Many important societal problems are neither simple nor easily solved; they are wicked problems. 1 A wicked problem is a social or cultural challenge that involves many social systems and groups, has unpredictable outcomes, and defies typical problem-solving techniques. 2
Wicked problem is a phrase originally used in social planning to describe a problem that is difficult or impossible to solve because of incomplete, contradictory, and changing requirements that are often difficult to recognize. It’s important to note that the word (wicked) is used to denote resistance to resolution, rather than evil. 3
Systems Theory
Because of complex interdependencies, the effort to solve one aspect of a wicked problem may reveal or create other problems. We make sense of this through systems theory, or the the interdisciplinary study of systems. These systems are cohesive groups of interrelated, interdependent components that can be natural or human-made.
Every system has causal boundaries and is influenced by its context, defined by its structure, function and role, and expressed through its relations with other systems. A system is more than the sum of its parts as it can express synergy, or the interaction or cooperation of two or more organizations, substances, or other agents to produce a combined effect greater than the sum of their separate effects. Systems can also show emergent behavior, or an unanticipated side effect of bringing together a new combination of capabilities. Emergent behaviors can be either beneficial, benign, or potentially harmful, but in all cases they are very difficult to foresee until they manifest themselves.
Addressing Wicked Problems
To address a real-world, wicked problems a transdisciplinary lens is needed to support educators and students as they engage with this content in ways that extend beyond traditional academic boundaries 4 Transdisciplinarity is a research or educational approach that seeks to challenge disciplinary boundaries to create a holistic perspective that enables inputs across scientific and non-scientific communities. 5 Looking at a problem and context through a transdisciplinary lens allows one to construct meaning in more authentic contexts where disciplines intersect, combine, and work together. 6
What could be described as a wicked problem is really a situation in which we’re recognizing the power and irregularity of evolving systems. In education, we want to provide learning opportunities for students that are valid representations of the challenges they’ll encounter in the real world. This calls for a greater amount of flexibility on the part of the teacher. Given the lack of structure, and problems with validity, reliability, and access of open digital information, educators need to be more flexible and tolerant as they engage in the learning process. 7 Teachers need to have an appreciation for the complexities, pitfalls, challenges, and opportunities that exist when using open, digital information in the classroom. 8 Educators must constantly re-envision what it means to be educated, and what it means to be literate as technology advances. Through the careful use of texts, tools, and pedagogy there is an opportunity to effectively achieve Friere’s goal that teachers should be learners, and learners should be teachers. 9
Students also bear a great deal of responsibility when engaging with wicked problems in the classroom. Students must display the discipline, responsibility, persistence, and flexibility required to work as an active participant in these interactions. In this process, students must take an active role in learning, and reconsider the concept of “school.” 10 In a classroom in which teachers empower students to wrestle with wicked problems, students may have to take a leadership role in the crafting and revision of new learning process or product. 1112
Conclusion
We we prepare youth to enter their futures, it is important to be honest with learners and let them know that the systems, policies, and practices that govern our spaces may not always make sense. As we address wicked problems it is important to consider all of the contexts and contingencies that impact the these decisions. As learners in a globally connected community, we need to continue to evolve with these incomplete, contradictory, and changing challenges from a systems perspective.
When we think about pedagogy or curriculum in terms of content areas or disciplines, these arbitrary designations limit the creativity and perspective that youth need as they prepare for their futures. This siloed view of teaching, learning, and assessment stunts youth from fully engaging with meaningful experiences.
Adding complexity to this wicked problem of considering these opportunities in learning environments is that as we debate whether to include them in classes, the wicked problems themselves evolve, intensify, and metastasize. Educators need to evolve and reset paradigms around teaching, learning, and power as the challenges persist.
As a future educator and a current student, I find poetry an amazing outlet for students to express themselves. I, personally, use poetry to release these great big emotions I feel. In my high school, we had a lot of mental health concerns in our student body with little to no action. I was a high schooler losing two to three friends each school year. High school was hard enough but this on top of everything else made it 10x harder. Around this time is when I started writing poetry. My English teacher had a whole unit on poetry where we had to write poetry, research poets, and end with slam poetry where I read a poem by Maya Angelou. I still remember the whole poem. This unit really pushed me to think differently about the power of poetry. This is when I bought myself a new journal and started writing my own.
Writing poetry helped me a lot with processing my emotions and help me through my high school years. Even in class when we had free writing time, I would write poetry. I still do this, not as much, I’ll randomly think of a thought and start writing off that thought. It is a great way for a student to relieve stress and express themselves without talking about it. This is why I found it reliving, I didn’t have to vocalize why I was upset or why I was happy… I could just write.
As educators, it is important for us to use this tool as well. Providing a way for us to express and reflect is vital, considering we ask our students to do the same. By allowing our students to write poetry in the classroom, we are creating a space where students can communicate their emotions or thoughts. This is vital because some of our students may not be allowed this opportunity often. You may be the first person to encourage your students to do this openly. By allowing your students to do this, you are creating a welcoming environment in your classroom. In my classroom, having a welcoming environment for students is very important for me. This means being welcoming to new ideas, understanding, and backgrounds. In my classroom, breaking the stigma around mental health will be a must and I believe poetry is a great way to start.
Mental health is a growing problem in our schools, our student’s academics and extracurricular activities are evidence of this. As educators, we spend more time with these students than most parents or guardians. This grants us the opportunity to talk about mental health in a productively and openly way. Instead of running from this concern of mental health, let’s embrace this time to create a warm and meaningful connection with our students. Poetry opens the doors to this. Even having five minutes set aside in class for your students to write could mean the world to them.
This piece is written and submitted by Caroline Graham.
Caroline Graham (she/her/hers) is currently a College of Charleston student majoring in Secondary Education and English. She is a South Carolina Teaching Fellow at the College serving as the President. You can see more of Caroline on her website: https://cgaggraham.wixsite.com/website
I have to admit, I hated poetry when I was in school. I hated having to figure out what an author was saying. Why couldn’t they just come out and say what they wanted us to see and hear? I remember reading ‘The Windhover’ by Gerard Manley Hopkins and being completely confounded. Understanding poetry was like trying to solve a jigsaw puzzle without having seen what the completed picture was supposed to look like.
In college I studied William Wordsworth and Langston Hughes. For the first time, I read poetry that was easy to understand and yet beautiful. Its simplicity did not detract from the beauty of form and content. Because I didn’t feel defeated from the start, I began to read other kinds of poetry, the kind that had turned me off to poetry while in high school. I wish I had come to a greater appreciation of poetry while in K-12. I had missed out on so much. But what had I missed out on? Why should children read and learn about poetry?
Poetry helps us to see the world through someone else’s eyes. We can do the same with essays, short stories and novels, but poetry is life and experiences in concentrated form; it doesn’t take long to read a poem, yet an author can concentrate emotions and feelings that would take pages to convey in a novel or poem. Teenagers with angst can find relief when they read a poem to find out others have shared their own experiences. Thus, poetry can be personal and powerful, but its impact can also be felt on a national or global level.
Just how powerful and impactful is poetry in the world of politics? It is so impactful that Stalin caused Anna Akhmatova to memorize and then destroy all her personal written poems, all so Stalin could not silence her poetic voice. Like painters, writers can stir the mind, but sometimes more importantly, they can stir the heart and passions, especially when rousing people to a cause. Students can come to appreciate the power of words, how a poem can rally people to a cause; there are poems of resistance, protest, and empowerment. Certainly students should be exposed to such words and ideas.
Poetry writing empowers students and builds their confidence. Writing an essay can be daunting for some students, but when they are introduced to and encouraged to write simple poems such as acrostics, they usually eagerly embrace the challenge.
Poetry helps students to appreciate the beauty of subtlety, how so much can be said indirectly. They can come to appreciate the power and beauty of words. It can build vocabulary and encourage abstract thinking. Poetry encourages students to analyze what they are reading. It exposes them to other cultures and beliefs.
Why study poetry? Poetry empowers, arouses. Poetry helps students to put ideas and feeling on paper.
Poetry can stimulate the mind, and it can help students to get in touch with their own feelings. One year, I had a student say the following to me in a letter. “I always thought poetry was for sissies. All my life I’ve suppressed my feelings, but this class has made me change my mind. I’ve come to understand that as a male I can embrace and express my feelings.” Those words were music to my ears.
Dr. Angela M. Cozart is a Professor Emerita in the Department of Teacher Education at the College of Charleston.
By: Lindsey Douglas, English teacher at Gettys Middle School.
Literacy is often wrongly associated with only the humanities, namely English Language Arts and Social Studies. However, as contemporary studies suggest, disciplinary literacy is a necessary educational shift to meet the demands of the twenty-first century student as they participate in literacies of varied subjects (Lent & Voigt, 2019). The heart of disciplinary literacy is an accurate understanding of how content knowledge is constructed and how literacy (reading, writing, viewing, reasoning, and communicating) supports the knowledge of the respective content (Lent & Voigt, 2019).
For that reason, I teamed up with an experienced, award-winning math educator who is considered an expert in her field. We collaborated and co-taught a lesson, with each teacher valuing the other’s expertise. While the text in Math may look different than texts in my English Language Arts class, we define a text as anything a student can see, interpret, and assign meaning.
Introducing the Lesson
Our first text of the lesson was an image. The images used in the lesson were found on reasonandwonder.com. We introduced the lesson with visual literacy in which students “read” the image to interpret, evaluate, and understand the meaning. We posed two questions for the students to prompt their thinking: What do I notice and What do I wonder? The students first worked independently. Before students began reading the text, we discussed what it means to both “notice” and “wonder.” The classes acknowledged that the skill of “noticing” is what we call observing, and that of “wonder” is to inference. Like Lent suggests, “we want students to know how to interrogate texts rather than simply read them” (Lent, 2015, p.109).
Academic discourse is a critical cornerstone of a Math Disciplinary Literacy classroom. Following the image was both a small group discussion and class discussion of the students’ discoveries. However, before discussing their findings, the Math teacher reestablished group norms.
The group norms of this classroom include:
No one is done until everyone is done
You have the right to ask anybody in your group help
No talking outside your group
No naked numbers
Remember to play your role
Put the question in your answer
Say your “becauses”
Listen to others’ ideas
Take turns
Be Respectful
Confusion is a part of learning
You have the duty to give help to anybody who asks
Disagree with ideas, not people
Helping is not the same as giving answers
Many of the group norms reiterate the marriage between content and literacy such as “say your because” and “put the question in your answer.”
After the small groups discussed their answers, the teacher jotted down their responses on the board. The conversation with the whole class continued until a student finally responded with “The phone is charging!” From that response, the teacher shifted to the second sentence starter posed to students, “I Wonder…”, in which the students start sharing inferences based on the image. Eventually, a student says, “What time will the phone be charged?”
Solving the Problem
Once students land on this essential question, the lesson then shifts to the “second act” where students attempt to solve the problem. The Math teacher then asks the students to make a “too low, too high, and just right” guess at what time the phone will be charged if it is 5% at 9:02. Asking students to estimate a too high, too low, and just right answer is critical thinking and at the heart of student’s mathematical practice standards. (SCCCR.MP 1-7). In just one sentence, a too high, too low, and just right guess allows students to use reasoning and analysis to create a path to problem solving. After students shared some guesses, the teacher shared three more images, revealing the next three stages of charging.
The teacher then told the class: “Now we are going to represent data. Four representations of math are words, tables, graphs, and equations. Please remember to answer your questions in the form of a sentence.” She also reminded students of one of the group norms: say your becauses. For the math teacher, it is important that students represent Math in all four representations every lesson. This representation of data reiterates the importance of students developing a deeper mathematical knowledge. The students first represented math through words, so they moved onto representing it in a chart.
Before they began developing their charts, the teacher and the class worked together to define their variables for this situation (x=minutes of charging since 9:02; y=battery percentage).
X
Y
0 8 12 24
5 14 19 33
After creating the chart, the teacher asked, “using the data in your table, can you determine the type of relationship between these two variables?” The class consensus was that it is a positive relationship and appears nearly linear.
The teacher then told the class, “For now, let’s assume it is nearly linear. If this is true, could we use the data to write an equation to use for prediction when the phone will be fully charged?”
Y = 1.17x + 4.88
100 = 1.17x + 4.88
X ≈ 81.3
Therefore, they determined the phone will be charged approximately 81 minutes after 9:02, or 10:23. After they solve the equation, the teacher then revealed the answer to show the students by slowly showing the progression over time.
The slow reveal built suspense, and ultimately curiosity from the students. As Lent states, “The process of wondering, formulating questions, and thinking through concepts while respecting multiple viewpoints is as much the goal as certitude about a concept” (Lent & Voigt, 2019, p 111). If Math is the aspirin, then teachers must create the headache. Not a migraine, but a “cognitive conflict” or a “disequilibrium” (Meyer, 2015). This headache is created through the processes of wondering, questions, and thinking. And at just the right time, with just the right amount of curiosity and inquiry, the aspirin is given to the students in a sigh of relief (and frustration!).
At this point, the class has represented math in three different ways: words, charts, and equations. The last representation is a graph. After the final reveal, the teacher says to the class, “What happened? We assumed that it would continue charging at the same rate. But as we start charging batteries, it actually gets slower. It starts slowing down.”
The Importance of Disciplinary Literacy and Collaboration
While there may be hesitation for educators to pedagogically shift towards a disciplinary literacy approach to instruction, collaboration and co-teaching narrows the gap. Disciplinary Literacy is not merely reading and writing across the content, but rather placing literacy within the discipline itself. Lent explains, “…While practice is still important, the emphasis has shifted from only teaching the principles of math to helping students develop a deeper mathematical knowledge– and such instruction often includes collaboration” (p 155). I am thankful for Math teachers who take transformative action about the way in which they think about their content. I am thankful for a school where disciplinary literacy is a school-wide initiative. But most of all, I am thankful for literacy itself and its rightful place in all disciplines across all curriculums.
References:
Lent, R. C. (2016). This Is Disciplinary Literacy: Reading Writing, Thinking, and Doing… Content Area by Content Area. Corwin.
Lent, R. C. & Voigt, M. M. (2019). Disciplinary Literacy In Action: How to Create and Sustain a School-wide Culture of Deep Reading, Writing, and Thinking. Corwin.
Lindsey Douglas is a Clemson University graduate in English Literature, Secondary Education, and a Masters in Literacy K-12. Lindsey is a third year English teacher and is the 8th grade English Department Head at Gettys Middle School. She is passionate about disciplinary literacy and helping teachers embed literacy practices into their content. She also coaches volleyball and enjoys spending time outdoors, and reading.
About the Collaborator
Ashley Weaver is a National Board Certified Teacher and math nerd with 13 years of experience teaching middle schoolers. She teaches with the belief that all students can learn math and achieve at high levels and hopes to instill a love for learning in her students. When she isn’t teaching or learning about teaching, she enjoys reading and spending time with her husband and daughter.
By: Hunter Thompson, University of South Carolina Pre-Service Music Educator
Teaching students how to read music is basically like teaching students how to be literate in another language. As you learn more and more of a language, the rules and guidelines for reading, writing, and speaking that language become increasingly complex. Music educators should approach teaching students music like they are preparing students to be literate in the complexities of music, and we all know how complex music can become (we’re all looking at you, Schoenberg). Music students should not only be literate in musical literacy, but they also need to be literate in traditional literacy, numeracy, communicative literacy, and even technological literacy to be successful in today’s music classes. Students must be literate to comprehend expressive markings such as accelerando or rallentando. The basis of teaching rhythm is contingent on the assumption that students are numerate, and we also use mathematical structures within music theory. Watching a conductor’s gestures and expressions requires students to be literate in the nuances of communication. The rising popularity of electronic music and the usage of online notation software requires students and teachers to be technologically literate. All of these forms of literacy converge in our music classrooms, so this means that we must adapt non-musical strategies for usage in our lessons.
Close Reading is a task that students are expected to do in essentially every class that they will ever take; however, it is a skill that is unintentionally not as well-developed and practiced outside of typical English Language Arts courses. Without clear guidelines for how Close Reading is applied to subjects like music, art, physical education, dance, and other classes that are necessary for educating the whole child, students will not be able to put these strategies into practice. Therefore, it is crucial that we, as music educators, make our approach to Close Reading essential to our lessons, and instead of relying solely on music-specific structures to achieve this, we should also model our approach off of existing structures. Although Close Reading is a strategy that was originally created for use in English language arts courses, Close Reading (with some minor adaptations) will help to engage students in a deeper analysis of music that they are performing and to which they are listening.
Wolsey and Lapp’s Approach to Close Reading for Traditional Print Texts
Close Reading strategies have historically been applied to print texts, but texts come in all sorts of shapes and sizes. There are two types of text: print and non-print texts. In a music classroom, an example of a print text could be a student’s individual part or a conductor’s score. Print texts have traditionally been the dominant of the two in classroom settings, but there is still an enormous amount of information that students can gain from working with non-print texts. With regards to music classes, an example of a non-print text could be a live or recorded performance.
Photo by Jamie Taylor on Unsplash
Thomas DeVere Wolsey and Diane Lapp outline Close Reading for traditional print texts like this. First, you must select a complex text for your students to study, and think about priming questions that you could ask your students before introducing them to the text. Next, have students complete an independent reading and annotation of the text. After that, complete partner sharing activities so that your students are able to hear a diverse range of perspectives. Following that, re-read the text (as an independent reading, student-led reading, or teacher-led reading) with specific goals in mind, and conduct a group discussion to reinforce particular ideas. Re-read the text as many times you deem necessary and conclude with a written extension, reflection, or explanation of the text that highlights a specific skill concept.
This approach to Close Reading has been highly effective in countless traditional literacy settings to help students gain a deeper understanding of complex print texts, but what does this process have to do with music? Close Reading, by definition, uses “text-based questions and discussion,” and “students are guided to deeply analyze and appreciate various aspects of the text” (Brown & Kappes 2012).
Close Reading Adaptations for Music Classrooms
Music teachers do these things on a daily basis, whether we realize it or not. Additionally, music teachers want their students to develop the skills necessary to perform and listen to complex pieces of music with much deeper analysis. It is extremely important to remember that this level of analysis will require multiple visits with the same text. With every close read, students will pick up on more nuances and important details which will ultimately lead to a greater understanding of the composer’s and/or conductor’s craft.
In music classes, we constantly ask our students to perform and listen at the highest level; therefore, students must develop a more advanced skill set to analyze complex works. Resultingly, I have adapted Wolsey and Lapp’s outline of Close Reading for performing music and listening to music. The adaptation for performing music is geared more towards a band, choir, or orchestra class while the adaptation for listening to music is geared more towards a music appreciation or music history class. However, they can be used in any music classroom with minor adjustments.
Adaptation Chart of Close Reading for Performing and Listening to Music
Wolsey and Lapp’s Close Reading for Traditional Print Texts
A Close Reading Adaptation for Performing Music
A Close Reading Adaptation for Listening to Music
Select a complex text that relates to instructional purpose (use Lexile Levels to help with this)
Select a complex text that relates to instructional purpose (use state grade categorizations to help with this and resources provided by sheet music retailers)
Select a complex text that relates to instructional purpose
Provide priming questions: What are you thinking as you read? What words do you not know? What techniques is the author using? What is the author’s message? What is the impact on the reader?
Provide priming questions:What is the tempo? What is the key signature? What is the time signature? What is the pitch range? Are there any accidentals? Are there any difficult rhythms? What kind of signs, repeats, dynamics, and articulations do you see?
Provide priming questions: What do you hear? What genre is this piece? What is the instrumentation or orchestration? What is the structure of this piece? What style period is this piece from? What message or emotions is the composer attempting to convey?
Number the paragraphs.
Number the measures.
For listening with a score, number the measures. For listening without a score, segment the recording using time stamps.
Independent reading (use paragraph numbers to chunk text for greater analysis)
Independent sight reading (use measure numbers to note difficult and important sections in the music)
Independent listening with a score (use measure numbers to chunk the score for greater analysis)Independent listening without a score (use time stamps to chunk the piece for greater analysis)
Text annotation – writing on paper; using highlighters and/or pens to “mark” the text
Text annotation – writing on music; using a pencil to circle/star/box any notable parts of the music
Text annotation (with a score) – writing on the score; using colored pencils or pens to mark melodic lines and harmonic analysesText annotation (without a score) – write down notes about the piece with time stamps included
Partner sharing – discussion with language frames
Partner sharing – discussion with language frames
Partner sharing – discussion with language frames
Rereading (independent, student-led, or teacher-led) with analysis on how text was written and writer’s craft
Re-examining (independent, student-led, or teacher-led) with further analysis of sequences, modulations, intervallic relationships, and other patterns
Re-listening with a score (independent, student-led, or teacher-led) with analysis of compositional techniques and composer-specific musical idiomsRe-listening without a score (independent, student-led, or teacher-led) with analysis of how different time stamp segments are similar and dissimilar
Discussion to reinforce academic vocabulary and interpretation
Discussion to reinforce academic vocabulary and interpretation
Discussion to reinforce academic vocabulary and interpretation
Written extension, reflection, explanation of the piece, or demonstration of the skill concept through writing
Written extension outlining performance goals and practices and/or a summarization of elements of the composer’s style
Written extension (music critique or analysis), reflection, explanation of the piece
Will Close Reading Consume My Already Precious Class Time?
Believe it or not, you are probably already doing parts of activities like this in your classroom. However, it has not been made clear to students that these activities are part of the larger process of Close Reading. It is critical that we are intentional, from the very beginning, in choosing what texts we use, and for music, it is important to take into account the musical abilities of each student if you intend to perform a chosen text. Additionally, we must be purposeful in the strategy we use to teach the musical complexities that our students will encounter within the chosen texts.
You most likely are using some of these steps within your classroom, but Close Reading works best and benefits more students when the full process is completed for specific texts. If your wind ensemble is playing Holst’s First Suite in E-Flat for Military Band, it may prove wise for students to complete several close readings of their own part and several close readings of the score. Since this piece is public domain, you can find the score online from the International Music Score Library Project (IMSLP). If you are unable to provide each student with a conductor’s score, you could also use a document camera and projector to display the score during class for a teacher-led close reading of the text. Vision is the dominant sense, and many of our music students may be visual learners, so it could prove very beneficial to those students if they can see how their individual part is connected to other parts. If you are teaching a unit in a music appreciation course on dance rhythms, you could complete a close listening of Bernstein’s Symphonic Dances from West Side Story, which might be more recognizable and engaging to students than a Baroque dance suite. Remember, we could choose any school-appropriate text for our students to work with, but it is important that we know exactly what we want students to learn from that text and that we know exactly what strategies we will use to teach the text.
One concern about implementing a Close Reading strategy in your music classroom is that it will take a large amount of time from technique building and preparing for performances. However, Close Reading is a method of keeping students engaged with a text. If students simply go through the motions, rehearsing the same set of pieces day after day, then students will begin to lose focus while performing. If we take class time to purposefully implement Close Reading strategies into our routines, then it will help students to better understand individual and ensemble performance goals for that particular piece. Ultimately, a strong foundation of technique and fundamentals mixed with the implementation of Close Reading and other literacy strategies will set students up for musical success.
Adapting Other Literacy Strategies to Grow Students’ Music Literacy
Additionally, I urge music educators to avoid what Laura Sindberg refers to as “music teacher isolation” (Sindberg 2011). Look for ways outside of your school’s Fine Arts Department to adapt literacy strategies. Regularly ask your colleagues in the Science, Mathematics, English, History, and Foreign Language Departments about how they adapt traditional literacy strategies in their classrooms. Remember to talk to the other Fine Arts teachers in your schools who do not teach music as well, and do not forget to share your ideas too. Readers’ Theatre is a literacy strategy that requires small groups of students to create and perform a dramatic script based on a provided text. When adapted to a music appreciation class, you could assign small groups of students a recitative and aria or an ensemble song. Make sure the libretto of the assigned opera is translated for your students. Then, they can create their own script to perform their adaptation in front of the class. If you have enough groups and pick out key parts of the opera, your class will be able to summarize the plot of an entire opera with short scenes that they have created. When you have amassed your own stockpile of creative strategies, you will be able to impact a more diverse group of learners because of the numerous options from which you have to choose.
Just as students in an English class will not be able to comprehend William Shakespeare, Toni Morrison, Harper Lee, and Oscar Wilde if they cannot comprehend Dr. Seuss yet, students in a music class will not be able to comprehend the masterworks of great composers like Ludwig van Beethoven, Jennifer Higdon, Eric Whitacre, and David Maslanka if they cannot comprehend their beginner technique books. Literacy looks different in each discipline, and it is our job to make sure that our students can read, perform, listen to, analyze, and critique increasingly complex texts. This blog post is by no means a critique of the strategies currently employed in music classrooms, but in actuality, it is a call to broaden the literacy strategies we are using in our music classrooms. I encourage us to do what music teachers do best, and use our imagination to see what kind of ways we can incorporate creative adaptations of literacy strategies, like Close Reading, into our lessons.
References
Brown, S., & Kappes, L. (2012). Implementing the Common Core State Standards: A primer on “close reading of text.” Washington, DC: Aspen Institute.
Sindberg, L. (2011). Alone All Together—The Conundrum of Music Teacher Isolation and Connectedness. Bulletin of the Council for Research in Music Education, (189), 7–22. https://doi.org/10.5406/bulcouresmusedu.189.0007
Wolsey, T. D.V., & Lapp, D. (2017). Literacy in the Disciplines: A Teacher’s Guide for Grades 5-12. Guilford Press, a Division of Guilford Publications, Inc.
About the Author
Hunter Thompson is a junior at the University of South Carolina, where he is majoring in Music Education. He grew up in Hartsville, South Carolina, and he participated in his school band program beginning in sixth grade and continuing to his senior year of high school. He would like to thank several educators for the tremendous impact they had on him: His mother, Elizabeth Thompson, who will always be his biggest educational influence; his high school band director, Cameron Watkins, who always believed in his musical abilities; and one of his college professors, Dr. Jennifer D. Morrison, who provided him with an amazing opportunity to write about a subject that is very important to him.
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.
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.
Do motivated students engage in learning more often and/or at higher levels?
OR
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!
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!
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?”
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
