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Monday, September 29, 2014
GCISD's 25 Book Challenge
Our district has embarked on a HUGE challenge this year . . . encouraging all of our students in grades 3-12 to read 25 books all through free choice. We have structured the plan so that students will practice reading from a variety of genres. Many teachers have incorporated daily book talks in their class to help students with their next book selections. We are off and running - and teachers and students are even tweeting about their reading experiences.
Saturday, September 27, 2014
Book Love Ends . . .
I did not hurry through the reading of Book Love by Penny Kittle. I found myself wanting it to go on - one of those books you hate to see come to an end. I know I will reread it again someday from to cover to cover - but for now I will pick through the highlights tagged by sticky notes and the florescent yellow highlighter that I carefully colored over ideas that spoke to me.
I have found myself referring to this book many times over the past several months in my work with teachers. Penny Kittle helps her readers find ways to connect reading and writing with our students - explaining practical ideas that can easily be adopted to any classroom. Again, this is a must read, I'm sure I've already stated that at some point. Below are more excerpts/quotes from her book that resonated with me.
Chapter #7 - "Responding to Reading"
1. "... the difficulties students are having with college reading like this ... is that independent learning is critical. The students that come to us are reading for the sake of reading, not using the venue of reading or the skill of literacy to learn how to learn. They're waiting for someone else to tell them what they need to learn rather than using the tool of reading and literacy to learn."
2. "When we learn to read well, we read differently. When we see and can name the gifts that authors ease into books, we uncover a blueprint in story that transfers to other reading. But the key is discovery. We cannot be told. We must seek it."
3. "... when we write, we uncover what we didn't know we knew. We find new ways to see and think ... students don't believe writing is thinking; they see it as performance"
4. "My bridge between writing and thinking is notebooks. If I can get students to quick-write the first thing that comes to mind and follow that thinking, they discover the unusual, the thing they weren't thinking about, the thing that appears in their writing and must be attended to. It is voice on the page. Discovery writing uncovers the unconscious, and when a few brave students share these rough bits of their thinking, we are bound together as a community of explorers." (Quick writes)
5. "Students need to write about the thinking they do while reading. I seek rich responses from students. I model this with my own thinking. I might say, ' I'd like you to consider the questions you think the author is asking in the book you're reading and what you think about these questions. Most books have questions at the center, and when we step back and think about them, we often understand more.'"
6. "How often should students write about reading? Every other week works for me. Asking them to write about their reading every time they read destroys the process' effectiveness. Reading students' periodic notebook entries in connection with my reading conferences allows me into students' reading experiences enough to know how to lead them to the next book that will challenge and engage them."
7. "Some days students respond to quotations from the text that they would like to say something about. I ask them to collect quotations during a few days of reading, then fill in their responses."
8. "We know that rereading a text is central to deepening understanding. Rereading is when we begin to think differently and see differently. There are layers of thinking that aren't accessible the first time through."
9. "But here's a more important truth: it is fine when students know more about their subject of study than we do. We have the strategies; they have the content."
10. "We must lead students to pay attention to the structure and complexity in fiction, analyzing and interpreting the moves of the author and the text."
11. "Another simple activity I use to prompt writing about reading is to ask students to find a sentence from something they've read recently that they love for the beauty of the language or what it tells them about life, then write what they're thinking in response. Students share these around their tables of four, reading the sentences other have chosen and immersing themselves in good writing and getting a peak at the books others are reading."
12. "I believe we grow as writers by standing on the shoulders of those who write better than we do. I don't think this is plagiarism, I think it is part of our study of the craft of what we're reading."
13. Great strategy for ALL students: "... discovery drafting. Take two or possibly three books from your reading list and draw some connections. Imagine where the books fit into the ideas and categories of themes we've found in literature together. You can list and sketch or write in sentences. Later, we'll deepen our thinking by adding evidence for how the theme is revealed in each."
Chapter #8 - "Nurturing Interdependent Reader in a Classroom Community"
1. Big Idea Books (I love this idea and see the power of using this in the classroom) - "I buy cheap notebooks at an office supply store and label them with common themes in literature, one per notebook (guilt, hope, fate, cruelty, isolation, justice, gender, freedom, etc. - her list long - and it is good!)." She distributes these books periodically to her class and they are to choose one that connects to the book they are currently reading. She has students write for about ten minutes in these notebooks. Penny Kittle believes that this activity helps her students bring more pleasure to the act of reading.
2. "Teaching reading is not imparting knowledge to a reader about a particular book; rather, it is using a deep understanding of ways of knowing many books to nudge a reader to another place in his or her thinking about, first, and individual book and then about literature as a whole."
3. "Prompting students' thinking by way of inquiry, not direct teaching, is the essence of education. Students remember what they do and what they discover, not what they are told."
4. "Drawing connections between ways of knowing the world and the thinking kids are doing about individual books is powerful teaching. It is so much deeper than studying one book in isolation."
5. "I believe in the power of setting goals and making them public. My students need to understand why and how to challenge themselves as readers, to set goals, and then be nudged to commit to them."
Chapter #9 - "Creating a School Community of Readers"
1. "... my work in my classroom focuses on thinking deeply about individual students and understanding what they need to improve."
2. Schoolwide Reading Break - "... a whole-school effort would change our culture and create a lasting impact not only on individual students but our entire community.
3. " A kid who doesn't read in high school will be unlikely to read as a young adult."
4. "The Reading Break committee proposed sustained silent reading for the whole school for twenty minutes a day."
5. "Four mornings a week at 9:00 AM Kennett High School becomes nearly silent. Between first and second block, students gather in classrooms, conference rooms, the weight room, corners of the auditorium, science labs, and even the faculty lounge to read with teachers. And it works. Kids read. Then academic performance is improving. We should expect good results when we create time to read in school."
6. Penny Kittle describes the few obstacles that they had to deal with: providing access to books, dealing with students who don't want to read books, maintaining silence, establishing clear, consistent expectations, recommending books, and dealing with nonreaders.
7. She also explains at her high school, "You'll find more talk about books than we've ever experienced at our school before. We are committed to developing a community of readers."
8. Summer Reading - she talks about the importance of students reading over the summer. She also offers some suggestions on how to do this, such as, keep our school libraries open, set up book clubs, pick up a book somewhere and return it somewhere else, involve the community, etc.
9. "Summer reading should invoke pleasure - relaxation - opportunity. Challenge kids to read three books by one author so they can speculate on a writer's growth or read three books from a similar time period or analyze the prejudices and unspoken values in a series of fantasy novels. Let students set their own goals for summer reading and I guarantee some will choose and make time for the classics and read more than we'd ever assign to them."
10. "Reading teachers read."
I have found a great deal of inspiration in this book and it has given me some great ideas on how to encourage a love for reading with students.
I have found myself referring to this book many times over the past several months in my work with teachers. Penny Kittle helps her readers find ways to connect reading and writing with our students - explaining practical ideas that can easily be adopted to any classroom. Again, this is a must read, I'm sure I've already stated that at some point. Below are more excerpts/quotes from her book that resonated with me.
Chapter #7 - "Responding to Reading"
1. "... the difficulties students are having with college reading like this ... is that independent learning is critical. The students that come to us are reading for the sake of reading, not using the venue of reading or the skill of literacy to learn how to learn. They're waiting for someone else to tell them what they need to learn rather than using the tool of reading and literacy to learn."
2. "When we learn to read well, we read differently. When we see and can name the gifts that authors ease into books, we uncover a blueprint in story that transfers to other reading. But the key is discovery. We cannot be told. We must seek it."
3. "... when we write, we uncover what we didn't know we knew. We find new ways to see and think ... students don't believe writing is thinking; they see it as performance"
4. "My bridge between writing and thinking is notebooks. If I can get students to quick-write the first thing that comes to mind and follow that thinking, they discover the unusual, the thing they weren't thinking about, the thing that appears in their writing and must be attended to. It is voice on the page. Discovery writing uncovers the unconscious, and when a few brave students share these rough bits of their thinking, we are bound together as a community of explorers." (Quick writes)
5. "Students need to write about the thinking they do while reading. I seek rich responses from students. I model this with my own thinking. I might say, ' I'd like you to consider the questions you think the author is asking in the book you're reading and what you think about these questions. Most books have questions at the center, and when we step back and think about them, we often understand more.'"
6. "How often should students write about reading? Every other week works for me. Asking them to write about their reading every time they read destroys the process' effectiveness. Reading students' periodic notebook entries in connection with my reading conferences allows me into students' reading experiences enough to know how to lead them to the next book that will challenge and engage them."
7. "Some days students respond to quotations from the text that they would like to say something about. I ask them to collect quotations during a few days of reading, then fill in their responses."
8. "We know that rereading a text is central to deepening understanding. Rereading is when we begin to think differently and see differently. There are layers of thinking that aren't accessible the first time through."
9. "But here's a more important truth: it is fine when students know more about their subject of study than we do. We have the strategies; they have the content."
10. "We must lead students to pay attention to the structure and complexity in fiction, analyzing and interpreting the moves of the author and the text."
11. "Another simple activity I use to prompt writing about reading is to ask students to find a sentence from something they've read recently that they love for the beauty of the language or what it tells them about life, then write what they're thinking in response. Students share these around their tables of four, reading the sentences other have chosen and immersing themselves in good writing and getting a peak at the books others are reading."
12. "I believe we grow as writers by standing on the shoulders of those who write better than we do. I don't think this is plagiarism, I think it is part of our study of the craft of what we're reading."
13. Great strategy for ALL students: "... discovery drafting. Take two or possibly three books from your reading list and draw some connections. Imagine where the books fit into the ideas and categories of themes we've found in literature together. You can list and sketch or write in sentences. Later, we'll deepen our thinking by adding evidence for how the theme is revealed in each."
**********
Chapter #8 - "Nurturing Interdependent Reader in a Classroom Community"
1. Big Idea Books (I love this idea and see the power of using this in the classroom) - "I buy cheap notebooks at an office supply store and label them with common themes in literature, one per notebook (guilt, hope, fate, cruelty, isolation, justice, gender, freedom, etc. - her list long - and it is good!)." She distributes these books periodically to her class and they are to choose one that connects to the book they are currently reading. She has students write for about ten minutes in these notebooks. Penny Kittle believes that this activity helps her students bring more pleasure to the act of reading.
2. "Teaching reading is not imparting knowledge to a reader about a particular book; rather, it is using a deep understanding of ways of knowing many books to nudge a reader to another place in his or her thinking about, first, and individual book and then about literature as a whole."
3. "Prompting students' thinking by way of inquiry, not direct teaching, is the essence of education. Students remember what they do and what they discover, not what they are told."
4. "Drawing connections between ways of knowing the world and the thinking kids are doing about individual books is powerful teaching. It is so much deeper than studying one book in isolation."
5. "I believe in the power of setting goals and making them public. My students need to understand why and how to challenge themselves as readers, to set goals, and then be nudged to commit to them."
**********
Chapter #9 - "Creating a School Community of Readers"
1. "... my work in my classroom focuses on thinking deeply about individual students and understanding what they need to improve."
2. Schoolwide Reading Break - "... a whole-school effort would change our culture and create a lasting impact not only on individual students but our entire community.
3. " A kid who doesn't read in high school will be unlikely to read as a young adult."
4. "The Reading Break committee proposed sustained silent reading for the whole school for twenty minutes a day."
5. "Four mornings a week at 9:00 AM Kennett High School becomes nearly silent. Between first and second block, students gather in classrooms, conference rooms, the weight room, corners of the auditorium, science labs, and even the faculty lounge to read with teachers. And it works. Kids read. Then academic performance is improving. We should expect good results when we create time to read in school."
6. Penny Kittle describes the few obstacles that they had to deal with: providing access to books, dealing with students who don't want to read books, maintaining silence, establishing clear, consistent expectations, recommending books, and dealing with nonreaders.
7. She also explains at her high school, "You'll find more talk about books than we've ever experienced at our school before. We are committed to developing a community of readers."
8. Summer Reading - she talks about the importance of students reading over the summer. She also offers some suggestions on how to do this, such as, keep our school libraries open, set up book clubs, pick up a book somewhere and return it somewhere else, involve the community, etc.
9. "Summer reading should invoke pleasure - relaxation - opportunity. Challenge kids to read three books by one author so they can speculate on a writer's growth or read three books from a similar time period or analyze the prejudices and unspoken values in a series of fantasy novels. Let students set their own goals for summer reading and I guarantee some will choose and make time for the classics and read more than we'd ever assign to them."
10. "Reading teachers read."
I have found a great deal of inspiration in this book and it has given me some great ideas on how to encourage a love for reading with students.
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