Literacy Now

In the spring of 2012, a group of English Language Arts educators from Franklin, MA, launched a highly successful middle school reading program around The Hunger Games. In this five-part special series, the teachers who orchestrated the whole-school read will detail, step-by-step, this year’s initiative. Parts I and 2 focused on how the team made this year’s book selection, The Hobbit, and encouraged student participation. Part 3 looked at some unexpected pitfalls the group faced based on book selection. Now, in Part 4, Mary Cotillo, Erin O’Leary, and Kathleen McNeice talk about how they decided which readers were granted passage to see the film adaptation—and why some participants will not be going.

Bilbo Baggins was swept into a grand adventure without having to prove his burglary skills to the dwarves who employed his services. So, a savvy, finagling middle schooler may inquire, why do I have to prove anything to you? Why should a voluntary activity have a qualifying quiz?

For the straight-A, join-everything, honesty-is-a-virtue kids, you are right. They don’t need it. But let’s think about the hobbits. As much as we love books and reading and fully expect others to match our enthusiasm, we are also teachers of early adolescents. And realists. And we know that if kids catch wind of an opportunity to leave school to watch a movie, they’re going to be lining up. To maintain legitimacy it becomes necessary for students to demonstrate that they earned the reward. After all, this isn’t a school-wide film viewing initiative. It’s a school-wide literacy initiative.

And here’s another thing we learned this year. When choosing a book that leans a tad toward the more challenging end of the spectrum, having a qualifying quiz gives students an opportunity to feel pride and success. They get to feel good when they know the answers, bask in the congratulations of the teachers handing them their permission slip, and maybe even indulge in a heel click or two on their way back to class.

Call it reaping, call it riddling, call it whatever fits your book best—but make sure you do it. We were clear from the outset (okay, most of us were clear) that this is a celebration of the book. And when you have book nerds running this thing, you’ll want to be sure that everyone is there because they, too, read and loved the book.

We brainstormed a list of 70 or so questions and vetted them in our classroom after school. If all four of us couldn’t agree on the answer, or recall it quickly enough, it was out. We also made sure the questions were from different parts of the book (I already admitted the book nerd thing). The more questions you can create, the better. Choose three questions per sheet, require the kids to answer two out of three correctly, and there you go.

When will you conduct your winnowing? Our prior experience was to go to the students in the classrooms. This proved difficult and time consuming. Students were missing—at band, activities, or getting extra help. This also took us away from the students that needed OUR help during this time.

So, this year, we made the better decision to have the students come to us. And what better time for a captive audience than during their lunch? It did require giving up our quiet lunch time to query these Tolkien enthusiasts; however, it was well worth the sacrifice when you see students ten deep in front of you waiting for their turn. We had to push students into the cafeteria to eat their lunch first so we could stagger the masses.

We had 10 different versions of our quiz for the hobbits to choose from. A frequent question was “What if I don’t pass?” We encouraged everyone, not allowing any student to set themselves up for failure. We told them, “If you read the book, have confidence that you will be successful!”

We also knew that everyone wanted to be included.

With that in mind, the quizzes were answered at separate tables with no opportunity for sharing answers. There will always be the students that didn’t do the work but don’t want to miss out on the fun. We cheerfully asked everyone before they picked their quiz when they finished the book. The majority of the kids cannot help but be honest. If they said they weren’t done we didn’t let them take the quiz. This is ultimately better for the student since one question was about the end of the book. In order to pass the student would have to get the other two correct. We simply told these kids to finish the book and come back.

When they finished, the moment of truth was at hand. And believe me, these kids were nervous. Some prayed. Some closed their eyes while others bounced nervously from foot to foot. Honestly, they had worked hard and needed to feel that it was all worth it. You are that litmus test. If you are enthusiastic, chances are they will be too. To every student that passed came a heartfelt congratulations and the reward in the form of a movie poster (thank you, Warner Brothers!) and a permission slip to join us on the first part of our adventure, a private screening of the movie at the local theater. In addition, kids got high fives, atta boy/girl, woo hoos and pats on the back and everyone walked away feeling that they had won the race.

Not everyone will pass.

First, let me reassure you that we’re not out to trick anyone. The questions we chose are designed to assess comprehension, not inferencing skills or analytic ability. If a student happens to pull three questions and really and truly “blanks,” we’ll happily let them try again. Sometimes kids get anxious; in those cases, we verbally quiz them away from the crowds, usually posing such open-ended prompts as, “Tell me about the book.” But even after you account for legitimate lapses in memory, test anxiety, allergies, color blindness, and cholera, you are going to have a few cherubs who just can’t answer the questions. What then?

Then they don’t go.

It takes willpower. It won’t always be easy. In this EGAT (Everybody Gets a Trophy) world, it’s hard to see a kid lose. You likely will have a sweet little girl who swears—with tears in her eyes—that she really did read the book, and turning her away may be the hardest thing you have to do. But be strong! We speak from experience when we say those sweet little girls have admitted to reading plot summaries on Wikipedia in an effort to pass the quiz.

You may have parents sending e-mails 18 minutes after dismissal the last day of quizzing, challenging your judgment and demanding a retake. It’s possible you’ll have colleagues who ask you to make an exception for a kid who would just be devastated if they didn’t get to go. Stay Strong. You aren’t being mean; you are upholding high standards. There is a significant difference!

Here’s the deal. The majority of these kids will be back next year. And maybe even the year after that. And if we bend the rules for one kid who later brags that she didn’t really read the book, then we’ve lost credibility not just for this year, but for the foreseeable future.

We all know this, but it bears repeating: students learn more from failure than from success. The students who choose not to participate this time around may later come to regret it. They will remember that feeling and it may be just the push they need to take the chance next time.

The challenges Bilbo faced on his journey only served to make him more resolute, further developing his character. Don’t rob kids of the chance to grow. If you plan your quiz questions carefully and are confident in the legitimacy of the process, sit back, stick to your guns, quiz the kids, and watch the triumphant readers parade back to lunch.

Mary Cotillo, Erin O’Leary, and Kathleen McNeice all teach at Horace Mann Middle School in Franklin, MA.

Read the rest of the series here:

Six Buses: The Quest for School-Wide Reading Begins!

The Quest, Part 2: Monday Morning Hobbit-Backing

The Quest, Part 3: Goblin Caves and Spider Webs

The Quest, Part 5: The Journey Pays Off in Unexpected Ways

by Judith Hayn

Balliett, B. (2013). Hold fast. Scholastic Press.

Hold Fast is the latest in Blue Balliett’s popular mysteries featuring young adolescents. Dashel Pearl lives in a Chicago high rise apartment with his wife Summer and their daughter Early and young son Jubilation. Dash has a job working at the Harold Washington Public Library, but one day he just disappears one cold afternoon. 

Where is Dash? What will happen to the family now that there is no income? Early uses the rhythms of words that her father loves and taught to her as she tries to unravel the mystery. After a violent break-in, the family flees their cozy home for the uncertainties of the urban homeless shelter system.

Early is a delightful, charming heroine, whip-smart and resourceful. While her mother sinks into depression over their plight, the young girl keeps searching. She unites with a fascinating set of characters in her quest to clear her father of stealing rare books and reunite this shattered family. Balliett interweaves the serious problem of homeless children and the damage the shelter system wreaks; however, Early’s story is one of redemption and hope, a triumph of the human spirit in one shelter kid. The book is a must read for those twelve and younger as the author’s play with language and words creates a lyrical read.

Dr. Judith A. Hayn is an associate professor at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock.

This article is part of a series from the Special Interest Group Network on Adolescent Literature (SIGNAL).

This post originally appeared on the Engage/Teacher to Teacher blog in May 2011.

Tired of filling all your classroom wall space with charts, construction paper, and poster boards and then wondering how to recycle all that paper when it gets replaced with new charts and posters? Have you considered the reasons for inviting students to represent their thinking through visual texts? And have you tried using Glogs as an alternative?
  A New Reason
  Consider some of these ideas for creating a Glog:

• Collaborative groups can create Glogs about books they are reading during literature circles. They can pose questions that they might like to ask the author or a character.
• Students can create reviews of books they are reading. When seeking a new book to read, students can access each other’s reviews and get acquainted with their points of view.
• Groups of students can each study an author, including books written, style, genre, etc. and then create an author study Glog to share the information. They might identify their concerns or share their insights about issues being presented by the author. For example they might ask Sharon Draper if she experienced a personal loss that allowed her to so deeply describe the feelings of Andy in Tears of A Tiger.
• Students can create Idiom Glogs, Simile Glogs, Homophone Glogs, and others about tricky literary concepts. They can then offer tips on how to use these.

Learning About Glogs

To get started visit http://www.glogster.com/.

Glog Projects

Here are a couple of instructional examples that illustrate students sharing their voices and perspectives through a Glog.
  3rd grade Reading/Language Arts: Teacher, Kelly Johnson

Purpose: Create a Glog of a fairy tale character that conveys perspective differently than implied in the original text.

Task: After selecting a fairy tale, students worked in groups of three to think and talk about each character’s perspective of what was, or had occurred in the tale, and the perspective the author was creating. They were tasked with selecting one of the characters and retelling the fairy tale from a different perspective. For example, Cinderella could have left her slipper at the ball because she had not really liked the Prince or had not wanted to go to the ball. The wicked stepsisters could have been shown as sisters who were always bullied by Cinderella because she was prettier than they were. Students were asked to also discuss how the readers would perceive these character changes: Who would be the hero, the empowered, and the victim?

Ms. Johnson had assigned this task because she was attempting, within the context of critical literacy, to encourage her students to understand that in every story and situation they should analyze whose position is being supported by the author and whose voice is being ignored or silenced. After selecting their tales and characters, and creating the new perspective, students were then invited to share the selected character’s new perspective within the context of a Glog. Each group was asked to include photos and other visuals representing the new perspective. In addition, students were asked to include illustrations representing the setting. Students were able to scan in their own sketches of the scenes. Students could also include current or classical music that best illustrated the complexity of the problem being faced by the character. The solution to the dilemma was also to be included in the Glog in the form of a video the students created, a written paragraph, or an audio recording from the students themselves.
  11th grade Social Studies: Teacher, Javier Vaca

Purpose: Create a Glog persuading support for the “home front” efforts during WWI.
 
Task: Students worked as partners studying one of the following topics (Building Up the Military, Organizing Industry, Mobilizing the Workforce Ensuring Public Support; view an example here). Using a chapter from their social studies text, and related articles found via the Internet, their task was to first identify text-based visuals and information that had promoted “Home Front” support for WWI. Next, they interrogated the texts to determine who was being either supported or forgotten and what views were being either promoted or ignored. They then figured out ways to entwine their perspective as a way to communicatively engage with the author, and, finally, to use visuals to persuade others to their stance. Before beginning, students decided that they could persuade and inform by using visuals as well as words, and that they could then persuasively share their information within the context of a Glog.
  Benefits to Learning

These Glog projects supported the students in comprehending and then synthesizing the text-based information. Working as partners/teams, students were identifying, locating, and interrogating texts, and then discussing their thinking in order to negotiate the images and slogans that would persuade the audience viewing the Glog to view “home front” war support through the stance of the creators, or to have new insights and feelings about a fairytale character. In addition to reading information and reporting it in their own words, these students were also creating visual texts representing the newly learned information through images designed to persuade or to illustrate a new perspective.

Diane Lapp, EdD, is a distinguished professor of education at San Diego State University and an English teacher and literacy coach at Health Sciences High and Middle College.



TILE-SIG Feature: Create a Multimedia Poster Using Glogster

Engage: Plugged In

by Terry S. Atkinson

Children born this year will graduate from high schools in the year 2030. With this fact in mind, TVO has launched Learning 2030, a special on-the-road series canvassing citizens and experts about the future of education. Recently featured in this series is Douglas Thomas, co-author of A New Culture of Learning. Through his lens as a cultural historian, he argues that game-changing technologies including Google, Amazon, Wikipedia, smart phones, and YouTube have transformed the way that students think, learn, and make sense of the world. Thomas argues that university instructors must make radical shifts in their teaching to reach today’s students and challenge them to address tomorrow’s yet unknown problems and questions. While Thomas makes many points based on what he claims are the best historical tenets of education, several ideas are particularly intriguing for university instructors. These include:

• Shifting the teacher’s instructional role from dispenser of content to that of guide and mentor;
• Rethinking learning so that student passion, imagination, inquiry, collaboration, and a quest for greater understanding are foregrounded; and
• Valuing the notion of honing student intellect through challenging and substantive questioning, rather than providing right answers to teacher-generated questions. Such questioning may reveal no definitive answers and, therefore, has the potential to foster long-standing student interest and engagement.

Traditions in the academy often undermine such radical shifts in university teaching and learning. Perhaps no one understands that better than Roni Jo Draper, who launched an innovative cross-campus action research project among engineering, English, history, mathematics, music, science, theatre, and visual arts colleagues at Brigham Young University (BYU). In her quest to better understand her own role as a content-area literacy educator, this collaboration has led her to question a fundamental tenet of content-area literacy. She no longer imagines that she can suggest a body of cross-content literacy strategies appropriate for all teachers and disciplines. Participation in action research with her BYU colleagues has led her to conclude that participation in the intellectual discourse of specific disciplines must be the focus of content-area literacy instruction and can only take place in collaboration with content-area specialists.

Draper and her Brigham Young University colleagues offer one innovative model for collaborative professional development among university faculty. In rethinking their own roles and practices as teacher educators, their efforts offer inspiration for other higher education faculty to envision and create new cultures of learning within their own classrooms, departments, colleges, and universities.

Terry S. Atkinson is an Associate Professor in the Department of Literacy Studies, English Education, and History Education at East Carolina University.

This article is part of a series from the International Reading Association Technology in Literacy Education Special Interest Group (TILE-SIG).

We all have unique lives, experiences, and interests, no matter what age we are. These can be springboards for each of us to create stories that no one else can write. Students who comprehend this may write with more confidence and, perhaps, come to see themselves as authors too.

I regularly visit schools and give presentations on my children’s books and writing process. When students have an opportunity to ask questions, one invariably posed is, “Where do you get your ideas for stories?” I love answering this question, because by sharing the “sparks” for my stories, I hope to inspire kids to create their own. Starting points for stories may be found in relationships with family and close friends, personal interests, personal experiences, and even dreams. All of these have jumpstarted my fiction.

Another source of inspiration that I like to discuss in some detail with students is the great big world of ideas, happenings, and information that constitutes current events. These offer boundless opportunities for authors looking for story ideas.

I was browsing the Internet in early 2008 and read an online news article from the Alaska Dispatch about a cease and desist order issued to prevent an Anchorage, Alaska man from building a 25-foot snowman. There was a photograph of Snowzilla (built the year before), and I marveled at his enormity. He dwarfed people and nearby houses. The huge snowman had caused chaos in town; tourists clogged roads, and people claimed he might hurt someone if he collapsed.

So the town issued the order to prevent the second rising of Snowzilla. This struck me as a very sad commentary on our times. Legal action against a snowman? I ruminated for months before writing the first draft of SNOWZILLA, based on the true facts. But I write for children, and this version had an adult protagonist and a not-so-happy ending. After brainstorming with colleagues, playing “what if?” with the facts, and putting myself “in kids’ boots,” I wrote a fictionalized version in rhyme about a little girl and her brother:

It snowed without stopping for week after week.
When it ended, at last, Cami Lou took a peek.
She bundled and booted and zipped up her brother.
“Let’s build a huge snowman, unlike any other!”

Departing from fact to create fiction isn’t always easy, especially if you are basing your story on true facts within your life experience. But a good fiction writer must often depart from the facts to serve his or her story. For example, a character inspired by a cranky uncle might be more memorable if there’s a secret reason for his unhappiness. The same freedom to change and mix things up applies to plot. A good fiction author doesn’t limit him or herself to “how it really happened.”

Since I had only read about Snowzilla and wasn’t wedded to his true story, it wasn’t that hard to turn on the “fiction switch.” How could I ratchet up the humor, the story, the size of this tall tale? I started with a spunky child protagonist who enlists her mom to plow the whole yard and her dad to place Snowzilla’s head using a rig. I thought of funny reasons for people to complain:

“Poochie is scared to go out the front door.”
Another said, “Views were much better before.
A lady warned everyone, “Make no mistake—
when temperatures rise, he’ll turn into a lake!

I changed the town ordinance violation into neighbors bringing lawsuits. And when I ruminated about how to save Snowzilla, my own life experience kicked in with a fact—in my New England town, the flattest, most open space is our community garden. What a perfect spot to move Snowzilla! Major scaffolding, many hands, a trip down Main Street, and marching bands helped complete the joyous move. And when the inevitable happened, Cami was ready for the challenge:

Weeks later, the sun became hotter and bright.
Snowzilla grew smaller and flowed out of sight.
Cami Lou waved, hardly shedding a tear,
because she had much bigger plans for next year.

My completed manuscript had grown into a humorous tall tale far different from the original news story I’d read. My creative journey can be a model for similar journeys in your classrooms. Consider encouraging students to use a news story as a starting point for writing fiction. Such assignments or exercises will introduce or expose them to journal and newspaper articles as a reading option. Interest in current events may be kindled. And opportunities abound for tailoring assignments to particular literacy goals.

For pre- or early literacy students, a teacher might propose a simple fact line drawn from the day’s news, or from the day’s events—“Principal Jones stood on the playground.” The class can brainstorm to invent a story, with the teacher saying, “What if?” or “What might have happened next?” This storytelling exercise, led by teacher prompting, can encourage all students’ creative juices while targeting specific skills. For example, the class story line might include, “Principal Jones ran away.” Students can brainstorm a “best word” for the verb “ran.” (Students might suggest, “He hopped away,” or “He dashed away,” “He hurried away,” or “He zoomed away.”)

For more experienced writers, a teacher might select and read two or three short news articles that would be of interest to kids. Students can write a fictional story, developing a story idea from the article. Teachers might model an example, creating a short fictional story. An article about a giant underground ant colony might lead to a story about a child using all his leftover dinner food to set up a soup kitchen for ants. Students could share their articles and brainstorm together to come up with story ideas.

For older grades, students themselves could select an article from a print newspaper, or online news source. That article would provide the story idea. A teacher might refine such an assignment to focus on specific traits or mechanics of writing, such as story arc, descriptive passages, hyperbole, active verb choices and tenses, etc. Students should tackle such assignments with enthusiasm—they will be reading and choosing an article that piques their curiosity. Some will be drawn to human interest stories; others may be drawn to science or medical writing. Still others may be fascinated by local, state, national, or international history or current events.

With a bit of guidance, students of almost any age can mine news sources for a story idea. Creating fiction out of real events will help students develop confidence as story tellers and provide myriad opportunities for teachers to present or reinforce numerous language arts concepts and literacy skills. Hopefully, students will soon see stories everywhere in the world around them—as do all good fiction authors.

Janet Lawler is the author of IF KISSES WERE COLORS (a Common Core Curriculum Map-suggested work for kindergarteners), A FATHER'S SONG, and A MAMA BUG'S LOVE. Her latest book, SNOWZILLA, was published this past October. OCEAN COUNTING is slated for a 2013 release by National Geographic. Learn more about Janet and her work at www.JanetLawler.com.