OCTE Fall Conference Resources

For those of you who attended my session Young Adult Literature and the Traditional Canon, here are the resources you requested (better late than never - sorry!).  If you have additional questions or ideas to share, please add them to the comments.

Also, you may want to check out the Pedagogy in Practice Wiki - there's a section on young adult literature with synopsis and helpful information on books you may consider choosing for your book club.  There are also some handouts from when I was a student teacher, which are good, as we discussed, if you want to see what not to do :)

Presentation Handout
PowerPoint Presentation

Leigh's Awesome Book Club Selection Sheet

Here are a few other items you might find helpful:
Book Club Letter Example
Book Club Meeting Record Sheet

Library Thing for Unit Planning

I taught American Literature this year for juniors, and in an attempt to give the dry, American literature canon some much needed relevancy, I paired our Great Depression unit with the current economic recession and topical book clubs set during the Great Depression.

Thinking of only Steinbeck novels when trying to come up with texts in Depression-era settings, I turned to Library Thing. Using the search page, I searched for all books with the tag "great depression" and got these results. From there, I added the tag "young adult" and got these results.

I recognized some of these books. Out of the Dust was one I had read before, and Esperanza Rising was another I knew of but hadn't read. From the library I checked out these as well as Nothing to Fear, Bud, Not Buddy, and The Truth About Sparrows and began reading as quickly as I could.

My school librarian was able to find and bring from other schools all the books except for Nothing to Fear and The Truth About Sparrows. These were eliminated from the selection and Of Mice and Men was added.

Library Thing can be an excellent tool for thematic unit planning, or for finding literature of any kind. I also used it this summer to find current young adult literature to read and stay current with.

What's New with Literature Circles Workshop

A few weeks ago I attended a workshop entitled "What's New with Literature Circles?" led by Harvey Daniels.  When my department head offered me the opportunity to go in his place, I was pretty psyched as I had two of Daniel's books on my shelf at home, Minilessons for Literature Circles and A Community of Writers.

I tried literature circles / book clubs when student teaching and they could have gone better.  I took away some new ideas from this workshop that I'll try this semester.

There were some pieces of the workshop that acted as helpful reminders - things that I knew or had read but forgotten when planning.  One element is the direct instruction of social skills when starting students in book clubs.  Building classroom community is important, but also teaching students what friendliness, piggybacking questions, extending discussion, and peer support look and sound like.  Another is the use of short text before moving to full novels.  A new resource for me mentioned was the book Micro Fiction , a collection of super short stories for students to quickly respond to and discuss.  I had used short stories with my students to practice group discussion, but even these were too long to start with.  The final element is one I will favor a great deal: having silent literature circles where students write and pass their discussion of the book to different members.  I won't ask students to do it more often than discussion aloud, but I like the amount of control it gives me of the classroom, the record of discussion taking place, and that no one person can dominate or withdraw from the conversation.

Daniels also emphasized a few revisions to what had been considered book club requirements when I was in college.  The biggest difference as Daniels saw it was the decreased use of role sheets for book club meetings, especially those that assign cooperative learning roles to the various group members because they are inauthentic.  For me, the greatest change came in the new forms of assessment.  Instead of using book talks, body biographies, or multigenre projects, Daniels suggests assessing the actual book club time for student preparation and participation, also for the sake of authenticity.  Final projects are fine, but Daniels suggests reducing the weight they carry.  How many real-life book clubs involve a culminating final project?

For me, however, the greatest blow to my current thinking was when myself and others asked Daniels whether literature circles were possible with district required reading.  His answer was absolutely and that it could even aid students who are doing book clubs for the first time.  I had attributed part of my previous failures to the district requirement that students had no choice in what they read; however, I now will drastically revise my design and try book clubs again with To Kill a Mockingbird .

In spring 2006, my students practiced literature circles with one short story before beginning a novel; this year they'll meet six times before beginning Mockingbird.  In 2006, they had no more than four minilessons on comprehension tools and zero minilessons on social skills; this year the count is six and five (with some overlap, and I want the second number to grow depending on how I can fit it in.  Social skills minilessons take about 10 minutes each, so I should be able to throw some more in at the beginning or end of some classes).  In spring 2006, our prereading tool was a fairly schooly anticipation guide and one period of discussion; this year I'm reading aloud part one of Mockingbird while we practice with short pieces of text and then setting them loose on part two.  I'm sure I'll be reflecting on my experiences a great deal, and I'll share my thoughts here when I can.

Teaching Reading: A Reflection and a Way Forward

Starting my semester as a student teacher, I was asked to cover two district required books with the students: The Pearl by John Steinbeck and Night by Elie Wiesel¹. I tried to use what I had learned at university - methods that were supposed to be on the cutting edge: book clubs, sticky notes, bookmark prompts, double-entry journals. It could have been beautiful, but it was a failure. Because the most critical element in life-long reading was missing.

Choice.

You can't mix mandated reading with methods that encourage life-long reading. It doesn't work. No one outside of school has a required reading list written by someone else. That's ridiculous. Readers read what they want to.

District required reading is schooly.

Ever since reading Daniel Penac's Better than Life, I've been struggling with the question "How do I hang the Reader's Bill of Rights in my classroom and still teach reading?"

And now I know the answer: Teach reading; don't teach themes in specific books to the whole class when only half the class is interested in reading the text.

1. The right to not read.
2. The right to skip pages.
3. The right to not finish.
4. The right to reread.
5. The right to read anything.
6. The right to escapism.
7. The right to read anywhere.
8. The right to browse.
9. The right to read out loud.
10. The right not to defend your tastes.

My answer, I think, addresses rights two through ten. The critical prerequisite for number one (from the teacher's point of view) is that students have a text that interests them. My job is to help them find it. If they still choose not to read during class after we've found a book that they will read at some point, then I've fulfilled my duty, I think. They still have to do something productive during that time and not disrupt others' reading (their right to read anywhere). A student may still choose not to read though, and I'm not sure what to do with that yet. The argument "you can choose not to read, but you'd be choosing to receive a poor grade" is lame, in my opinion.

Models of Unschooly Reading Instruction

Following are the various models I've come up with for properly teaching reading as I see them. Each model is rated on a scale of 1-10 (1 is low, 10 is high) on Constitutionality (ability to adhere to the Reader's Bill of Rights), Potential Learning (ability for the method to meet standards or teach specific themes/genres to the entire class), and Unschooliness (how real world the learning is).

A. Students read what they want individually

Students choose any book, periodical, collection of short stories, or other text. Student provides evidence of their learning by writing a summary, book report, or creates another form of evidence. Students share what they're reading with others. Struggling readers are given support with their trouble area and offered texts that match their reading level.

Students can exercise all of their rights, but must read at least one text in full, or in their book report explain why they chose not to finish or chose to skip pages in a certain section.

Constitutionality: 9
Potential Learning: 5
Unschooliness: 8, depending on available forms of evidence students can submit

B. Students choose from a wide range of books on a broad topic and read individually

The teacher identifies a broad theme (like historical fiction, diversity, socio-economic status) and finds a significant number of books and genres (novels, short stories, graphic novels) students can choose from. Fifty might be enough. Students can submit books to be considered. (Though they would have to read them and understand the theme to know if they could be considered, in which case maybe they won't learn anything new in that unit but instead should focus on something else. But they have a right to reread, and their presence in discussion might be beneficial to other students, so perhaps they read the same book, but explore an additional element or go deeper.) Struggling readers are given support with their trouble areas and texts that match their reading level. This option requires a lot of work from the teacher, however.

Constitutionality: 7
Potential Learning: 8
Unschooliness: 7

C. Book Clubs or Literature Circles

Students are introduced to six or eight books on a narrower theme (like color, poverty, coming of age). Students submit their first, second, and third choice of book. All students are guaranteed to get one of their top three choices. Throughout the unit, students participate in book clubs where they clarify the plot line and discuss character motivations, themes, and personal opinions. Or, in literature circles, students take part in two groups: one that discusses the specific book and another small group that discusses major themes and connections between texts with one student from each book club group in the second small group - like a jigsaw group.

Constitutionality: 4
Potential Learning: 9
Unschooliness: 6 (even though book clubs are more common place outside of school, the narrow range of book choices is a more schooly thing)

D. Real World Reading

I'm coining the term, but have no idea if someone else has tried it. It's only an idea in my head right now, so who knows if it will work.

Students choose any text to read. They may choose to read it alone. They may choose to read a text with other students and form a book club. Some students may choose not to finish a book and leave the book club. Other students may finish their first book and decide to join a book club to start their second. Students may decide to investigate a particular theme and form literature circles (with members reading books individually or in book club groups). Students (as individuals or in groups) may ask the teacher to guide them to a group of books with a specific theme or of a certain genre. They may choose to read with a partner. They may choose not to read during classroom reading time but work on something else, like a writing piece.

Students complete a reading portfolio with evidence of their reading throughout the semester or year. This may include group projects from book clubs or individual work. Students know and understand the state standards, and each possible form of evidence students have the option of producing is matched with the standards it addresses. Students may propose additional forms of evidence. Portfolios must meet all the state standards.

The amount of teacher work involved is enormous. The payoff would be too.

Constitutionality: 9
Potential Learning: 10
Unschooliness: 10

I think these models could be set in a progression - A & B during first term, C during second, and D during the last semester.

How do I deal with the required reading? Like the teacher down the hall did when I was student teaching: give them three days in class to read it on their own and don't formally assess it. Or maybe I'll read it aloud. Maybe. But I still won't assess it.

I'm sure I'm missing some methods for teaching reading - please leave me your criticisms of these models and the many other possibilities in the comments.

1. I think every teenager should read Night. Especially if they have no idea what the holocaust was, like my students. But I won't force it on them. I might do a webquest to get them interested though. Go back

Book Clubs Handout

I opened up my lesson binder from student teaching today with the thought of looking over and maybe rewriting some of my lessons and handout now that I've had 8 months or so for everything to stew.

I got past my syllabus and found my handout attempting to explain book clubs.

Needless to say, it's a little sparse. Here are some thoughts on what I need to add:

• Club members choose the books (or other texts) they are going to read. I think I originally left that out since the district required us to read The Pearl and Night. Both good books, but if I was in 8th grade, I wouldn't choose The Pearl. I'd probably choose House of the Scorpion. Clones rock! I also wouldn't do book clubs with books required by the district. I'd probably resist teaching books mandated by the district, just to stir things up a bit. Ultimately, I think the best course of action might be to check out the books, tell the students they won't be tested on the material, and let them read it during Sustained Silent Reading and at home.
• Club members use cognitive strategies (taught in mini-lessons) to understand difficult pieces of text. My lessons early on didn't focus enough on how to discuss in book clubs. We modeled using sticky notes and think alouds, and I had bookmarks with discussion prompts, but there needed to be much more practice with short pieces of text (I think there was one day?).
  
• When club members choose a book or text they for the most part strongly dislike, they abandon it for something better. A lot of groups would have abandoned The Pearl. Actually, a lot of groups did, just without my permission. During my actual book club unit, there were some books that a lot of students disliked, although it wasn't as bad as it had been with the district required texts. Since my book club unit was centered around a common theme, do I need to have other books that cover that theme that students can choose? Or, if they abandon a book, should they be able to choose anything? Winnie suggested that I take students to the library and tell the groups that by the end of the period they need to all find a book they can agree to read. I want to try this idea, but the problem I see is that tastes will differ within preselected groups, and I'd be curious to see if students could make loose connections between the books read by other groups. Maybe connections aren't important. I don't know.
  
• Club members discuss things they read that they find significant. Members ask each other questions, they don't answer questions that are teacher generated. My book club discussion guides were too loose in my first unit, but they also had a section where I asked a question. I'm not sure if this belongs on the discussion guides. As I'm moving from group to group, I think it's fair for me to ask the occasional question, but I think my students were able to ask each other good questions when they got better guidance. Still, I never really breached the point where students had more stuff they wanted to discuss at the end.
  
• Students choose how they will present their book to the rest of the class (from some sort of list or assignment sheet). This part worked out in class, but it was something that needed to make it on to the initial concept sheet.

I'm not sure if I can fully convey the idea of book clubs just by putting all this stuff on a handout and discussing it in class, but at least this gives me a jumping off point.

What else do students need to know about book clubs?

Some More Thoughts on Writing Workshop and Book Clubs

I realized yesterday that my book clubs had finally started to work. Students were taking about the book, about what happened, about their predictions, and even what they liked and disliked about it. That last one, I think, is the biggest success, because that's what adults do a lot of in their book clubs.

Half of the class, unfortunetly, was still on the other side of the room finishing up the double-entry journals they were supposed to do for homework and are a prerequisite for book clubs.

So I've been thinking a lot about how to make book clubs / literature circles and writing workshop work in the mixed and remedial classroom. I think the empowerment that chioce gives is essential to creating life long readers and writers.

If you listened to my last podcast, you'll know that I'm thinking intense formulaic writing of numerous genres in the first semester could slowly stem into a more open writing workshop. I think for book clubs, perhaps if students get a choice in book first, (so that every student is reading exactly what they want) then the educator could work on building the groundwork of throughtful reading with talk alouds, retellings, and other comprehension building strategies individually.

This would require a well read instructor, but I think once the base is there, the class could move to short stories as a whole, then novels together, and finally literature circles in the second semester. A thought.

A Beginner's Book Club Observations

I decided to experiment with book club a little bit this semester during my student teaching. One of the big ideas behind book clubs is that they are what adults do: choose a book they want to read, talk about it together, and figure out what it means together.

I decided to see what would happen if that first piece wasn't there. I like the idea of students coming to their own conclusions, and a small group that requires more than a select few students to speak.

To allow some flexibility in the subjects they hit on during discussion while still attempting to get them deeper into the book, I used these book club discussion sheets, which are similar in design to those we used at the university in our own book clubs.

To my dismay, book clubs have not been that effective yet. The motivation does not exist.

I'm not so arrogant as to think that none of this is my fault. I'm sure with practice I might be able to construct leads, work with groups one on one, and teach minilessons that create the desired results. However, for a district to require 8th grade students to read The Pearl is a little misguided in my opinion.

There is a very large Young Adult genre. Why don't we use it more? Students are not going to relate to a native Mexican from the colonial era as easily as a character their own age. Building relevancy is important, but it's an uphill battle if the students don't see any relationship to begin with.

Through Bud Hunt's blog I cam across this discussion on canonical books at Tim Fredrick's blog. It's made me think about choosing books for our students to read (and you can read my initial response there. My response hasn't changed much, though it might be expressed more mildly).

So in a little over a week we start Night. Again, required by district curriculum. I want to continue trying to make book clubs work. Are they tools just for books that students choose, or are they adaptable to required reading as well?

Book Club / Literature Cirlces

One more post, then I need to go pack my wife's lunch so she can go to work:

I had this idea a couple weeks ago that maybe if students had to read a required text, they could still use book clubs but analyze the book using different literary theories or different approaches. One group could approach the book from a predominately topical standpoint. Another group from a cultural, another from social.

Questions:
1. Would this work?
2. Does this preserve any of the advantages of book clubs? Students would still have some choice in their study, and they would be working in groups . . . the real question is would this kind of book club benefit the student, or am I just trying to do book clubs for the sake of doing them?