Book Whisperer Discussion Week #3: Cutting the Teacher Strings

[Donalyn Miller]

I thoroughly enjoyed reading the rich discussion this week as we shared our literacy experiences both inside and outside of the classroom. Your comments provided much to think about as I consider how my own reading life impacts my students and shapes my teaching.

This week, we continue to explore our views about teaching reading and how our opinions about reading affect our classroom instruction. In Chapter Six of The Book Whisperer,"Cutting the Teacher Strings," I describe several instructional practices that may not accomplish their perceived goals to motivate readers, increase reading achievement, or hold students accountable. Decisions to replace certain practices in my classroom did not occur overnight, and I am still thinking about what my class needs to look like in order to balance my day-to-day needs as a reading teacher with my long-term goals to create lifelong readers.

While I recognize the value in sharing texts with a class, or asking students to keep a record of the books they read, I see that many students (and adults) trace their lack of enthusiasm for reading to activities like reading logs, book reports, and whole class novels. How can we as teachers, bridge this divide?

We must assess students' learning and hold them accountable for reading widely and deeply. We must teach specific content, and in some cases, specific texts. We must assure that our students develop historical and cultural literacy, as well as reading skills. We must prepare our students for testing, college, and the workforce.

How can we accomplish our instructional goals for students (and generate grades, let's be honest) in a classroom where everyone reads different books? How can we balance shared literacy activities and independent reading? How can we monitor the progress of every child? What if we believe every child needs to read The Giver or To Kill a Mockingbird?

We may agree or disagree on traditional practices like whole class novels, round robin reading, and test prep, but what matters more to me is our ability, as teachers, to think critically about what we ask from students. We must decide for ourselves whether or not our instruction accomplishes what it is meant to do. We must look at the "unexamined wallpaper" in our classrooms and decide whether to keep it, replace it, or remove it altogether.

Several topics from this chapter provide avenues for discussion:

whole class novels
comprehension tests (in particular, the rising use of programs like AR)
standardized test prep
book reports
reading logs
round robin and popcorn reading
incentive programs

I encourage you to share the practices you have changed in your classroom and how you decided to change them. What worked? What didn't? What do you still miss? What could you (or your students) live without? What is non-negotiable for you, due to mandates and requirements or your own philosophy? I look forward to reading your comments and participating with you as we look at the wallpaper.

[Katherine Sokolowski]

This is very interesting to me in light of my current class. I read The Book Whisperer this summer and was shocked that you didn't do whole class novels. I have for years, nine to be exact. My first year in the district I was required to use a basal. (fourth grade) It was considered shocking when I got rid of it my second year to move to novels.

This year I have 19 fourth graders but 27 students for reading. We have completely pushed in for special ed. I've always co-taught for reading, but some students were still pulled out. Not anymore. We started with Tales of the Fourth Grade Nothing. I quickly realized that I have a handful of students who cannot even track as I read to them, they are that far below grade level. The special ed teacher and I met. (FWIW, this is her first year) We decided we needed to move to Guided Reading Groups and Independent Reading. My class had been reading independently before, 20 minutes of the 60. Now they read independently for 2/3 of the class (40 minutes) and meet in a group for 20 minutes. The groups are usually by their level, sometimes not, depending on what we are covering.

My students are loving this, and flying through books like I've never seen. It just seemed to be the way I had to move this year. I have students who read 9 words in a minute up to students who read 252 words a minute on fourth grade text. They cannot be in the same group, it just doesn't make sense.

On the other topics, I abhor AR with everything in me. From 5th grade on up in my district they read for points and it drives me crazy.

I do test prep here and there, not much but enough so they understand what they are taking in March.

I don't do book reports, I do a book response once a week and I write them back.

I hate reading logs, I do a status of the class every day.

Can't stand round robin/ popcorn. They read in their heads in guided groups, I tap them to listen to them, tap them again to ask them to read silently. If they finish before the others they reread for fluency.

And I'm not fond of incentives to read. My students email me all weekend/ or post to our class webpage to tell me that they finished the book or are at a good part. The only thing I give them back is a response.

As for what I couldn't live without? Books. I buy too much, I know it, my husband knows it, my students know it. I've probably spent $600 since June. That is more than an average year, but I got six kids in my reading class that are at a first grade level. I didn't have anything for them so I had to work on that. I usually spend that much in a year, but it will slow down now. I couldn't give up independent reading/ reading responses/ or read aloud. Honestly, I am always surprised that people think I do something special with reading. I know that my students talk about books a lot, but so do I. Reading feels very natural for me, something I love to share. I didn't think I'd ever give up whole class novels, but I LOVE the way I'm teaching reading now and am floored I didn't switch before.
Katherine

[Rachel Thompson]

About ten years ago, I remember being shocked when our district language arts specialist spoke mockingly about the disservice we do to our students by having them do book reports. Because it was someone I highly respected, I threw them out and replaced them with reading logs. Having free voluntary reading during class was considered new for our juniors, and it took time to replace those teaching habits that were formed by those who had taught me. Jeff Wilhelm, in his book Reading Don’t Fix No Chevys, talks about the disconnect that the boys in his study felt between their school literacies and their home literacies, so again, I had to question. Jeff often quotes Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (1990) and his conditions of “flow” or the “joy, creativity, the process of total involvement with life” which is exactly what you’ve done in your classroom. The four main principles -- a sense of control and competence, a challenge that requires an appropriate level of skill, clear goals and feedback, and a focus on the immediate experience -- challenged my thinking and caused me to add more talking and to give them more choice. I included snowboarding, skiing, hunting, 4x4 and other magazines to my book racks to help reach my boys and let them focus on information that they could use and talk about immediately, and I started buying YA books for my classroom library. Our grade level team added book clubs, and my students were given the choice of buying the book they wanted to read rather than choosing ones from our department library.
Thank you, Donalyn, for giving so many kids that “flow” experience – “the state in which people are so involved in an activity that nothing else seems to matter.”

[Mindi Rench]

I value the choices that independent reading gives to kids, but I also value the rich discussion that happens when all of my students are reading the same text. I have gone from pushing the kids through six to eight whole class novels a year down to two. The rest of the year the kids have some say in what they read, either through independent reading or through lit circles/book clubs.
Last year for the first time, our whole seventh grade Night together during their study of World War II. The social studies teachers and the language arts teachers all noticed a higher level of engagement in discussions. We heard the kids talking about the book in the hallways, something that we hadn't heard before. When we finished the book study, we had almost unanimous agreement that reading Night together and talking about the deep issues within it were the most meaningful experiences of the seventh grade year. I can't imagine not doing that again this year.

[Donalyn Miller]

Mindi,

I agree that shared literacy experiences are important for students. Reading a book together provides a common experience we can refer to when teaching and builds community.
My main issue with whole class novels is that too much time is spent reading the book, and these units are often loaded with activities that do not result in deeper thinking or more reading and writing for students. It sounds like your book study of Night was a success with students and accomplished your instructional goals.

[Mindi Rench]

Donalyn,
I agree with you completely on the "filler" stuff that is often loaded into book units. I'll admit to being one of those teachers who USED to have kids do zillions of those things, grading each and every one of them until I had an a-ha! moment. Who cares if the kid can build a life size King Kong out of popsicle sticks if he can't understand what he read!
Now my focus is on "What are you thinking?" when we talk about text. Kids think amazing things! We just have to listen!

[Amanda Villagomez]

My non-negotiables are to have a read aloud, independent reading time, and small group meetings (wide-range of reasons: book clubs, reading strategy groups, guided reading, etc. depending on student needs). I still use reading logs. I have debated it often whether or not I should continue on with this. I even posted about it this summer: http://snapshotsofmrsv.blogspot.com/2009/07/revisiting-reading-zone... . Right now I have one more week in the first quarter, and I am trying to decide whether to switch to an overall reading requirement as you mentioned in your book. Before from Atwell I had heard the rationale about just keeping track with status of the class, which I started this year, but I also still had the log knowing that some students read multiple books at a time.

However, hearing your idea about focusing on books completed rather than minutes/pages read made perfect sense. I have already been talking to students based on not sticking with a book through status of the class. I do allow them to abandon books, but I don't think they should be reading a different book multiple times in a week. Your idea of a reading requirement focusing on completion of books aligns well with my reading philosophy.

My biggest road block right now is that I am already making some other significant changes for 2nd quarter and I trying to decide if there would be a point when I would be making too many changes. For example, I am already going to calculate grades differently to take into consideration components of standards-based grading and I am going to divide my time into two weeks of Spanish followed by two weeks of English rather than a weekly rotation (I am in a dual immersion school).

When I was reading your book I was a little bit confused on if you calculated the 40 book requirement into their grade at all. I saw the discussions where you celebrated great increases over books read previous years, rather than dwelling on the fact that they did not reach the 40 mark, which made perfect sense. I guess in general I would love to hear which types of grades you put into your grade book as that is one of my major ponderings as I am implementing a workshop approach this year. It will help make it easier for me to switch over from using reading logs because I would have an example of someone else who successfully uses a books completed expectation rather than a log. Reading logs are something used in my school at every single grade level, so I have been trying to think it through very well before taking out that component.

[Sandra Stiles]

I have a scripted program that we use in our school. I have modified the scripted program and I have chosen to follow Donalyn's process as much as possible. I have seen students who told me they don't want to read, don't like to read and would never want a book for a gift, ask me to purchase specific books for my shelves and let them be the first to check them out. This year I was only able with my scripted program to require 10 books in 7 different genres. (I am trying to cram a 55 minuted scripted program into 45 minutes). I told students they must read the first 50 pages before they are allowed to abandon a book. They must also fill out a form explaining why they abandoned the book. After the second or third form we usually can find a book that they will stick with . As far as grading goes, I have a notebook with a page for each student. They log each book read and then they complete a book review. I have a rubric that goes with the book review, and then the reviews are placed in a notebook so students are recommending books without realizing it. We discuss books and I find that most of my students are ahead of the game and have set a goal of reading twice the number of required books this year.

[Donalyn Miller]

Amanda,

I do not calculate grades from the number of books students complete within a certain time period. Most assignments tie back to independent reading, though, so if students are not continually reading a book, they have difficulty keeping up with course work.

I teach and grade the same things every English teacher does, I just move the end point to students' independent reading when I can.

For example, we have been identifying/analyzing plot elements. I read a short story and modeled for students how to identify the plot elements and chart these on a plot diagram. Students practiced this for several days with various short stories from our anthology ( I took a grade when I assessed students were ready). We discussed and fine-tuned our understanding of plot during this daily work. We also read several common texts we can refer to in future discussions. Finally, I asked students to chart one major conflict in their independent books (I took a grade as each student finished their book and chart). During conferences, I worked with individual students to select one plot thread to follow or discussed their reactions to what was happening in the book. Students also analyzed the book's plot and reflected on the conflict, climax, resolution, and other developments through written responses.

While this sequence does not flow naturally from every topic, it works a great deal of the time.

As for a specific list of what I grade:

reading response letters
book commercials
independent practice of reading strategies/skills and literary analysis
notebook conferences
goodreads discussion thread responses
projects like book reviews, genre/ author studies, book trailers

[Amanda Villagomez]

Great. I really appreciate your input. It helps give a clearer picture of how it all works in your class. I am excited to have second quarter starting next week as I have been re-evaluating how to best set up my gradebook in a workshop setting.

[Megan Kelly]

Hi Donalyn,
I'm curious to learn more about what you mean by "chart one major conflict in their independent books". Can you explain more?
Thanks!

[Kerry Zielke]

I have to tell you how much your book has inspired me! I already have incorporated a block of time (usually 30 minutes) into my class period for independent reading. I have done this for three years because we have 90 minute blocks and I didn't want to fill it with mindless activities. I started having the kids do reading journals this year because I saw that there were a few kids who weren't reading, and I thought they would hold them accountable. We are one quarter through the school year, and one of my avid readers told me last week, "Mrs. Z, I hate reading journals! They make reading suck!" I took this comment home with me last Thursday. I felt horrible because I never want to make reading suck. I then read the section of the book on reading journals, and I changed my entire class. Instead of trying to read a daily journal that, sorry to say, were boring and dry, I told the class that they would only have to write me a LETTER on Fridays. One of my classes (my 8th grade honors class) actually asked if they could clap! I read the letters, and they were wonderful. They were personal and showed what they were really learning in their books. Even the kids that don't like to read (so they say, but I believe otherwise because they moan when I ask them to put their books down) wrote interesting letters. Thank you so much for this. I loved reading them and can't wait to talk to the kids about their books today!

[Donalyn Miller]

Kerry,

Isn't it amazing that students will write a letter and enjoy it, but balk at writing a journal? I imagine they are writing the same sort of information about their books, but the correspondence between you is motivating to them.
I am buried under response letters this weekend, but I remind myself how powerful an activity it is for my students and me.