This post is written by Schyler Anderson. Read more about Schyler at the bottom of this post.
While teaching science one day, I gave my students what I thought would be a simple task – read an article and answer questions afterward. In my lesson plans, I wrote this as a “warm-up” activity which was only supposed to last about ten minutes. Ten minutes passed and to my dismay, the majority of my students weren’t even attempting the assignment. I walked around the room to check in with students and see what the issue was. The students who weren’t attempting the assignment asked me to read it to them. Once I did, we went through the questions and they were able to answer them with no problem.
The situation listed above occurred frequently in my classroom. In the beginning, I played the blame game and felt that teaching middle schoolers how to read was out of my control and not my job. After seeing my students continue to struggle, I realized this was an area of my teaching that I needed to revisit. I believed that literacy was at the core of science and integral to the success of my students. When researching, I came across the strategy of using graphic organizers. I found that one of the reasons middle school students struggle so much with science literacy is because they have had little exposure to expository writing. Expository writing is filled with complex vocabulary, structured by topics, and has no clear beginning, middle, and end, unlike the narrative writing they were more used to. Graphic organizers help students break down the content into manageable chunks and ensure they grasp what’s most important.
Once I decided this strategy was worth implementing, I approached implementation with a science brain where I created a control group and an experimental group. Both groups took the same pre- and post-assessments. The experimental group learned using graphic organizers and the control group relied on traditional reading comprehension strategies such as skimming and scanning the text, looking at bold words or phrases and reading the questions before reading the text. The groups switched to the next unit so that each group had experience learning content with and without graphic organizers. I was ultimately comparing the growth between each group to see if this strategy really helped improve students’ reading comprehension skills. I created my own graphic organizers based on each topic like the one sampled in the image below. I decided to follow the basic templates of hierarchical, cyclical, conceptual, and sequential graphic organizers where I added titles and phrases to help students understand the organization better.
When looking at the data, I found that this strategy was helpful to my students, particularly those who categorize themselves as poor readers and/or those who were low achievers in science (D or F grade range). Survey data showed me that 67% of my students from Class A and Class B felt that using graphic organizers helped them understand content from the textbook better. They also provided written explanations stating that when using graphic organizers:
“It helped me because it breaks down everything.”
“It helped me because it is more organized.”
“The content is simplified.”
“It is easier to find the answer.”
I also noticed that my low-achieving students experienced the most growth between the pre-and post-assessment while in the experimental group. For example, the two low-achieving students I focused on experienced a growth of 60 and 40 points when using the graphic organizers. This group of students also responded the most enthusiastically to the strategy. Before graphic organizers, the two focus students loathed completing written work. They both rated themselves as poor readers who are insecure about their reading ability. When comparing this behavior with their behavior during the use of the strategy, it was a 180-degree difference. These two students were writing down and completing the assignments. They were complaining that class was ending too quickly. They became more confident in the short time that I tried this strategy out. You can see for yourself the comparison between the work of my focus student, Ava, below:
Ava’s Guided Note Sheet
When looking at the notes above, you can see that Ava did not complete the note sheet entirely. The answer to the question, “Why are particles necessary for cloud formation?” is answered incorrectly showing a lack of understanding. The final question is not answered so the notes lack some details. Now compare this with the graphic organizer completed below. Notice that the graphic organizer is entirely complete. Ava took the time to draw out each symbol and color it in. The definitions provided give enough details that Ava could use these notes to help her study or complete an assignment.
Ava’s Graphic Organizer
While my foray into the world of graphic organizers was short, I find this strategy to be a promising one. This strategy is first and foremost easy to implement. There are numerous templates online or you can create your own using Google Slides or Google Drawings as I did. Simply print them out, explain what goes where, and see how your students do. The second plus to this strategy is that it teaches students how to pull out the important information within a wordy article and how to actually use this information when needed. Finally, this strategy was most effective with my struggling readers and I don’t know about you but If I can find a strategy that helps my struggling students become more successful I will. In conclusion, give graphic organizers a try today or tomorrow and see how they will help your students become better readers of science – and other expository – texts.
My name is Schyler Anderson. I am an educator located in Sumter, SC. This will be my 4th year teaching 6th-grade science. I am a proud USC alumna. I got my bachelor’s degree in middle-level education with a concentration in math and science and my master’s degree in teaching with a focus on PBL.
This post is written by Stephanie M. Lemley. You can find out more about Stephanie at the bottom of this post.
For the past two years, I have had the privilege of working primarily with grades 6-12 Mississippi agriculture and science teachers through a grant entitled Agricultural Sciences Professional Development (ACRE). This professional development for agricultural literacy grant is funded by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, National Institute of Food and Agriculture. In this grant, teachers participate in an intensive, two-week summer institute where they learn animal science, plant science, and meat science content as well as literacy strategies, pedagogy, and teacher leadership. The teachers also participate in two follow-up days—one in the fall semester and one in the spring semester. As a content-area literacy and disciplinary literacy teacher/educator, I work with the teachers on infusing comprehension, writing, and vocabulary strategies into their classroom practice. During the summer institute, the teachers keep an interactive notebook (either hard copy with a spiral notebook or a digital version on a site such as Canva.com) to record their lab data, literacy strategies, and notes from presentations. Previous research on interactive notebooks in science classrooms has shown that such tools can support students’ communication of science understandings (Wilmes & Siry, 2019).
One strategy that has been impactful for both cohorts of teachers is the carousel (Adams & Leininger, 2017). This strategy promotes productive talk in the classroom. On the first day of ACRE, I post chart paper labeled with the different livestock species—dairy cattle, beef cattle, small ruminants (goats/sheep), equine (horses), and swine around the room. I divide the teachers into small groups and have them circle the room, two minutes at each station, recording as much background knowledge about each livestock species as they can. As they rotate around the room, they read what others wrote, correct any misconceptions, and record their own information in a different color marker. At the end of the summer institute, we revisit the carousel to record new knowledge from ACRE.
Image: ACRE teachers completing the carousel about different livestock species.
Another strategy that I teach and we practice in our summer institute is magnet summaries (Buehl, 2014). A magnet summary is a strategy where students construct meaningful summaries, in their own words, about a topic or concept. As a piece of text is read, magnet words—key terms or concepts—are identified from the reading and are organized into a summary.
Images: Magnet summary on the Mississippi commodity ‘soybeans’.
Both of these strategies translated well into classroom practice for our teachers. In our fall follow up, one teacher noted, “The carousel strategy worked well because students enjoyed going back after lessons to see how much they learned.” Another teacher noted that the compilation of strategies in the interactive notebook the students are keeping “allows them make connections with content throughout the term.”
References
Adams, S., & Leininger, G. (2017). But I’m NOT a reading teacher! Literacy strategies for career and technical educators. Coppell: Sandy +Gwen Always Learning.
Buehl, D. (2014). Classroom strategies for interactive learning (4th ed.). Newark: International Reading Association.
Wilmes, S.E.D., & Siry, C. (2019). Science notebooks as interactional spaces in a multilingual classroom: Not just ideas on paper. Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 999-1027. doi: 10.1002/tea.21615
*This work is supported by the Agriculture and Food Research Initiative’s Professional Development for Agricultural Literacy priority area, grant no. 2021-67037-34210, project accession no. 1025666, from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, National Institute of Food and Agriculture.
Stephanie M. Lemley is an Associate Professor at Mississippi State University where she works with pre-service and in-service teachers on incorporating literacy strategies into their agricultural teaching practices.
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: 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.
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.
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 5th 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.”
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.
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.
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: 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.
By: Lexington Hendricks, South Carolina High School Teacher
As a classroom teacher, it is my job to make sure that my classroom is a safe space for students, a place where they can be who they are and not have to hide any aspect of their identity. This includes students’ individual backgrounds and cultures. Students come from many different backgrounds even if they grew up in the same town, and it is important to recognize that all students may think and view materials differently because of this.
Experience has shown me that not all students, no matter their backgrounds, enjoy reading. Most would even claim to hate it. Many times this stems from being forced to read novels that are dated and have no relation to students whatsoever. If students struggle to connect or relate to something, there is a good chance they will not gain knowledge from whatever they are attempting to read. Think about their social media; students choose to follow people or pages that they have some form of connection or relation to. This also varies from student to student because of their backgrounds and cultures. The same can be applied to what students read. This is why it is crucial not only to have a classroom library but also to create an intentional classroom library.
Creating my Classroom Library
Creating a classroom library is already a daunting task. I remember my first year teaching and buying the cheapest books I could find just so students would have the option to borrow books from me and to see them in my classroom. Throughout conversations with my students over the years, I have learned that many of them find the school library overwhelming because of the amount of books to choose from. Also, many libraries are organized by the author’s last name which can make finding books on topics students are interested in more difficult. When students are able to see books in their classrooms on a smaller scale, the overwhelming feeling of choosing one book out of hundreds disappears. When creating a classroom library, the first step is to thoughtfully organize books so that they are easily accessible to students. The second, and in my opinion, most important step is choosing the books that go into the library.
At first, I just bought whatever I had access to and what was easiest on the budget. There was no intentionality in what books I chose. I also did not have any organization at all. I just put them on bookshelves and hoped for the best and found myself frustrated when none of my students wanted to go to the shelves and pick out books to read−not my proudest classroom library moment. I think I realized that in order for my classroom library to be useful, I needed to do two things: organize the books in a more accessible way and add books that were culturally relevant to my students.
How to make your Classroom Library more Accessible
1) Sort by Genre
To make books more accessible to students, I sorted them by genre instead of the author’s last name. I had to remind myself that students probably care more about what the book is about than who wrote it. I chose the genres that our school librarian used so students would have consistency when choosing books. I color coded the genres and added that same color to the corresponding books so that students could easily put books back in their place when they were finished. That was actually the easy part.
2) Find Culturally Relevant Books
Finding culturally relevant books was a little more challenging. What did culturally relevant even mean? Thankfully, we live in an age where the internet and Google are both handy. I did my research and learned that I needed to find books that fit not only where my students come from physically but also mentally, meaning books students could relate to in regards of hobbies, identity, and what they believe.
3) Keep your Student Population in mind
Our school has a high population of English Language Learners (ELLs), so I added in books that brought in their cultures and made sure that some of these were Spanish versions for those who are still learning the basics of English. I also used conversations with my students to determine what other types of books I wanted to include. The images you see throughout this post include some of the books I bought when I first started intentionally buying culturally relevant books. It is important to note that each classroom is different; the best way to determine what books to buy for your classroom library is to have intentional conversations with students that allow you to get to know them beyond an academic level.
Students need to see themselves or parts of themselves in the books they read to make real connections. When this happens, they can see that you not only value them as students but also as who they are as human beings. This often means more to them than academics. On that same note, it means even more to students if you read the books that relate to their cultures. Students see that we care about them and want to know them, not just their academic abilities. I love to see students’ faces light up when I can introduce them to books that I know they will love and relate to because I have also read them myself.
4) Be Intentional in book Selection for your Library
I had one student who had some struggles about fitting in and being her true self, and she seemed down a lot in class on top of slacking when it came to school work, which was not at all like her. I asked her about it, and she told me about how she was struggling to figure out who she was and did not know what to do. I was able to recommend a book to her that I had just read. This book is light-hearted but also touches on a breakup and how to keep going, which I knew this student had recently gone through. I recommended the book What if it’s Us? by Becky Albertalli and Adam Silvera in hopes she would see that even when life is hard, good things can still come. As she was reading, she would note certain aspects of the novel that she could relate to and wanted to read more books like that one after. This led to me wanting to be able to recommend more books to not only her but my other students as well. I then decided that I not only need to build my classroom library intentionally, but also read the books I picked out as well. This student felt cared about and represented because I was able to give her a book that she could relate to and see parts of herself in. This mattered more to her than anything else.
You see, the bottom line is that when students feel they are represented, they are more likely to invest in whatever the activity is, and in this case, it is reading. Incorporating students’ backgrounds and cultures into the curriculum can be challenging. If you do not feel like you are ready for that challenge, start small. Be intentional with the books you put in your classroom library. Choose books that represent the students in your classroom. Let them know that you care about who they are and where they come from.
The more you show that you care about students, the more likely they are to read something if you ask them to, and the more students read, the more likely they are to improve overall academically, even if they are just reading books that they can relate to. They may even begin to enjoy reading. I always say, “Students don’t actually hate reading. They just haven’t found the right book yet.”
About the Author
Lexie Hendricks has been teaching for five years at Palmetto High School.
