Letting Students Choose their own books

Thank you Heather for your posting. I encourage everyone to read, The Book Whisperer by Donalyn Miller. She recently presided over a book talk on the English Companion blog moderated by Jim Burke.
I've been following Ms. Miller's passion for adolescent reading and her ability to get students to read for a few years on her Teacher magazing blog, but this book is a joy to read, because she goes into depth about how she does her work. I highly recommend it!

Are your adolescents writing online for English classes?

Lately, I've been reading a great deal about teachers communicating with students online. I have seen some great blogs by students about books that they have read, and read about other ways that students are writing about their thinking online. Does anyone have any examples of simple ways that someone who is just venturing into using online posting for students could use to get started?

It is 2007, and We Are Looking at the Striving Readers Act

Hello everyone,
I have just returned from the International Reading Association Government Relations Conference for 2007. Of note to Adolescent Literacy folks is the reauthorization of NCLB and the Striving Readers Act. Striving Readers will make grants available for districts to support students in grades 4-12. Watch the legislation on this closely. Previous Reading First grants have required an experimental design, and the 8 Striving reader grants given out last year required it as well. There is word that they may relax that requirement so that schools can provide services to all students, not just those randomly selected.

Go to Massreading.org to sign up for this year's Massachusetts Reading Association conference. Participants are invited to an Adolescent Literacy Networking Tea at the end of the day on Thursday, March 15, 2007, sponsored by Sundance/Newbridge.

Please Share Summer Reads for Adolescents!

Hello everyone,
It is summer and while the temperature is rising outside, it is a good time to find a cool space and do some summer reading. We tell our students that the library is air conditioned, so it is a great place to go on those hazy, hot, and humid days. I am wondering if anyone out there has found great summer reads for teens. My daughter's ninth grade reading list includes Rocket Boys and A Tree Grows in Brooklyn. Eighth graders will be choosing from: My Thirteenth Winter: A Memoir; City of Beasts; Hope was Here ( A great read for anyone waitressing this summer); and Shakespeare's Spy. Seventh graders will be choosing from: Al Capone Does My Shirts (very funny); Pictures of Hollis Wood; California Blue; and Petey. Sixth graders will be choosing from: The Ear, The Eye, and The Arm; Seedfolks; Heaven; and Black Diamond: The Story of the Negro Basketball League.

What books have you found that move adolescents to keep reading? Please share!

Does Strategy Instruction Work?

I recently read an article in Ed. Week that troubled me, so I wrote a response to the editor. Unfortunately, my response was too long.... I needed to shorten it for Ed. Week but I include my full ideas here. Have any of you tried strategies that worked with adolescents? Is there one that works particularly well? Please comment...

A Response to E.D. Hirch: Reading –Comprehension Skills? What Are They Really?
In his article, Reading Comprehension Skills? What Are They Really? (Education Week, April 26, 2006) E.D. Hirsch argues that strategy instruction is not as effective in improving reading comprehension as building broad background knowledge. While I agree with him on two points, that: a)building background knowledge about a wide variety of topics helps students learn from reading and, b) practicing wide and varied reading improves reading comprehension, I disagree with his argument that teaching comprehension strategies is ineffective.

As always, it is the quality of instruction that matters, but I would like to present an alternate view of the effectiveness of advanced reading comprehension strategies for complex reading and older readers. Mr. Hirsch began his article by including an excerpt from Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason. He illustrated the ineffectiveness of using broad comprehension strategies commonly taught in elementary school (e.g., predicting, clarifying, finding the main idea, summarizing, questioning the author) on this passage. However, by focusing only on basic comprehension strategies, Mr. Hirsch does not acknowledge that a high school or college student, whose strategy instruction has included analyzing or marking-up text, using grammatical clues, connecting with information he or she already knows, and utilizing text structure to identify an author’s point, may be able to use comprehension strategies to understand this complex text.

Further, if prior to the excerpt, students had known that the text was from a philosopher, they would have been able to apply what they know about the text structures philosopher’s use. If they had known that the author was Kant, they might have thought about if they knew anything about him and what message he might be trying to get across. These are advanced comprehension strategies that we must teach our adolescents to know and use. (See Schoenback, Greenleaf, Cziko, & Hurwitz, 1999 and Santa, 2006).

While Mr. Hirsch is correct in saying that the more students know, the more they will understand, his argument that strategy instruction is not effective is erroneous in our current society. Today’s adolescents have access to a wider array of information than any previous generation. In addition to living in Thomas Friedman’s “flat” world where information from another country is a phone call or text message away, they also have the capacity to make their own information. My thirteen year old can listen to a podcast created by other thirteen year olds in her class. She is emotionally connected to this information because she knows and cares about the people producing this information. She is less emotionally connected to reading Pride and Prejudice although vocabulary and literary art of this work will give her rich literary information. Therefore, as teachers, it is our responsibility to understand our students and their world.

We cannot control the amount or type of information that students bring to a text. However, we can teach them tools and strategies to make meaning of any type of text that they encounter. We can use rich and varied literature and informational texts to teach these lessons, and build knowledge as we teach students how to make meaning. I would agree with Mr. Hirsch that we must use the finest literature and broadest array of informational text to teach strategies. In addition, we need to teach students to evaluate the information they are reading. The gatekeepers of information such as: newspapers, major networks, bookstores, libraries and even schools, no longer have control of the world that adolescents have access to, if they ever did. Therefore, we must also teach students how to read text critically and always evaluate the source. For that reason, strategies like questionning an author (Beck, McKeown, Hamilton, & Kucan, 1997) and the reciprocal teaching method where students clarify their confusions and use each other and outside resources to make meaning of text (Palinscar and Brown, 1984), are essential to improving the literacy of our culture. I am grateful that through his work, Mr. Hirsch has identified information that is important for citizens in our culture to know. Yet, to help them learn that information, we have to teach them strategies to help think as they read, so they will learn. Some students would like to read without thinking, as one young man at my school said, “I don’t want to think when I read, I just want to read the words.”

Comprehension strategies keep students thinking as they read. It provides opportunities for more skilled readers to make their thinking visible, so students can learn the flexible thinking skills they need as they work to make meaning of the complex texts in their world. Through reading strategies, students are empowered to interact with fine literature and important informational text so that they can develop the knowledge they need to succeed in today’s world.

References:
Beck, I. L., McKeown, M. G., Hamilton, R.L.,& Kucan, L. (1997). Questioning the Author: An Approach for Enhancing Student Engagement with Text. Newark,DE: International Reading Association.
Friedman, T. (2005). The World Is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-First Century. NY, NY: Farrar, Strauss& Giroux.
Palincsar, A.S. & Brown, A. L. (1984). Reciprocal teaching of comprehension fostering and comprehension monitoring activities. Cognition and Instruction, 1, 117-175.
Santa, C. M. (2006) A vision for adolescent literacy: Ours or theirs? Journal of Adolescent and Adult Literacy. 49:6, 466-476
Schoenback, R. Greenleaf, C. Cziko, C. Hurwitz, L. (1999). Reading for Understanding: A Guide to Improving Middle and High School Classrooms. SanFrancisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

Thoughts on MCAS Week

Well this has been an exciting week at Fuller Middle School. First, 6th, 7th and 8th grade students have been taking MCAS. It is so hard to watch the students in the overtime rooms sitting until 12 or 1 o'clock, valiantly struggling through the test. I am proud that our students did take the test seriously and gave each reading their best work.

I was thinking about all the time students spending sitting in their seats when they are finished, and I am wondering if we couldn't use that time better. Perhaps students could review books for the summer reading list, or they could read and review books for a book club selection. It seems like a perfect time to promote silent reading; however, we need to be careful not to make it too enticing so that students won't give the test their best work. Does anyone have any ideas???

On another note, we have spend the rest of our time defending our jobs as literacy specialists. Fortunately for us, our principal realizes the impact we make and fights hard for our positions. Yet, in this climate, every position must be accounted for. We prepared a report that illustrated how we have reduced the percentage of students reading two or more years below grade level in sixth grade (33%) to half that by the time they enter eighth grade (14%). We are hoping that this will illustrate the impact of the work we do.

Lastly, I recently learned about a website called Literacy Matters www.edc.org/LiteracyMatters. Check it out and leave a comment, what do you think? Is this a useful resource for secondary literacy folks?

Massachusetts Reading Conference A Resounding Success !

Hello everyone,
I have just returned from MRA where keynote speakers: Stephanie Harvey, Lois Lowry, Catherine Snow and Tim Shanahan reminded us how critical adolescent literacy is and motivated us to work harder to understand how to help adolescents be successful. A few key facts that struck me are:

1. The personal connection with students is still critical to motivate adolescents to do the hard work of reading.
2. Students should have the opportunity at least once a week to read something THEY choose.
3. Students need to read and TALK about that reading to develop their own understanding.
4. Reading comprehension involves MORE than strategies and the research community is looking to educators to develop successful programs.
5. We have many talented secondary literacy specialists out there doing great work.

I am proud to say that 21 secondary literacy specialists attended the Symposium on The Many Roles of the Secondary Literacy Specialist. I hope to organize a networking meeting so that we have opportunities to continue to share our work. Till then, I hope people will feel comfortable commenting on this blog and I will do my best to answer questions and post resources.