Literacy Now

One of the sadder things I've ever done happened last year on the last day of school before winter vacation: I had to retire one of my favorite books, a staple of my annual read-alouds, The Best Christmas Pageant Ever by Barbara Robinson.

I did not retire the book because of its Christmas/Christian backdrop. Or its savvy rendition of the birth of Christ. When Robinson wrote the book in 1973, society called it “Christmas Vacation,” while today, we have a winter break. Some 40 years after publication, the book seems more appropriate for Sunday school classes than a public school classroom, but that isn’t my problem.

To me, this content is no different than some of the religious aspects that appear in Beyond Lucky, Buddha Stories, or Martin de Porres. If anything, these books allow children to explore different cultures and belief systems, an important component to foster understanding amongst our universal brotherhood.

Actually, the issues are in the non-religious content.

Imogene smokes cigars—this is a big deal. Remember the days when kids stood out by the loading docks or on the corner of school property to smoke, some as young as age 12?  I'm sure in 1973 a girl from a broken home (likely not a term used then) might actually smoke publicly, cigars or not. Today, smoking is taboo. Period.

What agenda did Robinson have behind that portrayal of Imogene? A discussion could help the reader define the context of time and the embodiment of the character. What were the implications behind Imogene’s smoking? Today’s schema likely alters the comprehension Robinson had foreseen. By teaching the book, I run the risk of introducing students to risky behavior.

My favorite part of the book is between chapters 5 and 6, when the Herdmans throw a fit about the gifts Jesus received, claiming they received better gifts from the fireman (or child welfare, if you've seen the movie).  This event was a prelude to the annual writing assignment in class on favorite Christmas/Holiday/winter memoir.

I started by showing frankincense to students; it’s not only a new word to students but also an idea the readers can rarely visualize.  Frankincense is the resin burned to “be in the presence of God.” I told the students my story of fogging the church with frankincense during midnight mass in 1991. Right in the middle of mass, the church had to be evacuated because I did not pay attention to the gap in the burner that “fueled” the coals, and the intense smoke set off fire alarms.

This is an indirect, far more innocent, connection to Imogene smoking in the girl’s room. Her smoking inadvertently foiled the Ladies Aid pageant preparations, “causing” their applesauce cake to burn up, setting off the fire alarms in chapter 6.

Speaking of Imogene, what about her sneaking a peek at health records?  That has illegal invasion of privacy written all over it.  What might have occurred as an inappropriate joke (and bullying) in her day now has serious employment, privacy, and legal implications.  Although still funny in the book, I had to question what message I was sending to student in today’s privacy-protected culture.

There are also a number of sensitivity issues. Material like this doesn’t fly in schools with restorative practices or Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports. The Herdman’s comments towards children like, “Your dad's in jail,” and the child welfare issues like dad jumping the train and mom working two shifts at the shoe factory just to avoid their kids—how often do we see/hear this kind of material in reading today? The heresy! Then there is letting a child sleep in the bureau drawer….

Such lines, intended to be funny, are likely to incite “questionable content” complaints these days. I had to retire the book.

Suddenly, under the definitions of text complexity, this book is now hard!  When readers cannot see the humor or the theme buried within the story, the book becomes boring.  I can teach strategies to read the book, but I cannot give them the background I have, or maybe you have, to enjoy the book.  I (we) grew up in different time.  I loved being a shepherd or Joseph in Christmas pageants.  It was a part of my life—a long time ago.

Yet, in all, the Herdmans are the heroes of the story. They are the ones that change the most.  Their story defines modern day redemption to some extent.  As readers we cannot help but to forgive the Herdmans for their behavior, even under the context of Christmas, a time of renewal. Robinson teaches us not just the meaning of Christmas but the meaning of life: to find love by looking into the eyes of the poor. I mean, really. How can one not wonder what the Herdmans were really thinking when they gave their Christmas ham as a gift?  Or Imogene desiring to be special, innocent, and pure?  Her portrayal of Mary simply served as a vehicle to reveal the true heart and character Imogene possessed. Is this not the innocence we want for everyone?

I wonder if I am sheltering my students. Should I bring The Best Christmas Pageant Ever out of retirement?

Justin Stygles is a sixth-grade teacher and literacy specialist in Western Maine. He has taught at a variety of levels for 12 years and is currently working with Corwin Literacy about effect, emotions, and transactional reading.

Figuring out how our students go about the process of reading can be quite challenging, which is what makes effective assessment so difficult. Much of the process remains invisible to us and often even to our students. In my new book Mindsets and Moves: Strategies That Help Readers Take Charge  (Corwin, 2015), I suggest four roles we can take on so that students are supported to become truly independent of us and take charge of what, how, and why they read. In other words, students develop ownership of the process of reading so they can make choices about their reading lives. Some of those choices are what books to read, but also what to think about as you read, what to talk about with others about your reading, and what strategies to apply when needed.

Too many students are simply mimicking our strategies without a clear purpose or knowledge of how those strategies actually can help them as readers. Without a purpose, a strategy actually can inhibit our comprehension, not deepen it. Think of a strategy like a tool. You don’t use any old tool to hang up a picture on the wall, you use a hammer. If you use a saw or a wrench it would not work. The same can be true for reading tools and strategies—we have to feel ownership of our process so we can choose the strategy that will help us in our books right now. So how do we as teachers figure out what strategies students might benefit from using? How do we help students reflect on whether the strategies they are using are working for them? These are worthwhile assessment questions.

The first role I suggest we take on is to be a miner. By miner, I mean uncovering what students do as readers, getting into their minds, and getting at layers of meaning that may often be hidden. There are five steps to being a miner, and each one is focused on really getting to know how a student goes about reading.

Set a purpose for what you will be mining for. What do you want to find out about this reader? You can’t look for everything, so narrowing your focus on one or two areas can help. The second step is to observe the reader closely. This means you look for students’ subtle reading behaviors such as pointing to words or moving their lips as they read as well as who seems to be reacting to their books and seems “lost in the story.” By simply observing for 20 seconds you can gain so much information and you can develop some questions you are curious to ask the reader. The third step is to ask process-oriented questions, many of which stem from the observations you just made.

You may ask, “What are you thinking about today as you read?” or “Can you describe how you are reading this part of the book today?” These questions are meant to uncover how the student is reading, not what the student is reading. The fourth step is to listen. This sounds obvious, but with so many possible distractions and our constant rush to meet with so many students sustaining our attention on what the student explains takes effort. We listen to hear their explanation and to help students articulate their own process. The final step is to collect the information you gathered and to jot down some of what you found. This collection of information can then be used when offering feedback and when teaching. (The Reflection Chart is from Mindsets and Moves)

We know assessment and instruction are connected deeply, but finding the ways that make this connection work can be hard. Try being a miner and see what you uncover about the readers in your class. For now, give yourself permission to just uncover and assess.

Gravity Goldberg is a literacy consultant and author of Mindsets and Moves: Strategies That Help Readers Take Charge(Corwin, 2015) and coauthor of Conferring With Readers: Supporting Each Student’s Growth and Independence(Heinemann, 2007) in addition to managing her blog. This post is one in a series on how teachers can create more independence in the classroom by embracing new roles. She also can be reached via Twitter. 

Beyond Magenta: Transgender Teens Speak Out. Susan Kuklin. 2014. Candlewick.

Ages 15+

Summary

In Beyond Magenta, a Stonewall Honor Book,Susan Kuklin offers a “spectrum” of transgender and gender-neutral teens as told through the words and photographic images of six individuals. Whereas the first five stories in the book share experiences of coming out as trans and relationships with family, friends, guardians, and teachers, the concluding chapter, the “lifeline,” tells the story of Luke, who found compassion and acceptance in his community through theater. Luke’s story begins with poetry, the outlet that gives him the security and space to explore his identity outside of society’s constructs. 

The first five chapters of the book articulate the individual stories of five teenagers and young adults and explain what it means to be trans; these stories depict case studies of experiences couched in sometimes brutal reality. Through interviews dispersed with her own comments, Kuklin carefully depicts each young person with authenticity, respect, and care. Beyond Magenta offers the reader, whether familiar with LGBTQ issues, a thought-provoking source to gain understanding of what it means to be transgender and provides special attention to appropriate pronoun usage, gender identification, and the process of transitioning. 

Teachers will want to vet each chapter carefully and consider their students and their community. Some chapters are more graphic than others, but the subject is too important to ignore. For a complete discussion of the topic and education, see the chapter “‘Trans’ Young Adult Literature for Secondary English Classrooms: Authors Speak Out,” in sj miller’s forthcoming Teaching, Affirming, and Recognizing Trans and Gender Creative Youth: A Queer Literacy Framework (Palgrave Macmillan).

Cross-Curricular Connections

English, health, art, social studies, science

Discussion Topics

Identity

How important is gender to your identity? Does your gender inform your actions or do you act independently from your gender identity?  Consider how you have been treated since you were a child. What activities interested you? What were your toys? How do you judge how boys and girls act? Briefly reflect on gender. How do you understand your gender identity? How do others expect you to act because of your gender? Imagine a world in which one element of your identity was changed (can be gender, race, socioeconomic status)—what would be different? How would you be different? How would others regard you?

Words and Images

How do the photographs (or lack thereof) inform the writing on each individual? What do the images add to or take away from the teens’ stories? How would this book be different without visual representations? What happens to you as a reader when you cannot visualize one teen?

Ideas for Classroom Use

Photo Essay

Prewrite: If you were to put a photo essay together to express your identity, what would it look like? What artistic license would you take? What would you include or not include to represent yourself visually? Does the representation change depending on your intended audience?

1. Storyboard your photo essay: Decide what is most important to your essay in illustrating your identity.
2. Create photo essay: Facebook album, tumblr page, photo album
3. After compiling the essay, reflect on the outcome: Did it meet your expectations, do you feel that it accurately represents you, what would you add/delete/change? What limitations of the photo essay did you experience? Did you learn anything about yourself, your identity, the manner in which you express your identity through this project? Discuss the public or private availability of your essay. Were you surprised by the end result? What did you find challenging while working on the essay?

Interview a Partner

Have students compose a list of 10 questions they would like to ask a peer in regarding his or her identity. These questions should be general and applicable to anyone. Pair students and have each conduct an interview with his or her partner. Take field notes to include exact quotes and body language. Each student will then create a short visual essay of his or her partner based on the interview. A good place to start might be in childhood, moving forward to the present time. Use Kuklin’s style as a model for good interviewing techniques.

Diversity Challenge

Assign a diverse aspect to each member of the class. Use index cards with identifying personas: homeless teen living in his car, boy who likes girls only as friends, Latina who just arrived from Mexico, identified lesbian, mother of a trans teen, and so forth. Writing from this point of view might be safer; guide discussion carefully to disavow stereotypes.

Additional Scholarly Resources

Kuklin’s website includes interviews, articles, and reviews for Beyond Magenta.

Clemmons, K.R., Hayn, J.A., & Olvey, H. (in press). “Trans” young adult literature for
secondary English classrooms: Authors speak out. In sj miller (Ed.), Teaching, Affirming, and Recognizing Trans and Gender Creative Youth: A Queer Literacy Framework. New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan.

Mason, K. (2008). Creating a Space for YAL with LGBT Content in Our Personal Reading: Creating a Place for LGBT Students in Our Classrooms. The ALAN Review, 35(3). Retrieved from http://scholar.lib.vt.edu/ejournals/ALAN/v35n3/mason.html

Additional Literary Resources

Andrews, A. (2014). Some assembly required: The not-so-secret life of a transgender teen. Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers.

Hill, K.R. (2014). Rethinking normal: A memoir in transition. Simon & Schuster Books for Young People.

Katcher, B. (2009). Almost perfect. Delacorte Books for Young Readers.

Peters, J.A. (2006). Luna. Little, Brown and Company.

Wittlinger, E. (2011). Parrotfish. Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers.

Judith A. Hayn is professor of Secondary Education at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock. She is a member and past chair of SIGNAL, the Special Interest Group Network on Adolescent Literature of ILA, which focuses on using young adult literature in the classroom. Karina Clemmons is an associate professor of Secondary Education and Laura Langley is a master’s student at University of Arkansas at Little Rock. 

If you give a teacher a workday, it’s likely because she needs the time to analyze current data she’s been given, as well as to do some grading and planning.

Now that she has the time, she’ll probably want to use the time and the data to make new seating charts and plan interventions.

When she’s attempting to download her classroom, department, and grade-level data along with electronic class lists, she’ll realize she needs to update her password to access the lists. The computer will have to send her a confirmation e-mail.

While waiting for the confirmation, she’ll check e-mail (and voicemail, just to be sure) and she’ll respond to a message from a parent, which will require three more e-mails and a phone call.

While she is waiting for a return call, she’ll take a moment to delete some old e-mail, and in doing so she’ll notice an article about an interesting intervention strategy she flagged and had planned to read.

So, being a digital immigrant, she’ll print it out and reach for a highlighter.

When she’s finished reading, she’ll look over her highlighted notes, be inspired, and want to talk to her team about it, so she’ll make more copies and head to another classroom to share.

She’ll start sharing ideas, and her team will get excited as well. They might get carried away and pull out chart paper and markers and start brainstorming. They’ll collaborate and create new learning targets in Google Docs. They may even end up changing their lesson plans for the next week!

When they are done, she’ll probably want to work on updating her classroom webpage, with links to the vocabulary game they just created, to reflect the changes. She’ll need to update that password as well, and wait for confirmation in order to finish.

She’ll remember that she will have to rearrange student cooperative group assignments and then communicate the changes with the classroom paraprofessional, her SpEd team teacher, the EL specialist, and the instructional coach.

After visiting their offices and classrooms, she’ll probably ask you to help her rearrange her classroom. So you’ll push furniture around, and as long as she’s already moving the desks, she’ll take the opportunity to spray, scrub, and disinfect them. She’ll ask you if she can thank you with a cup of coffee, bottled water, or an energy drink. When the coffee break is over, she’ll mention how much work she plans to get done today.
Then she’ll look at the clock, frown, and realize she needs to get busy, which means she’ll need to sit back at her desk.

Sitting at her desk, looking at the stacks of papers, she’ll be reminded of all the grading she needs to get done. While she’s grading, she’ll spend a few moments crafting some parent communication. She’ll call, e-mail, or text each parent in the communication method he or she prefers. Thinking about these differences will remind her of the varied student needs in her classroom. She’ll wonder if she’s challenging and inspiring her students.

She’ll remember the instructional strategy change and the collaboration of her colleagues and hope she’ll see increased student learning. While she’s mulling over these changes and her hopes for her students, her principal will stop by to congratulate her and support her efforts in using new strategies. Of course, the principal would love to see the results!

So….she’ll start brainstorming ways to collect data in order to prove the strategy was effective. And chances are, when she gets new data, she’s going to need another workday to go with it.

Julie Scullen is a former president of the Minnesota Reading Association and Minnesota Secondary Reading Interest Council and is a current member of the International Literacy Association Board of Directors. She taught most of her career in Secondary Reading Intervention classrooms and now serves as Teaching and Learning Specialist for Secondary Reading in Anoka-Hennepin schools in Minnesota, working with teachers of all content areas to foster literacy achievement. She teaches graduate courses at Hamline University in St. Paul in literacy leadership and coaching, as well as reading assessment and evaluation.

If we know nothing else about reading, we know that the way to become good at reading is to read.  A lot. Volume is important. And because reading is learned best through reading, and reading is a voluntary act, it is vital that students are motivated enough to begin to read and engaged enough to keep on reading for a lifetime.  It is not enough just to teach our children how to read, we must teach them to want to read.

Nancy Atwell, Donalyn Miller, John Guthrie, and others know what it takes to “teach” students to want to read. There really is a proven formula which, when practiced with fidelity, consistently produces lifelong readers. I call this four-part formula the ACTS of Reading:

Access:  All students have access to a rich supply of good things to read.

Instead of buying that “silver bullet” commercial reading program, use those funds to prepare for pleasure and voracious reading by stocking classrooms and libraries with beautiful and intriguing books and magazines. Entice students with accessible displays of curated books of high interest at appropriate reading levels. Incite the motivation to read by first and foremost providing a plethora of engaging age-appropriate materials that meet the diverse needs and interests of all our students.

Choice:  All students are allowed to choose what they would like to read.

If the point is for students to enjoy reading enough to want to keep reading, then they must be allowed, even encouraged, to read for pleasure—not just for information, not just closely or critically, but for fun! Allow students individuality and autonomy. Motivation and engagement soar when students are free to read what is of interest to them. Let them forage around the book buffet you’ve provided (Access!) until they find something they really want to read, then give them time to settle in and simply read.

Time: All students are afforded time during the school day to read.

Why is free reading, independent reading, pleasure reading, or whatever we call that magical time spent in “The Reading Zone,” as described by Atwell, not important enough to be prioritized in schools? We can provide a wealth of good things to read and allow students to choose what they want to read, but unless we schedule time in the school day to read we risk losing them to the lure of technology. Once that bell rings, video games and social networking become the default leisure activities and pleasure reading is displaced. U.S. students, on average, spend 7,800 hours a year outside of school and only 900 hours a year in school, according to The Read-Aloud Handbook. We must intervene strongly on our students’ behalf. To hook students on reading, they need substantial, uninterrupted time to read. During school.

Socialize: All students are encouraged to socialize with others about what they are reading.

Students who are avid readers generally come from homes where books are valued and reading is seen as a normal thing to do. But for many kids, talking about books seems unnatural and reading for pleasure is not the norm. Yet when they are allowed autonomy and time to relax and read they become more comfortable. They begin to feel like readers. They are suddenly eager to talk about what they are reading. Socializing with and around books not only builds reader confidence but also creates an inclusive culture of literacy all can enjoy.  Let’s continue to find ways to advertise and talk about what we’re reading, and to make reading cool—too cool for (just) school!

The Knowing–Doing Gap

We know that enacting the ACTS of Reading motivates students to read and to keep reading.

We know what to do, but is there a knowing–doing gap? If so, let’s mind the gap and commit to doing what we know works. Let’s provide all our students’ access to lots of great books, choice in what they read, time to simply read during the school day, and opportunities for socializing around books. Let’s not just build a nation of kids who know how to read, let’s build a nation of kids who choose to read—for a lifetime.

Deborah Hollimon is currently the Reading Program Director at the United States Air Force Academy Preparatory School. She is a longtime ILA member and the 2015 recipient of the Nila Banton Smith Award for translating research and theory into practice in developing content area literacy. Deborah has worked in the field of literacy for over 30 years, first as a speech and language pathologist, then as a secondary English teacher and districtwide literacy coordinator. She holds a doctorate in curriculum and instruction from the Louisiana Education Consortium.