Why Are the Reading and Writing Scores So Much Better?

Educators often feel like Atlas, carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders, especially at this time of year when state test scores are being released.  As it is each year at this time, it's my hope that we will remember what's important in our profession.

Walking through the hallway with my principal one afternoon several years ago after our state test scores were released, my principal asked me "Why are the reading and writing scores so much better?  What is your department doing?" 

As an educator who has long been an opponent of the "teach to the test" approach to teaching and learning, I was, honestly, not incredibly happy to hear this question asked of me.  My reply-- "we taught our hearts out."  She probed for more information--"surely you had a technique or strategy that helped the scores be better?" 

Perhaps we did, but that strategy was not test prep! Our department utilized Professional Learning Communities (PLCs) to plan instruction, study student work, and make adjustments to our approach so we could keep teenagers engaged and interested in learning.  We had a system of grade level teams and each team focused on the needs and interests of the students on those teams.  We also had many young and new teachers who kept all of us on our toes and learning new and relevant strategies.  A nice balance of classic and contemporary print and non-print texts were key; we typically paired texts. Text based discussions were integral to helping students write better.  When we taught writing, we focused on real audiences and specific instructional strategies we knew would help our students think more and write better.

We taught the standards and we used the formative assessment process to make adjustments, but we always focused on issues, ideas and humanity in the informational texts, literature, music and film that our students enjoyed.

In Kentucky today, educators, parents, community members, and members of the media are discussing the release of state test scores.  For the second time, students in our state were assessed over the Common Core State Standards for English Language Arts and Mathematics.  It is my deep hope that if administrators ask teachers today what they did to impact test scores (shudder at this question--but know it's a reality), teachers will feel confident in saying "we taught our hearts out."  And that the test prep we all hate so much will not be a stronger focus in schools where the test results are not what people want them to be.  Because, didn't we all get into this profession to impact lives, to have discussions about issues, ideas, the world and humanity?

Why I Pair Poetry with News Articles

Even though I haven’t had my own classroom for several years now, I still find myself thinking about how I might deal with a national news situation if I still worked with teens on a daily basis.  Almost always, I find myself looking for poems to pair with news articles, and more often than not, I look for an angle leading toward thoughts of human compassion.  Since I no longer actually teach these lessons to teens, I modify the lessons planned in my head for use with my sons (now ages 9 and 12).  Once a teacher, always a teacher, I suppose. 

The lesson plan in my head this time relates to a convergence of events, people, ideas, and places--National Poem in Your Pocket Day 2013, Boston Marathon, family trip to Washington DC, poem by Walt Whitman.  I'm pairing news articles about Boston with "The Wound Dresser" by Walt Whitman.



Tomb of the Unknowns

 

It’s disquieting to watch television footage or follow twitter stream with news of bombings or shootings, and it’s especially unsettling to watch and listen when children are involved.  Over the past couple of days while following news related to the explosion at the Boston Marathon, I’ve been encouraged to see many acts of human compassion.  Strangers reaching out to others in distress or injured, websites established for donations for victims, public Facebook pages in honor and support, Google Documents people finder, twitter hashtags such as #prayforboston, and even stories of Boston Marathon runners giving their medals to runners who were unable to finish when the race was shut down after the explosion to protect remaining runners—all excellent reminders of human compassion.

This year for Poem in Your Pocket Day, I am carrying “The Wound Dresser” by Walt Whitman.  It’s a reminder of human compassion carried out by many nurses on a daily basis.  Whitman writes of the suffering in Civil War hospitals and of children longing to hear stories of battle, much like my own nine year old son wanted to hear all about various war battles on our recent trip to Washington D.C..  Instead, of all scenes from battle we read scenes from inside a war hospital as noticed in this excerpt

… On, on I go, (open doors of time! open hospital doors!)
The crush'd head I dress, (poor crazed hand tear not the bandage away,)
The neck of the cavalry-man with the bullet through and through I examine,
Hard the breathing rattles, quite glazed already the eye, yet life struggles hard,
(Come sweet death! be persuaded O beautiful death!
In mercy come quickly.)

From the stump of the arm, the amputated hand,
I undo the clotted lint, remove the slough, wash off the matter and blood,
Back on his pillow the soldier bends with curv'd neck and side falling head,
His eyes are closed, his face is pale, he dares not look on the bloody stump,
And has not yet look'd on it.

I dress a wound in the side, deep, deep,
But a day or two more, for see the frame all wasted and sinking,
And the yellow-blue countenance see.

I dress the perforated shoulder, the foot with the bullet-wound,
Cleanse the one with a gnawing and putrid gangrene, so sickening, so offensive,
While the attendant stands behind aside me holding the tray and pail.

I am faithful, I do not give out,
The fractur'd thigh, the knee, the wound in the abdomen,
These and more I dress with impassive hand, (yet deep in my breast a fire, a burning flame.)

 



Quote from Whitman poem Dupont Circle Metro Station



Thus in silence in dreams' projections,
Returning, resuming, I thread my way through the hospitals,
The hurt and wounded I pacify with soothing hand,
I sit by the restless all the dark night, some are so young,
Some suffer so much, I recall the experience sweet and sad,
(Many a soldier's loving arms about this neck have cross'd and rested,
Many a soldier's kiss dwells on these bearded lips.)

 

As someone who enjoys making connections between events, ideas, people, and places, the poem I carry  connects our recent family trip to Washington D.C., compassion shown at a recent horrific event in Boston, my love for reading poetry and national poem in your pocket day.

What poems do you pair with news events?  What poem are you carrying for Poem in Your Pocket Day 2013?

 

Drawn to Science

Shhh… Let me share a secret with you—one I don’t announce loudly, often, or really at all in my regular work with certified science teachers.

When I started teaching in the fall of 1998, I spent one semester in a tiny private school as a 5^th-8^th grade English and science teacher.  Those kids were so young compared to the high school students I taught during student teaching, and I was inexperienced and worried about how I could possibly teach science, since I was only certified to teach English.  I learned alongside my students.  We hiked, collected leaves, and conducted rudimentary experiments without a lab.  At the end of the semester I was offered a high school English teaching position and promptly left the tiny school and my young students, but not before realizing what mattered to me most was teaching.  While I longed to read and discuss literature with high school students, I was even more interested in seeing students have aha! moments, no matter the topic. 

Since that semester I have been driven to learning more about science, and it’s been very nourishing. I read science blogs, articles, books, and I help my sons with various science projects.  A scientist would probably tell me reading about science doesn’t really compare to doing science, so that’s why I tend to keep my semester of teaching science a secret. 

At age 8, my oldest son begged us to buy him a solar panel kit. 
As it turned out, we had to solder tiny panels together,
so I learned more than I ever anticipated with this fun adventure--thanks to Ethan.

 Not to be kept a secret is this growing list of science blogs I read.

Oliver Sacks, M.D. I’ve been reading books by Oliver Sacks since 1994 when an English professor in college knew I was interested in the study of human behavior and the mind.  This professor handed me the book—The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat, and my long time reading interest in the works of Oliver Sacks began.  How cool is that?—an English professor didn’t try to convince me to only read what interested him—he handed me a book he knew might interest me.

Endless Forms Most Beautiful   Several of the blogs I read now have come to me via Twitter, including this one by Kimberly Moynahan.  Last fall I wrote a post about a moth we saw while at a professional development training.  Shortly thereafter, Kimberly was following me on Twitter, so I don’t know if she saw my blog or not, but I’ve been reading her blog since then.  Endless Forms Most Beautiful is captivating with beautiful and interesting photographs and great information for someone like me who keeps trying to learn about the world in which I live.  Another note--Kimberly started a list of all the bloggers in Canada, so check out this document for an ongoing list.

Scijourner The Kentucky Writing Project director told me about this blog when I saw her at the Kentucky Council for Teachers of English Annual Conference.  This blog is written by teens—a great example of science writing we might use in our classrooms.

Erin C. McKiernan  I have a hidden interest in neuroscience and found this blog through random google searches I was conducting because of stories I follow about individuals with long term brain damage.  This site has been up only a few months, but already I enjoy the postings on a regular basis.

Patrick Goff A blog about teaching middle school science.  I enjoy learning about science and the teaching of science from an National Board Certified Teacher who's inspiring and dedicated.

Tricia Shelton A blog by a high school science teacher who I met via Twitter. She's kept me motivated to dig deeper into instructional design for science as she leads work around the Next Generation Science Standards.

Feel free to share additional science resources and blogs you think will help me continue learning.

Narrative and Informational Texts & the Common Core

“There’s my nonfiction loving friend”— my friend announced to me not long ago when we ran into one another on the soccer field where our sons were playing.  Indeed, I enjoy reading nonfiction, as I’ve blogged about previously, but I love a good novel, short story or collection of poems, too.  One of my favorite aspects of the nonfiction book I just finished was the narrative embedded throughout.   While reading The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks  by Rebecca Sloot, I experienced a biology refresher without having to read an informational textbook like text.  I’ll spare you my version of a summary or book review because the New York Times did a better job than I will, and I’d rather write about the topic of teaching narrative and informational text to K-12 students, especially given the dictates of the common core standards which call for greater emphasis on informational text.  

This demand has caused a wide range of feelings and reactions from educators across the United States.  Some embrace the idea; others are outraged.  Most teachers with whom I have spoken plan to do what needs to be done to meet the needs of their students.  In a PBS Newshour report from May 14, 2012, John Marrow stated befittingly “savvy teachers do what works best.”  The report included interviews with teachers and administrators implementing a variety of reading programs for elementary aged students, and it questioned whether the common core standards will pay off.

As you will likely have noticed in the Newshour report, I’m not alone in thinking we don’t actually have to give up narrative completely.   Savvy teachers will do what works best when teaching students to read, write, speak, and listen and to be intelligent citizens in a global society.  Let’s consider Thomas Newkirk’s argument “Narrative is the deep structure of all good writing.  All good writing.  We struggle with writers who dispense with narrative form and simply present information because we are given no frame for comprehension.”   Acting on this proposition, we need to help students analyze text when they read and teach them to employ similar structures when they write.

Others have also written about not giving up narrative completely and with good reason; we can learn about various topics by reading narrative.  Take for example the way I experienced a biology refresher when reading Rebecca Skloot’s book.  I guarantee I would not have cared as much about DNA, cells and chromosomes had no narrative context been provided for me.  Skloot drew me into the story by telling me about the life of an African American woman from poverty whose cells were taken from her without permission and then used in research allowing scientists and researchers to profit.

Consider this explanation of cells and DNA from The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot.

“Everybody always talking about cells and DNA,”  Deborah said at one point, “but I don’t understand what’s DNA and what’s in her cells.”  “Ah!”  Christoph said, excited, “DNA is what’s inside the cell! Inside each nucleus, if we could zoom in closer, you’d see a piece of DNA that looked like this.”  He drew a long squiggly line. “There’s forty-six of those pieces of DNA in every human nucleus.  We call those chromosomes—those are the things that were colored bright in that picture I gave you.”

Told within the context of narrative the explanation makes sense and serves as a nice biology refresher for me.  Would this explanation work in a biology classroom?  What if a teacher paired this explanation with other print and non-print texts to help students comprehend?  By providing students opportunities to read and to write interesting and complex texts we prepare them for life and the experiences that await them.

Thomas Newkirk.  “How We Really Comprehend Nonfiction.” Educational Leadership.  March 2012.

Rebecca Skloot.  The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks.  New York, Crown Publishers, 2010.

Resources:
http://www.corestandards.org/the-standards

http://learning.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/06/26/engaging-nonfiction-the-times-the-common-core-and-a-question-for-you/

http://dogtrax.edublogs.org/category/common-core/

For elementary: 

http://www.ucrl.utah.edu/pro-dev/instruction/lesson3.html

http://www.csun.edu/~bashforth/305_PDF/305_FinalProj/TeachingNarrativeStructureAwareness_RT_Oct2007.pdf

For secondary:

http://www.scholastic.com/teachers/top-teaching/2012/05/analyzing-text-structures

http://www.adlit.org/strategies/23336/

https://www.teachingchannel.org/videos/improve-student-writing-skills?fd=1

Literary vs. Informational Text: it's not either/or

An eruption of face to face and online conversations over the past year have centered on the demand for more informational texts to be taught in classrooms across the United States as part of the Common Core State Standards initiative.   As I’ve blogged about previously, I don’t believe this directive requires us to stop teaching literature.  A carefully balanced approach to instruction provides students with opportunities to read a variety of complex and appropriately challenging texts.  We do not have an either (literature) /or (non-fiction) scenario. 

 

Yesterday I was with educators from elementary backgrounds who claimed English teachers need to learn from them because they have been “pairing texts forever since that’s the way basal readers are designed.” (Pretty sure the Dick and Jane series wasn’t designed like this, but surely these educators are referencing the more contemporary design of American textbooks today) No doubt, we all have something to learn from one another, regardless of our teaching level. Nevertheless, creating text parings is not a novel idea; it is something teachers at any grade level have been doing or can start doing with ease.  Text pairings have been part of my teaching approach since I entered the teaching profession in 1998; it just makes sense to design lessons drawing on multiple perspectives, genres, or disciplines. 

Following my day with the educators referenced above, I returned home to find my husband, unexpectedly, cleaning out our garage (where my 8 tubs of teaching materials are stored), so I decided to peruse a few of those tubs and to ponder (again) text pairings I used in my classroom. 

Unifying focus:  Freedom from convention

The Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams

Greyed Rainbow by Jackson Pollock

Scholastic Art borrowed class set from art teacher to for class to read article about Pollock.

Colors by Ken Nordine

Unifying focus:  Complexity in life and nature

Starry Night by Vincent Van Gogh

The Starry Night by Anne Sexton

Starry Night by Tupac Shakur

Van Gogh in Auvers from Smithsonian magazine January 2008

Unifying focus:  Identity

The Way to Rainy Mountain by N. Scott Mommaday

Identity card by Mahmoud Darwish

Poems written by students

Various non-fiction writings by students

The skill of pairing texts rests in selecting texts to meet the needs of learners in an individual classroom, so let the text pairings referenced here serve as inspiration for selecting texts that will suit the needs of your students’ demographics and learning needs. 

As you look for more inspiration, consider following the work of Sarah Brown Wessling.  Last spring I participated in NCTE’s virtual conference Supporting Teachers in a Time of Core Standards.  It was here where I met (virtually) 2010 National Teacher of the Year, Sarah Brown Wessling, who talks about fulcrum texts, context, texts, and texture texts.  What an inspiring way to think about text selection!    

5 Terrific Pairings of Print and Non-print Texts to Increase Engagement

Having always had an interest in photography, film, and non-fiction, I never had much trouble incorporating the reading of non-print texts into the classes I taught. When reading fiction, I generally paired it with non-fiction or non-print text based on a general topic or theme. Text pairing is not only an effective way to engage students; it also provides opportunity to teach students many of the important skills they need to be successful in life.

Fortunately when I entered the teaching profession well over a decade ago, the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) and the International Reading Association (IRA) jointly published The Standards for English Language Arts two years prior. I utilized these standards throughout my teaching career, and I still refer to them when working with teachers or when writing and researching programs and policies in my job.

Standard number one calls for students to read a variety of print and non-print texts…

Some of my favorite pairings occurred in the classroom and others outside of the classroom because my young boys and I have enjoyed reading and exploring texts together.

Five of my favorite pairings over the years include…

Pairing #1 Slowly Slowly Slowly Said the Sloth by Eric Carle. Paired with YouTube clips of sloths moving slowly. It was one thing to see the pictures in the book, but curious boys were always interested in seeing video. Here’s one we watched together after reading the book. This was one of the videos we accessed online; there are many more YouTube clips on sloths now, but this one happened to capture our interest several years ago.

Pairing #2 Library Mouse by Daniel Kirk. Paired with images of various libraries and new short award winning film. The boys and I have read and re-read Library Mouse together innumerable times over the past five years. Usually we use it to launch my youngest son into his favorite journal writing activities because he enjoys writing non-fiction. Even now that they are both beyond picture books for their own reading, we still enjoy some of our favorite picture books again and again. In fact, we like Library Mouse so well, I’ve taken to using it in writing workshops with teachers as we explore critical literacies and paired texts. Most recently, I’ve paired the following print and non-print texts for workshops with teachers. The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore short film (link not permitted) and Most Interesting Libraries of the World.

Since my teaching years were spent primarily in high schools, my experience with texts for middle grades is only just beginning as my fifth grader and I discuss the books he now reads. As we transition into those important middle grades years, let me share one of our favorite picture books about Henry David Thoreau.

Pairing #3 Henry Climbs a Mountain by D. B. Johnson paired with images of Walden pond and replicas of Thoreau’s cabin found online. There are actually several books by D.B. Johnson depicting various stages of Thoreau’s life, and we like them all, but our most interesting conversations between mom and sons tend to come from this particular text. Some of these similar conversations were shared with my high school students as we read Walden.

Pairing #4 Walden by Henry David Thoreau and Mexican War Lithograph. This pairing worked nicely because it brought conversations about another aspect of Thoreau’s life, and it also brought history into the classroom. Many of the students I taught in this particular English class were also students who were viewing this same lithograph in their U.S. history class, so students made connections and saw school as more than isolated courses in a school day.

Pairing #5 Ballad of Birmingham by Dudley Randall, Newspaper clipping, and various images from the bombing. Conversations around these texts center not only around the historical event but also around the rights of people in today's society. Are we all treating others appropriately? Are we discriminating against others for any reason or using violence in an attempt to solve our problems, or are we following the lead of Thoreau who practiced civil disobedience?

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