We welcome Dr. Derrick Shepard to our conversation on Financial Literacy! In this webinar, he empowers teachers to explore financial literacy as a social means of communication, co-constructed through the lens of their other identities. Read more about Dr. Shepard below.
Dr. Derrick Shepard is an Assistant Professor at the University of Tennessee, Martin. His research interests include multiculturalism in counseling, social class awareness, skills related to counselor preparation and pedagogical practices in counselor education and supervision.
Dr. Christina Dobbs follows up her webinar with this blog to challenge instructors to create rubrics that grow writing literacy and result in positive student-teacher interaction. Read more about her at the end of the blog.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, I had planned a study of writing instruction at the university level that involved interviews with students and visits to introductory writing classes that would help understand how undergraduates had made the transition from high school to university writing. But fate intervened and doing work to observe in class instructional spaces became complicated as we began to teach and work from home, and so I made a decision to just keep interviewing undergraduates about their experiences. Eighty interviews later, I am so glad to have had the opportunity to talk deeply with a wide range of students about their experience of writing in school across their lives and whether and how they see themselves as writers.
This work, alongside some other work with my colleague Chris Leider from UMass Boston, has caused me to spend time thinking deeply about the feedback we explicitly and implicitly give to students about their writing. As a teacher, I always struggled to give feedback on writing in a timely way that still felt deeply engaged with the work, and students didn’t always use the feedback I gave them to improve their writing, which never felt good. This new work about more effective and culturally sustaining feedback for students has helped me to understand what might have worked better in my own classroom and even in my own experience as a writer myself.
Across the work Chris and I have done with teachers over time and what I learned about feedback from my interviews with undergraduates, I have come to a new approach to feedback. Here are two lessons learned across those projects.
Lesson #1: Even if we didn’t know it, students remember our feedback, especially when they feel it was negative.
In talking with undergraduates about the feedback they received on their writing and times they felt proud of their writing, I was shocked by how much they remembered about feedback they had been given. Students relayed memories from elementary, middle, and high school as well as college, and sometimes they still felt strong emotions associated with those memories.
They described memories when a teacher had made them feel as though their ideas were worth engaging and that they had written something thought-provoking. They also described the positive experience of answering questions about their writing when feedback was given or feeling like their work inspired curiosity from the reader.
They also relayed moments when they got feedback that made them feel like their teachers had not really engaged with their ideas. This included times when they only got feedback on surface conventions or grammar, but it also included times when they just got a ‘good job’ or ‘great work’ too. Somehow this insubstantial positive feedback also made students feel as though they had not written ideas worth engaging.
Most importantly, the writers often described wanting to improve their work, but feeling as though some feedback they received was not helping them to do so. Some even described the feedback as showing them they actually would not be able to improve. They described teachers who made them feel as though they were already supposed to know everything before they took the class and those who clearly conveyed that they could improve.
This has led to a few ideas about giving feedback that I carry forward:
Asking questions about the content seems to matter to many writers.
Encouraging writers through feedback at various levels of the work, from the overall idea to the conventions, can support students in viewing their work as substantial.
Telling students that they can improve, and we will help them to do so explicitly can convey our belief in students’ potential for growth.
Lesson #2: It doesn’t matter what you say to students if your rubric says something else.
The rubrics we use to evaluate student writing often use harsh and deficit-driven language to separate students in particular categories. Rubrics will have category labels such as ‘unsatisfactory,’ ‘below expectations,’ or ‘warning’ to delineate performance, with upper category labels with headings like ‘outstanding’ or ‘excellent.’
Then within categories, the statements to describe various levels of performance will have language such as:
Writer has little or no control over sentence structure.
Reasoning is incoherent or unclear.
The use of language fails to demonstrate skill in responding to the task. (This example is from the ACT rubric.)
The designers of rubrics such as these likely did not think they were harshly commenting on students as writers; in fact, they likely thought they were only commenting on the piece of writing at hand and how well it communicates.
But the personal nature of writing and the ways that writers use feedback and comparison to others to drive their own writing self-efficacy (Pajares, 2003; Pajares & Johnson, 1996) makes it clear that writers likely internalize some of this commentary as about themselves, even if the teacher giving feedback did not mean it as such. Indeed, in my interviews with undergraduate students, they frequently described memorable feedback and harsh rubrics from many years earlier (going back to elementary) as drivers of whether they perceived themselves as writers in college years later.
Chris and I developed a question framework to help guide teachers in redesigning rubrics in ways that still convey critical feedback to students in ways that feel encouraging and supportive. We use these four questions to help teams of teachers we work with to revise rubrics to convey feedback in more supportive and equity-driven ways. The four questions (from Dobbs & Leider, 2021) are as follows:
Does the rubric’s scale of values for judging responses suggest that students have room to grow?
Do the tools emphasize development and purpose when it comes to language use?
Does the rubric feedback connect student language to audience?
Does the tool explicitly acknowledge that students have agency in choosing which of their language resources to use?
We use these questions not to shift the feedback away from various elements of the writing that we want to give feedback about, but rather to push us to phrase our thinking in a way that treats writers in humane and supportive ways.
So, we use these framing questions to rephrase headings and sentences on rubrics. What might have said ‘unsatisfactory’ before might say ‘still learning,’ ‘room to grow,’ or even ‘focus for next time.’ Where we might have said that ‘reasoning was incoherent,’ we might shift to say that ‘the writer’s reasons supporting their argument were challenging for the reader to understand.’
These sorts of changes convey to students that they can still be working on various elements of their writing, which all students are doing and is the purpose of schooling. They can also convey that writing feedback is not a matter of knowing how to do it ‘right’ or ‘wrong,’ but it is rather a matter of whether your communicative purpose was understood by the audience. It also conveys that students made choices about the writing they chose to put forward and that they can continue to improve that writing’s purpose, not just it’s perceived correctness on things like punctuation.
Over time, I’ve learned that giving feedback is meaningful to students in ways I had not always realized, and that making purposeful and specific choices in how to give feedback can make a huge difference in how students are able to take up the feedback we give them. That way, years down the road when they are in college and being interviewed, they will relay memories of feeling supported and confident as writers.
References
Dobbs, C. L. & Leider, C. M. (2021). A framework for writing rubrics to support linguistically diverse students. English Journal, 110(5), 60-68.
Pajares, F. (2003). Self-efficacy beliefs, motivation, and achievement in writing: A review of the literature. Reading and Writing Quarterly, 19(2), 138-158.
Pajares, F. & Johnson, M. (1996). Self-efficacy beliefs in the writing of high school students: A path analysis. Psychology in the Schools, 33(2), 163-175.
Dr. Christina L. Dobbs is an Assistant Professor in English Education. Her research interests include academic language development, the argumentative writing of students, and professional development for secondary content teachers. She is a former high school teacher in Houston, Texas, as well as a literacy coach and reading specialist.
Classroom teacher Wanda Littlejohn shares how she engages striving readers using the Jigsaw Strategy. Read more about Wanda at the end of the blog.
My classroom teaching experience began over 20 years ago in an affluent school district where there were only a few elementary schools, two middle schools, and one high school. All of the schools focused on student academic growth and excellence, and they collaborated well together to ensure the content taught was aligned vertically and horizontally. Most of my students read fluently, were motivated to learn new things, and had similar experiences at home and at school. As a science teacher, I rarely had to provide interventions to gain student interest or to help them read and write like scientists. However, over the years I have learned that my experience as a classroom teacher is vastly different and not all students make it to high school knowing how to read and write fluently. According to the 2023 SC Ready test results, only 53% of eighth grade students either met or exceeded the reading expectations for the state while other subgroups such as pupils who are in poverty, Black, multilingual learners, and with disabilities performed at a rate of 42.3% or less (SCSDE, 2023). Because of these results, it is evident that students entering high school need reading support, and high school teachers need to be equipped with strategies that will assist students in all content areas, specifically in science. In this post, I will share how I utilized the jigsaw strategy as a means to facilitate success for striving readers a biology class.
In the January 4, 2022, issue of EdWeek Madeline Will states: “For the millions of students who struggle to read at grade level, every school day can bring feelings of anxiety, frustration, and shame” (p.1). The highly rigorous curricular standards outlining the knowledge and skills students should have by the end of each science course are designed to prepare students to predict outcomes, create procedures, analyze data, and draw conclusions. If over half of the students entering high school are unable to read at grade level, they are not able to meet the science classroom demands, ultimately leading to students’ feeling frustrated and lost in their science classes. Will (2022) goes on to state “…children who don’t receive appropriate support can fall behind in multiple classes, even though they are capable of intellectually understanding the material” (p. 2). If students are intellectually capable of understanding the material, scaffolds need to be put in place to bring that intellectual understanding out of them. Moreover, those strategies need to assist the striving reader’s comprehension of scientific text and vocabulary.
I had the pleasure of providing corrective instruction for several groups of students taking a Biology I course, many of whom were either multilingual learners or were students with a learning disability. During the lesson, we addressed the processes of cell division, cellular respiration, and photosynthesis and their importance to sustaining life. Because these concepts are so abstract, many students find them difficult to grasp. The teacher’s initial testing showed these students needed more time with the content because they were unable to clearly define the concepts or processes which had been taught nor were they able to identify models that represented each concept. It was evident from these data that students needed a way to better comprehend the vocabulary.
Addressing the concern of providing appropriate support for striving readers, I chose to use the jigsaw strategy to support these learners as we revisited the concepts stated above. In John Hattie’s research, the jigsaw strategy has a large effect on student achievement. Hattie proclaims in his book Visible Learning (2009) that self-instruction, organizing, and transforming are valuable tools to get students to be active in their learning and all create a high impact on student growth and achievement. The jigsaw strategy adds student discourse to the lesson and allows students to read, write, speak, and listen within a cooperative setting.
During the lesson, the students were assigned one of the four concepts (photosynthesis, cellular respiration, macromolecules, cell division). The students were given 20 minutes to read articles and listen to videos about their assigned topic. Each student was given a graphic organizer that supported their reading and listening and contained questions they had to answer during their individual research time to ensure they were obtaining the right information about their concepts. After their research phase was complete, the students were given 30 minutes to work in expert groups with other students who had the same concept so they could synthesize and organize their information. The students also had to create a model representing their concept and produce talking points they could use to explain their concept to others. It was imperative for me to conference with each group during the expert phase to ensure they were on the right track and they had accurate descriptions. The final step in the process was to jigsaw the students so each group contained an expert on each concept. During this phase, the students shared their models, while other students filled out a graphic organizer capturing the new information learned. As the jigsaw ended, one student indicated she really felt better about the concepts and she learned so much in the smaller group setting. At the close of the lesson, the students took a short assessment again on each concept.
Figure 1
Figure 2
In Biology, the standards require students to create models to illustrate the processes of both cellular respiration and photosynthesis. The figures above show some of the students’ interpretations of those process after completing the jigsaw activity. It was evident from the figures above that the students had a general understanding of both processes. Figure 2 shows an even deeper understanding that both processes depend on each other and produce a continuous cycle.
In closing, striving readers, according to Will (2022), need a supportive classroom environment where they are welcomed to be risk takers and to have a growth mindset. During a jigsaw activity, there are a lot of moving parts and directions. The advice I would share is to be prepared to redirect students, repeat instructions, and visit each individual during each phase to ensure the students feel supported. Allowing students to research and read individually first gives them an opportunity to make meaning of things before they have to make meaning with a peer. Becoming an expert with a peer allows striving readers to reread and repeat information a second time, which enhances comprehension. I found the jigsaw strategy increased student knowledge of the concepts, gave them the confidence they needed to engage in discussion with their peers, and gave them the ability to complete the models shown in Figures 1 and 2. To learn more about the jigsaw strategy, click here.
Dr. Wanda Littlejohn has 23 years of experience in the field of education. She is currently the Instructional Specialist at Carolina High School in Greenville, South Carolina.
We welcome Ian O’Byrne as we open our blog and webinar theme: Artificial Intelligence. Please read more about Ian at the end of the blog.
Educators are currently struggling with a significant decision: Should AI be integrated into the writing process? Some worry that it could impede students’ writing skills. This leads to an important question: Have American schools ever been successful in teaching writing? When was writing education at its best? Where is it now? As educators, how can we strike the right balance?
There is no easy answer to these questions. The history of writing education in America is long and complex, and there have been many different approaches to teaching writing over the years. Schools now stand at a crossroads as AI-powered writing tools gain popularity. These technologies promise to enhance instruction and feedback but also raise concerns about over-reliance. To make sense of this balance, let’s first look at what exactly AI is.
What is Generative AI?
The intelligence of computers or software, as opposed to the intellect of people or animals, is known as artificial intelligence (AI). It is a branch of computer science that creates and investigates intelligent machines. Uses of artificial intelligence in the form of an agent, bot, or tool are generally labeled as AI. In the last year, we’ve seen an influx of AI in our lives as ChatGPT exploded on the scene. A far better way to view these tools is to refer to them as Generative AI and not simply as AI or ChatGPT.
Generative AI refers to advanced artificial intelligence systems that can generate new content on their own rather than just responding to user prompts. Models like GPT-3 (ChatGPT) can write entire essays, stories, and code after being trained on vast datasets. This means they may soon be capable of assisting students and teachers with writing tasks like brainstorming ideas, translating rough drafts into more polished work, answering content questions, and even providing feedback.
However, generative AI also raises challenges.Teachers will need to focus on developing original thinking skills rather than knowledge recall, and concerns around plagiarism, creativity, and voice must be addressed. When used judiciously, generative writing tools could enhance instruction and revision. But ultimately, writing education should emphasize the uniquely human aspects of imagination, analysis, and persuasive communication that AI cannot replicate.
Students were required to master the five-paragraph essay, but this method sometimes stifled originality and expression. While it did instill basic writing skills, it may not have nurtured a deep love for writing. Some shifts came in the 1960s and 1970s as the process approach emerged, emphasizing planning, drafting, revising, etc. The National Writing Project (NWP) raised awareness about the ways that writing changes throughout a person’s life, the impact of a range of school and non-school experiences on writing, and the interactions between writing in school and these lived experiences.
Throughout the 20th century, writing instruction continued to follow a rigid, formulaic approach, emphasizing grammar and structure over creativity and critical thinking. Some of this focus on the importance of grammar and mechanics in writing instruction was due in part to the rise of standardized testing, which required students to demonstrate their mastery of these skills. Students were inundated with topic sentences, transitional phrases, and conclusion restatements in the omnipresent five-paragraph essay. Although this method guaranteed a basic level of literacy, creativity and enthusiasm were frequently sacrificed.
In recent years, the tide seems to have turned in favor of more innovation, voice, and freedom of expression. There has been a growing movement to move away from traditional grammar-based approaches to writing instruction and to focus more on helping students develop their critical thinking and problem-solving skills. Current best practices involve process-based instruction tailored to students’ needs and interests. Assignments also incorporate more authentic, real-world writing purposes and audiences.
Yet, with this varied history in the focus, goals, and implementation of writing instruction, the teaching of writing has not changed in many schools. Debates continue around balancing process approaches with quality outcomes. Standardized writing tests have been criticized for over-emphasizing grammar at the expense of actual writing skills. Researching writing development, including spelling patterns and the connections between writing, speaking, and reading, is a constant challenge. Other ongoing issues include managing teachers’ heavy workloads, integrating technology for composition and collaboration, and closing achievement gaps for minority students. Simultaneously, some educators find it difficult to strike a balance between grammar and real-world communication possibilities.
Writing Education and Generative AI
Generative AI tools hold great promise, but they also pose risks. Over-scaffolded writing assignments might fail to teach core composition skills. Targeted AI feedback could improve self-editing and reworking while maintaining the humanity of audience awareness and personal narrative. Students can receive immediate, personalized feedback thanks to technologies like AI co-writers, grammar and style checks, and predictive text. Students could become overly dependent on AI recommendations rather than developing their own voice and style. Essay scoring algorithms even mimic the evaluation procedure. Schools should prioritize balancing rather than seeing innovation as a substitute for efficient practice.
As educators and researchers, we need to better understand the appropriate role for writing technologies. How can AI augmentation best complement time-tested instructional methods? Which specific skills should remain the focus for teachers and students? Even with the help of intelligent recommendation systems, collaborative discourse and knowledge might still be developed through writing workshops and reading circles. Both tradition and technology have their place.
There is no one-size-fits-all approach to writing instruction, and the best approach for a particular student will depend on their individual needs. It is important to note that writing is a skill that takes time and practice to develop. Students will not become good writers overnight. However, with effective instruction, all students can learn to write well. There are some key principles that we can use to help guide future explorations of writing instruction and AI. These principles include:
A focus on the writing process as opposed to product, from prewriting to revision
Opportunities for students to write for a variety of purposes and audiences
Feedback from teachers, peers, and other agents
Numerous, varied chances for students to hone their writing abilities
As leaders in literacy, we have the chance to mentor the upcoming generation of authors. When writing instruction veered too much in the direction of either freedom or structure, it went awry. We can provide kids with the best of both worlds by ethically incorporating AI as a tool for improved results. Teaching the craft, generating ideas, finding one’s voice, and fostering a lifelong love of writing continue to be our guiding values. Technology can support this objective if used wisely. We can find the ideal equilibrium if we act carefully and wisely.
Dr. W. Ian O’Byrne is an associate professor of literacy education at the College of Charleston in South Carolina. His research focuses on the dispositions and literacy practices of individuals as they read, write, and communicate in online and/or hybrid spaces. Ian is the author of many journal articles and book chapters focusing on initiatives ranging from online and hybrid coursework, integrating technology in the classroom, computational thinking, and supporting marginalized students in literacy practices. His work can be found on his website (https://wiobyrne.com/) or in his weekly newsletter (https://digitallyliterate.net/).
Christy Howard returns with additional thoughts through the eyes of a literacy educator who works with preservice and in-service teachers as they navigate the changing expectations of education. Read more about Christy at the end of her blog.
Through my work as a literacy educator, I have the opportunity to work with preservice and in-service teachers as they navigate the changing expectations of education. I also work with school support staff, administrators and district-level curriculum leaders. Through this work I have recently been engaged in many conversations around curriculum materials and text selection for classrooms. Educators want to know how to engage students in the learning process, and how to help them in their journey to becoming critical consumers of texts — especially in a world where they are bombarded with so much information. Many secondary teachers recognize the need to look beyond the textbook for classroom materials, often acknowledging content area textbooks fail to provide all the information needed to support student learning. Many of them also acknowledge textbooks provide incomplete stories. My response to these educators as I nod in agreement is, “Let’s take a look at the role of counternarratives in your materials and text selection process.”
What are counternarratives?
There are many definitions of counternarratives. Here I would like to share the definition from Tricia Ebarvia’s new book, Get Free. She shares:
“A counternarrative is a story that stands in contrast to and challenges the values, beliefs and an established dominant narrative. Often counternarratives do this by focusing on the perspectives that are missing, marginalized, or actively erased from the dominant narrative” (Ebarvia, 2023, p.3).
This definition stands out to me because of the discussion of erasure. When I think about my conversations with educators and their stories of how some of them are dealing with curriculum mandates and banned books in their districts, this is an example of how perspectives are actively erased from the dominant narrative. Curriculum mandates and book bans often minimize access to the ideas, experiences and histories of marginalized groups. This is a clear reason why we need to provide space for multiple perspectives, allowing students to engage with both dominant narratives and counternarratives.
Why are counternarratives important?
Stories that only show the dominant perspective can be harmful. Students need exposure to multiple perspectives. These perspectives are not always readily available in neighborhoods and families. Tatum (2017) reminds us, Many of us grow up in neighborhoods where we had limited opportunities to interact with people different from our own families… Consequently, most of the early information we receive about “others”– people racially, religiously, or socioeconomically different from ourselves–does not come as a result of firsthand experience. The second hand information we receive has often been distorted, shaped by cultural stereotypes, and left incomplete (p. 84).
This incomplete information can lead to harmful actions. For example, incomplete, distorted information shaped by cultural stereotypes has led to physical and emotional harm against people in this country. We have seen this highlighted in news stories about hate crimes against marginalized groups, that in many cases have led to death. These incomplete stories and distorted stereotypes can be addressed through counternarratives in our classrooms, and if we believe dominant narratives can be harmful, it is easy to believe that perhaps counternarratives can be healing.
Counternarratives can also help us disrupt deficit perspectives and harmful narratives about people and places. For so long in the publishing world, we saw so few books written by and about the lives and experiences of people of color. This has been well documented by the Cooperative Children’s Book Center (2018). With this approach to publishing, the lives, experiences, and voices of marginalized people have been silenced. Tatum (2017) describes an experience where a preservice English teacher commented that she had never learned about any Black authors in her English courses and was concerned she would have difficulty teaching them if she had not learned about them in her schooling. A classmate commented, “It’s not my fault that Blacks don’t write books” (p. 85). This narrative is harmful, inaccurate, and is rooted in a deficit perspective. We must provide access to books for students that serve as counternarratives to this mindset, showing that we indeed have successful, amazing, authors across marginalized groups writing award-winning stories and creating award-winning film, art, poetry, music and dance. These counternarratives can show our students they, too, can be successful, amazing creators if they so choose to embrace that identity.
Counternarratives in Classrooms
There are many learning experiences you can provide for students to engage with counternarratives. I believe it’s important for students to read counternarratives. I also think it’s important for them to have opportunities to write counternarratives as well. Christensen (2017) asserts, “In writing about themselves, students learn to praise their beauty that the world overlooks or cannot see” (p. 82). Writing experiences through this lens allow students to write against false or inaccurate narratives, take ownership of their writing and show their beauty to the world. Here I want to share some opportunities for both reading and writing with you.
Children’s Books as Counternarratives
We know that children are often exposed to negative dominant perspectives through children’s stories, cartoons, and movies, where they have seen inaccurate representations of Indigenous People, as women portrayed as needing to be rescued, and People of Color, as lazy or villains. As educators, we have the opportunity to disrupt these narratives by using well-chosen, multi-perspective texts in our classrooms as counternarratives. At the bottom of this post, I have listed picture books, middle grade books, and young adult books that can be used as counternarratives. These are all beautiful stories, several of them focusing on love, joy, and community, while also speaking back to the dominant perspectives of marginalized people.
As we consider using such books in our classrooms, there are so many resources that can guide us in choosing texts, such as Diversifying Your Classroom Book Collections? Avoid these 7 Pitfalls. In addition, Ebarvia (2023) provides some questions to guide our thinking as well:
Can this text provide meaningful insight to students about identities with which they are unfamiliar?
In what ways can this text help to develop a positive social identity for my students?
How can this text challenge incomplete or harmful dominant narratives about different identities?
Does this writer treat their subject with complexity and nuance and avoid stereotypes?
What does this text not do or include that I will have to supplement with another text? What counternarratives will my students need after this text?
I hope through these resources, you find some helpful texts to meet the needs of your students and engage them in exploring counternarratives in your classrooms.
Visual Autobiographies
Visual autobiographies are an opportunity for students to engage in creating counternarratives. Students can generate multimodal projects that include items such as photos, drawings, poems, songs, and videos. This type of assignment is open for students in a way that they are able to choose what they want to present and how they want to present it. They are able to share their identity, culture, history, beauty, and brilliance. They begin by exploring the dominant narratives that might be told about them, parts of their identities or their communities. They, then, consider how they can create visual representations as counternarratives to these dominant narratives.
Talking Back
Talking Back is an activity Christenson (2017) shares where she asks students to “criticize commercially produced images about the way they should look, sound, or act” (p. 82) and to speak back to these perspectives through poetry. In her example, she uses the poem, “what the mirror said” by Lucille Clifton. I have also used Maya Angelou’s Still I Rise poem as a mentor text. Additionally, I have created a poem as a mentor text for this assignment so students can see my thinking in this process as well. As an educator, what would you like to “talk back” to? What texts could you use with your students as representations of “talking back?”
Reflections of…
I believe in self-reflection. It is an important piece of all of my instructional practices. When I consider what it means to include counternarratives in my classroom, these are the questions I am asking myself. I encourage you to join me in reflection as you consider integrating counternarratives into your classrooms.
What is the role dominant narratives have played in my life?
What is my role in promoting the dominant narrative in classroom spaces? How have I believed or accepted deficit dominant narratives?
How can I challenge the negative perceptions in dominant narratives?
How do I use narratives to help students construct new understandings of the world?
Whose experiences and voices are centered in my classroom?
Whose experiences and voices are marginalized?
Whose voices are missing? What does this mean? Why does this matter?
How can I continue to provide space for my students to “talk back?”
Children’s Books and Professional Resources
Picture books
We Are Still Here: Native American Truths Everyone Should Know by Traci Sorell
Something Beautiful by Sharon Denni Wyeth
I Am Every Good Thing by Derrick Barnes
We Are Water Protectors by Carole Lindstrom
My Papi Has a Motorcycle by Isabel Quintero
Ada Twist, Scientist by Andrea Beaty
Middle Grade books
Mascot by Charles Watters and Traci Sorell
Some Places More Than Others by Renee Watson
Indian No More by Charlene Willing McManis and Traci Sorell
Harbor Me by Jacqueline Woodson
Swim Team by Johnnie Christmas
Young Adult books
Clap When You Land by Elizabeth Acevedo
The Silence that Binds Us by Joanna Ho
The 57 Bus by Dashka Slater
Professional Resources
Christensen, L. (2017). Reading, writing, and rising up: Teaching about social justice and the power of the written word. (2nd ed.) Rethinking Schools.
Muhammad, G. (2020). Cultivating genius: An equity framework for culturally andhistorically responsive literacy. New York, NY: Scholastic.
References
Christensen, L. (2017). Reading, writing, and rising up: Teaching about social justice andthe power of the written word. (2nd ed.) Rethinking Schools.
DeHart, J., & Staff, L. for J. (n.d.). Countering the narrative. Learning for Justice.
Ebarvia, T. (2024). Get free: Anti-bias literacy instruction for stronger readers, writers, andthinkers. Corwin.
Muhammad, G. (2020). Cultivating genius: An equity framework for culturally and historicallyresponsive literacy. New York, NY: Scholastic.
Tatum, B. D. (2017). Why are all the Black kids sitting together in the cafeteria?: And otherconversations about race. New York: Basic Books
Christy Howard has been an educator for over 20 years. She is currently an Associate Professor in the Department of Literacy Studies, English Education, and History Education at East Carolina University where she teaches undergraduate and graduate courses. In her free time, she enjoys traveling and spending time with her family.
As a follow up to her webinar, Brooke Hardin expands on her resources for using multi-modal writing responses to engage students in writing.
In twenty years of teaching English Language Arts, helping students discover their “writerly life” has remained a passion. To live a writerly life means that individuals write often and with a fair amount of ease, that they see their everyday ordinary lives brimming with writing topics, and that they can use writing to reflect their ideas and potentially gain new ones. In order to begin to live a writerly life, one must be motivated to write. As teachers, engaging students in writing tasks can often be a challenge, but certain elements increase both students’ motivation for writing and their efficacy for writing tasks. Student choice in topic, modeling of strategies and techniques, consistent time to share, give, and receive feedback on writing, and invitations to write in varying modes have all been identified as ways to more likely engage students in writing. This post serves to provide strategies related to the latter idea, using various modes for writing and how these modes might inspire students to write and deepen their knowledge of disciplinary content.
What is Multimodal Writing? What Might it Look/Sound Like?
Multimodal texts are print-based and digital texts using more than one mode or semiotic resource to present meaning; mode is defined as a socio culturally formed resource to make meaning (Kress, 1010; Serafini, 2015). Authors have been exploring multimodal response for over a decade and have seen its potential to engage students in personal response and critical analysis of literature, while also developing their appreciation of genres (Dalton & Grisham, 2013). Expanding students’ literacy palette to include the modes of image, video, audio, and writing offers them more choices for how to develop and express their thinking about reading. When readers write about, interpret, or respond in some fashion to their transaction with a text, a new text is produced as the reader-turns-writer; that is, a writer or creator who seeks to express that experience with the text (Rosenblatt, 1994). Writing in a poetic form or creating a digital design as an aesthetic response to the reading positions the reader-turned-writer to adopt an aesthetic stance in which the student’s attention is focused on the lived-through experience of the reading: the emotions, moods, intuitions, attitudes, and tensions connected to the ideas and characters embodied in the text (Rosenblatt, 1994). Thus, one of the benefits of multimodal writing tasks is their potential to deepen comprehension and/or content learning.
One strategy for multimodal writing is called a half-and-half portrait (see Image 1). To create this piece, a student would first “write” the portrait about themselves. The portrait is a visual representation of an individual done by drawing one half of the person’s face using physical features (i.e., hair style, eye color, nose shape) and then filling in the other half of the face with images, quotes, or other ideas that relate to the person’s attributes, interests, life experiences. Once a student has created a half-and-half portrait about themselves, they can apply the strategy to a character from text, historical or present-day figure, or any other person. For example, the physical side of the portrait is created using the features visualized by the reader based on descriptions in the text. The other half of the character’s face uses images and other ideas related to the character and inspired by evidence from the text. For example, students might read the middle grades novel Refugee by Alan Gratz, which portrays the refugee experience of three distinct, fictional adolescent characters. Students reading this novel could further explore and demonstrate their understanding of these characters through the creation of a half-and-half portrait (see Image 2).
Image 1: Personal ½ and ½ Portrait (created by author)
Image 2: Isabel from Refugee (created by author)
In addition to creating the portraits, students can also create video or audio recordings that explain the thinking behind their multimodal writings. Teachers might ask students to discuss both the materials used to create the portraits and the ideas represented in the portraits. In multimodal writing using a visual art form such as this portrait, selection of materials and images or quotes used should be as intentional as word choice is in written texts. An example of my explanation for my half-and-half portrait can be found using this link.
As with any new genre of writing, students need mentor texts they can reference for ideas and inspiration. Picture books, especially those that have been recognized for their illustrations, serve as some of my favorite mentor texts for multimodal writing with visual art (see Images 3 and 4).
Image 3: Illustrations made with stones in Stepping Stones: A Refugee FAmily’s Journey by Margaret Ruurs
Image 4:
Illustrations made with layered collage featuring book pages,
tattered book covers, neon paints, and cloth in How to Read a
Book by Kwame Alexander and illustrated by Melissa Sweet
Engaging Students in Writing with Poetry
Poetry is another genre that often engages students in writing tasks. Poetry is subjective and its structure can vary. Some forms, like haiku, have a particular form, but poetry can also be as simples as a collection of a person’s favorite words. The rules of writing become more relaxed in different types of poems, which allows students to tap into their creativity and use their voice to play with words, line breaks, and the appearance of the poem. Many poems are what I call “bite-sized;” thus, they are also less intimidating to write for more reluctant writers.
Definition Poems
Definition poems are a specific type of poetry that follows a form but also holds space for students to use craft moves and have agency with the writing. This form of poetry is inspired by some of the pages from the middle grade novel The Crossover by Kwame Alexander (see Image 5). Written in verse, the novel features several poetic styles, including definition poems, that might serve as mentor texts for students poetic writing. The definition poem invites students to engage in writing while also enhancing their vocabulary knowledge and using learned content to create something new.
Image 5: Definition poem from The Crossover
When teaching students to write definition poems, teachers should use the same principles they would use with teaching any other genre. Reference the mentor text, such as one of Alexander’s poems from The Crossover, and engage students in inquiry by asking them to take notice of how the author wrote the poem – that is, to think about and name aloud the “ingredients” used in the poem and what might be required for someone else to write the same style of poem. For example, teachers would point out how each stanza begins with “As in:” and how the vocabulary term is used in each stanza. Teachers might use a shared writing approach to co-author a definition poem with the whole class and invite students to co-author this kind of poem in pairs before they write one independently. Again, this kind of poem can be used with vocabulary from novels students read and to other content areas. See Image 6 for an example definition poem written about the math term parallel. As seen in the example, the poem offers students the opportunity to sustain their thinking about a word and its meaning and invites them to see how vocabulary terms are relevant to their lives. Additionally, these kinds of poems can serve as a piece of writing in a larger multimodal piece. For example, students might be invited to illustrate each stanza of the poem to add a visual layer.
Image 6: Example definition poem (created by author)
Use each word in the line as the end word in each line of your poem.
Keep the words in order.
Give credit to the original poet.
The new poem does not need to be about the same subject as the original poem, but they can be related in some way if the writer chooses to do so.
Inspired by Terrance Hayes, Nikki Giovanni wrote the book One Last Word, which is a book of golden shovel poems about the Harlem Renaissance. Using two of the poems from this book as mentor text (see Images 7 and 8), teachers can help students see how the poem is written and gain inspiration for their own writing.
Image 7: “Storm Ending” from One Last Word
Image 8: “Truth,” a poem written by Nikki Giovanni using a linefrom “Storm Ending” by Jean Toomer
Teachers should immerse students in reading many different poems, invite them to bring in poems – including song lyrics – that they admire, to gain ideas and inspiration for writing their own golden shovel poems. Again, teachers may want to scaffold this kind of writing and co-author poems with students in a whole group setting before tasking students with writing one on their own. Golden shovel poems are complex but also provide students an opportunity to play with word choice, syntax, line breaks, and be creative in their writing. Inspired by a poem from Mary Oliver’s Dog Songs, I show students my own attempt at this poetic form (See Images 9 and 10).
Image 9: Excerpt from “Luke’s Junkyard Song” by Mary Oliver
Image 10: Golden shovel using the last two lines from “Luke’s Junkyard Song” (created by author)
Final Thoughts
No matter the strategy used, teachers must remember to embrace vulnerability and write alongside of students, both modeling the techniques and making the cognitive side of writing – word choice decisions, art medium choices, etc. – become evident and accessible for students. Writers need to see and hear other writers engaged in writing to discern the process and be inspired. Writers also need room for creativity. Each of the strategies offered here provides space for creativity and the opportunity for students to express themselves while also learning and showing their content knowledge.
References
Kress, G. (2010). Multimodality: A social semiotic approach to contemporary communication. London, UK: Routledge.
Rosenblatt, L. M. (1994). The transactional theory of reading and writing. In R. Ruddell et al. (Eds.), Theoretical models and processes of reading (4th ed). Newark, DE: International Reading Association.
Serafini, F. (2015). Multimodal literacy: From theories to practices. Language Arts, 92(6), 412-423.
Brooke Hardin is an Assistant Professor of Elementary Education at USC-Upstate. Her experience includes elementary and middle grades classroom teaching as as well as curriculum literacy specialist. This webinar reflects Brooke’s special interest in multi-model writing as a response to reading.
Brooke Hardin is an Assistant Professor of Elementary Education at USC-Upstate. Her experience includes elementary and middle grades classroom teaching as as well as curriculum literacy specialist. This webinar reflects Brooke’s special interest in multi-model writing as a response to reading.
This blog is written by Katie Kelly to remind us how and why to teach a more current and accurate history curriculum. Read more about Katie at the bottom of her post.
Looking Back
For far too long, social studies has been taught (if taught at all) through a teacher-centered model comprised of lectures, note-taking, and task-oriented textbook reading. Students are assigned chapters with questions to answer and are later tested on the content. History becomes rote memorization of key dates and figures without meaningful context or deep learning. Therefore, we should not be surprised that many students lack understanding of significant historical events and find social studies both boring and irrelevant. A 2020 survey of adults under forty revealed that ten percent of respondents were unfamiliar with the Holocaust, and sixty-three percent of those surveyed did not know that over six million Jews were murdered in the Holocaust (Pew Research Center, 2020).
This is frightening and concerning. Not only do we need to ensure that young people are learning history but also that they are learning about it from multiple perspectives in order to weave a more complete tapestry of truth. Dr. Gholdy Muhammad (2020) reminds us to consider how our curriculum and instruction help us understand power, equity, and anti-oppression. Our teaching practices must be responsive to the historical events that shape the present if we aim to help students understand content from marginalized perspectives (Muhammad, 2020).
Teaching Today
Textbooks remain the primary source of social studies content in many classrooms (Brophy & Alleman, 2009). One problem with relying solely on textbooks is that they are designed as an overview of vast periods of time and lack depth and breadth on specific topics. As a result, textbooks often convey oversimplified information and are frequently told from a single perspective that omits the voices and stories of historically marginalized groups (Yearta & Kelly, 2021). This results in a narrow, biased, white-washed curriculum. Sanitized versions of history induce a sense of patriotism while ignoring the complicated past and present (Demoiny & Ferraras-Stone, 2018). As James W. Lowen writes in Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong (2018),“The stories that history textbooks tell are all predictable; every problem has already been solved or is about to be solved… Textbooks exclude conflict or real suspense. They leave out anything that might reflect badly upon on national character.”
We cannot ignore our complicated and difficult past if we seek a better tomorrow for future generations. To foster increased engagement in learning a more complete and accurate history, we must build our capacity and willingness to include multiple perspectives and acknowledge that every perspective is true and partial (Hamilton et al., 2020).
Moving Forward
In order to teach a more complete and accurate history, we can incorporate multiperspective text sets including books, articles, primary sources, multimodal resources, etc. featuring the stories and perspectives that have traditionally been silenced or marginalized. Multiperspective text sets help students layer their learning about complex history to develop a more nuanced and accurate understanding of how it influences the present. When students have opportunities to connect the past to the present, history becomes more relatable and relevant to their lives (Kelly et al., 2023).
In our book, Critical Comprehension: Lessons for Guiding Students to Deeper Meaning (2023), we offer a multiple read framework to help students move beyond passive acceptance of information towards a deeper critical analysis of text by questioning the author’s intent, the information included/excluded, how the text positions the reader, and who benefits or is harmed by it. The return read seeks to disrupt and interrupt widely accepted narratives, the writer’s intention, and the reader’s stance to uncover hidden truths. This return read, or critical read, is necessary when examining the ways in which history is presented. As readers deconstruct texts, they think critically about historical and current events to examine power relations revealed in text and mirrored in society (Jones, 2006; Vasquez, 2010).
Sample questions for critical reading:
Whose story is being told?
Whose stories are being left out?
Who benefits? Who is harmed?
How does this perspective position the reader?
What does the author want the reader to think or know?
How does the text perpetuate stereotypes?
How do your assumptions and associations position you to interact with text?
These questions serve as a framework to help students move beyond the dominant narrative to explore counter narratives and expand their perspectives and understanding of our country’s past and present. History textbooks often center the stories of the victor, the hero, the white male. For example, we think of our founding fathers and our first president and general of the Continental Army who led us toward independence. The Declaration of Independence stated that all men were created equal. We celebrate the Fourth of July with displays of patriotism from waving flags, red, white and blue clothing, parades, and fireworks displays. Yet, history textbooks rarely explain that neither women nor people of color had independence and freedom. In fact, slavery was not abolished for another 86 years when Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation. Even then, it took three years for this information to reach enslaved people in Texas. On June 19, 1865, federal troops traveled to Galveston, Texas, to bring the news of freedom. This day has been commemorated as Juneteenth, and though Black citizens have long celebrated it, it has largely been overlooked until recently. Juneteenth became a federal holiday in the U.S. in 2021 amidst continued activism and the momentum of the Black Lives Matter movement. Teaching about Juneteenth is one way to help students bridge the past to the present to learn the nuanced and more complete truth of this part of U.S. history. This Book Buzz blog postoffers a sample text set to help students deepen their understanding of the importance of Juneteenth.
Our country has a long history of centering the power of dominant voices. This perspective is privileged in the curriculum in our schools as well. Therefore, we must work to ensure that multiple perspectives are included when teaching social studies. Consider your own school experiences. What were you taught? What weren’t you taught? Whose stories were included? Whose were left out? How did that shape your beliefs about the world and your place in it? (Kelly et al., 2023).
Critical comprehension requires deeper reading to consciously question the text, the world, and the stories we’ve been told. Critical readers seek a more nuanced understanding by uncovering silenced voices, omitted narratives, and multiple perspectives needed to weave a more informed and complete tapestry of truth.
References
Brophy, J., & Alleman, J. (2009). Meaningful social studies for elementary students. Teachersand Teaching, 15(3), 357– 376.
Demoiny, S.B. & Ferraras-Stone, J. (2018). Critical Literacy in Elementary Social Studies:
Juxtaposing Historical Master and Counter Narratives in Picture Books. The Social Studies, 109(2), 64-73.
Hamilton, D.M., Wilson, G.M., & Loh, K.M. (2020). Compassionate Conversations: How tospeak and listen from the heart. Boulder, CO: Shambhala.
Jones, S. (2006). Girls, social class and literacy: What teachers can do to make a difference. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.
Kelly, K., Laminack, L. & Vasquez, V. (2023). Critical Comprehension: Lessons for Guiding
Students to Deeper Meaning. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press.
Lowen, J. W. (2018). Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got
Wrong. New York: The New Press.
Muhammad, G. (2020). Cultivating Genius: An Equity Framework for Culturally andHistorically Responsive Literature. New York: Scholastic.
Vasquez, V. (2010). Getting beyond “I like the book”: Creating space for critical literacy in K-6classrooms. Newark, DE: International Reading Association.
Yearta, L. & Kelly, K.(2021). Digital Storytelling to Enhance Social Studies ContentKnowledge, Explore Multiple Perspectives, and Advocate for Social Justice. In J. Tussey & L. Haas (Eds.). Connecting Disciplinary Literacy and Digital Storytelling in K-12 Education. IGI Global.
Katie Kelly is an Associate Professor at Furman University in Greenville, South Carolina. As a former teacher and literacy coach, Katie’s teaching and research interests include engaging children in meaningful literacy experiences and practices to foster lifelong literacy, equity, and justice. She is widely published in several peer-reviewed journals and has co-authored four books. She can be contacted on Instagram/Twitter @ktkelly14 and by email katie.kelly@furman.edu.
This blog is written by Tori Young and shows us how to scaffold written essays resulting in a video essay. Read more about Tori at the bottom of her post.
Have you ever caught yourself in the never-ending rabbit hole of online video essays? Conspiracy theories, movie plot analyses, theme park history and so many more topics are explained in a thorough manner with research and analysis weaving together ideas and backgrounds you never would have put together. Even if you have not stumbled into this online phenomenon, I can assure you that your students have. Whether hour long YouTube deep-dives, or short TikTok synopsis series, students are being presented with researched information about a wide range of topics even if they do not recognize it. After noticing this for myself, I asked “why aren’t more essays like this?”
Research papers and argumentative essays are the primary form of essay writing used in my history classroom. I want my students to know how to be informed citizens and communicate their ideas and beliefs in a way that is grounded in historical truth and facts. I typically scaffold this process throughout the year using activities based on the content. Typically, I start out with an exit ticket asking students to pick a side on a tough topic (no in between!) and tell me why they chose their stance. Nothing formal just to get them to practice how to take a stance. Slowly I will make them add facts from a document we read in class to back up their positions and eventually start teaching the research process by having them look for reliable sources of their own to support their side. Eventually, all that information can be used to organize and create a well-written paper for social studies.
The broad goals of this process are to teach students how to make informed decisions and communicate their ideas effectively. While a traditional essay is an excellent way to practice those skills, many teachers like me have seen the difficulties for students that come with that ultimate step of writing the paper. For many students, the formal language or length of the writing assignment can be daunting to approach, causing them to shut down before trying. But we look at them confused; they have already practically written the paper with their summaries and research. Why can’t they just fill in the gaps with just a few sentences?
I found myself asking these questions every year. When I asked my students to verbalize their answers, I got great insight and connections to the content from them. They know this content, in fact many of them get passionate about it when it is time for them to argue. As I pondered this, I concluded that most of my students will only share their research and findings about topics verbally in their futures. Why am I not adding a verbal layer of assessment to this process?
This is where the wonderful world of video essays came into play for me and my classes. A video essay takes on the same structure as an essay but uses visual aids and commentary to present the information. Just like a good historical essay, it begins with background information on the topic and a clear thesis. It is then followed by key points that are supported by examples. And lastly, the video concludes with the creator’s main idea and the topic’s historical impact. Video essays help students practice research skills, organizing ideas and examples, but instead of writing, they are practicing presentation skills!
An example of this in my high school US History classes is during our unit on the Antebellum era. There are a lot of names of important people during this period; abolitionists, women’s rights activists, and politicians. I let my students pick from a list of key figures to research to share their life story. I give loose parameters on the assignment, asking students to provide the background of the person’s life, their contributions to Antebellum America, and their lasting impact on the United States. Some students may need more guidance, so it may be helpful to provide examples of information you are looking for such as their birthplace, career, and writings to name a few possibilities. I then ask students to record a two-minute video using WeVideo or Screencastify to present their findings using media to support their discussion.
I have seen my quietest students speak without hesitation in these videos, presenting on topics with great care and speaking skills. The key is that I do not show them in front of the class. Once the fear of being judged by their peers is taken away, students become comfortable with the process. They also begin to get creative with their media. Many will create a PowerPoint to display and follow along with for their video. However, I have seen animations, skits, and eulogies come out of this assignment as students begin to find their creativity with this medium.
Students are still practicing all the skills I need them to learn for my goals, but by incorporating video essays I have seen higher levels of engagement with historical content. This is not meant to take away from the importance of formal writing. While not all our students will go on to university and academia, they will still need to write important emails and apply for jobs. Formal writing is an important skill, but if you also notice students needing an extra step in scaffolding the writing process in social studies then consider video essays. Students will even surprise themselves with how much they know!
Images courtesy of Pexels
Tori Young is a high school social studies teacher in Anderson, South Carolina. She is currently working on her Master’s in Instructional Design and Learning Technology at Anderson University.
This blog is written by Lesley Roessing suggesting that a variety of texts can be used to teach historical events still impacting the world today. Read more about Lesley at the bottom of her post.
No historical event may be as unique and complicated to discuss and teach as the events of September 11, 2001, the day terrorists crashed planes into, and destroyed, the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center. At the time of this event, no child in our present K-12 educational system was yet born, but, in most cases, their parents and educators would have been old enough to have some knowledge of, and even personal experience with, these events, making this a very difficult historic event for many to teach. However, with the devastation and impact of these events on our past, present, and future and as ingrained a part of history these events are, they need to be discussed and understood as much as possible.
An effective way to learn about these events is through story. Powerful novels have been written about this tragedy, for all age levels and, fascinatingly, each presents a different perspective of the events. Some take place during September 11, some following the events, some a few years later or many years later, and a few include two timelines. Many take place from the perspectives of multiple characters.
Yusuf Azeem is Not a Hero by Saadia Faruqi “Suspicion of those unlike us is common human behavior. We don’t trust who we don’t know. But yes, 9/11 was terrible, and it really fueled the fire of hatred in this country.” (184-5)
Sixth grader Yusuf Azeem was born in Texas and is an American; his mother was also born in America and his father was a Pakistani immigrant who runs the popular A to Z Dollar Store in town (and a somewhat a local hero after capturing an intruder threatening his store and customers). The family is Muslim, but, understandably, Yusuf is shocked when sixth grade begins with threatening notes in his locker. When one says, “Go home,” he is hurt and confused. Frey, Texas is his home. Surely the notes are meant for someone else.
This is a novel that may benefit from some background on the events of September 11, 2001, since the action takes places in 2021 but, read individually, Ausuf’s uncle’s journal helps to fill in information. The importance of this particular novel is that it demonstrates that, for some of our citizens and students, “Twenty years. So much time. But things haven’t really changed at all.” (48) One of the major events in the story—when a little computer in his backpack beeped and, instead of questioning him and investigating, Ausuf is thrown in jail for twelve hours—is based on a real event from 2015 where Ahmed Mohamed, a Muslim 14-year-old, was arrested at his high school because of a disassembled digital clock he brought to school to show his teachers [https://www.cnn.com/2015/09/16/us/texas-student-ahmed-muslim-clock-bomb].
It is vital that our children learn about 9/11 because, as Yusuf’s mamoo says, “History informs our present and affects our future.” (81)
In the Shadows of the Fallen Towers by Don Brown Don Brown’s graphic novel recounts events following the 9/11 attacks on the Towers and the Pentagon from the moment of the “jetliner slamming into the North Tower of the World Trade Center” to the one-year anniversary ceremonies at the Pentagon, in Shanksville, Pennsylvania, and at Ground Zero. It also covers the fighting of U.S. troops in Afghanistan and the capture and interrogation of prisoners from an al-Qaeda hideout in Pakistan.
The drawings allow readers to bear witness to the heroism of the first responders, firefighters, and police as they move from rescue to recovery over the ten months following the attacks and learn the stories of some of the survivors they saved. It is the story of the nameless “strangers [who] help[ed] one another, carrying the injured, offering water to the thirsty, and comforting the weeping.” (23)
We learn and view details that we may have not known, such as “Bullets start to fly when the flames and heat set off ammunition from fallen police officers’ firearms,” (11) the “Pentagon workers [who] plunge[d] into the smoke-filled building to restore water pressure made feeble by pipes broken in the attack,” (36) and former military who donned their old uniforms and “bluff[ed their way] past the roadblocks” to “sneak onto the Pile” to help. (50, 52)
For more mature readers this book adds to the story of 9/11 in a more “graphic” way.
I have taught a unit on NINE ELEVEN through book clubs in multiple schools from grades 5 through 9 in both ELA and Social Studies classes. Children and adolescents have felt comfortable these sensitive and challenging concepts and examining these troubling events and some of the ensuing difficulties, prejudices, and bullying, through the eyes of characters who are around their ages, some readers sharing personal stories in their small collaborative groups. I am thankful for the authors who have allowed our children to experience these events in a safe and compassionate way. I have presented these novels and strategies and lessons for reading through book clubs at local workshops and national conferences. I included my 9/11 Book Club unit as a chapter in TALKING TEXTS: A Teacher’s Guide To Book Clubs Across The Curriculum.
Lesley Roessing was a public-school teacher in eastern Pennsylvania for 20 years where she taught high school and middle school ELA, Humanities, and Gifted Studies. In 2010, she founded and directed the Coastal Savannah Writing Project at Georgia Southern University where she also taught pre-service and in-service teachers. The year prior to her retirement, she served as the Literacy Consultant (Coach) for a K-8 charter school. Upon retirement, she continued writing, visiting classrooms to facilitate reading and writing lessons, and posting all things literacy!
Follow her website, created to support educators—teachers, librarians, and parents, at https://www.literacywithlesley.com/
