Good Readers Annotate

I have been exploring reading skills that struggling readers lack.  I have already discussed making predictions and making connections.  A skill that I find students really lack is annotation.  If you were to pick up one of my novels off of my bookshelf, you would see notes scribbled all over the page.  Students, however, may have not have been taught what they should be writing in those margins, so they don't see the value of taking the time to jot down notes.  They may also be borrowing a copy of a text from the school, and therefore they can't write directly on the book that they are reading.  This is where A) a letter home suggesting that students may want to purchase their own copy of the novel and/or B) post it notes will come in very handy.

Things that are valuable to write in the margins as you read might include:

• Questions- What does this mean?  Why did he do that? What do I think will happen next?
• Connections- What does this remind me of?  What real world connections can I make?
• Interpretations- What do I think the author means here?  What is she trying to make me think or feel?
• Summaries- How can I put this into my own words?  What is the main idea or the most important thing that I should take away from this part of the text?
• Vocabulary- What does this word mean?  Why did the author make this diction choice?
• Preferences- Did I like or dislike this part or this character?  Why?
• Surprises- I expected something else- why am I surprised by this?
• Major Moments- Something big just happened.  What do I think it might mean?
• Characterization- The character just had a turning point. How do I know?  How do I think the character will be changed?
• Literary Devices- I noticed that the author used a literary device or figurative language. Why would the author choose to do this? 

Once you model annotation with your students, ensure that they understand when to annotate, and allow them to practice this skill, I believe that they will see improvement in their reading comprehension skills.  Not only is annotation something that helps readers in the real world, but annotation is a skill that will help kids to do better on their reading comprehension standardized exams.  While teachers don't want to feel that they are "teaching to the text," we also want our students to feel confident and prepared when those exams come around.

Food for Thought... Have you taught your students how to annotate text?  How did it go?

Good Readers Make Connections

In a previous post, I discussed the importance of making predictions when we read.  Another skill that struggling readers need to learn and practice is making connections.  If a student is not making connections as they read, they are not activating their prior knowledge and therefore they are not getting the richness out of the text that they could be.  

There are different kinds of connections that students should be aware of:

• Text to self- does something in the text remind me of something from my own life?
• Text to text- does something remind me of something that I read in another text?
• Text to world- does something remind me of something that has happened in the world?  For example, maybe something that I saw on the news or something that I learned about in Social Studies or History class?   
• Text to media- does something remind me of something that I watched (in a movie or on TV), read (online) or heard (in a song, on a radio show, etc.)

Here are some basic questions/sentence starters for students who need support in making connections:

• This reminds me of...
• An experience that I have had that is similar to that is...
• This reminds me of the book _______ because...
• How might this book lead me to live my life in a different way?
• This part is like...
• This character is like __________ because...
• This is similar to...
• The differences between _______ and ________ are....
• I also...
• I never...
• This setting reminds me of...
• How does this character compare to my all time favourite character?
• What is something that you have learned this year that comes up in the text?
• I can relate to this character because...

Making connections is important because it can add to the imagery - if you can make a connection of some kind, it is easier to visualize what is happening in the text.  It also helps us to better understand the characters.  Connections can help us to build empathy and to understand motivation.  Making connections can also help the reader to be more engaged in the text because they can place themselves in the text and think more deeply about what is happening.

I would encourage my students to make connections by adding post-it notes to the text to annotate as they read.  After the reading is complete, I might have them pull out one of their post it notes and expand on it.  They can take the original post-it note and place it in their notebook.  From here, they can expand their thinking about this connection by using some of the above questions and sentence starters.

We can also frame a text with a question that helps students to make connections to a text that they are going to read.  If a text seems to complex and daunting, a student might feel as though they have no connection to it.  We need to share the relationship that we have to the text so that they can understand why we read literature.  For example, instead of telling students that you will be studying Romeo and Juliet, tell them that you will be thinking about if we should be loyal to our families, even if it means giving up something that you really want.  Romeo and Juliet is merely a text that you are using to help you to explore that framing question.

Food for Thought... how do you help your students to make connections?

Blackout Poetry

I often struggle when it comes to teaching Poetry.  I want to find a balance between appreciation for Poetry as an art form and skills that students will need - analysis of Poetry is a skill that is assessed on their standardized exams.  I'm often looking for ways to teach Poetry that are A) fun B) allow students to analyze use of language and C) connect to a larger text or unit that I teach (this means that I don't need to teach a stand alone "Poetry" unit, and can instead weave Poetry throughout the year).

I first saw an example of blackout poetry at a session at an NCTE conference.  Students were studying Les Miserables, and they created blackout poetry on some of the pages.  I have not been able to have an extra paperback for kids to write directly in, so I decided to photocopy a few pages from a variety of novels instead.  I have also had students do blackout poetry with pages in the newspaper.

Once students have a page that they will engage with, I tell them to scan the page.  They are not reading for comprehension.  Rather, they are looking for key words and phrases that jump out at them.  Students are trying to find a key word or phrase to create their poem around.

Once students have a "main idea" for their poem, they can scan the text to find words to build their poem.  Blackout poems are often very short- as in one or two sentences.  That is okay.  Students are practicing working with language (every word of a poem is deliberate) and working with main idea (they are building a poem around an idea and looking for language to help them to express that idea).

I have found that this is a great way to introduce a larger text, like a novel.  I can choose a few pages that are rich in language and photocopy these.  Students can work with the language on those pages to create poetry.  Not only are they working with the words of the author that we are about to study, but they are also getting a sneak peek into the novel - which allows them to engage in the text, make predictions, and make connections.

Food for Thought... what are your favourite Poetry activities to do with your students? 

I Read... Jane, the Fox & Me

I wasn't kidding when I said that I was on a graphic novel kick.  Jane, the Fox & Me has been on my bookshelf for over a year.  I picked it up because it was beautiful - I hadn't heard anything about it, and I had no idea what it was about.  All I knew was that I liked everything about the look of the book - from the use of colour to the art to the feel of the paper.  It is absolutely gorgeous.  In this case, I definitely judged a book by its cover.  Luckily for me, it paid off in a wonderful way.

Like many of the graphic novels that I have read, this one is about that awkward adolescent phase.  It seems as though the graphic form is a wonderful medium for allowing characters to explore identity.  Helene is a girl who has been shunned by her group of girlfriends.  She doesn't want to burden her busy mother with her problems.  Does this sound like a familiar story?  I think that all of us have a little Helene in us.  Every part of Helene drips with insecurity.

Luckily Helene has literature to disappear into.  She falls in love with Jane Eyre, which I can definitely relate to.  Jane's story is a perfect reflection of Helene.  She sees Jane as someone that she can at once relate to and aspire to be like.  Everyone who has felt like Helene needs a world to escape into, and I could feel Helene escaping into Jane's world.

Helene seems content to live in her private world, but then she is confronted with the reality of a camping trip with her whole class.  There won't be anywhere to hide.  An almost magical interaction with a fox and meeting a group of misfits slowly changes Helene and she starts to understand where she fits into the world.

What stood out to me the most in this book was the way that the combination of text and image made Helene's pain palpable.  The "mean girls" weren't just mean - they were cruel.  Helene wasn't just lonely - she was alone.  If you are looking for a text to explore the topics of identity, bullying, alienation, being an outsider or growing up, this is a fantastic resource to pick up.

Food for Thought... which characters in literature do you find to be the most relatable?  Why?

Carousel Brainstorming That Encourages Inquiry

Earlier this month, all of the teachers in our city gathered for our annual two-day teacher's convention.  I was lucky enough to present on reading strategies for secondary students.  As I closed the doors to the full house that I presented in (yikes!), I commented that I was surprised to have so many people attending my session as it was bright and early on a Friday morning.  The participants told me that the word "secondary" is what brought them in- they find that there is a lot of support available for younger students who struggle to read, but not much for the older students.  As a result, teachers often feel alone and stuck.  They want to help their older struggling readers, but they just don't know how.  

The first strategy that we used in the session was carousel brainstorming.  This certainly isn't a revolutionary idea, and I'm sure that many of the teachers in the room had already done some form of carousel brainstorming.  I took the work of Dr. Jeffrey Wilhelm, who has done a lot of work on using inquiry to support struggling readers, to make the carousel brainstorming more meaningful. Dr. Wilhelm did a study on boys to find out why they under-perform girls in every area of literacy.  While I am over-simplifying his findings here, one thing that stood out was that boys needed to see the point or purpose of the activity, and to think that the purpose was worthwhile, in order to buy in and seek out mastery.  This partially explains why boys tend to prefer non-fiction to fiction.  If I want to learn how to fix the motherboard of my computer, I will find a non-fiction piece on that subject. At the end of the reading, I will have the knowledge that I was looking for.  I understand the purpose, I buy in to the purpose, therefore I engage fully in the activity.  It is often more difficult for boys to find a similar purpose in fiction.

So how can I take this research and use it to improve my teaching?  I used it to improve my ordinary carousel activity.  I took the reading that I used in my PD session, and I looked for some juicy (or what Dr. Wilhelm called "sexy") questions that I could get students to buy into.  I used an article on factory farming and food animals to demonstrate that these strategies were not "English Language Arts" strategies, but could be used across content areas.  Some of the framing questions that I came up with were:

• Why do some people choose to be vegetarians?
• Why do some people choose to eat meat?
• What are some reasons to eat fast food?
• What are some reasons to avoid fast food?
• Do you care how the cow who produces your milk is treated?     

I tried to create a variety of questions that students in a secondary classroom would relate to and would have an opinion on.  If I were in a classroom, I might ask the kids to help me to craft better questions before engaging in the carousel activity.  In the case of this group of participants, they were definitely most interested in the questions related to fast food. 

Once you have good "juicy" questions, it is time to get the kids up and moving, engaging with the questions.  The carousel activity allows kids to make predictions, make connections, and engage prior knowledge, all skills that strong readers use. 

Food for Thought... do you use framing questions in your teaching?  What are some of the most successful questions that you have used to engage your students?

Shakespeare or 90s Rap?

One of my favourite ways to start off a study of poetry is to ask students to finish the sentence, "Poetry is...".  I always get a dichotomy of responses- students who love poetry and think that it is the most pure form of expression and students who think that  poetry is stupid and wish that the poet would just say what they mean.  To both sides, I present the following: Shakespeare or 90s rap?  Quiz your students to see who they think spat out the following sick rhymes (answers given below):

1. "I'll teach you how to flow."

2. "United we stand, yes, divided we fall. Together we can stand tall."

3. "He speaks plain cannon fire, and smoke and bounce."

4. "I exist in the depths of solitude pondering my true goal." 

5. "That's an ill phrase."

6. "Holla, holla!"

7. "You know very well who you are. Don't let them hold you down, reach for the stars."

8. "I am the dog: no, the dog is himself, and I am the dog - Oh! the dog is me and I am myself."

9. "To destroy the beauty from which one came."

10. "The most benevolent king communicates through your dreams."

11. "You knights of Tyre are excellent in making ladies trip."

12. "What is life? Life is a big obstacle put in front of your optical to slow you down."

13. "Just as high as my heart."

14. "This style is terror, drastic."

15. "Thou art raw."

16. "Our tongue is rough, coz, and my condition is not smooth."

17. "I act on what I feel and never deal with emotions."

18. "Our cake's dough on both sides."

19. "Trip no further, pretty sweeting."

20. "Look, when I serve him so, he takes it ill."

If your students like the idea of making connections between Shakespeare and hip hop, be sure to share this Ted Talk video with them!

(The Tempest, Public Enemy, King John, Tupac, Hamlet, King Lear, Notorious BIG, The Two Gentlemen of Verona, Jay-Z, Wu Tang Clan, Pericles, Eminem, As You Like It, Nas, As You Like It, Henry V, Dr. Dre, The Taming of the Shrew, Twelfth Night, The Comedy of Errors)

Food for Thought... how do you engage your kids in difficult subject matter?

I Read... Thirteen Reasons Why

I was looking at my bookshelf to see what I should write a review for, and I couldn't believe that I haven't written one for Thirteen Reasons Why by Jay Asher yet.  I am often looking for a modern YA book that I can teach in my high school class, and this has been on the top of several suggested lists that I have come across online.  While I personally wouldn't feel comfortable teaching this novel, I would definitely encourage teachers to have it on their bookshelves as I think that a lot of students would benefit from reading this novel.

Chances are good that you have heard of Thirteen Reasons Why - Hannah has committed suicide and leaves behind clues for her friend Clay that outline the thirteen reasons that contributed to this.  As Clay listens to the clues unfold, the reader learns that we really don't know what kind of footprint we leave on those around us - Clay certainly didn't know how he impacted Hannah's life.  As Hannah says, "no one knows for certain how much impact they have on lives of other people. Oftentimes, we have no clue. Yet we push it just the same".  When you start to realize this, you rethink how you treat others and what you are putting out into the world.  Will others be glad that they have come across me in some way?  Or will they be harmed for meeting me?

The reason that I would hesitate to teach the novel is that suicide can be such a devastating topic for so many.  I fear that I would not have the knowledge to present the subject matter in a way that would fully respect the wide range of emotions and reactions that students might have.  The reason that I think students would like the book, however, is that it gives us insight into the mind of a suicidal teen.  When someone is lost to suicide, those who are left behind often feel lost.  They wonder why this person thought that suicide was the only way out or what they could have done to help.  While Hannah's story is not the story of everyone lost to suicide, it is one story.  By hearing, in her own words, what led her to this decision, we can start to understand how mental illness can cloud our judgement and why someone might be led to believe that death is the best answer.

To end, I will quote Jenny Lawson from her blog post "Depression Lies":

     Stay real. Stay alive. Stay vigilant against a**holes who make you question yourself. We already        get enough of that from the doubting voices in our heads and the lies depression tells us. Listen to      my voice, now. You are real. You are worthwhile. You are so important both in ways you will            discover, and in ways you'll never see. You send out needed ripples of greatness and kindness in  
     unexpected and accidental ways.
     You won't always see wonderful ways in which you shift the world. They may be invisible to you.      But I promise you they are real.