Literacy Now

Later this week, educators from all over the world will flock to the IRA conference in San Antonio to learn and reflect on current teaching practices. Thinking about the knowledgeable audience is a powerful motivator. It helps me to decide what to share and how to present it. The desire to not disappoint them pushes me to shoot for quality. An authentic audience forces me to work harder.

Back in my classroom, my students are my audience. The better I get to know them, the better I can meet their needs. Last August, when I kicked off the novel study of THE THINGS THEY CARRIED by Tim O’Brien, I discovered that eight of my 28 eleventh graders already knew what they were doing after graduation. They proudly announced that they had pre-enlisted in the military. As soon as they turned eighteen, all they had to do to make it official was sign on the dotted line.

When I asked them why they had made this commitment so early, their responses varied. Two students said it was the only way they could afford college. One said it was so he could fly jets. Three kids said they did it so they could learn a trade, and two said it was their only chance to gain citizenship status. When I asked the class what they knew about the US’s involvement in the war in Afghanistan, the room got depressingly quiet.

This tidbit of new information about my audience changed my focus. Not only did I need to teach these students how to comprehend O’Brien’s complex novel, I also needed to help them understand the consequences of war on a society and its individuals. A Scantron test wasn’t going to motivate them to dig into this difficult concept. They needed a real live audience to work for.

I needed some experts to help raise both the agency and urgency for my students. I landed on the idea of students participating in “roundtable conversations” with a variety of actual military stakeholders who understood first hand the effects of war. For this performance-based assessment, students would have to keep table conversations going for a full 90 minutes. They would have to be able to discuss the power of story and be well versed on current US conflicts and wars.

A crucial step in keeping me honest was to actually schedule a date for the roundtable talks. I sent out emails inviting guests with a military connection to join us. Surprisingly, people came out of the woodwork—many of whom needed to have audience to share their stories of war as much as my students needed to share their new learning.

The event was set for November 7th and thinking about it made my stomach churn. These military roundtable talks held high stakes. I realized students would either shine or flop based on the way I prepared them. If I didn’t adjust my instruction to meet their needs, we would all be embarrassed. Way back in July when Sam Bennett (my instructional coach) and I began brainstorming this unit, I had no idea how this final demonstration of understanding would unify my day-to-day planning. I was even more surprised how it created urgency in students to stick with complex reading and writing.

As kids reworked their final arguments stating their position on the US’s involvement in Afghanistan, I planned minilessons that would help them support their thinking and write more clearly. Students were highly invested in their learning, knowing that the background knowledge and skills they were building would better prepare them for an audience bigger than a unit test.

D-Day

On November 7th, 20 military “experts” came to school with the intent to eat lunch and talk about war. Our guests represented stakeholders ranging from disabled vets to military wives. There were sons of soldiers and active duty colonels. Some of the guests were damaged by war and others were empowered by their military experience. One guest was the father of a young marine who vehemently opposed the US’s involvement in Afghanistan. Another was a father who desperately wanted his daughter to enlist because that’s what his family did.

p: USF Iraq (Inactive) via photopin cc

During lunch, students held their own keeping conversations going. Using what they learned about the novel and current US conflicts, students put visitors at ease and the conversations flowed. Kids listened carefully to the guests’ thoughts about war and were not shy about sharing opinions and questions about its effects on society and individuals.

I was surprised by the power this experience held. I encouraged students to keep an open mind and compare their thinking with that of people who held differing perspectives. The following day, students wrote reflections. Ugo was struck that so many vets said that not only were they affected by war but so were their entire families. After hearing from people who saw combat, Jose didn’t think that his classmates who claimed to be ready to die were really ready to “sacrifice their life.” Fahrraan was concerned about PTSD and wondered how we were going to help the men and women returning home “keep their feelings in check.”

What Mattered Most

The military roundtables helped me determine what was important when it came to selecting text, assignments, and minilessons. If what I was planning didn’t prepare kids for November 7th, it came off the table. Both the students and I relied on that final demonstration of understanding to keep us on track. Without that military roundtable serving as students’ final demonstration of understanding, my day-to-day planning would have been disconnected.

I’m sorry to report that my next two units of study didn’t have the urgency of the first one. Why? I didn’t have a final demonstration of understanding paired with an authentic audience. I didn’t fully appreciate the power of this. My next two units were missing an important piece and since I was the only one giving feedback, students reverted back to playing the “game of school.” They didn’t have the motivation of a real-world audience to work for.

How Will You Get Smarter for Your Audience?

As I sit in sessions this year, I will get the chance to explore my own practice. There are specific things I want to get smarter about. For example: What authentic audiences are others using to create urgency in their students? How are teachers giving students opportunities to show growth over time? What final demonstrations of understanding have others tried?

When the catalogue of “snackable-size” sessions comes in the mail next week, I’ll decide from whom I’ll learn. I’ll relish in the knowledge that presenters have worked hard to prepare for their audiences and because of this, I know that I’ll get a little smarter about this incredibly complex job I do as a teacher.

When I return home, I will be re-energized and ready to end the year with a bang.

Come see Cris Tovani at IRA 2013. She will be presenting "Harnessing Literacy Instruction to Meet the Demands of the CCSS" on Saturday, April 20, 2013.

Cris Tovani has taught Grades 1–12 for the past twenty-nine years. In addition to teaching and being an instructional coach, she is a nationally known consultant focusing on content comprehension and assessment in secondary classrooms. She is the author of the books I READ IT, BUT I DON’T GET IT (2000), DO I REALLY HAVE TO TEACH READING? (2004), and SO, WHAT DO THEY REALLY KNOW? (2011), which investigates how teachers can progress monitor, assess, and grade students’ thinking and performance with fairness and fidelity. Her newest DVD, TALK TO ME (2012), is a collection of reading and writing conferences that demonstrates how secondary teachers can maximize purposeful talk to get the best out of kids.



When Giants Unite: The CCSS Meet the 4Ws of Writing

Teaching Tips: The Reading Makeover

p: Corpus Christi Caller-Times. Photographer: Michael Zamora

How is it that I’ve become a digital publisher, after a long and happy career as both a schoolteacher and an author of many books?

The simple truth is that I have been always been interested in technology, and particularly attentive to the seismic digital shift that is happening all around us. Several years ago it became clear to me that as a teacher, a prolific author, and a gadget geek from way back, I wanted to become a participant in planning the way forward into this exciting, new digital age.

Kids are digital natives, unlike most adults. (We—you and me—are more like digital immigrants.) Kids are intuitive in their approach to technology. They're comfortable with exploring, navigating, and utilizing gadgets virtually without instruction. Kids love technology and depend on their personal technology such as smartphones and tablets for fun, for social interaction, for communication, for exploration, and for learning in virtually every aspect of their lives.

Except school. Far too often, we've been asking our children, these true digital natives, to unplug when they walk through the front doors of a school building. Why should this be the case? Our schools are supposed to be teaching 21st century literacy skills and preparing our young for the real world and the digital revolution. Although we may not be entirely there yet in terms of acceptance, it should be clear to most educators that reading, writing, learning, and even assessment will all soon be heavily influenced by digital devices and capabilities.

And so we began, two years ago, to develop a digital publishing platform designed to deliver high-quality, digital trade books—both fiction and nonfiction —into schools and libraries. Working with my wife and former SESAME STREET Creative Director Liz Nealon, we developed a streaming e-book delivery platform called StarWalk Kids Media.

This platform delivers on all the criteria that teachers and library media specialists told us were critical for them: high-quality e-books that work on whatever kinds of computers or tablets the school might have; that are available to be used by multiple students simultaneously, at school or at home; and (perhaps most importantly) are affordable. I'm a teacher as well as an author. I want my books to be read. And I want them available to every student in every school, not just the elite ones.

And so we began. At first, we were working exclusively with my back catalog—good books that I know kids and educators love, but that had been allowed to go out of print because of the economics of traditional publishing. I was thrilled to discover that, in the process of converting these books to formats customized for digital devices, we had the opportunity to also update the content. Wow! It was a dream realized. As a science writer, I’ve always had to accept the fact that virtually any book I write starts to be out of date from the moment it is published. My field is one that is ever changing. But in digital publishing, this is not the case. When there are significant changes, a digital book can be updated. So for example, my formerly out-of-print planet books are not only back, they have new illustrations and updated text.

Gradually, we began to reach out to other high-quality authors who, like me, had great books languishing, out of print, on their shelves. Like a phoenix rising from the ashes, these treasures gradually came back to life—updated, digitized, and welcomed by a new generation of kids.

Today, StarWalk Kids Media publishes eBooks by nearly 50 well-known authors and illustrators, including Laura Vaccaro Seeger, David A. Adler, Johanna Hurwitz, Kathryn Lasky, Doreen Rappaport, Caldecott-winner Emily Arnold McCully, and many more.

We have also designed our e-books and their supporting materials to support educators in the implementation of the new Common Core State Standards. We worked with my friend, the renowned literacy expert Linda Hoyt, who designed a detailed format called Teaching Links, which we supply with each of our StarWalk Kids e-books. These Teaching Links match each individual text to applicable Common Core standards, and suggest classroom activities that support the CCSS goals.

And now, just in time for #IRA2013, I am so proud to announce that my new series, EINSTEIN ANDERSON: SCIENCE GEEK, has been completely re-thought, re-written and expanded as a “fiction meets nonfiction” hybrid, illustrated by the wonderful artist Kevin O’Malley (click here to read a sample chapter). The new books each have five fictional stories in which Einstein Anderson and his best friend, Paloma Fuentes, use their science knowledge to unravel all kinds of tricky puzzles and mysteries. At the end of each story the reader has a chance to solve the mystery before Einstein. And then there is a real-life science experiment that kids can do at home, so they can become Science Geeks, too! I’ve also loaded all the experiments as PDFs on my website so that kids and their teachers can download the experiments for free and print out to use at home or in the classroom.

I previewed this concept for about 1,500 educators at the Illinois Reading Council several weeks ago, and an audible gasp rippled across the room when they heard the "fiction plus nonfiction" structure. This is one of the Common Core standards that educators struggle with, and we are very excited about the prospects for this new series.

I am still primarily an author, of course. I rely on the professional expertise of my colleagues to run the StarWalk Kids Media publishing company. They are an exceptional team with unparalleled expertise in branding, editorial, design, programming, marketing, and distribution.

Each educator is finding his or her way into the new digital age. It is going to be a great day. And I am proud to be part of it!

Come see Seymour Simon at IRA 2013. He will be co-presenting “Focus on Engagement: Celebrating An Active Stance with Reading, Writing, Listening, Speaking, and Viewing” on Friday, April 19, 2013.

Seymour Simon, whom the NEW YORK TIMES called "the dean of [children's science] writers," is the author of more than 270 highly acclaimed science books. He has received the American Association for the Advancement of Science/Subaru Lifetime Achievement Award for his lasting contribution to children's science literature, among many other awards. Seymour Simon is also a founding partner in StarWalk Kids Media (www.StarWalkKids.com), a streaming e-book platform designed to provide high-quality digital literature from top quality authors to schools and libraries. More than 50 of Seymour Simon’s popular books are now available in this digital format. Follow him on Twitter: @seymoursimon.



Engage - Plugged In

Rethinking the Old Dog—Can We Learn (and Embrace) New Tricks?

How would you like the chance to receive brand new books from publishing companies, plus get the chance to review those books and share your thoughts as part of an awards program? Members of the IRA Choices committees get to do exactly that.

For the past three years, I have been fortunate to be a part of the IRA Teachers’ Choices Committee. I stumbled upon the Choices program when I first became a member of IRA several years back. When I changed jobs from classroom teacher to curriculum specialist a few years ago, I applied to be a regional coordinator with the Teachers’ Choices program. I was chosen and I began finding teachers who were interested in reading with me. As an avid reader, I could not dream up a better way to spend my free time. Sounds like a lot of fun, right?

Being a part of the Choices program is great fun, but it requires some work as well. As a regional coordinator on the committee, it was my job to find teachers who would read and review the books. I found that I needed at least 50 teachers to make the project manageable. After the first year, I had teachers coming out of the woodwork to participate—they were excited to be able to see the new books and share their thoughts on them. I had to deliver books and collect reviews every so often and report those reviews to the committee chairs, but that job was doable because of the benefits of the program.

Each year, beginning in late June or early July, the shipments begin arriving. It is so much fun to answer the door the first time the UPS man comes bearing boxes of books. By fall, I am on a first-name basis with him!

The publishers that participate in the program are asked to send about 10% of the total books they publish to be considered for the Teachers’ Choices award. The numbers are slightly different each year, but that works out to be about 400 titles a year. It’s always a thrill to open up the boxes and see what books the publishers have chosen to send. Obviously, no one is a fan of every book they receive, but I have been introduced to so many genres and titles that I never would have picked up on my own.

You know when you’ve finished reading a great book you just have to talk to someone about it? This project has sparked so many conversations about books among teachers in the various districts that I’ve worked with through the Choices program. Sometimes teachers get very busy and they forget how important it is to stay informed about the new books that students are interested in. This program gives them an excuse—a reason to sit down and read one of the latest books that just very well might be a great book to put to use in their classroom.

Another benefit that I saw of this program was that teachers were reading books that they might not necessarily pick up on their own, but discover links to topics/content they are studying in their classroom. Some have been able to put the books to use right away.

I live in a very rural area and many of our schools have high percentages of students with free/reduced lunch and poverty rates. Many teachers spend their own money to provide books and other resources for their classrooms. With the Choices program, once the publishers send the books to you and you have completed the reviews, you get to keep the books. This has been a huge positive factor in many teachers’ classrooms; many new books have gone onto the shelves alongside books from garage sales and older children.

The annual IRA conference is only eight days away. Each of the choices committees—Children’s, Teachers’, and Young Adults’—will have sessions during the conference to share their winning books. There is also a booth in the Exhibit Hall (#3235) that showcases all the winning books. It’s staffed by committee members that can explain the program and answer questions to anyone who stops by.

Participating in this program has been so rewarding, and I hope to participate for several more years. Each of the committees has a little bit of a different focus and you can find out more about the committees and see past Choices winners on the IRA website: /resources/Booklists.aspx.

I encourage you to check out the website and our booth at the conference, and think about applying to be a coordinator for your region!

Don’t miss the Choices sessions and symposia at IRA 2013:

Children’s Choices: “Children's Choice Award Winners: Informational Books Take Center Stage”

Young Adult Choices: “Read It, Talk About It, Make a Difference with Young Adult Literature”

Teachers’ Choices: “Making a Difference by Enriching the Curriculum with Award-Winning Trade Books for Students in Grades K-8” and “Making a Difference for Readers, Writers, and Artists by Connecting them with Authors and Illustrators who Create Books that Inspire, Motivate, and Delight”

April Wulber is the ELA Specialist at the Darke County Educational Service Center in Greenville, Ohio. She provides professional development for eight county districts and some surrounding schools in the areas of the Common Core Standards and literacy. She has previously taught eighth grade language arts and first grade. She has been an educator for 10 years. April also enjoys reading and writing with her four-year-old daughter.



Children’s Choices Reading List

2012 Choices Reading Lists

Member of the Month: April Wulber

by Nell Duke
University of Michigan
April 15, 2013

The What Works Clearinghouse (WWC) has released five Practice Guides on topics in literacy:

1. Teaching Elementary School Students to Be Effective Writers Practice Guide | June 2012

1. Provide daily time for student to write
2. Teach students to use the writing process for a variety of purposes
3. Teach students to become fluent with handwriting, spelling, sentence construction, typing, and word processing.
4. Create and engaged community of writers.

2. Improving Reading Comprehension in Kindergarten Through 3rd Grade Practice Guide | September 2010

1. Teach students how to use reading comprehension strategies.
2. Teach students to identify and use the text’s organizational structure to comprehend, learn, and remember content.
3. Guide students through focused high quality discussion on the meaning of text.
4. Select texts purposely to support comprehension development.
5. Establish an engaging and motivating context in which to teach reading comprehension.

3. Assisting Students Struggling with Reading Practice Guide | February 2009

1. Screen all students for potential reading problems at the beginning of the year and again in the middle of the year. Regularly monitor the progress of students at risk for developing reading disabilities.
   
   For Tier 1:
2. Provide time for differentiated reading instruction for all students based on assessments of student’s current reading level.
   
   For Tier 2:
3. Provide intensive, systematic instruction on up to three foundational reading skills in small groups to students who score below the benchmark score on universal screening. Typically these groups meet between three and five times a week, for 20 to 40 minutes.
4. Monitor the progress of Tier 2 students at least once a month. Use these data to determine whether students still require intervention. For those students still making insufficient progress, schoolwide teams should design a Tier 3 intervention plan.
5. Provide intensive instruction on a daily basis that promotes the development of the various components of reading proficiency to students who show minimal progress after reasonable time in Tier 2 small group instruction.

4. Improving Adolescent Literacy: Effective Classroom and Intervention Practices Practice Guide | August 2008

1. Provide explicit vocabulary instruction.
2. Provide direct and explicit comprehension strategy instruction.
3. Provide opportunities for extended discussion of text meaning and interpretation.
4. Increase student motivation and engagement in literacy learning.
5. Make available intensive and individualized interventions for struggling readers that can be provided by trained specialists.

5. Effective Literacy and English Language Instruction for English Learners in the Elementary Grades
    Practice Guide | December 2007

1. Conduct formative assessments with English learners using English language measures of phonological processing, letter knowledge, and word and text reading. Use these data to identify English learners who require additional instructional support and to monitor their reading progress over time.
2. Provide focused, intensive small-group interventions for English learners determined to be at risk for reading problems. Although the amount of time in small-group instruction and the intensity of this instruction should reflect the degree of risk, determined by reading assessment data and other indicators, the interventions should include the five core reading elements (phonological awareness, phonics, reading fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension). Explicit, direct instruction should be the primary means of instructional delivery.
3. Provide high-quality vocabulary instruction throughout the day. Teach essential content words in depth. In addition, use instructional time to address the meanings of common words, phrases, and expressions not yet learned. 
4. Ensure that the development of formal or academic English is a key instructional goal for English learners, beginning in the primary grades. Provide curricula and supplemental curricula to accompany core reading and mathematics series to support this goal. Accompany with relevant training and professional development. 
5. Ensure that the development of formal or academic English is a key instructional goal for English learners, beginning in the primary grades. Provide curricula and supplemental curricula to accompany core reading and mathematics series to support this goal. Accompany with relevant training and professional development. 

The What Works Clearinghouse (WWC) is a federal initiative founded in 2002 “to be a central and trusted source of scientific evidence for what works in education.” The WWC engages in many activities related to the review and dissemination of literacy research. WWC Practice Guides are developed by panels of researchers and practitioners who, with WWC staff, review research and then offer recommendations in a particular area. For each recommendation, they offer a rating of the strength of the research supporting that recommendation. They explain the recommendation with concrete examples to help educators enact the recommendations. (A companion site, called Doing What Works, provides further information about putting the recommendations into practice, including video clips of classroom practice, interviews with researchers and practitioners, and tools for literacy coaches and principals, but it is currently down. We will let you know when it is back up.) Some of us have found the WWC Practice Guides to be useful, and hope you will too.

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Reader response is welcomed. Email your comments to LRP@/

I guess there used to be a time when my forefathers would run into problems and actually have to solve issues themselves. Like let’s say my great-great-great-grandfather’s fence became damaged in a cataclysmic storm and now his cows were at risk of being eaten by predatory wolves with an affinity for grass fed organic beef. What would he have done?

p: Enokson via photopin cc

Fixed the fence. What would, moi, his great-great-great-grandson do? I’d call a fence fixer—and proudly, too.

I simply don’t have the time or the wherewithal to actually go fix my own fences. However, what makes this matter worth blogging about is that I personally hold almost no shame about the fact that I wouldn’t hesitate to offload this job to someone else. (Besides, I shop at Whole Foods for grass fed organic beef; even though their prices are a tad high, the quality is consistently top notch.)

Indeed, my great-great-great-grandfather might be rolling over in his grave at the notion that his kinfolk can’t or won’t grab his own tools and go deal with the problem himself. But me, I don’t see it as a matter worth getting anyone’s dander up about. (Like I do when people end sentences with prepositions, I might add.)

Big point: I outsource where prior generations didn’t and while it might cause consternation in the hearts of the elders, it doesn’t rankle me one bit. As The Who would say, “I’m talkin’ bout My Generation.”

Now, fast forward to Google. When I ask youngin’z about dates of historical importance, moments of nation-shaping salience, tremendously significant touch-n-go incidents that underpin the modern foundations of all that we say and do as modern Americans, what’s the response?

Y U askin me? Jst google it. (They even talk in text these days.)

Of course, this is where I get self-righteous. Okay, not remembering the exact date of when, say, the The Declaration of Independence was signed (that would be July 4, 1776… It’s, like, why we have the holiday with hot dogs and fireworks, dude) is, I admit, not too big of a deal. But understanding the significance the event had on the way we conduct society today—and how our society will continue to conduct itself in the future—is fairly important.

Or so I happen to think. But just because I think that way doesn’t mean everyone thinks that way.

“But, dude, I can Google that, too,” is what I hear in response. And indeed, this is also true. Google provides pages and pages of thoughts, opinions, ideas and so on the subject of interpreting the Declaration of Independence and extensive analysis on what ratifying the Constitution meant—and still means—today. Pages and pages on this subject exist. From the left, from the right, from the center, scores of erudite ideas as authored by scholars, people who are well-versed in the nuances, claims and counter-claims have weighed in on the matter

“So why do I need to swim in these waters?” asks the modern kid.

Of course, this is when I go into diatribe mode about not outsourcing to Google when you can and should be able to think for yourself because the importance of being able to fix your own fence instead of merely outsourcing the issue to…

Whoa. Hold on a minute there. Has what I think just happened really happened? Did I just turn into my great-great-great-grandfather? I’m not even a member of the AARP yet.

• It doesn’t interest me to fix a fence.
• It doesn’t interest me to reflect on the impact of the Declaration of Independence.



• But what happens when you can’t find a fence fixer and you have to do the work for yourself or you’ll lose all your cows?
• What happens when Google becomes inaccessible and you have to find the answers for yourself or you won’t be able to sustain our democracy?



• But I am teaching you a skill you need to know.
• But I am teaching you a skill you need to know.



• There’s un-quantifiable life value—especially in terms of self-sufficiency—to knowing how to make and fix things with your own two hands without having to turn to someone else to do the hard, heavy work for you.
• There’s un-quantifiable life value—especially in terms of self-sufficiency—to knowing how to think about things for yourself without having to turn to someone else’s thoughts to do the hard, heavy work for you.

Then, in a fit of frustration I exclaim, “YOU CAN’T JUST COUNT ON GOOGLE!”

But yes, we kinda can. If we are asking questions to which we already know the answers, that is. But if we are asking questions to which the answers are not yet in hand (i.e. How do we eradicate cancer? Can we heal the damage to our planet that industrialization has wrought? Can peace on Earth be delivered to all in a manner which all people actually feel peaceful towards one another?), perhaps therein exists our answer.

• The square root of 64? Who needs to know it? Just Google it.
• The capital of every state in the nation? Who needs to know it? Just Google it.
• What river borders both New York and New Jersey and what are the various options I have for crossing it via land, sea or air? Who needs to know it? Just Google it.

The answer is literally in our collective pockets (presuming you own a smart phone). Yet…

• The cure for the common cold? Can’t just Google it.
• Smartly assessing teacher performance in the classroom in a manner that demonstrates fairness, efficacy and balance? Can’t just Google it.
• Forecasting natural disasters in a way that can mean much less loss of life while also saving billions of dollars worth of property? Can’t just Google it.

But once these riddles are cracked, we will be able to “just Google it.”

My great-great-great-grandfather might have been right for his time, but my own feeling is that he’s wrong for mine. Question: Is this now true for our generation of educators? Are we dwelling on kids knowing skills that society has already rendered passé? After all, in modern times we plan on Google being here as much as we count on electricity being here, and I don’t hear anyone nagging kids to learn the art of candle making in case the lights go out.

Hmm, big question troubling me today: Can’t we/should we just outsource it?

It’s an ever-growing question.

Alan Sitomer was named California's 2007 Teacher of the Year. In addition to being an inner-city high school English teacher and former professor in the Graduate School of Education at Loyola Marymount University, Alan is a nationally renowned speaker specializing in engaging reluctant readers who received the 2004 award for Classroom Excellence from the Southern California Teachers of English, the 2003 Teacher of the Year honor from California Literacy, the 2007 Educator of the Year award by Loyola Marymount University and the 2008 Innovative Educator of the Year from The Insight Education Group. He’s the author of six young adult novels, three children's picture books, two teacher methodology books, and a classroom curriculum series for secondary English Language Arts instruction called THE ALAN SITOMER BOOK JAM. A Fun Look at Our Serious Work appears quarterly on the Engage blog.