gallagher’s unit plan–week three is filled with revision and getting to best draft #3 at the ‘deep end’

Teaching writing is complex, layered, and nuanced.  In her session on revision, Georgia Heard shared the five things all students need in order to make authentic revision happen:  “opportunities for students to write, mini-lessons on craft and revision, choice in topics, mentor texts, one-on-one conferences with both teachers and students.”  Kelly Gallagher’s unit plan he walked us through adhered to those rules remarkably well.  “Assigning writing and teaching writing are two different things.  Grading writing and assessing writing are two different things,” he reminded us.  It is impossible for students to produce great writing if it is merely assigned.  Thus, when I plan a unit of writing instruction, I leave ample time for craft mini-lessons, modeling my own writing, and talk amongst students and myself.

When teachers are writers ourselves, and experience the process of topic choice, revision, and studying craft moves beside our students, we can become the most effective teachers of writing.  We have to walk the talk.  “Great, effective teachers must be informed AND inspired,” Kwame Alexander asserted.  To be a truly informed teacher of writing, a teacher must be a writer herself. I learned more about writing a strong narrative while participating in NaNoWriMo alongside my students than I ever did just trying to teach fiction before I wrote fiction.  I loved the experience six years ago during my first attempt, and I’ve continued to complete all assignments beside my students ever since.  When we write with our students, inspiration will spread through “the contagion of passion,” in Penny Kittle’s words.

Writing should be personal.  While I love to write about reading, and find it valuable for students to do so often, most of the writing in my classroom is personalized, choice-driven, and often remains private.  When we do a nonfiction writing unit, like the rhetorical analysis we’re in the midst of right now, our written products are focused on the students’ relationships to the texts they’re analyzing–in this case, the misleading rhetoric often found in American politics.  Mostly we write narratives, even in the midst of nonfiction, telling the stories of our connections to the topics we discuss in informative or argumentative genres.

“You can write yourself out of dark places. How much of the writing we do in school nurtures that?” Gary Anderson wondered in his session on reflection.  We have to honor the fact that students are not inherently motivated to write for their futures–for college, job applications, or resumes–but rather they are motivated to write for the here and now, and for themselves.  This is why choice is, and will remain, at the center of my writing instruction.

How do you design writing instruction?  Share your process in the comments!

#FridayReads: 7 Author-Talks Students Love

#FridayReads, Boys & Literacy, Shana Karnes December 4, 2015 Comments: 4
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This week’s author-talks

As my students and I returned from a full nine days of Thanksgiving break this week, getting back into the groove of workshop was tough–for all of us.  I was totally whacked out from frantically finishing NaNoWriMo, and the kids were all out of sorts from too much turkey and not enough routine.

I needed something that would hook them back into the magic of reading and writing workshop–wonderful books, but more than that…wonderful authors who write those books.  So this week and next, my booktalks are all author-talks…book pairings by high-interest authors students love, whose stories captivate and amaze and inspire.  Here are seven book pairings by the same author that are insanely popular with my readers.

Rainbow Rowell, Fangirl & Carry On – Fangirl goes over well with my seniors for two reasons–one, it was drafted during NaNoWriMo, and two, it begins on the first day college for the main character, Cath.  Cath is an unabashed fangirl who writes her own fanfiction–and that’s where Carry On comes in.  Carry On is the fanfic that Cath spent most of Fangirl writing.  For a generation who grew up reading as many alternate-ending fanfics for Harry Potter as they did, this unique pairing is a instant hit.

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Inside Countdown

Deborah Wiles, Revolution & Countdown – Penny Kittle has been singing the praises of Revolution for two years now, first at UNHLit and then again this year at NCTE.  It’s a brilliant multigenre novel that blends photos from the sixties with the narrative of a girl struggling to deal with that tumultuous time in history herself.  Countdown, the first book in the series, is even more popular with my students than Revolution is.  The series helps bring to life something they study in history class again and again, all in a unique, compelling format.

Chris Lynch, Freewill & Inexcusable – The award-winning Inexcusable tells a story of sexual violence from the perpetrator’s point of view.  Kids are compelled by this tale’s unique presentation of a controversial event, and it helps boys and girls alike gain a new perspective on an act that is often discussed but rarely experienced.  After they read Inexcusable, I recommend the Printz-nominated Freewill, the story of a boy who is oddly compelled to create totems in his wood shop class after a rash of local teens begin committing suicide.  Themes of grief, guilt, and creative outlet make this one a hit with my students too, as does the unique fact that it’s told in second person point of view.

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Inside Wintergirls

Laurie Halse Anderson, The Impossible Knife of Memory & Wintergirls – Most students at our school read Speak in ninth grade, and they begin to appreciate Laurie Halse Anderson even more when they read Wintergirls, the story of a teen who battles bulimia and anorexia.  The writing in this book is stunning, and the plot is compelling.  When kids finish this un-put-down-able book, I recommend The Impossible Knife of Memory, in which a teen girl struggles with her father’s PTSD after his return from Iraq.  The novel hooks both boys and girls, as it follows both the father and daughter’s struggle.

Matt de la Pena, The Living & The Hunted – In The Living, Shy is excited to get a job on a cruise liner…until “The Big One”–a major earthquake on the Pacific coast–hits.  Most of the passengers and crew aboard the cruise ship are killed, save for a few, including Shy, and a few people also on the dinghy he clings to for life.  When Shy learns a secret that people will kill for, he goes from just being one of the living to being one of the hunted.  This believable suspense series hooks my students.

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Inside Symphony for the City of the Dead

M.T. Anderson, Feed & Symphony for the City of the Dead – I learned about Symphony for the City of the Dead, a powerful book detailing the siege of Leningrad during World War II, while standing in line to register for ALAN.  Kim McCollum-Clark told a few of us teachers and librarians about this amazing story, which pairs gripping exposition with historical photographs from the time period.  Amid brutality, Dmitri Shostakovich wrote a symphony for his dying city that uplifted both its citizens and the Allied forces working to free them.  The spies and death and music of the book intrigue my students, and I recommend to them Feed when they finish.  Feed is eerily plausible, the story of a future in which smartphones aren’t in our hands, they’re in our heads.  The feed contains advertisements, social media, news, sports, and anything we currently look at on our phones–all behind your retinas.  When an accident disables Titus’ feed, he struggles with life beyond the feed, and it’s a haunting cautionary tale my students are compelled by.

Jason Reynolds, The Boy in the Black Suit & All-American Boys (with Brendan Kiely) – I picked up The Boy in the Black Suit last year at ALAN, and this year I scored All-American Boys after Amy’s recommendation.  In Black Suit, the main character wears a black suit every day for his job at a funeral home, although his peers think it’s some weird tribute to his mother’s recent death.  Matt feels like he is barely getting by until he meets Lovey, who is a model of strength despite dealing with even more tragedy than he.  All-American Boys is a timely novel that alternates between points of view of Rashad and Quinn as both boys–one black, one white–deal with an incident involving Rashad, a fist-happy cop, and Quinn as a witness.  It is haunting and beautifully written and incredibly eye-opening for my readers.

What author-talks are guaranteed to engage your readers?  Please share in the comments!

#3TT Workshop — Digital Writing in the Writer’s Workshop

#3TTWorkshop, Amy Rasmussen, Common Core Writing, Readers Writers Workshop, Shana Karnes, Writers Workshop November 19, 2015 Leave a comment

Three educators. Three states. Three demographics. All practicing Readers and Writers Workshop in our Secondary Classrooms. Read more about us here.

We are the Modern PLC, and every Wednesday, we share our behind-the-scenes collaboration as we talk about the most urgent moving parts of our classroom pedagogy.

Despite the proliferation of e-readers, tablets, and digital reading and writing technology, recent research is making digital texts look a little less appealing.  This article discusses the slow reading, complex-text, and comprehension literacy skills we just can’t get from reading electronically.  This one has lots of great links to the reasons digital reading “fail[s] to adequately recreate certain tactile experiences of reading on paper that many people miss and, more importantly, prevent people from navigating long texts in an intuitive and satisfying way.”

As Shana’s school in West Virginia is increasingly making the move to one-to-one technology, digital learning, and an increased emphasis on electronic reading and writing, she wondered how this shift would impact writers’ literacies.  Her discussion with Amy follows.  Please join the conversation in the comments!

writing rhet and digital media_1Why is one-to-one technology such a big deal? Does every child really need a laptop or a tablet?  Isn’t their generation suffused with enough technology as it is?

Shana: I surveyed my students this year, and 98% of them have a smartphone with data access that they’re accustomed to using all day.  This troubled me–there was no space in their routine for slowing down their thinking.  I don’t think the reader’s-writer’s workshop works without deliberate attention to reading, writing, talking, revising, thinking, and pondering.  So, I invited my students to simplify their lives this year by putting away all smartphones, but wondered if I was being a hypocrite when we wrote frequently on the laptops I keep in my classroom.

Now that it’s November, I’ve decided I’m not actually a hypocrite–the experience of writing drafts in print, revising and workshopping them, and then transferring them to a published form digitally is far different than the instant-gratification experience of using a smartphone.  Still, though, I watched a student just yesterday play a game on his smartphone while he waited for his computer to boot up.  My students don’t seem to know how to handle free moments to just think, or wonder, or daydream–at stoplights, in hallways, or just waiting for a computer to load.  I worry that this reliance on technology to fill their time will prevent this generation from thinking slowly enough to learn, grow, solve problems, and just think.

Amy:  Just like the literacy gap that happens between children who grow up in print-rich home and those who do not, I’ve started to see a digital literacy gap. Haven’t you? The idea that students are digital natives does not mean they are digitally savvy. Most of my students do not have internet access at home, but they do have cell phones. They can text like thumb-numbing tornadoes, but they cannot format a Word document to save their lives. And since their thumbs do not work so well on iPad keyboards, most tap at the keys like chickens pecking at the dirt. They are slow typists. Now, having said that — that does not mean that I do not think they should learn how to write digitally, format correctly, and type efficiently. All students in this age need to become digitally savvy, and I haven’t found that one mandatory technology class in high school is enough to help them get there. No even close. As English teachers, our role shifts as the literacy shifts. If we are not including some element of digital literacy, I think we do many students a huge disservice.

Shana: “Thumb-numbing tornadoes.” Amy, you are a wordsmith.  I agree that our role shifts as literacy shifts–it’s scary to have to learn new skills fast enough to teach them to our readers, but it’s our reality.  I know writing at Three Teachers Talk has helped me immensely to learn how to write and publish digitally–and it’s a skill that has benefited my readers and writers in the classroom.

What are some authentic best practices related to digital writing?

Amy:  The cool thing about writing is that the skills we need to write on paper are not so far from the skills we need to write digitally. Typing excepted. We still need to think on the page, study models, learn from experts, practice drafting, review and revise… And publishing can be so much more fun — at least I think so. We have the opportunity to share our writing much more through digital means than we had via paper. I like that. I like that my students can share writing with yours. Yours can share writing with mine. I know, we could stuff a big fat envelope with student essays, but I am not so likely to do that. I will however send you my students’ blog links.

Shana:  In a perfect world, my school would mandate a typing class for all ninth-graders that includes not just keyboarding skills (which they are TERRIBLE at), but also digital publication skills.  There are vast opportunities for meaningful discourse that can take place between readers, writers, and thinkers when we get students writing and publishing digitally.  I still very much believe in the power of print writing–but, I know, thanks particularly to Amy, how valuable digital writing is, too.  As Whitman says– “Do I contradict myself?  Very well, then I contradict myself.  I am large, I contain multitudes.”  I can’t wait to have our students writing digitally with one another!

What are your thoughts on digital vs. print writing?  Join the conversation in the comments, and check out yesterday’s discussion of digital vs. print reading.

 

#3TT Workshop — Digital Reading in the Reader’s Workshop

#3TTWorkshop, Amy Rasmussen, Readers Workshop, Readers Writers Workshop, Shana Karnes November 18, 2015 Comments: 2

Three educators. Three states. Three demographics. All practicing Readers and Writers Workshop in our Secondary Classrooms. Read more about us here.

We are the Modern PLC, and every Wednesday, we share our behind-the-scenes collaboration as we talk about the most urgent moving parts of our classroom pedagogy.

Despite the proliferation of e-readers, tablets, and digital reading and writing technology, recent research is making digital texts look a little less appealing.  This article discusses the slow reading, complex-text, and comprehension literacy skills we just can’t get from reading electronically.  This one has lots of great links to the reasons digital reading “fail[s] to adequately recreate certain tactile experiences of reading on paper that many people miss and, more importantly, prevent people from navigating long texts in an intuitive and satisfying way.”

As Shana’s school in West Virginia is increasingly making the move to one-to-one technology, digital learning, and an increased emphasis on electronic reading and writing, she wondered how this shift would impact readers’ literacies.  Her discussion with Amy follows.  Please join the conversation in the comments!

digireadWhen much of the research points to poorer reading comprehension and lower rates of retention in electronic reading, why are some schools moving toward digital reading?

Shana:  My school recently adopted a new textbook series across multiple content areas that contains a small print book and a massive digital one.  This online textbook features texts, activities, tests, and quizzes that can only be accessed digitally.  By and large, my students have reported immense dissatisfaction with their reading experiences in this digital format–in history class, English, and math.  I wondered if that was because they just weren’t used to reading digitally, but during our reading conferences, they disagreed.  They use e-readers, they read articles on their phones constantly, and they have become accustomed to taking their state tests on computers.  Most students reported that they were more tired after reading digitally, that they didn’t retain the information well in that format, and that they were frustrated by their inability to interact with a physical text by annotating, highlighting, etc.  

After talking with students and experimenting with digital vs. print reading myself, plus reading the articles linked above (and many more), I felt really frustrated about the de-emphasis of print reading in schools.

Amy:  Interesting question. I haven’t seen this move toward digital reading myself. My district does have 1:1 iPads, and I know there was a big technology push just prior to me moving to my school, but I’ve never heard that students should be reading digitally instead of reading in print. I’d probably throw a bit of a fit if I did. Personally, I love paper. I love everything about print on the paper page. I’ve moved to digital in a lot of ways — my students create and write on their own blogs, and they turn most of their drafts in using Google docs, but when I sit down to confer with them, I’d much rather have a look at the printed page. It seems easier to zero in on skills that shine brightly or those that need some work — but that is probably just preference.

It’s an interesting argument though, and really, if I believe so much in the importance of digital writing — and I most definitely do — shouldn’t I also believe in the importance of digital reading? Hmm. Now, you’ve got me thinking.

Shana:  I love paper reading and writing, too, Amy.  This is probably why my desk is currently cluttered with books, notebooks, and stacks of paper.  Certainly electronic reading would be cleaner…but it lacks the tangible presence of print that shows me my progress through a book, a student’s writing process, and physical thinking on a page.

Why are physical textbooks, literary anthologies, and notebooks being phased out of our students’ educational routines?

Amy:  I don’t know much about how this might look in other teachers’ classrooms, districts, or states, but I have not used a literature textbook or anything like an anthology in several years. I find them cumbersome. When my students and I read short passages for analysis, I make copies. I need readers writing on the page. If a text is too long, I give them QR codes, and they all know how to annotate digitally with an app on their iPads (I didn’t teach this. They learned it last year or the year before.) I use a lot of texts that can easily be found online, e.g., columns by Leonard Pitts, Jr., and articles from The New Yorker. For full-length texts, we read in book clubs where my students all purchase their own books, or borrow one of mine. Annotating is a valuable skills, and using a textbook makes doing that quite difficult.

Shana: I love the QR code idea for a longer text!  I’ve always felt that it sucks a bit of the joy of learning reading skills out of students when receive a thick, copied packet that I ask them to read and annotate.  I’m with you on providing print copies of columns, articles, or books to students for teaching specific reading skills.  I love when students check out a book from the classroom library that was previously annotated during a book club reading.  They always ask who read the book previously, and their notes become part of that new reader’s experience with the book.  That experience of seeing a prior reader’s interaction with text on a page is just not possible with textbooks or digital reading.

What are your thoughts on digital vs. print reading?  Join the conversation in the comments, and check back tomorrow as we discuss digital vs. print writing.

Mini-Lesson Monday – Strengthening Dialogue With Punctuation

Common Core Writing, Grammar, Narrative, Shana Karnes, Writers Workshop November 9, 2015 Leave a comment

Punctuation_Saves_Lives2After reading second drafts of my students’ narratives, I was wowed by so much of their writing.  Thoughtful leads, powerful topics, intriguing plot structures.  But, despite a mini-lesson on the conventions of writing dialogue last week, some of their characters’ conversations were lacking.  I needed to design a responsive mini-lesson accordingly.

Objectives — Using the language of the Depth of Knowledge Levels: Synthesize your knowledge of how punctuation works with narrative speech conventions to craft thoughtful dialogue; Construct dialogue based on your knowledge of a character’s personality.  Or, from the Common Core: Write narratives to develop real or imagined experiences using effective technique, well-chosen details, and well-structured event sequences.

Lesson — While reading drafts, I set aside a few exemplary pieces of student work in terms of dialogue.  In each class period, there were at least two students whose dialogue was superior.  It was subtle, nuanced, and really added to the characters’ depth.

I asked students to open their writer’s notebooks to the Craft Study section and I projected one example of a student’s work on the board using my document camera.  “Good dialogue isn’t just about what a character says,” I begin. “It’s also about how they say it.  A greeting can really change based on phrasing or punctuation.”

I point to the example on the board.  It’s Logan’s, and in his dialogue, his mom is yelling at him for getting drunk:

“LOGAN WAITMAN SANDERS!” Mom hollered. “Just WHAT do you think you are doing, young man?!  And…and…YOU, Jeremy!  You should be ashamed of yourself!”

Everyone laughs, and I ask a volunteer to read the dialogue aloud.  Dylan does, with perfect angry-Mom-inflection.  He makes Logan shrink back in his seat a little.

I ask the class, “Why did Dylan know how to read that dialogue so perfectly?”  They volunteer: the capitalization helped; he knew when to raise his voice.  “How did he know to stutter?”  They say: the dots (ellipses, I add helpfully) told him to stutter.  “How did he know to sound kind of incredulous while yelling?”  They reply: the exclamation points, and especially that exclamation point mixed with a question mark.  “How did he know when to pause?”  They know: commas.

I put up other kinds of punctuation on the board–dashes, periods, italics–and we discuss what effect each of those would have on a character’s dialogue.  Students jot all this down in their notebooks.  Then, I pass back their drafts and ask them to find a partner.  “Now that you know how to really make dialogue more personal, revise your dialogue in your drafts.  Work with a partner to determine whether or not your dialogue has the effect you want it to when you revise–write a line, then ask your partner to read it aloud the way Dylan read Logan’s.”

Students take ten minutes per person to revise, then we launch into writer’s workshop with the remainder of class.  I write beside them on the board, working on my own dialogue in my NaNoWriMo novel.

In each of my other classes, we repeat this exercise with drafts that contain good dialogue.  It’s so important to use student work as mentor texts–students see that great writing is attainable, not just imitable, when we show them their peers’ successes.

Follow-Up — After today’s revision and writing workshops, students will have one more day in class to keep working on their drafts before turning them in again.  I’ll hope to see much improved dialogue, and as such, I’ll ask writers to answer a question on their self-evaluations about how their dialogue enhances their characterization.

#FridayReads: 14 Titles My Students Always Re-Read

#FridayReads, Books, Readers Workshop, Readers Writers Workshop, Shana Karnes November 6, 2015 Comments: 3

NCLast week, Dylan looked at me with utter dismay when I told him that I still didn’t have the third book in the Maze Runner series.  Then, he brightened.  “I was actually kind of confused about some things that happened in The Scorch Trials.  Can I re-read it while I’m waiting for the third book to get returned?”

“Of course,” I agreed.  Musing, I jotted down some titles in my notebook that I wanted to re-read–my usual favorites, of course, but also books I’d only read once and had just loved–The Night Circus, Station Eleven, Zeitoun.  It made me wonder about what other books students wanted to re-read, so this past week, I asked them about it during conferences.  Lots of titles emerged, and I soon saw a pattern emerge–there were four reasons why they wanted to read particular books again and again.

HPSeries.  It quickly became apparent that if a new book in a series was coming out, re-reads were necessary.  “I’ve read the whole Harry Potter series three or four times,” Ryan told me.  “I understood all the hidden references and more about the characters the second and third times.”  Olivia agreed: “Those books are so complex there’s no way to understand everything in them the first time you read them.”

Anna read the whole Percy Jackson series twice “because I was in middle school and the struggle was real in finding books I enjoyed.  So I just re-read ones I knew I enjoyed!”

Shailyn read the Twilight series twice, and is reading it again now for the third time since the 10th anniversary editions were just released.  “I just loved the story,” she said.

Books that were being made into movies.  Mylana was adamant about this category: “I had to re-read Paper Towns really quick before the movie came out so I could tear it apart with how it didn’t compare to the book.”

Kaylee laughed and agreed: “I re-read The Fault in Our Stars for the same reason!!”

EPReally gripping stories.  “American Sniper was tough to re-read, but I did, because the story was so powerful.  I just wanted to experience it again,” Ryan said.

“Eleanor and Park was the most beautiful love story I’ve ever read,” Olivia said, “so I’ve read it three times!”

“I re-read All the Bright Places, because it was probably the best book I’ve ever read,” Shailyn said.

“I read The Giver and The Help twice because I wanted to pay more attention to the moral story line and internal struggle in all of us that was portrayed so candidly in those books,” Anna said.

AFBooks they were assigned in school.  Mockingbird was popular in this category: “I’ve read To Kill a Mockingbird numerous times because it’s my favorite, it’s a classic, and because I discover new details about the trial and Boo and Atticus each time I re-read it,” Olivia said decisively.

“I re-read The Diary of Anne Frank because I read it first as an assignment, but then re-read for fun because I wanted to think more about her time period vs. ours,” Mylana said.

“I had to re-read The Book Thief after it was assigned to me because I just wanted to focus on the storytelling the second time through,” Jonathan agreed.

What titles do your students (and you) love to re-read?  Share in the comments!

#3TTWorkshop–Individualizing our Students’ Study of Vocabulary

#3TTWorkshop, Jackie Catcher, Readers Writers Workshop, Shana Karnes, Vocabulary November 5, 2015 Comments: 4
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Students in Jackie’s class write their vocabulary words on the board.

Three educators. Three states. Three demographics. All practicing Readers and Writers Workshop in our Secondary Classrooms. Read more about us here.

We are the Modern PLC, and every Wednesday and Thursday, we share our behind-the-scenes collaboration as we talk about the most urgent moving parts of our classroom pedagogy.

Today is the second and last installment of this week’s conversation between Jackie and Shana on vocabulary instruction.  Please join the conversation in the comments!

What are your best vocabulary activities?

Shana: For me, best practices surrounding vocabulary all happen in the writer’s notebook.  Curating a personal dictionary in that particular section, sharing those words with friends, and doing fun, in-class follow-up activities with those words seem to work best to get my kids authentically reading to find new or interesting words in their books.  We do things like write a poem using ten of our words, create a pass-it-along story in which your sentence has to contain a word used contextually, or create an illustration of a particular word and hang it up.  The more play there is involved in our study of words, the more my students actually begin to pay attention to vocabulary in both their reading and writing.

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A list of vocabulary words students found in their independent reading books.

Jackie:  For the past couple of years I have wanted to integrate vocabulary instruction into my curriculum, but it wasn’t until this year that I moved forward with the process of carving out a specific section of students’ writer’s notebooks.  As Linda Rief says in Inside the Writers Readers Notebook, “We also need to ask them to pay attention to words in their own reading and their own listening, to notice words that they don’t quite have a grip on as writers and speakers but which they come across fairly often” (Rief 23).  As Linda Rief suggests, my students collect four words from their independent reading book or whole class reads per week.  They record these words as well as the parts of speech, synonyms, and the sentence in which they found the word under a separate dictionary section in their Writer’s Notebook.  

At the beginning of the year I was worried about summative assessments and meeting the needs of my students through our new competency-based grading system.  I “assessed” my students on their vocabulary by having them first memorize the words and then complete whatever the task-at-hand was for that day.  I’ll admit that a quarter into the school year I have already abandoned this method after growing frustrated with the results.  Naturally, students chose easier words when there were higher stakes assessments at hand.  They sacrificed learning for grades and in turn, asked fewer questions, instead focusing more on grades and less on word acquisition.

This is where you helped me most, Shana.  After tossing aside the summative assessments, I had students compile a dictionary of their words on the board, and we spent 15 minutes simply playing with the words and writing stories and poetry.  These biweekly activities breathed life into an otherwise stressful vocabulary lesson.  Soon my students were asking questions about how to use the words through context clues, and I was giving minilessons on integrating words into sentences based on the parts of speech.  For the first time, students began playing with vocabulary instead of trying to find shortcuts around the system.
Do you use independent vocabulary instruction? What activities do you use to help familiarize students with new vocabulary?