Rethinking Literacy Instruction

As parents, educators, and community members, we must collaborate to change literacy instruction in many of our nation's public schools. Over Thanksgiving weekend, a friend and high school English teacher sent me a piece she wrote to express her frustration with Accelerated Reader. I, too, am not a fan of AR because I think it contributes to what Kelly Ghallager calls "readicide." I asked Summer if I could post a portion of what she shared with me on this blog because I think you, readers, will appreciate Summer's sentiments and will offer your own ideas about how we can move forward and keep from feeling powerless. I remain committed to my idea that if we read up, team up, and speak up, we can and will change public education for the better.

Guest Blog Post by Summer Garris

“Mama, if I get finished reading my AR book, can I please have a little time to read Ungifted tonight?”

“We’ll see if we have time,” I say making myself concentrate on the peppers and mushrooms I’m chopping.  The truth is, inside of me I’m seething.

Sage and I have struggled to acclimate to the AR reading program and processes they use in his school.  It took us a full nine weeks to figure out that he had weekly reading AR point goals that were calculated, we’re told, based on his reading level.  Although one notice said that his reading independently for 30 minutes a night should allow him to meet these goals (which makes sense), this has not been the case.  He reads for his 30 minutes independently, and inevitably, I read to him for 30 minutes to an hour every night, so that he can take his multiple choice book test by Thursday to meet his requirements. 

We had an incident the week of Valentine’s Day.  Despite our nightly binge reading of this horribly trite novel, we had not finished the book.  Since missing his point goal for the week meant missing the Valentine’s party, he took the test on a Wednesday even though he had not finished reading the book.  He failed the test, and then realized that there would be no way to gain his required points in time to ensure he could attend his party. He was devastated, and I could not fathom that this mistake could actually keep him from exchanging paper Valentines and candy with his friends.  I decided to talk to his teachers.

I asked the teachers questions like, “If he finds a book that he really loves that is longer and takes him more than 30 minutes of independent reading each night, can he wait until he finishes the book in order to take his test?” 

His teacher replied, “If the book is too long for him to finish in the allotted time, he should choose shorter books, so he can earn his weekly point goals.”

I thought she misunderstood my question.  “No, I mean, if he picks out a longer book, one that he wants to read, one that takes him more time to read, and he is reading each night, he can wait until he finishes it before he takes his test, right? “

“No,” she replied, “he has to meet those point goals.”

It’s not the reading that upsets me, it is what and how we read.  This business with the book, Ungifted, kind of sums it up.  He picked out this book at the book fair. It is about a boy who invents robots and, according to the back of the book, conducts some kind of experiment on his sister that goes awry.  If you know Sage, you know why this book excites him. 

We started the book a few nights ago, taking turn reading a page.  In the few pages we’ve read together, he’s learned the words “cope,” “justify,” and “inevitably.”  He looked up and read about Atlas, so he could know what the statue looked like that the character accidentally destroyed.  We read together one passage from the point of view of main character Donovan:.  . . when a think is right there in front of me, and I can kick it, grab it, shout it out, jump into it, paint it, launch it, or light it on fire, it’s like I’m a puppet on a string, powerless to resist.  He and I both started to giggle.  He didn’t have to tell me that he deeply identified with this character.  “What’s a puppet on a string mean?” he asked.  Before I could answer, he answered for himself, “Oh, wait – I get it, like the horse puppet GG got me at Derby, right? It’s a simile!”  I glowed inside, the educator inside of me checking of literacy skills as we continued to read.  This is what “engaging in a text” looks like!

This isn’t the only engaging literacy experience I’ve watched my son experience.  From five years old to seven, he was obsessed with the Encyclopedia of Snakes.   When I allowed the kids to pick out a book before bed (for fun – not points), he would ask me to read about some species.  Though snakes are certainly not my favorite subject, it was exciting to watch him make connections with the information.  At the sport hunting store, he checked out the 3D camouflaged shirts.  “Look, this shirt is like keeled scales on a rattle snake.  The different surfaces make it easier to blend in.” 

When he heard about Nikoli Tesla, he spent hours reading (and taking notes) on his new hero.  Twenty four hours later, he asked me if he could build a Teslacoil, and showed me his diagrams where he had calculated how many volts of battery power he would need to create the necessary charge.  I later realized he neglected to take an AR test on his teacher read class book that day.  I guess the idea of a Telacoil was just more exciting than those 10 multiple choice questions.  (We binge read an AR book just in time to allow him to get his banana split on Friday anyway).

Seeing him engage in literacy delights me.  But, this Ungifted book poses a logistical problem in our house.  The book is above his reading level, and so, he can’t read it for points toward his AR goal. 

With the hustle and bustle of weeknights, if he is to meet his AR point goal, we won’t have time to read it most evenings. There’s so little time to read all the wonderful books available anyway; it saddens me that pumping out AR points keeps him from such experiences.  While visiting his school one day, I sat waiting in the library.  I happened to notice a book titled Incredible Plants.  I remembered his fascination with the corpse flower when he read about it in a Weird Facts almanac (another book he loves, but isn’t worth “points.”)  He would love this book, I mused remembering him asking, “Mama, do you think we could grow a corpse flower in the green house?”  I picked up the book to read the back.  The book featured all kind of gross and weird plants.  I flipped it over and looked inside the cover; it wasn’t AR.  I put the book back on the shelf.    

This AR mania apparently doesn’t just supersede our “at home” literary experiences.   If I ask my son what he did in his classes, he tells me the same story nearly every day.  He reads AR books, takes AR tests, and his teacher reads AR books to him for him to take tests.  Rewards day at his school, holiday parties in class, banana splits in class, the photographs in the hallways of the high achievers, the end of the year sleep over celebration are all for what?  Gaining AR points. 

My child’s elementary literacy instruction has become a race to choke down random books to gain AR points.  And these points are gained by taking multiple choice tests that ask trite knowledge level questions that in no way engage readers in critical thinking.  How can this be?

The new Common Core standards emphasize needs for students to engage in texts, to evaluate texts, to write about texts, to access their schema, to make inferences, and to engage in conversations about the text.  As the state department rolled out these standards, they provided us resources in order to change our teaching practices in order to meet these standards.   

The Literacy Design Collaborative (LDC) provides modules designed to help teachers acclimate to the required coherent approach to teaching literacy.  It provides templates for teachers to design lessons that allow students to read and analyze texts and to use and synthesize the knowledge they gain from this thinking to solve problems.

Then, there are reading and literature circles.  There are so many amazing resources that lay out units that allow students to discuss and engage in texts.    Models have them illustrating favorite scenes, asking characters questions, finding new words to discover, and asking their peers questions.  In such a context they are thinking about what they are reading, making connections to their schema, and all the while, improving their literary competence. 

Why are these initiatives not happening at my child’s school?  Why am I going to tell him that by the time we eat our pizza, take showers, and read another installment of this AR book, we won’t be able to find out if Donovan gets in trouble for the Atlas statue incident?  And, why do I feel so powerless to change it? 

Kentucky and Colorado Teachers Collaborate to Create Units of Study with LDC Modules Embedded Within

Seattle, Washington

From Seattle to Colorado to right here in Kentucky the collaborative spirit has been an important  productive struggle for teachers and partners participating in the Common Assignment Study (CAS). In the CAS, Kentucky and Colorado teachers continue to lead the way with the implementation of new standards in both states.  For the past year, teachers from Kentucky and Colorado have been collaborating to create units of study containing embedded Literacy Design Collaborative (LDC) modules.  Hundreds of students in each state have been impacted by these high quality units, and dozens of teachers have learned from one another about what makes an effective unit and what quality student work looks like.

This summer we expanded our participation from 24 Kentucky teachers to 64 from five different Kentucky districts. Colorado has similar numbers of teachers from multiple districts participating in the study. To launch the expansion, The Fund for Transforming Education in Kentucky hosted Colorado educators and all our CAS partners twice this summer. We held the first session in northern Kentucky at Dixie Heights High School in late June. High School English Language Arts teachers and middle school history teachers joined forces to revise the units they implemented in 2013-2014 based on the results of student work they analyzed together using CAS partner created protocols. Joining us at this work session were school and district leaders from participating sites because we continue to learn the importance of school and district leadership with ensuring successful implementation. The leaders need to hear from teachers about what they need (time is always a big one) for collaborating with colleagues.

My son running XC on beautiful day in Lexington, KY

Our second session, in mid-July, was held in Lexington at Edith J. Hayes Middle School, and included a larger group of high school social studies, middle school English language arts, and both middle and high school science. Following the same protocols used at the June convening, teachers again worked to refine lessons and collaborate with teachers experienced in the CAS project and teachers joining new for the first time this year. This intentional design allowed teachers new to the project this year to work collaboratively with teachers who created the initial units last summer. This approach, though not easy, encouraged the newly joining teachers to take equal ownership of the units they will teach in 2014-2015.

As The Fund's Initiative Director for this project, one of my favorite parts is the equal focus on process and product. Yes, we're working to create units, rubrics, and protocols, but we are also experimenting with collaborative processes across school, district, and state lines. I'm not alone in thinking collaboration is a valuable part of our Common Assignment Study.  When asked what they liked about the collaborative process at the summer convenings, here's what we heard from some of the teachers...

"collaborative efforts of a lot of great minds"

"I liked that we came from different backgrounds"

"multiple perspectives"

"Collaboration was streamlined, and everyone was more comfortable speaking up"

"Again, collaboration with like minded experts always leads to new and productive ideas.  I always get better with my craft when surrounded by comrades."

Loveland, Colorado

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Other posts about this project by me & by others

Common Assignment Study Gears Up for Second Year

Online Tools for Collaborating Across States

Common Assignment Study Post 1

Bridging the Digital Divide in Classrooms by Brison Harvey

Introducing Common Assignment Study  A three part post by Brison Harvey

A Storify all about the HS English Spring Unit by Colorado Teacher, Danny Holloweg

Kentucky Educators Collaborating with Colorado Educators to Implement Common Core

After an amazing week in Colorado, I can honestly say I'm completely grateful for my job and the opportunities I have to work with educators in Kentucky and across the country.  Each morning last week as I drove to the beautiful Thompson School District Training facility, I drove toward the Rocky Mountains and past a beautiful lake.  The scenery wasn't the only amazing aspect of the week, I worked with excellent educators who all desire the same thing for all students--an equitable opportunity to learn and grow.

This meeting was exceptional because after one face-to-face workshop last summer and a full semester of virtual collaboration on the creation of a unit, teachers were again face-to-face to create new units for the spring semester.  They are creating common units around common content standards, but not scripted step-by step standardized units.  Each teacher contributes to the lessons and makes appropriate adjustments to meet the needs of individual learners in each class.  Teachers are encouraged to think beyond multiple choice tests and toward performance based assessments that will measure deeper learning.   Importantly, teachers lead the unit design and make decisions about the units; their work is facilitated by content experts from Stanford's Center for Assessment Learning and Equity. 

The groups begin by creating Enduring Understandings as learned in our work over the years with Understanding by Design.  These guiding questions serve as a driving force for the the unit of study.  The focus on larger concepts, principles, and ideas keeps us away from a focus on discrete skills alone and helps us consider ideas that will be more engaging to students.  For example, the high school English Language Arts group is looking at the impact of social media on language, and the high school science group is thinking about how humans affect biodiversity. 

Within these larger units of study Literacy Design Collaborative (LDC) modules are embedded.  LDC offers an instructional ladder (with mini tasks developed by teachers) designed to help students attain and surpass the demands of the Common Core literacy standards in each subject area.  Effective implementation is vital with both LDC and larger units for teaching the Common Core State Standards.   That's why our Common Assignment Study is exciting.  We have selected top notch teachers who know how to meet the needs of their students and who are always seeking to grow as learners and professionals.

As a former teacher, I know I would have enjoyed an experience like this, so to be there in a support and leadership capacity, was interesting and invigorating in a new way.  I collaborated as a leader because leaders also have to be willing to work together to create the systems and structures we need in schools, districts, and states to support the work of teachers and the learning of students.

"I Choose C:" Common Core, Collaboration, and Creativity

The first time I saw this video it was shared by our superintendent with a group of instructional leaders, and you can only imagine how I laughed and also cringed at the reality.  Just like the girl in this video, too many of our students are not ready for life beyond our public schools.  As educators, it's up to us to provide opportunities that move beyond simple multiple choice tests which do not always promote the thinking and reasoning required of us all throughout life.

I have shared this video widely with teachers who feel they are doing all they can to prepare students but also often feel bound by high stakes assessments and other mandates from well-intentioned reform specialists.   Thankfully, LDC performance based tasks ask more of our students than a multiple choice test.  My friend, Sherri, has even mentioned after using LDC to implement the Common Core in her classroom, her students perform better on high stakes multiple choice tests, and they leave her classroom able to create, think, discuss, and perform well for job and/or college interviews.

At a recent  TALK (Teaching Advocates Leading Kentucky) conference, Sherri and I presented a session on using LDC (Literacy Design Collaborative) to implement the Common Core.  Another colleague from Colorado attended the session and asked me to share with our ECET2 Colleague Circle group.  Although flattered, I also realized I wasn't sure how to share the face-to-face conversation with an online audience.  My Colorado colleague suggested I start with anecdotal narrative, so here we go...

Session Goal:  Reflect on effective teaching of Common Core State Standards by delving into practical resources, collaborating with colleagues, and networking through social media. 

We opened the session by playing this video and asking participants to fill in this graphic organizer.  The debriefing following the video set the context for a session focused on Common Core, collaboration, and creativity.  All important topics to Sherri and me.  We both believe rich text-based discussions are one way to promote critical thinking and creativity; therefore, we transitioned into a Paideia Seminar led by Sherri.  We asked volunteers to come to the round table in the center of the room where they quickly made name placards and then read the text we had selected for discussion. The text open for discussion was an excerpt from Malcolm X's autobiography, a section where he writes about learning to read and practicing his writing.  Sherri began by asking each member of the circle to share a most important line from the text and to articulate why it was most important.  In addition to facilitating and mapping the conversation, Sherri stepped out of her role as facilitator to explain logistics of leading a Paideia Seminar in a classroom.  All told, the discussion was shorter than it would be in a classroom since we stopped it to move on to other parts of our session, but the participants seemed to get a feel for why text-based discussion is an integral part of LDC modules.

Because non-print text is also an important part of the Common Core, we transitioned to an analysis of an image of Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X together and surrounded by people.   I shared with the group various strategies for analyzing non-print text, including my favorite process where we move carefully through a few steps.  (Note:  This is by no means the only way to analyze an image.  However, I have found this step by step process is helpful when working with people who have little experience analyzing images.)

Step 1:  Describe and identify everything you see in the image (it works nicely if you cut the image into four quadrants and show one quadrant at a time before displaying the entire image all in one piece).  This step ensures you look carefully and study what's in the image before you begin making interpretations and/or evaluations.

Step 2:  Interpret (think about) what you see in the image and provide justification for your interpretations.  For our session, we asked participants to share their interpretations using electronic post-its on a Padlet wall  created for this session.  

Step 3:  Reflect.  We talked about how these interpretations or even quotes from the text we read prior could be used in the essays for the LDC task. 

We wrapped up our session by asking participants to share and network via other online collaboration tools (Linoit.com) and a document in Google Drive that lists websites for tools related to Common Core implementation and also with twitter handles and hashtags for people to follow.

So, Learning to Muse readers--please continue sharing ideas and resources you have for implementing the Common Core or for great teaching strategies that will ensure our students recieve an education focused on critical thinking and creativity.

Introducing Principals to the Literacy Design Collaborative

This week I had my first opportunity to meet all the middle and high school principals in our district.  As the primary point of contact for a major literacy grant, it was important for these administrators to know who I am, and more importantly, to know about the ongoing professional learning experiences we are facilitating for their teachers.  Since we believe in modeling best practice, my colleagues and I decided to stage an argument about the content the principals would learn (In this situation, the content happened to be writing instruction and impact of writing programs in schools).  The argument was designed to set the context and engage the learners/readers in two articles with opposing view-points.  

I’m really happy to be back in the district working closely with teachers and schools, and for the most part it’s going well.  However, I do have one little issue.  My colleague and I don’t agree on the appropriate approach for writing instruction, so we need your help.  We are going to give you two different articles and ask you to help us decide an answer to this question—is it necessary to omit personal connection to produce good writing?  I don’t think it’s necessary to do so, but my colleague does.  Will you help us settle this argument by gleaning evidence from two texts?

My science colleague distributed The Writing Revolution, and I distributed In Defense of Freedom Writers but only after I talked about the power Manuel Scott’s presentation had on me a couple of weeks ago.   Then we gave each administrator a few text dependent questions to accompany both articles, set a timer for 20 minutes and then paced, re-read and watched as a room full of principals and associate principals read the two articles with their pens in hand.  Following the reading of the two articles, our social studies colleague continued the staged argument by telling the principals she didn’t agree with either of us—she was in the middle.  She then facilitated a fish bowl discussion to engage the principals in conversation around the two points of view conveyed in the two articles.  She charted ideas and the principals on the outside of the fishbowl recorded additional thoughts on sticky notes when it wasn’t their turn to talk.  A few struggled to keep quiet when they were on the outside of the fish bowl because they felt so strongly about what they had read.

These are the same conditions teachers are creating as they introduce a Literacy Design Collaborative (LDC) task to students in science, social studies and English Language Arts.   Before we went into the rest of our presentation on LDC, we told the principals the argument had been staged, and they got it.  They understood we had set the context for learning more about the content.  Teachers in our district, across many districts in Kentucky, and in several other states in the United States are utilizing the LDC tools to implement the Common Core State Standards for Literacy in History/Social Studies, Science, and Technical subjects.

We are using LDC because we see the importance of engaging students in meaningful and authentic reading and writing opportunities in every discipline.  Think about the response above--A few struggled to keep quiet when they were on the outside of the fish bowl because they felt so strongly about what they had read.   Exactly.  Imagine this happening in classrooms full of excited and engaged adolescents!

If you’ve been reading my blog for any length of time, you will know this is exactly why I left the state department to be closer to schools, closer to the teaching and learning that will make a difference in the lives of students.