Reporting on that homework of the weekend before last...

And it's been a blur since I (M. Shelley here) made that last posting. Funny how a teaching life will do that.

I did complete the homework I assigned to myself, to cobble together an argument for my students about why they should care to read. I started with explaining to them the concept of procedural display, that it looks like learning, but it's not. I gave them examples from my own schooling (like how I got through AP English Literature with a B without reading a single book), and they shared their own examples. Just as they were accusing me of telling them how to slide through school without actually doing anything of consequence, I asked them if they ever engage in fake reading where you read the words but don't construct any meaning from them. The words just slide on by, for pages even, and you have no clue what you've read once you stop and look back. I admitted (to the shock of several of my students) that this happens to me all the time and that I have to work hard sometimes to avoid it. They talked about their own adventures in fake reading as well.

Then I asked, "what is literacy?" Right away students blurted out responses about being able to simply read and write. I let them keep suggesting ideas until I heard someone say something about "understanding." Aha. It's more than being able to decode the words on the page--you have to be able to construct meaning from them.

I presented a few ideas about literacy--one from here that reviews Paolo Friere's ideas on literacy: "Literacy, [Friere] insisted, is an active phenomenon, deeply linked to personal and cultural identity. It's power lies not in a received ability to read and write, but rather in an individual's capacity to put those skills to work in shaping the course of his or her own life. [...] Friere's view of literacy is at once practical and all-encompassing. It refers to the ability to manipulate any set of codes and conventions--whether it is the words of a language, the symbols in a mathematical system, or images posted to the Internet--to live healthy and productive lives." I used this to talk about how they possess all kinds of literacies--like that the football players in my class have football literacy: the ability to manipulate the set of "codes and conventions" specific to football in order to "shape the course" of their own lives (i.e., to win a game). I talked about how this view of literacy makes the argument that it is so much more than mere reading and writing, but the ability to use those skills to write one's life, and a "healthy and productive" one at that.

The second view on literacy that I presented to them comes from The United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization, a definition that I found in the Wikipedia page about literacy: "the ability to identify, understand, interpret, create, communicate, compute, and use printed and written materials associated with varying contexts. Literacy involves a continuum of learning in enabling individuals to achieve their goals, to develop their knowledge and potential, and to participate fully in their community and wider society." I repeated the list of skills: identify, understand, interpret, create, communicate, compute, and use. I asked them how confident they felt with these skills and their abilities to use them to build the lives that they imagine for themselves. I asked them if they considered themselves literate in all these areas.

They were pretty quiet for a few moments.

Next I argued that whereas I knew that they each possessed skilled literacies in many areas of their lives, there was one particular area that I was most worried about for all of them. The key I saw to the type of literacy I want them to work on is engagement. As learners, they need to be thoughtfully and meaningfully engaged in the learning. What I meant was that they needed to practice the kind of sustained engagement you can practice when you really, truly read a book (something that many of my students have admitted to not have done for several years).

I asked, "when was the last time you practiced this kind of sustained engagement?"

I asked, "do you know the tricks of successful reading?"

I told them that it takes work but that working on their reading and sustained engagement in this way is critical to their future success in our evolving world.

I reminded them that the most complex, difficult book they will ever read is their own life. This practice now will help them later.

From there, I gave them a letter I had written to them explaining the tricks of successful reading as described in Cris Tovani's book. I asked them to write me back to tell me which of those tricks they already employ, which they want to work on, and which they don't understand. I asked them to tell me what kind of readers they are, what kind of readers they want to become, and how my class can help them get there. I've collected and read these letters, which I found to be candid and real. I will give them back to them at some later time and ask them to re-evaluate and look for growth in their reading goals.

And then the next day we started reading Into the Wild together. They were taking it pretty seriously. We stopped often and talked about it, asked questions, made predictions, pointed out what seemed important, told connected stories from our lives. We did that for a couple of classes to round out the week. On Monday then, it was dedicated reading time--individual silent reading, group directed reading (with either the sped teacher that I team teach with for one class or the education student I have working with me in the other two classes) or small pairs or triads of students in their own reading groups. This was the best used reading day I have ever had in my class--even the groups that sat out in the hall and read to each other actually read and discussed what they were reading.

I'm anxious to see how the first chunk of the book will go--the first reading deadline is tomorrow (the first seven chapters of the book). One idea that came up in our negotiations about what should be on the unit calendar for this book was the no-penalty reading quiz. They suggested that they get extra credit for correct answers and no points lost for wrong answers.

Now think about this for a minute: what my students proposed is an incentive system for reading instead of the kind of punishing quizzes that we often end up enacting. I was willing to forgo the reading quizzes altogether since most students in our first pass through of negotiations on the calendar for the unit said that they didn't want them at all. But when I asked them what they really, truly NEEDED to inspire them to get a particular range of reading done, they came up with this idea, and pretty much everyone (in all three of my classes) loved it.

We will do this for the first time tomorrow and we'll see how it goes. Groups of students will each draft one question for the quiz and submit the question and answer to me. I will then type the questions up one at a time on the screen and students will write their answers on paper and submit. We'll then review the questions (which will be the start of our discussion for the day over the first seven chapters).

Do you see what will be happening here? LOTS of discussion about the reading! The no-penalty reading quiz will be an occasion for discussion, for students to check their own understanding of what they read. For students to help each other capture the details.

Of course it won't work so well if after all of our conversation about this students didn't read. I'll add one more question to the quiz: did you read? If so, how much? If not, why not? I'll remind them that there is no penalty on this one either--their honesty is what I'm searching for.

So I'm feeling like I did something right (so far) to establish a positive beginning for a reading experience in school. But like I said, what will be interesting is how many of them will actually read.

More on that later.
M. Shelley