Webinar: Using Diverse Picture Books to Craft Critical Middle and Secondary Classrooms

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Literacy in the Disciplines, 6-12 (LiD) is pleased to announce our first after-school Webinar Series session.
A Picture[book]’s Worth a Thousand Words: Using Diverse Picture Books to Craft Critical Middle and Secondary Classrooms.

Through juxtaposing images and text, picture books have the unique power to facilitate critical reading and critical literacy for students of all grade levels, reading readiness levels, and with diverse interests. This webinar presents three analytical approaches to develop critical reading and critical literacy skills through picture books to help students: (1) critically analyze broad representation, (2) engage in critical visual analysis, and (3) analyze voices and perspectives in picture books. Through approaches like these, teachers can use picture books to craft critical classrooms. Concrete examples will be used that allow participants to immediately apply these approaches in their classes.

When: Thursday, February 24, 2022, 6-7PM ET. The video for this webinar is embedded below.

Cost: Free. LiD6-12 is funded by the South Carolina Middle Grades Initiative.

This session will feature Dr. Jennifer D. Morrison from the University of South Carolina.

Dr. Jennifer D. Morrison is a Clinical Assistant Professor at the University of South Carolina and a National Board Certified Teacher in AYA/ELA. She earned her Ph.D. from the University of Nevada, Reno, in Language, Literacy, and Culture. She worked as a middle and high school English teacher and instructional coach for 19 years. Her research agenda focuses on teacher induction, literacy attainment (particularly digital and multimodal), and teacher inquiry processes. She has been published in such journals as English Journal, Journal of Adolescent and Adult Literacy, Talking Points, Principal Leadership, and Educational Leadership.

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“Which Truck is the Best Choice?” A story of Authentic Motivation to do an Inquiry Project

Collaboration

By: Priscila J.B.M. Costa and Felipe Costa

The Ignition

It was September, a couple of months into the outbreak of COVID-19, and school buildings were closed for in-person learning. My son was beginning his 5^th grade year and working on schoolwork virtually through daily Google Meets and several other learning platforms. We also decided to give him a smartphone to help develop better digital literacy skills. One day, while I was driving and running errands, he blurted from the backseat, “Mom, I don’t understand! This website says the Ford F-450 is the best, but at the end, it says that GMC 3500HD is better than the Ford. It doesn’t make any sense.”

As an educator and language teacher, I saw a teaching opportunity. His elementary school was a school of choice created as a national demonstration site for inquiry-based instruction. Souto-Manning et al. (2010) describe well the vision of the school and how teachers approach self-motivated inquiry. Felipe attended this particular school for two years and already learned how to take agency over his own inquiry projects. His interest in the topic of trucks was a motivating factor to use his inquiry skills on a real-life problem. It was also an opportunity to build a new digital literacy skill.

I said, “I can’t read what is on the website because I am driving now, but you can tell me more about what you are reading.”

“I’m searching which truck is the best, but in this website sometimes they say one thing, and then they say the opposite. Why don’t they make up their minds?” he asked.

“I agree. That does not make sense. Is it the same person writing the whole article, or are there several people sharing their opinions about various trucks?”

He described what he saw on the screen of his phone, “I think there is a question at the top, and people write their answers. One person wrote the Ford F-450 is better because it has more torque. It is a stronger work truck. Then, I continued reading, and there is this other person who said that the GMC 3500HD is better because it has more internal space and it is more comfortable.”

The Road to Learning

He was engaged in reading and motivated to find an answer. I pictured a Quora style forum. Reading that kind of multimodal genre requires specific literacy skills. The New London Group (1996) proposed the concept of multiliteracies, which expands the conventional definition of literacy to encompass reading texts in many other modalities beyond print. It includes new media such as all the digital resources offered by mobile devices and the Internet (Kalantzis & Cope, n.d., 2015). Jones and Hafner (2012) explain that “digital literacies involve not just being able to ‘operate’ tools like computers and mobile phones, but also the ability to adapt the affordances and constraints of these tools to particular circumstances” (p. 13).

In this circumstance, I replied to him, “That sounds like a discussion forum. It is a website where anyone can ask questions about any topic, and people who know about that topic can join and give their answers. Some answers are better than others. Some are based on facts, like scientific research, and others are just their opinions based on experience. Are those answers about the trucks based on truck facts?”

“Well, there are some facts. Like, the first one says that the Ford F-450 has 1050 lb-ft of torque. That is a fact. The other says that the GMC 3500HD has a softer suspension and it rides smoother, and that is also a fact,” he answered.

I continued asking, “Look at those facts. I don’t know much about trucks, but it sounds like they are not about the same features. I believe they are comparing apples to oranges. Why is that?”

Parking for a Lesson

He explained, “I think it depends on their opinion on what makes a good truck. Some people want a heavy-duty truck to use for work or to pull a big trailer. Other people prefer comfort and space when they use the truck to travel. So, at the end, when you read these answers, you can make your own decision depending on what you prefer for a truck.”

“And what is your conclusion?” I finally asked.

He concluded, “For me, the Ford F-450 is better because I want to have more power than comfort.”

Great! He built a literacy skill then and there. In this micro inquiry, he was able to make a critical analysis of the data he collected from the online forum. His engagement with the topic gave him motivation to read critically from a digital source and address his question. All those skills can be transferred to his academic work now that he is in middle school, because they help him read in search of information.

References

Jones, R. H., & Hafner, C. A. (2012). Understanding digital literacies: A Practical introduction. Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group.

Kalantzis, M., & Cope, B. (n.d.). Kalantzis and Cope on New Media Literacies: Technology’s Impacts on Communication [Com]. New Learning Online. Retrieved October 27, 2021, from https://newlearningonline.com/literacies/chapter-2/kalantzis-and-cope-on-new-media-literacies

Kalantzis, M., & Cope, B. (2015). Learning and New Media. In D. Scott & E. Hargreaves (Eds.), The SAGE Handbook of Learning (pp. 373–387). SAGE.

New London Group. (1996). A Pedagogy of Multiliteracies: Designing social futures. Harvard Educational Review, 66(1), 60–92.

Souto-Manning, M., Mills, H., & O’Keefe, T. (2010). Teacher as Researcher: Collaborative Inquiry: From Kidwatching to Responsive Teaching. Childhood Education, 86(3), 169–171. https://doi.org/10.1080/00094056.2010.10523141

About the Authors

Priscila J.B.M. Costa is an international doctoral student in Language and Literacy, a Holmes Scholar Alumna, and an adjunct instructor in the First Year English program at the University of South Carolina.

Felipe Costa is a bilingual 6th-grader and a truck expert.

Motivating and Engaging Readers in Literacy Practices in the Classroom

Teaching

By: Dr. Leslie D. Roberts, Assistant Professor of Reading at Georgia Southern University

Helping students develop a love for reading is a contentious and often enigmatic topic for both educators and researchers. The thought process of “this technique helped motivate me to read in school, so it should motivate my students to read” is often flawed. As educators, we learn that practices that are effective for increasing the reading motivation for one group of students, may not be helpful for another group of students; furthermore, the same practices that were once successful with a group, may not continue to work for them as they matriculate through school. In this sense, reading motivation is a fluid construct that educators are constantly striving to achieve with their students.

Perhaps my favorite book about reading motivation is No More Reading for Junk: Best Practices for Motivating Readers (2016) by Barbara Marinak and Linda Gambrell. In this text, Marinak and Gambrell remind us that it’s not enough to teach a student to read, but we need to instill an intrinsic love of reading. They also reiterate that motivating students to read should not involve rewarding them with prizes, pizza parties, points, or other public forms of display like keeping track of books read by individual students or comparing classroom reading progress. These types of systems often perpetuate a sense of competition, which may be helpful to motivate some students extrinsically, while simultaneously disengaging others who worry about their status in competition. And, for all of us who’ve experienced a reading program in school that awarded us free pizzas for reading books, we can attest that these incentives do not last into adulthood.

Motivating readers requires more than giving rewards for completing books, encouraging competitions to see who can read the most books, or asking them to read a number of texts in an allotted amount of time. The key is to ensure our students experience an authentic and intrinsic love of reading while in our classrooms, but how do we accomplish this when there are so many ‘gimmicks’ out there claiming to promote good reading habits? In order to encourage students’ intrinsic reading motivation and support them on their journey to becoming life-long readers, research suggests the need to look at students’ value of reading and their expectations for success with reading.

Ways to support life-long reading habits with students:

1) Allow Students to Make their Own Reading Choices

Researchers agree that choice of reading is a motivating factor for readers of all ages (Fisher & Frey, 2012; Ivey, 1999; Wigfield & Eccles, 2000). When empowered to choose a text about a topic or genre of interest, students will likely place a higher value on reading. Considering that books act as mirrors and windows (Bishop, 1990), allowing students to view themselves (mirrors) and to learn about others (windows) in the books they read, encouraging choice of text plays an integral part in creating insightful, reflective, and motivated readers.

2) Ensuring Students Have Access

Ensuring students have access to texts will likely increase their value of reading. Access may include varied exposure to books by taking trips to the library, providing a brief overview of a book through book talks, and being able to suggest books to students. Access to reading also refers to providing a space and time for reading occur during the school day (Gambrell 2009; Krashen, 2011). However, it is important to note, that this time should be intentionally carved into the school day, not just when students finish work early. It is crucial the time spent reading is substantial to allow students time to “get into a book.” Rather than allotting a few minutes every day for reading time, it is better to devote longer periods of time for reading every few days.

3) Reconsider What Counts as Reading

Reconsidering what counts as reading can also prove helpful for reluctant readers who prefer other forms of reading than the traditional book. Blog posts, graphic novels, comic books, and books with integrated technology represent some of the various alternatives to traditional texts that can engage unengaged readers and increase their expectations for success with reading.

4) Create Authentic Reading Experiences

We should strive to create authentic reading experiences for our students. When we consider the question, “how do I motivate myself to read?” we typically think of having a book that regularly engages us and makes us want to return to it again and again, until we’ve finished it. The same principle goes for our students. Reading shouldn’t be seen as a chore, and just because the initial part of a book was engaging, doesn’t mean it will hold students’ interest until completion. Students should be allowed to test and try books until they’ve found a “good fit book” they want to return to again and again.

Furthermore, after we’ve finished a great book, we generally don’t think of immediately creating a diorama of a scene from the book we’ve read, taking a test, or creating a book report to prove we’ve read this book, so we shouldn’t expect our students to be entirely motivated to do these things either. To ensure an authentic reading experience and still hold students accountable for reading, consider having them produce a book review. This could be on a teacher-made website or allowing students to create their own goodreads accounts. With this, students are able to find more books that may be of interest and participate in a community of readers and reviewers.

Creating Life-long Learners

Life-long readers are created through positive experiences with books in varied environments and teaching practices. Allowing students to see value in their reading experiences, as well as feel successful in their reading endeavors, are the keys to promoting intrinsic reading motivation. A one-size-fits-all approach, or a reading system built on rewards and prizes for reading, is rarely effective to instilling intrinsic reading motivation. Perseverance, patience, and flexibility are of utmost importance in fostering reading motivation with students. While this at times may seem exhausting and overwhelming, cultivating students who are life-long readers is the best reward a student and teacher could receive.

References

Bishop, R. S. (1990). Mirrors, windows, and sliding glass doors. Perspectives, 6(3), ix-xi.

Fisher, D. & Frey, N. (2012). Motivating boys to read: Inquiry, modeling, and choice matter. Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, 55(7), 587-596.

Gambrell, L. B. (2009). Creating opportunities to read more so that students read better. Reading More, Reading Better, 257-258.

Ivey, G. (1999). A multicase study in the middle school: Complexities among young adolescent readers. Reading Research Quarterly, 34(2), 172-192.

Krashen, S. (2011). Free voluntary reading. Libraries Unlimited.

Marinak, B. A., & Gambrell, L. B. (2016). No more reading for junk: Best practices for motivating readers.

Heinemann.Wigfield, A., & Eccles, J. S. (2000). Expectancy–value theory of achievement motivation. Contemporary educational psychology, 25(1), 68-81.

About the Author

Dr. Leslie D. Roberts is an assistant professor of reading at Georgia Southern University. Having been a middle school ELA teacher for five years, she realized how important intrinsic motivation was for her students’ success in reading. Her research focuses on reading motivation for students across grade levels, content areas, and ability levels.

Which Came First – Motivation or Engagement?

Teaching

By: Charlene Aldrich, retired literacy instructor

To be or not to be.

Which came first – the chicken or the egg?

Do motivated students engage in learning more often and/or at higher levels?

Does active engagement result in highly motivated students?

Rhetorical questions? Maybe not! Because it’s every teacher’s desire to instruct highly engaged and motivated students, let’s look at how to achieve this outcome!

Engagement and Motivation

Human engagement begins at birth. Motivation to survive is instinctual; crying demands engagement. Survival is assured. John Bowbly writes that a newborn’s “need for attachment” motivates the demand for engagement. Engagement/attachment is achieved through proximity which fosters personal security. Similarly, Abraham Maslow theorizes that physiological and safety needs must be met prior to love and belonging needs. These are prerequisite for esteem and self-actualization to develop. Innate needs motivate engagement prior to high order needs.

If you have disengaged students, are they missing attachment, sustenance, safety, love, and belonging? And is it possible that Erik Erikson implies that instructional engagement as a result of motivation to learn stems from trust and autonomy needs being met?

Motivational factors: survival, protection, love, belonging – all before esteem and self actualization resulting from education

Engagement strategies: tears, proximity, physical contact – these preface acting out, poor academic performance, and feigned illness behaviors in students.

I’ve not told you anything that you haven’t already studied as educators; it’s just that the silo you live in has been built around the here and now. You may have lost access to vital background knowledge that enables you to discern students’ missing needs that stifle motivation and interfere with engagement. But it’s never too late to adopt new instructional practices and classroom language!

Dr. Timothy Shanahan says that challenging texts are motivating! Struggling students may be struggling readers who lack motivation as a result of “baby text” assignments that require no effort. Audio-visual instruction is passive learning; audio books are not a substitute for individual, independent, active reading. Students must be actively engaged in reading and writing to learn, retain, and apply content. Reading and writing processes require active engagement; changing groups every ten minutes is not active engagement.

Challenging, complex texts demand grit. Teachers who engage students with literacy process practices empower them to accept challenges, persevere, and experience success! Angela Duckworth says grit is the best indicator of future earnings and happiness – factors connected with success and a satisfying life. Accomplishments as the result of hard work are motivating! Participation ribbons are not. Carol Dweck says that the word ‘yet’ is amazing to motivate continued engagement in learning. When teachers believe that more is possible, striving students believe it as well!

The Impact of Open-Ended Questions

My personal favorite way to engage students in challenging reading and writing assignments is with open-ended questions. Every answer has value as a way to shape discussion where the teacher wants it to go. There are no wrong answers! Teachers adapt, reframe, and ask additional leading questions. Each student can experience a place of belonging in an atmosphere that builds corporate knowledge.

“What do you know about…?” opens the discussion on a new topic or introduces a complex text.

“What do you recognize in this word…?” enables students to use visual clues to construct meaning from unfamiliar words.

“What did you read about?” paves the way for main ideas, details, and outlines.

“What happened?” is the foundation for summaries.

And when we follow-up with HOW and WHY questions, we lead students onto the path of critical thinking. “Prove it” is like a double-dare to students. “I don’t know; find out and tell us.” shows our humanness and need to continue OUR education as well. You will probably have to throw in bonus points as tangible reinforcement on the way to inherent satisfaction from learning.

Listen to yourself asking questions. I think you’ll find that “Does anyone know……” is the phrase of choice. This is not an open-ended question; it is binary. That begs a yes or no answer. Striving students and striving readers disengage from the lesson because their head voice says “no.”

Open-ended quick-writes such as bell-ringers and exit tickets allow students to become agents of their own learning:

“What was interesting to you about our topic today?”
“What was confusing?”
“How does today’s topic connect to our lessons earlier in the week?”
“What is something good about today?” “How did you spend your weekend?” “What are you looking forward to this weekend?”
“How does this relate to your career plans?”

Questions don’t always have to be about content! But they DO need to be thought-provoking, sincere, and unpredictable.

You see at the end of the day, ‘correct’ answers and written responses are not as valuable as an answer that a student can support from reading and then, communicate freely in a written response. Correct answers can be found online; students’ answers are found in their brains as a result of active engagement in learning, motivated by successful prior experiences.

And when all else fails, offer chocolate…..

References (in order)

https://www.simplypsychology.org/bowlby.html
https://www.simplypsychology.org/maslow.html
https://www.simplypsychology.org/Erik-Erikson.html
https://shanahanonliteracy.com/publications/teaching-with-complex-text-1
Duckworth, A. Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance, 2016, Simon & Schuster
Dweck, C. Mindset: The New Psychology of Success, updated edition 12/26/2007, Ballentine Books

About the Author

After 20 years of growing literacy in under-prepared college students, Charlene retired to focus on state-wide literacy initiatives such as LiD, 6-12 and her R2S approved literacy courses at College of Charleston. She lets her life speak by empowering teachers to have the confidence and competence to implement a literacy model of instruction in any content area and at every grade level. Her best Covid-19 memory is teaching her grandson Algebra 1 via phone calls, Zoom, text messaging, and FaceTime. It was online instruction at its best – synchronously and interactively.

Fostering a Love of Reading

Teaching

By: Kim Ferrari, South Carolina High School English Teacher

“I hate reading.”

“I don’t read.”

“Books are boring.”

“I’d rather watch the movie.”

These are all statements that I have heard from my high school students throughout my time as an English teacher. At first, I would get disappointed when I heard a statement like that from one of my students, but now I smile and nod at them when they say that because I know that by the end of their semester with me, they won’t have such strong feelings against reading.

What once felt like pulling teeth now feels more like cheering. What is the secret to getting students to not hate reading and maybe actually even fall in love with it? Well, it’s not so much a secret and more just a matter of taking the time to help students find the right book for them. For some students this is done in a matter of minutes, while other students might take a little longer.

Host a Book Tasting

One of my favorite ways of helping students find books that interest them is by holding a book tasting (also known as a book pass or book speed dating). Early in the semester, I work with my media specialist to pull a wide variety of mostly YA novels in different genres: action/adventure, romance, realistic fiction, sci-fi/fantasy, dystopian, historical fiction, graphic novels/comics, sports, and mystery/thriller. We sort the books onto different tables by genre and students rotate through the stations. At each station, students choose one book to sample for 3 minutes, and they are instructed to read the front and back covers, the inside cover, and begin the first chapter. After the 3 minutes has ended, students decide whether the book is a yes, a no, or a maybe, and record it on their graphic organizer. They then rotate to the next table with the next genre and the process repeats.

After students have rotated through all the genres, I pull aside anyone who still needs help finding a book and work with them to look for options that might interest them. Before we leave the media center, students check out one book, though I always have several students asking if they can check out more than one. Depending on how long your class periods are and how many students you have in each class, you can modify how this is set up, but I have found that exposing students to different genres helps them to realize that just because they don’t like a specific type of book doesn’t mean that they don’t like all books.

The Importance of Modeling

Modeling reading for students is important, so while they are reading, I spend the first few rounds circulating the room and “tasting” books. After a few rounds though, I start to look for students who have yet to find a “yes” book and use what I already know about them and what they have rated the books they have already previewed to help me suggest titles at their next station.

Prioritizing Reading

Once students all have books to read, we begin every class with independent reading. The first few days are usually a bit of a struggle as students learn the procedures and expectations for this part of class, but after a week or so, independent reading becomes a regular part of our daily schedule and students know what is expected of them. Our daily schedule is built around independent reading to ensure that no matter what, we have time to read. While students are reading, I walk around the room reading my book. This allows me to model independent reading for them because they can see all the different books I read and it allows me to quietly redirect students who may be off-task or distracted. Modeling reading for students helps to encourage them to read and motivates them to continue reading. Because I am reading when my students are reading, I am able to read a lot of books every year, which helps me recommend titles that I think students will enjoy based on their interests. Independent reading is a skill that needs to be developed over time, so we begin with reading for 7 or 8 minutes and build up to around 15 minutes as students’ stamina increases. The more students are engaged in their books, the longer they will read for, which is another reason helping students find books that interest them is so important. If I notice a student appears to be disengaged with their book, I keep an eye on them and if a day or two later, they’re still not engaged, I have a conversation with them and recommend a different book.

Making independent reading a priority in my classroom has led to increased reading stamina, higher engagement with books, and significantly fewer groans when I announce it’s time to read. At the end of each semester, I ask students to reflect on their experience and every year, there are positive comments that remind me why I put so much effort into helping students find the right books and making independent reading such a focus. Students share that this is the first time in years that they’ve finished an entire book, that they found themselves looking forward to independent reading each day, that they didn’t know reading could be fun, and that our independent reading time gave them a chance to relax. Some students even come back after they leave my class asking for book recommendations or if they can borrow one of my books, so I get to continue to foster their love for reading. When students come back to me years after graduating high school and tell me about the books they’ve read lately, I know I have done my job of creating lifelong readers, which to me is the ultimate goal.

About the Author

Kim Ferrari is an English Teacher at Manning High School in Manning, SC. She received her Bachelor of Science in Secondary English Education from the University of Maine at Farmington and is working on her Master’s in Literacy from Clemson University.

Treating Ourselves How We Treat Others

Teacher Self-Care

By: Victoria Young, South Carolina High School Social Studies Teacher

For about nine months every year we provide a form of childcare for dozens to hundreds of children that are not our own. We teach formulas, literary devices, manners, and life lessons. We watch friend groups change and look out for who has a crush on who. We see the highs and lows of their lives and are ready to support them every step of the way. We care. So, why can’t we do the same for ourselves?

The concept of self-care usually involves an at-home spa day with bath bombs and candles, and if that is something that makes you happy then by all means relax into that bubble bath! However, as the year goes on and we continue to pour out so much of ourselves into the next generation. We often try to fix our burnout with a night of Netflix or a good book, and claim we are fine because yesterday I managed to fit in some “me time” whenever that time of selfishness isn’t meant to be a hallmark event.

As teachers we try to meet the social-emotional needs of our students whether it pertains to school or not, but neglect to see that we actually have a lot of the same needs. Sure, hopefully you do not need to be comforted because Johnny stole your favorite blue pen and now you two aren’t friends anymore, but we still come into our jobs carrying hurt from our own relationships. While we have developed more emotional control as adults, we still have our inner child that is just as hurt, and we don’t have an awesome teacher to see us every day and tell us that it will all be okay and help us work through it. So, we carry these burdens of hurt, of bills, responsibilities, plans, etc. into our classrooms and try to lock them away.

While none of us would like to carry these burdens and we definitely don’t want them to impact who we are with our students, these things are what help us empathize with our kids when they are hurting! However, that doesn’t mean we should have to hang onto these burdens.

Self-care is a tool that is meant to be used every day to meet our social-emotional needs. While it may not get rid of the internet bill (and isn’t that the self-care we all need?) it does help to alleviate the pressure we allow the burdens of life to put on us; it helps us prioritize ourselves over our worries. So, how do you practice self-care without having to sit in a bubble bath?

Self-Care Ideas

1) Do what you want to do!

Now I’m not talking about total social anarchy. What I’m saying here is when you have an hour in the evening with nothing pertinent to do, ask yourself “what do I want to do?” Be the kid that just got home from school and plays their favorite video game for an hour, takes a nap, or goes on a walk for some fresh air. It’s okay to check in with yourself and acknowledge that you need to do something for yourself, even if it is stopping by your favorite ice cream shop after work.

2) Don’t just pencil in time for yourself, write it in ink!

Every teacher has their methods of staying organized. Some have planners with pretty pens and stickers, some are digital agenda pros, and some of us have sticky notes and pieces of paper hidden everywhere. We have busy lives and busy jobs with meetings always changing or friends planning dinners – things we don’t necessarily want to, or can say “no” to. And for those of us who are also parents, that’s multiple schedules you are responsible for! Find one or two days a month that you can block off for yourself and make it non-negotiable, even if it is only for half the day it can make a huge difference. Plan something that you will look forward to – seeing a new movie, going to the zoo with a friend, or even just a day to lay in bed and be lazy. You know what you need, so make time for it and give yourself something to look forward to while you make your sixth parent phone call for the week.

3) Be open to new things.

I don’t know about you, but after this last year of teaching I know I need some consistency in my life. The past 16 months have been full of new things (remember the murder hornets!?) and many of us took to baking bread and learning how to hoard toilet paper. Most of us probably haven’t touched our quarantine hobbies in almost a year, but that time retaught us to try new things, and try again. It also taught us to let go of activities that once brought us joy, but no longer are fulfilling. All of this to say, just because you do something for self-care once and like it, doesn’t mean it will be what works for you always. Eventually you will finish writing that book of poems or the weather will no longer be enjoyable for bike rides with your family. It’s okay to appreciate those things and then move on to something new.

As we enter a new school year with new students and new problems to solve, remember that you are what makes your classroom great. When you open up that new 2021-2022 planner (or that new pack of sticky notes) and start to organize your lessons for the year, remember that a lot of the meaningful lessons we model as teachers have nothing to do with state standards and have so much to do with how to be human. So, in the meantime, draw that bubble bath, turn on your Xbox, or see what time your local ice cream shop closes, and as you rest and prepare for a new school year ask yourself: how can I treat myself with the kindness I treat others?

About the Author

Victoria Young, B.A. Secondary Education/Social Studies, is a geography and world history teacher at Greenville Technical Charter High School in South Carolina.

The Importance of Self-Care

Teacher Self-Care

By: Antoinetta J. Rogers, a South Carolina High School ELA Teacher

The Importance of Self-Care is a simple title one would think requires little effort, but it is a very complex issue for teachers. Within the educational system there is an unspoken hierarchy. This is not to be confused with the official Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. The hierarchy that is being referred to consists of first year teachers, experienced teachers, and then the beloved veteran teachers. Once upon a time, before the world changing pandemic COVID-19 occurred, the issue of self-care would mainly be engrossed upon first year teachers. This was of course implemented to make sure that first year teachers would not burn out. The promoting and encouraging of self-care also assisted with turnover rates and teacher retention. As teachers model, demonstrate, and simply provide so many daily life lessons to students; it is anodyne to say that the 2020-2021 school year taught teachers worldwide that regardless of the years of experience; self-care is essential, vital, and indispensable.

What is Self-Care?

Self-care is self-dependent. Teachers should take advantage of two things. Realizing when to practice self-care and recognizing when the body is in need of self-care. According to Google, self-care is the “individual practice of health management without the aid of a medical professional.” In health care, self-care is “any human regulatory function which is under individual control, deliberate and self-initiated, for the purpose of the maintenance of health and wellbeing.” Teachers give of themselves every single day inside and outside of the classroom. The countless hours of planning and anticipating how lessons flow requires not only a lot physically, but mentally and emotionally as well.

Learning to Disconnect

It is essential that teachers disconnect. This means time specifically set aside for not checking emails, leaving work at work, and setting reasonable and realistic goals. Teachers, instructional coaches, curriculum leaders, administrators, etc. have to be on the same level across the board when it comes to self-care. Most of the time, being on one accord looks like displaying compassion and empathy towards counterparts that are in need of self-care.

Why Now?

Self-care became vital for me at the beginning of the 2020-2021 school year. In my school district, we began teaching in a phase 1 model due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Phase 1 was completely virtual. While I can adapt to technology, teaching completely online was very new and required a lot of planning. I had to rely strictly on technology, and honestly relying stringently on technology can limit plans, but this was the new reality that most teachers had to become accustomed to and rather quickly. Working remotely, I found that my work day would not end until around 9 p.m. nightly for about a month. Needless to say, at the end of the month, I was exhausted. One weekend, I forced myself to make sure that my work was completed by Friday evening and to simply relax on Saturday and Sunday, and it made a huge difference.

Always Remember

Self-care looks differently to every individual. So, my advice to teachers and others in the educational arena is to leave work at work and this has to not only be implemented physically, but mentally as well. As a teacher, I am genuinely connected to my students and their well-being. While I am a professional in every aspect as possible, I still care deeply for my students. Sometimes, it is hard to disconnect from that at the end of the day. There are countless times when my body is tired and in need of rest, but my mind is wondering about what needs to be done for each individual child as well as my class as a whole. It is easier said than done, but it is vital to do most of the time and when it is possible.

Self-care is an obligation. Teachers give time, care, advice, knowledge, and simply themselves daily. It is important to remember that in order to be the best, we must be at our best and take care of ourselves regularly.

About the Author

Antoinetta J. Rogers has seven years of teaching experience and currently teaches Secondary English at Richland Northeast High School.

For Teachers Desiring to Be Anti-Racist

Student Contribution

By: Amber Burton, Addison Lee, Nicole Mesimer, Kathleen Pennyway, and Eliana Pinckney

This list was developed by several students and teachers at Dreher High School. The students involved led a series of community gatherings called “Get Woke Talks” that centered around issues such as racism, gender identity, and activism. These recommendations come from the lived experiences of the writers. We hope you find them useful.

DO’s

1) Demonstrate care and compassion for your students’ identities.

Allow students to attend Black History Month Celebrations and other celebrations of their history and culture. These celebrations are not “extra,” they are essential.
Find books and materials that resonate with your students’ cultural identities. Cover them in class if possible or offer them to students who you know will be interested.
Show up for your students. If your student is a member of the dance team, or the volleyball team, or the debate team, support them and their interests.

2) Make a consistent effort to correctly pronounce a student’s name.

Names represent culture. Correctly pronouncing a student’s name can strengthen the relationship with that student, making them feel accepted and included.
Taking the time to learn a student’s name correctly also shows them that you believe they matter. If you say “it’s too hard” or “I’m never going to learn it,” you are really saying that you do not want to take the time to learn it.
Don’t give them or ask if they have a nickname, unless they tell you first. By asking your students for an alternate name, you continue the pattern of asking students of color to assimilate to white culture. You are renaming them to make you and/or others more comfortable.

3) Show your students that you are human too.

Let students know about your failures as well as your successes.
One of the things discussed in our group was trying to get a banned book approved for the classroom and getting pushback from other stakeholders in the community. This failure led to honest conversations about what teachers can and cannot do in the classroom.
If you make a mistake or cause harm, apologize, do what you can to repair the harm, and don’t make the mistake again. Expect the same from your students.

4) Be brave enough to take a stand.

When you encounter injustice, think about the consequences of staying silent, not just the consequences of speaking up.
Your students of color are watching how you handle racism in the classroom.
If a student makes a racist comment in your classroom and you say nothing, you are choosing your own comfort over the safety of your BIPOC students.

5) Call things what they are.

Call racism and other forms of oppression by their names.

6) Be intersectional.

Kimberlé Crenshaw coined the term “intersectionality” which is a theory describing how all our identities work together and intersect to create different areas of privilege and discrimination.
Understand that both you and your students interact with the world through various identities.
When someone speaks from a different lived experience, do not question their truth because you haven’t experienced it.

7) Treat all students of color the same, regardless of the type of classes they take.

A student who takes all AP and honors classes should be treated the same as a student who only takes CP classes.

8) Include authors from different backgrounds, and not just for work regarding their identity

BIPOC authors do not just write about racism and racial trauma. There are amazing books that highlight the joy and resilience of BIPOC. Make sure you are including those books as well as ones about racism.
You don’t have to just use a Black author for books about race; authors create stories for every aspect and concept of life.

9) Make additional efforts to build relationships with students of color and their families.

Realize that your knowledge of family and cultures is specific, not universal.

DON’Ts

1) Don’t try to be comfortable.

This work doesn’t end, and if you are comfortable then you are accepting the status quo.

2) Don’t assume that parents are talking to their kids about racism and cultural history.

Students have different needs and backgrounds.
Many historical textbooks used in classrooms were written by white authors. Only recently has the erasure of histories of BIPOC been made widely available and accessible.

3) Don’t ask a student of color to speak on behalf of their entire race.

Communities of color are not monolithic.
Putting your students of color on the spot and asking them to speak for their race is harmful and unfair.

4) For white teachers: Do not be a white savior. Don’t extend help based on what you assume a student of color needs. This feeds into the assumption all students of color undergo the same issues.

The white savior complex is ego-driven. It comes from the belief that students of color need “fixing” and that you have the power to do so. This is harmful.
If a student of color is having a bad day, don’t assume it’s because of the stereotypes associated with BIPOC. (Not all students of color come from low-income households or live with a single-parent, etc.) These students are affected by the same issues non-students of color are affected by.
A great example of a white savior in the classroom is the movie Freedom Writers.

Learn More About Antiracist Work

This list is not intended to be a complete list of everything you need to know about antiracist teaching, but hopefully this can give you some things to think about as you move forward in your journey. Some other resources you may find useful are listed below.

Ibram X Kendi’s How to Be an Antiracist and Stamped from the Beginning
Zaretta Hammond’s Culturally Responsive Teaching and the Brain
Ijeoma Oluo’s So You Want to Talk About Race

About the Authors

Pictured left to right are Nicole Mesimer, Kathleen Pennyway, Addison Lee, Eliana Pinckney, Amber Burton.

Amber Burton is 18. In the fall, she will be attending North Carolina A&T State University. She plans to double major in political science and African American studies, with aspirations of becoming a civil rights attorney and a political analyst.
Addison Lee is 17 and will be attending the University of South Carolina to major in public health. She hopes to minor in Women and Gender Studies in order to work on policy making and advocating for underserved communities.
Eliana Pinckney is 17. She will be attending Temple University in the fall to major in musical theatre and public relations.
Nicole Mesimer teaches Spanish at Dreher High School.
Kathleen Pennyway teaches Theatre at Dreher High School.

Don’t Be Afraid to be Anti-Racist

Teaching

By: Nikki Griffin, North Carolina High School Social Studies Teacher

Many times in my career, as a classroom history teacher, I have come across colleagues who are fearful of being anti-racists. These mostly well-meaning teachers are by no means racists, but sometimes lack the courage to be ANTI-RACIST. Here is an important distinction to make for ourselves and for our students – being an anti-racist requires more of us than simply not being racist. Being anti-racist requires action, not just a disposition. Being anti-racist moves us to actively address issues of systemic racism in our schools and in our society. Being anti-racist demands expression of anti-racist ideas that directly challenge racist ideas.

My Journey to Being Anti-Racist

Last year, following the horrific murder of George Floyd and the proliferation of protests across the United States and the world in support of Black Lives Matter, I decided to put my own beliefs about being racist into action and to NOT hide behind my role as a teacher to remain on the sidelines of “teaching history” so I could avoid the more uncomfortable role of being anti-racist. Many of my students sent me messages expressing their sense of frustration that there was nothing they could do to be anti-racist or that they did not know how to show action to express their anti-racist views. My answer to them was almost always the same, “Let your voice be heard” or “Counter racist ideas with getting your own anti-racist ideas out there!” Very often, I would remind these students that they had spent a whole year or more studying history with me and that they had the arsenal of knowledge with which to arm their anti-racist actions. Finally, I decided to take my own advice, step out of my role as classroom teacher, and publish a video called “Opportunity Lost.” Actually, this is a video series that I am still working on and intend to finish this summer.

My message to teachers is that being a teacher does not mean you can not express your own views to the wider world. Just as you expand understanding of anti-racism in your classroom, your unique knowledge of your subject area, students, and community put you in a unique position to share ideas to the broader world to pursue the goal inspiring anti-racism in the world.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ea8ULb42vvU&t=7s

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xvq3WJ7f0BM&t=31s

About the Author

Nicki Griffin has taught high school social studies in North Carolina for 29 years with a focus on AP History and AP Art History Teacher. She attended East Carolina University in Greenville, North Carolina.

Supercharging our Content Teaching with Language Objectives

Teaching

By: Samantha Rainwater, South Carolina High School English Teacher

Back to the Basics

Like every teacher during March of 2020, life threw me quite a difficult curveball: in the course of a few days, I needed to scrap all of the plans and dreams I established with my students and reimagine the rest of the year virtually. I don’t know how y’all handled it, but I was at a complete loss. My very organized book clubs, the brand new unit on The Kite Runner we had just launched, the highly-technical argument unit and Convince Me project we were in the thick of, all of it, upended. I had to start thinking about what—with my very limited time—I would focus on with my students. Ultimately, I decided that literacy through interesting and meaningful reading and writing would be my primary focus for the rest of the year.

I bring this up specifically to discuss how, even as an English teacher, I have a lot of content that doesn’t fall under the “reading skills” category. However, literacy is the key to our students’ ability to access our content. If I wanted my students to be prepared for the next school year, the task was not to continue my content-heavy units or teach all the figurative terms they would encounter in English 3, but to make sure that students’ literacy skills continued to develop.

We’ve heard it all before, maybe from a district official or an administrator at the beginning of the year: We are all reading teachers. But let’s be real. We have standards and pacing guides and benchmark assessments and end-of-course tests and the list goes on. For content-area teachers, how can we possibly add on the task of developing students’ literacy? After all, they take ELA.

The Case for Disciplinary Literacy

I had a major revelation this year when it came to literacy, and I think in many ways my background as an English teacher kept me from this revelation sooner. Secondary education relies on literacy skills as a means of accessing content knowledge; however, literacy isn’t just literacy. There are two major theories regarding how literacy works: content-area literacy, which suggests reading strategies transfer between content areas (Vacca, Vacca, and Mraz 2011), and disciplinary literacy (Shanahan & Shanahan, 2012), which suggests and “acknowledges that different disciplines contain different purposes for language, ways of communicating, and requirements for precision” (Croce, 2017). While it’s important to understand that some reading strategies do transfer, it is also important to acknowledge the merits of disciplinary literacy. It’s not like kids learn to read, then immediately their literary lives are unlocked, and they can henceforth access all written knowledge presented in all subject areas. Each academic discipline has its own discourse styles and structures that students have to learn and master because they are so unique and different from the typical ways we engage and use language socially. The literacy and discourse structures that are taught in the ELA classroom might not be sufficient for students dealing with the very specific types of literacy present in the science or math classrooms. For this reason, the very best teachers of literacy in content-area classes are the content-area teachers themselves! I know, what does an English teacher have to say about literacy in other disciplines? But hear me out. It might even make teaching your content more effective.

An Example: Disciplinary Literacy in the Science Classroom

Science teaching, for example, depends on informational texts to communicate content knowledge, to teach facts to students. However, what happens when a student’s observations of the world around them do not match the facts being presented in the scientific texts they are reading? What understandings of the scientific method and peer review process do students have to understand in order to comprehend and learn from these texts? Consider the words of Croce (2017):

“According to conceptual change theory, a number of conditions need to be met in order for a student to change his or her mind about a science concept. Would a student be considered a poor reader if those conditions were not met and the student did not change his mind (in other words, learn a concept) after reading the text? I would argue that a student is not a poor reader if he or she does not immediately change his or her mind about a science topic after reading a text. This is because when we assess students as readers of science, it is impossible to separate who a student is as a scientist from who he or she is as a reader (emphasis added) (Croce, 2015).”

Being an effective scientist depends on being literate in scientific discourse styles, specifically. If we expect students to learn how hurricanes are formed through reading a text, we have to approach the reading of that text as scientists, which requires different literacy foundations than what is required in their English class (and reading in science, math, and social studies often has different goals than in ELA). Scientific texts also have unique language patterns (i.e. cause and effect relationships in scientific sequences) that need to be explicitly taught to students. Students reading in their literature classes may never encounter those specific language patterns. When students are taught these discourse styles, they are then able to make sense of the content presented in these texts.

First Steps: Introducing Language Objectives

I don’t think that we necessarily have to be reading specialists on top of our content-area and pedagogical expertise. I do think, though, that we need to be aware of how our disciplines use language and provide instruction for our students so language isn’t a barrier to learning the content. One of the most meaningful ways that I’ve started doing this in my own classroom is through language objectives. Language objectives are similar to content objectives in that they articulate what students’ will be able to achieve by the end of a lesson or period of time. The only difference is that while content objectives describe what students will know and be able to do, language objectives describe how students need to use language in order for the content to be accessible. If you need a place to start in terms of understanding how language should be used at different proficiency levels, I recommend viewing WIDA’s Can Do statements.

As you are planning a lesson, ask yourself a few questions: What discipline-specific and general academic vocabulary do my students need to know to meet the content objectives? How is language functioning in this lesson (Are we listening to a speech made by an historical figure? Recording observations in a science experiment? Describing? Predicting? Comparing? What language styles and structures do we need to employ to do these things?) What language structures or grammatical features are common in this lesson? (Are we reading an academic text with frequent passive voice? Imperatives? Does the organization of the text need to be understood for students to comprehend it better?) What functional language is used during this lesson? What do I observe about my students’ needs when it comes to language?

By doing this, we will become more aware how language works in our disciplines, and we can then work to lower the linguistic hurdles students need to overcome to understand and excel in our content. We can also take the answers to these questions and design focused objectives and direct instruction related to the language of our disciplines. The beauty of designing language objectives is that it occurs alongside the teaching of our content objectives; we don’t pause our instruction to teach language and grow literacy. This can happen with small mini-lessons embedded in the larger instruction for the day. For example, in a high school chemistry lesson, the language objective might be that “Students will be able to use adverbs of time in their lab report to describe their observations (first, next, later)” (Echevarria et. al, 2011). Maybe, in a math lesson, students need to understand the language of conditionality in order to solve a word problem. From there, you would design a language objective. This might take all of 10 minutes, but it will enable students to meet the task of writing their scientific observations within their lab reports.

Developing and strengthening literacy specific to our disciplines is not a separate, full-time job. Instead, we can use language objectives to make our content teaching even more effective.

About the Author

Samantha Rainwater is the current English department chair at Richland Northeast High School in Columbia, South Carolina. She has eight years of teaching experience in the ELA classroom and is currently working to complete her ESOL certification.