LITERACY TODAY September/October 2019 Volume 37, Issue 2
Social-Emotional Learning • Examining the intersection of literacy, SEL, and culturally responsive teaching • Introducing critical conversations through young adult literature • Amplifying the voices of teachers of color
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LITERACY TODAY
LIT BITS
Volume 37, Issue 2 September/October 2019
ILA UPDATE
EDITORIAL STAFF Managing Editor Colleen Patrice Clark Editors Christina Lambert & Alina O’Donnell
LITERACY LEADERSHIP Nurturing Reading Lives: Improving Literacy Outcomes for Male Students of Color More Than Words: Teaching Literacy to Vulnerable Learners Online Exclusive: Valuing Online Education: Shifting Mind-Sets and Transforming Learning Opportunities, by Aimee Morewood
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RESEARCH INTO PRACTICE Changing the Face of Education: Amplifying the Voices of Teachers of Color
FEATURES Space for Conversation: Fostering Critical Conversations Through Young Adult Literature The Literacy Connection: Examining the Intersection of Literacy, Equity, and Social-Emotional Learning
ILA 2019 Driving Change Through Literacy, Equity, and Social-Emotional Learning Kimberly Eckert on What Educators Can Do About a Flawed Education System Chad Everett Reflects on the Journey Toward Equitable Schools In Their Words: Matt Mendez and Linda Sue Park in Conversation The Magic of Ruta Sepetys
THE ENGAGING CLASSROOM Start With the Heart: How to Strengthen Key Beliefs That Motivate Readers Learning Is a Connection Project: How Social-Emotional Learning Drives Literacy Focusing on Discourse: Fostering an Environment for Safe Conversations and Conflict Resolution Online Exclusive: Dear Pen Pal: Building Literacy Through Letter Writing, by Rebecca M. Grove and Kristine M. Calo
THE ILA NETWORK Sending a Powerful Message: How One Middle School Used Literature to Break Down the Stigma Associated With Mental Illness A Little Healthy Competition: Forty-Five Schools Come Together in Nigeria for an Educational Competition Honoring Literacy Leaders
EVENTS MEMBER SPOTLIGHT
ILA LEADERSHIP Executive Director Marcie Craig Post 2019–2020 BOARD MEMBERS Kathy N. Headley, Clemson University, President; Stephen Peters, Laurens County School District 55, Vice President; Bernadette Dwyer, Dublin City University, Immediate Past President; Juli-Anne Benjamin, Marion P. Thomas Charter School; Kia BrownDudley, The Education Partners; Wendy Carss, University of Waikato; Rachael Gabriel, University of Connecticut, Storrs; Beverley E. Harris, Mico University College, University of the West Indies; Kenneth Kunz, Monmouth University; Susan Paasch, Sauk Rapids Public School District; Julia Reynolds, Allendale Public Schools; Laurie Sharp, Tarleton State University ADVERTISING For information, contact Megan Ferguson at 800.336.7323 x 417 or advertising@reading .org. Acceptance of advertising does not imply endorsement. ABOUT US Literacy Today is the bimonthly membership magazine of the International Literacy Association, a nonprofit that strives to empower educators, inspire students, and encourage teachers with the resources they need to make literacy accessible for all. SUBSCRIPTIONS Literacy Today (ISSN 2411-7862, Print; 24117900, Online) is included in the cost of ILA membership. To join, visit literacyworldwide .org. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to Literacy Today, PO Box 8139, Newark, DE 19714-8139, USA. CANADIAN GST: Registration number R-129785523. Publications Mail Agreement No. 40033039. Return undeliverable Canadian addresses to PO Box 503, RPO West Beaver Creek, Richmond Hill, ON, L4B 4R6. CONTACT US CUSTOMER SERVICE 800.336.7323 customerservice@reading.org EDITORIAL 800.336.7323 x 446 literacytoday@reading.org Write to Literacy Today, PO Box 8139, Newark, DE 19714-8139, USA. MAILING LIST RENTALS ILA rents mailing lists only to groups approved by the Association. Members can have their names removed from lists rented by writing to ILA Customer Service or emailing customerservice@reading.org. © International Literacy Association
LIT BITS
Did You Hear? “We’re talking about an integrated approach between the teaching of phonics and literature. There is a need for explicit instruction, but you can’t teach children meaning-making on a phonics curriculum alone.” —ILA Executive Director Marcie Craig Post with Education Week, discussing ILA’s brief, Meeting the Challenges of Early Literacy Phonics Instruction
Apply Now to be an Editor of ILA’s Leading Literacy Journals The search has begun for the next editors of two ILA journals: The Reading Teacher and the Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy. Applicants must be members of ILA and recognized experts in the field of literacy education and professional development, and they must demonstrate a commitment to bridging the research-to-practice gap. Know someone who fits the bill? The application deadline for both editorships is Oct. 15. Learn more at literacyworldwide .org/journals.
Announcing ILA’s National Recognition Program I Jul In uly, y, IL LA A the e launched the ILA National Recognition and IL ILA L A Nati Nati tio onall Recognition With Distinction, an initiative that reco re co cogn ogn g iz zes outssttan a ding licensure, certificate, and endorsement prro og gra ams ms thatt pre preparre reading/literacy specialists in the United Statess. To qua Sta St u lify, in nstitutions must show adherence to ILA’s Sa St an n nda dard rd rds ds for fo o th the Preparation of Literacy Professionals 2017. “This iin nit itia i ttiive ia v under nder nd ersscores ILA’s commitment to preparing high-caliber lite eracy rra ac cyy pro r fe fess ssio iona io nals,” says ILA Executive Director Marcie Craig Po ost s . “P Pro ogr grams that have earned National Recognition or Na N ati tion onal al Recognition With Distinction are equipping the next ge g ene nera rati ati tion on of literacy professionals with the knowledge, skills, an nd di d spositions they need to meet the challlenges le of today’s classrooms.” Learn more at literacyworldwide.org/about-us/ national-recognition.
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literacyworldwide.org | September/October 2019 | LITERACY TODAY
Unveiling Children’s Rights to Excellent Literacy Instruction On September 9, 2019, in recognition of International Literacy Day, ILA will publish the Children’s Rights to Excellent Literacy Instruction position statement, the next leg of ILA’s Children’s Rights to Read campaign. Drafted by the Rights to Excellent Literacy Instruction Committee members Bernadette Dwyer, Diane Kern, and Jennifer Williams, the position statement asserts that “literacy—the ability to identify, understand, interpret, create, compute, and communicate using visual, audible, and digital materials across disciplines and in any context—and access to excellent and equitable literacy instruction are basic human rights.” In the coming months, ILA will release four research briefs that correspond to each of the four tenets outlined in the statement. Download the statement at literacyworldwide.org.
Still Time to Register for ILA 2019 The International Literacy Association 2019 Conference, taking place October 10–13, 2019, in New Orleans, LA, is officially less than two months away. With the theme “Creating a Culture of Literacy,” you’ll learn how to create and grow a thriving culture of literacy in your school, district, and community. Core Conference registration includes access to the ILA General Session (keynoted by Chelsea Clinton, Pedro A. Noguera, Renée Watson, and Hamish Brewer), 300+ educational sessions, 100+ exhibitors in the Exhibit Hall, and countless networking opportunities. Registrants can also choose to extend their learning with Institute Day (interactive, full-day courses on specific topics of interest) or Children’s Literature Day (a full-day event for educators, librarians, and children’s literature enthusiasts). View the full list of sessions at ilaconference.org/iplanner.
LITERACY TODAY | September/October 2019 | literacyworldwide.org
If You Missed It
Our August #ILAchat focused on “The Dos and Don’ts of Writing Instruction.” Hosts Douglas Fisher, Troy Hicks, David E. Kirkland, Diane Lapp, and Jennifer Serravallo are all participating in the #ILA19 Research Address in New Orleans in October, alongside keynote speaker Steve Graham, Mary Emily Warner Professor of Education at Arizona State University. Check out the archived conversation on Wakelet at bit.ly/ILAchat_ WritingInstruction for a preview of what’s to come.
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ILA UPDATE
The Rights to Excellent Literacy Instruction ILA has long been committed to providing global leadership in literacy. To that end, in 2018, a Boardappointed task force developed Children’s Rights to Read, a campaign to protect 10 fundamental rights that ensure every child, everywhere has access to the education, opportunities, and resources needed to read. This month, the next phase launches: Children’s Rights to Excellent Literacy Instruction. This new position statement—to be released on Sept. 9 in honor of International Literacy Day—builds upon the movement that Children’s Rights to Read has inspired. It asserts that not only literacy but also access to excellent and equitable literacy instruction are basic human rights. The statement outlines the following tenets that guarantee and protect these rights: Children have the right to knowledgeable and qualified literacy educators. Children have the right to integrated support systems. Children have the right to supportive learning environments and high-quality resources. Children have the right to policies that ensure equitable literacy instruction. In the coming months, four new research briefs will be released that expand upon these tenets to provide the evidence-based foundations for the rights and to inspire action to ensure they are protected in your classroom, district, and community. Action. That is something the education world needs desperately. As a superintendent and also the vice president of the ILA Board, I find myself digging deeper to affect change in our world. As we continue to discover multiple pathways for success, I am encouraged by this movement and the world we as an organization are inspiring. We know that literacy is the umbrella that covers all learning. All initiatives and daily practices must be
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rooted in literacy. Too many of our children leave our schools in the afternoon without experiencing what we all know is possible through transformative, equitable literacy education, but we are working to change that. We recognize that nothing matters more to a student’s academic achievement than the teacher, but we also recognize that the teacher cannot—and should not—do it alone. Teachers need the support of other knowledgeable and highly qualified staff, and their high-quality literacy instruction requires buy-in from a multitude of stakeholders such as families and caregivers, teachers, administrators, and policymakers. Equality and equity are two different things. We must be committed to addressing inequities that exist in our schools. In fact, it is our responsibility to do so. Children’s Rights to Excellent Literacy Instruction is representative of ILA’s commitment. As the principal authors Bernadette Dwyer, Diane Kern, and Jennifer Williams write: “Excellent literacy instruction builds a strong foundation for learning and, in turn, equips children to develop their potential, growing into adults who participate fully in their communities and society, enjoying the fullness that continuous learning brings to their lives.” Be sure to download Children’s Rights to Excellent Literacy Instruction and look for the accompanying briefs in the coming months. We ask that you join our efforts to protect these rights and ensure children receive the high-quality, equitable literacy instruction that they deserve.
Stephen G. Peters Vice President of the Board literacyworldwide.org | September/October 2019 | LITERACY TODAY
From Newbery Medalist Katherine Paterson â&#x20AC;&#x153;A lyrical, moving account of Jesusâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; birth, from his motherâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s perspective. . . . Divine.â&#x20AC;? â&#x20AC;&#x201D;Kirkus Reviews, starred review
9781947888128 * $18.00
Poetic text by Newbery Medalist Katherine Paterson and striking images by Lisa Aisato reveal the intimacy of that unforgettable night long ago, when the mother of Jesus was the l RST TO WELCOME HIM INTO A WORLD HE would change forever.
LITERACY TODAY | September/October 2019 | literacyworldwide.org
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LITERACY LEADERSHIP
NURTURING
READING LIVES Improving literacy outcomes for male students of color
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By Aeriale N. Johnson & Kimberly N. Parker
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do not read books!” Kevin, a 7-year-old boy who is a BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, Person of Color), proclaimed on the first day of last school year. He was adamant. Although Aeriale would soon discover that Kevin could read quite well, he had chosen aliteracy.
Aeriale N. Johnson (aerialenike@gmail.com)
Digging into the research about BIPOC males
teaches second graders
Current research about Native American, Latinx, and black boys indicates they continue to lag behind their same-age white peers. Educators need to dig into the data and ask questions about what it means to the children in front of them. Aeriale recently had the opportunity to do so alongside her colleagues. “We are going to focus on Latino males this school year,” Aeriale’s brilliant administrator announced. Latina herself, she is a visionary leader who serves her school community with dedication and passion. Her expectations are high, exceeded only by the level of support she provides her faculty and staff. Aeriale knows she is in a safe space where she can ask difficult questions and they will be taken seriously, so she jotted them down to consider:
literacy for liberation at Washington Elementary School in San Jose, CA. She tweets as @arcticisleteach.
I am wondering if rather than focusing on Latino males due to their performance on standardized assessments, we might consider focusing on the systems we have in place that are failing to impact them the way that we intend them to. I wonder whether we have audited our curriculum and libraries, classroom and school, to ensure that we are providing our students with the mirrors, windows, and sliding glass doors about which Dr. Rudine Sims Bishop wrote? Kimberly N. Parker (kimpossible97@gmail .com), an ILA member since 2019, prepares preservice educators to teach for liberation at the Shady Hill
If we are going to focus on a particular demographic, should we talk specifically about race and gender? What about intersectionality? I guess what I’m really asking is, what about us, the faculty and staff? In what ways can we sit in front of our own mirrors and analyze our reflections as we make less biased, more informed instructional decisions regarding this demographic? What systemic roadblocks do we have in place? How can we dismantle these barriers and consider alternative perspectives of our students, using lenses that focus on their assets?
School in Cambridge, MA. She tweets as @TchKimPossible.
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These types of questions can lead to a better understanding of how particular racial and ethnic groups are performing and what their assets are. In fact, starting from a strengths-based perspective and valuing BIPOC males’ funds of knowledge is the foundational step for us to begin the work that can positively impact their literacy lives.
literacyworldwide.org | September/October 2019 | LITERACY TODAY
Supporting the literacy lives of BIPOC males In 2016, the Urban Institute released the Aiming Higher Together: Strategizing Better Educational Outcomes for Boys and Young Men of Color report, which indicated that school-age males who identify as black, Latinx, or Native American in U.S. schools are facing a “systemic predicament.” However, the data in the report do not account for the rich linguistic lives and cultural forms of production that do make this group literate. More important, the data don t recognize the enduring importance BIPOCs have placed on literacy, even under the threat of death. Writers from Frederick Douglass to Jimmy Santiago Baca to N. Scott Momaday testify to the literary legacies BIPOC boys and youth inherit. Our instruction should be driven by children’s needs, which are so complex they resist the narrow paradigm of standardized assessments. Although these scores can assist educators in identifying our BIPOC male students’ needs, they rarely pinpoint the need. In order to reach them, we must ask deep questions about our students, ourselves, and what happens at the intersection of us. This is the only way we can begin to dismantle an oppressive system that has rendered them invisible and then labeled them incompetent. Once we begin listening to BIPOC males, we hear themes that matter to them. Choice and representation are important. Research indicates that if students are given the freedom to choose the texts they want to read,
they are more likely to develop a robust literacy life.
The classroom impact “Ms. J, can you please help me carry my book box to my reading spot?” Kevin asked during the last week of school. “It’s so heavy!”
QUESTIONS TO PONDER WHEN THINKING ABOUT THE ACADEMIC PERFORMANCE OF BIPOC MALES How can we reflect on and address our unchecked biases about BIPOC boys? What actions do we need to take to repair and reconcile our grievances with BIPOC boys? What current, research-based practices support our literacy instruction? In what ways can we nurture healthy, loving relationships with BIPOC boys? How can we reach out to and connect with a community of educators who are engaged in anti-racist and culturally relevant work?
LITERACY TODAY | September/October 2019 | literacyworldwide.org
“Why do you have so many books in here, son?” Aeriale responded. “Well, I have all of these because they are the books you recommended to me. I have to keep them!” he answered. “And my friends gave me these, so I want to read them, too. And these are the ones I picked for myself.” A few days later, Aeriale asked Kevin to reflect on how he had changed as a reader over the school year: “I used to hate books, but now I don’t.” “I wonder why,” Aeriale thought aloud. “Because I love you. And with you, I get to choose!”
ILA 2019 Aeriale N. Johnson and Kimberly N. Parker will present “Nurturing the Reading Lives of Boys of Color” on Friday, Oct. 11 from 10:00 AM to 11:00 AM in the ILA Learning Salon.
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LITERACY LEADERSHIP
MORE THAN WORDS Teaching literacy to vulnerable learners By David E. Kirkland
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David E. Kirkland (davidekirkland@gmail .com), a member of ILA’s Literacy Research Panel, is the executive director of the NYU Metropolitan Center for Research on Equity and the Transformation of Schools, and an associate professor of English and urban education at New York University.
ecognition is a political act. We cannot talk about it without talking about power. Like other systems of power, who is recognized in literacy education is defined by who is seen, and who is seen are students who are well fed, compliant, come from homes saturated in print, have loving parents, and possess confidence and previous good experiences in school. By flattening literacy to this idealized (for some) identity, literacy teaching imagines a very narrow version of us—a version that is incomplete and favors privileged identities over vulnerable ones. The farther away students are from this identity, the less likely literacy classrooms will work for them. When students do not come packaged the “right” way, too often our systems decide we cannot teach them. Instead of adapting to them, our systems label them, suggesting that something is wrong with vulnerable students. They label them as lazy, unfocused, misguided. In a sense, they blame their families, their genders, their socioeconomic circumstances, or anything else about vulnerable youth that deviates from the ideal. Our systems fail to see them, and thus our systems fail them. There is clear evidence that this inability to see some students drives educational outcome disparities. The problem is not necessarily the unseen but our assumptions about what we see. Seeing is not neutral.
Examining assumptions The assumptions we make about vulnerable learners is that there is something wrong with them. When we assume something is wrong with a student, we seek to change the student rather than change the system around her, him, or them. The logic here is that our students should learn the way we teach rather than us teach the way our students learn. Assumption becomes a framework for teaching, interpreting others, understanding our surroundings, and making sense of social existence. From birth, we have been “conditioned into accepting and not questioning these ideas,” as Robin DiAngelo writes in White Fragility (Beacon Press). However, scholar Henry Giroux reminds us: “Literacy cannot be viewed as merely an epistemological or procedural issue but must be defined primarily in political and ethical terms. It is political in that how we read the world is always implicated in relations of power. Literacy is ethical in that people ‘read’ the world differently depending, for instance, on circumstances of class, gender, race, and politics…. If a politics of difference is to be fashioned in emancipatory rather than oppressive practices, literacy must be rewritten in terms that articulate difference with the principles of equality, justice, and freedom rather than with those interests supportive of hierarchies, oppression, and exploitation.” Hierarchies, oppression, and exploitation are inhumane systems that restrict individuals’ access to their full potential. The acts of these systems include ignorance, exclusion, threats, ridicule, slander, and violence (both symbolic and real). In literacy education, these systems have borne unbelievable consequences: silencings and fears, hatreds of self and others, feelings of inferiority and superiority, entitlement and disentitlement.
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literacyworldwide.org | September/October 2019 | LITERACY TODAY
Dismantling the systems When I give talks on this, I sometimes use two images. The first is of a single fish lying dead in the sand. The second shows thousands of dead fish in the sand. After showing the first image, I ask: “What do you see?” The audience typically says, “a dead fish,” concluding that something is wrong with the fish. After showing the second image, the audience responds quite differently, concluding that something is wrong with the water. The challenges we face in literacy education are not about fish—they are about water. Curing the water must be about more than what happens in our classrooms. It must be about what happens in our heads and hearts. This means recognizing that poisoned water can not sustain all fish, and that this is not the fish’s fault. This recognition is the first step to achieving equity. To achieve equity in literacy education, we have to respond to noncognitive social-emotional aspects of literacy learning, as greater than 80% of learning literacy deals with things beyond mental ability or intellectual capacity. Researchers have created powerful models capable of predicting success and failure using Maslow’s hierarchy of needs to measure the extent to which a student’s basic needs are met. When these needs are met, researchers can accurately predict student success, but when one is unmet, researchers can accurately predict student failure. This should not be surprising because all caring and loving teachers know that it is hard to teach in competition with a growling stomach, a broken heart, sadness, anxiety, or depression. We also know that it is hard to teach when a system seems rigged against particular students. For this reason, I have extended my literacy vocabulary to include words and concepts such as food and nutrition, trauma and healing, safety and security, cultural responsiveness, protective factors, mindfulness, and hope. I have also come to learn that effective literacy education for vulnerable learners cannot be about broken students. It must be about supporting students who are vulnerable to broken systems.
Preserving the future For vulnerable people, literacy is about preservation. So teaching literacy to vulnerable learners must be about teaching us to preserve—preserve our languages and cultures, to tell history on our terms, to preserve ourselves by preserving the congregation of ideas that make the world better.
ONLINE EXCLUSIVE The digital edition of Literacy Today includes an additional Literacy Leadership article by Aimee Morewood about valuing online learning experiences as a way to grow professionally. Print readers: Log in at literacyworldwide .org/literacytoday to read the digital issue.
LITERACY TODAY | September/October 2019 | literacyworldwide.org
Then, literacy is not just about words or languages or classrooms. It is tied to our everyday social, emotional, and cultural lives. It is about humans, connected more to our drives and strivings than to our tools and technologies. Dominant approaches to teaching literacy, however, recognize only some of us as human. They fail those of us they do not.
ILA 2019 David E. Kirkland will present a featured speaker session, “Teaching Vulnerable Youth How to Read and Write: Lessons About Life, Literacy, and the Pursuit of Meaning,” on Friday, Oct. 11, 3:00 PM–4:00 PM. For more information, visit ilaconference .org/iplanner.
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ONLINE EXCLUSIVE
VALUING ONLINE
EDUCATION
Shifting mind-sets and transforming learning opportunities By Aimee Morewood
i Aimee Morewood (aimee.morewood@mail .wvu.edu), an ILA member since 2005, is an associate professor at West Virginia University.
teach online—and, yes, I like it. As a teacher educator who predominantly teaches in a fully online MEd Reading Specialist program, when I speak with colleagues and disclose that I teach online (gasp) and like it (double gasp), I am often met with looks of bewilderment. I know that regardless of how I respond, much of what I say will be dismissed simply because I teach online. Addressing the elephant in the room is important: Online teaching is neither better nor worse than traditional instruction. Online teaching is teaching! Both environments can advance or stifle learning experiences. It is not the context that impacts learning but the instructor, design, and structure of the environment that supports or negates students’ opportunities to learn. Both environments, when structured in a meaningful and engaging way, move teachers forward in their literacy knowledge. As literacy teacher educators, we must embrace online learning as we continue to transform education practices. Literacy leaders understand and advocate for innovation while recognizing that learning occurs through a variety of modalities, contexts, experiences, tools, and activities. Shifting the mind-set to accepting online learning as an aspect of the educational landscape demonstrates that literacy teacher educators value and respect online learning as a way to grow professionally.
Questions and shared experiences After getting through the initial awkwardness of the disclosure of how I am an online instructor, I am often asked the following questions: Do you like teaching online? Do you think that you know your online students as well? Is online teaching just managing a bunch of students working independently? As I answer these questions, I have found that peers often counter and shut down further conversation with feedback such as the following statements: So you really do like it? I just couldn’t teach online. I just don’t know how to teach online. I like getting to know my students and connecting with them; teaching online seems so impersonal. I enjoy teaching. Period. What I like about teaching online is the ability to work closely with my literacy education (LE) candidates, educators with initial teaching certificates who want to become more knowledgeable about effective literacy practices. I have found that using an online platform and a variety of tools (e.g., VoiceThread, journals) allows me to take on the roles of facilitator and developer. I am able to facilitate the conversations and learning through a variety
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of instructional activities. These activities engage my LE candidates and require them to participate with not only me but also their peers. In a traditional brick-andmortar course, a student can attend class, sit in the back of the room, and engage minimally or not at all. In an online environment, if a student does not engage, then the instructor does not know that the student is present. Participation is somewhat assumed in a traditional class, yet in an online class, this assumption cannot be made given the nature of the online context. It is because of the participation that is required that I am able to come to know each of my student’s teaching backgrounds and experiences as well as the student’s strengths and needs. The structure and design of an online course is paramount in how learning will occur. This is no different from when I taught in a traditional class. As the instructor, teaching the LE candidates, not just managing them, is my responsibility.
Access, equity, and diversity Online learning provides all educators access to meaningful professional experiences that might otherwise be unavailable. Further, practicing teachers are no longer geographically bound to regional opportunities. The playing field has become more equitable because educators are able to communicate and collaborate with colleagues and scholars without leaving their communities. Finally, online learning allows educators to experience diverse environments, student populations, and contexts. Teachers are working hard to prepare our students for a future in a globalized society. To teach and prepare our students to work and prosper in a diverse society, they must have opportunities to learn from others who have experiences different from their own.
Meeting teacher educators’ needs Instead of perpetuating the “us versus them” mentality, literacy education should support teacher educators who
are ready to lead and advocate for transformative literacy instruction. To do this, literacy teacher educators must be supported when teaching online. This type of instruction takes preparation, a mind-set that is ready to problem-solve and triumph through pedagogical setbacks, and an innovative spirit. Resources for online teaching are available in print, through professional organizations, and even through informal social media networks. Support for literacy teacher educators demonstrates a united landscape that does not privilege a traditional environment over an online context, allowing educators a variety of effective learning opportunities that meet their individual needs. As we continue to think about an inclusive professional learning landscape, remembering that not all professional learning is delivered through the same means (and that it does not need to be) is important. I suggest there is a mutual professional respect extended to all literacy teacher educators. I am hopeful that literacy teacher educators will embrace the notion that good teaching is good teaching, regardless of environment. I am encouraged by Standard 7’s Component 4 in ILA’s Standards for the Preparation of Literacy Professionals 2017 that specifically includes online practicum/clinical environments as a viable option in regard to supervision. This demonstrates that ILA acknowledges and supports literacy teacher education through online learning environments.
LITERACY TODAY | September/October 2019 | literacyworldwide.org
Establishing a harmonious relationship between these two learning contexts will allow for practicing teachers to engage in professional learning that suits their needs, schedule, and location, which will ultimately impact literacy learning for all students in our schools.
ILA 2019 Aimee Morewood will be a copresenter during two events at ILA 2019—the ILA National Recognition in the CAEP Accreditation Process and ILA National Recognition for Reading/ Literacy Specialist Programs Workshop on Thursday, Oct. 10, and the Technology in Literacy Education Special Interest Group session on Saturday, Oct. 12. For more information, visit ilaconference.org/iplanner.
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RESEARCH INTO PRACTICE
CHANGING THE FACE OF EDUCATION Amplifying the voices of teachers of color Anna Osborn (aosborn@cpsk12.org), an ILA member since 2008, is a reading specialist at Jefferson Middle School in Columbia, MO, and is a member of her district’s Equity Team. Follow her on Twitter @annaoz249.
Tiana Silvas (tiana.silvasbrunetti@gmail .com), an ILA member since 2017, is a fifth-grade teacher in New York City. Follow her
By Anna Osborn, Tiana Silvas, & Tricia Ebarvia
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he shortage of teachers of color is problematic in many districts across the United States. U.S. News & World Report indicates less than 20% of the teaching workforce is composed of teachers of color even though more than half of schoolaged children are students of color. In fact, more than 40% of schools do not have a single teacher of color. Teacher educator and scholar Gloria Ladson-Billings suggests that a problem in teacher education is the disconnect of race, class, and culture between teachers and students. This disconnect can be viewed as a ladder of maintaining whiteness; white teachers are prepared to teach white students and students of color remain in the margins, therefore being denied access. Researcher Josephine H. Pham notes that teachers who share similar cultural, racial, and linguistic backgrounds with their students have a deeper level of commitment and understanding of how to support and improve educational experiences for students of color. Often, though, when schools are looking for ways to improve academic progress among students of color, they look through a deficit lens. The elevation of the voices of teachers of color is essential to ensuring that all students are seen and heard in classrooms, especially because research has shown that having a teacher of color benefits all students. We must consider educator Chad Everett’s words: “You can’t raise the voice of someone whose voices you can’t hear or are unwilling to hear.” If school districts are committed to equity, schools must prioritize how teachers of color are supported and affirmed.
on Twitter @tianasilvas.
Creating spaces of color
Tricia Ebarvia (tricia.ebarvia@gmail.com) is the English department chair at Conestoga High School in Berwyn, PA. Follow her on Twitter @triciaebarvia.
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Teachers of color have varying experiences in education. Some work in predominantly white spaces, whereas others work in schools with a large population of people of color. With all working experiences, teachers of color need space with other teachers of color as an additional support system. As schools consider this, they should think critically about the difference between integration and inclusion. Schools must authentically employ efforts to embrace and include teachers of color, as well as additional staff of color, as one way to develop supportive school communities. If you are a school leader or part of a school leadership team, consider the following: Provide yearlong antibias and culturally relevant professional development for all staff. A school community includes everyone from the office staff to the nurse. As schools plan professional development, being creative with scheduling to allow everyone to take part to ensure that the community grows together is important.
literacyworldwide.org | September/October 2019 | LITERACY TODAY
Create school or cross-school affinity groups. The purpose of an affinity group is to offer all staff of color a space to come together and support one another. With the creation of an affinity space, staff can have the added layer of structure to support each other when school-related issues arise. Create opportunities for staff of color to be in leadership roles. Before committees are selected, create an interest survey to be sent out to all staff to inquire if staff members are interested and open the door for more diversity within committee work.
Amplifying voices of color There is a long history of teachers of color who have impacted our teaching force. However, this does not mean that teachers of color have easy access to platforms that celebrate their stories or put them in charge of professional development, both powerful means to amplify the voices of teachers of color. By harnessing the power of social media, teachers of color and allies are amplifying the voices that have been so often silenced. Via Twitter, for example, educators Kimberly N. Parker and Julia Torres curate and share a list of educators of color who are available to do professional development in various areas of the United States. Recently, Penny Kittle partnered with Sonja Cherry-Paul and Tricia Ebarvia to bring their equity expertise to the University of New Hampshire’s Institute 4 Racial Equity in Literacy. In addition to exploring race and
The elevation of the voices of teachers of color is essential to ensuring that all students are seen and heard in classrooms.
equity through their keynotes, Cherry-Paul and Ebarvia recruited a diverse faculty of table leaders. Each day ended with a daily affinity group meeting for the participants who identify as educators of color and an opportunity for the table leaders to reflect on their own personal growth. Given the eager reception to the recent #31DaysIBPOC, a monthlong celebration where educators of color shared stories of personal and professional identity, it is clear that teachers of all races are ready to hear and learn from the stories of educators of color. If you are a teacher of color, consider the following: Seek a support system. Look for fellow teachers of color, allies, and mentors. You may have to look outside your building, but seek out folks who value the unique intersectionality you bring to our profession. Take leadership steps. If you are not yet ready to do entire professional development sessions, find smaller opportunities to share your voice. Do not underestimate the power of contributing
five or 10 minutes to a longer presentation. Be an ambassador for our profession. Teaching might be the only profession that can plant seeds for recruitment on a daily basis. Be aware of the story you share about our profession and your journey as an educator of color. The student you mentor today may be the teacher of tomorrow. Actively practice self-care. This can be especially important if you are currently doing diversity, equity, and inclusion work. Be aware that daily selfcare helps you to be a better teacher for your students. These action steps are a fraction of the work that needs to be done to ensure that teachers of color receive an affirming and equitable work experience. The hope is this will expand perspectives, elevate voices, and encourage racial diversity of staff at all levels to support student achievement.
ILA 2019
FURTHER READING Camera, L. (2018, March 28). States to prioritize hiring teachers of color. U.S. News & World Report. Retrieved from www.usnews.com/ news/education-news/articles/2018-03-28/states-to-prioritize-hiringteachers-of-color. Ladson-Billings, G.J. (2005). Is the team all right? Diversity and teacher education. Journal of Teacher Education, 56(3), 229–234. Pham, J.H. (2018). New programmatic possibilities: (Re)positioning preservice teachers of color as experts in their own learning. Teacher Education Quarterly, 45(4), 51–71.
LITERACY TODAY | September/October 2019 | literacyworldwide.org
Anna Osborn, Tiana Silvas, and Tricia Ebarvia are participating in multiple sessions during ILA 2019, including Equity in Education Program events and a workshop on practitioner research. In addition, Ebarvia is a featured speaker. For more information, visit ilaconference.org/iplanner.
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FEATURE
ILA 2019 Along with Mihaela Gazioglu, Rachelle S. Savitz will present “What Every ELL Teacher Should Know About Teaching the English Language Through Children’s Literature” on Saturday, Oct. 12, from 4:00 p.m. to 6:00 p.m. For more information, visit ilaconference .org/iplanner.
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literacyworldwide.org | September/October 2019 | LITERACY TODAY
SPACE FOR CONVERSATION Fostering critical conversations through young adult literature By Rachelle S. Savitz
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ur teachers walk into classrooms every day wanting to make their content relevant, interesting, and engaging. They want to ensure all voices are heard and promote student agency. Our students walk into classrooms every day anticipating learning interesting topics, and they also wonder how instruction will relate to their own lives. In their lives, students are questioning how to deal with the personal or societal issues they face, such as the heartbreaking reality of traumatic events and inequality on the basis of religion, race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, and ability.
Many teachers feel ill-prepared to discuss these topics or fear sparking debate by opening dialogue. They are also faced with many “Must Do” requirements, such as standards, a set curriculum, and pressure to constantly raise test scores. There are concerns over lack of time, loyalty to traditional texts, and perhaps the inaccurate belief that much of young adult (YA) literature is not complex. However, our students need to be invited into these discussions not only to have a place to read about themselves and learn about others but also to recognize ways of dealing with troubling situations and experiences. Our students need teachers who take responsibility for addressing equity through difficult conversations. Teachers who use YA literature to address issues being discussed at home, in the news, or on social media provide a safe place to question. Students can investigate—through
character experiences, plot, setting, and other elements—other narratives, which often leads to clarifications and understandings regarding people’s cultures, challenges, and beliefs. Teachers who create this type of classroom environment not only teach their required content but also provide the means for complex and critical thinking that leads to social-emotional learning and social justice. Below are some common topics for discussion, and recommended books to foster these conversations.
Immigration On the news in the United States, we witness families being forcibly separated from their children, young children being detained in fenced enclosures, and random ICE raids. Some students are personally experiencing these situations, either via the media or through friends or family. Protests are
LITERACY TODAY | September/October 2019 | literacyworldwide.org
happening throughout the country, and fake news continues to purport misleading and often incorrect information. Our students come to our classrooms with the desire to comprehend what is happening in the world around them. Teachers can address these issues. They can select novels focusing on immigration and allow student choice regarding selection. Through literature circles or small-group reading, students can determine central themes and analyze how they are shaped throughout the text, examine the complex characters presented, discuss diction and other author’s craft elements, and then discuss how the themes across texts relate or contrast. Teachers can then rotate among groups to provide minilessons on specific instructional needs while providing space for deeper conversations when bringing the class back to whole group.
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Some texts to consider: The Border by Steve Schafer (Sourcebooks Fire) tells the story of four teenage cousins who escape their gang-terrorized hometown and travel for days through the desert after their entire family is murdered at a Quinceañera. The Good Braider by Terry Farish (Skyscape) is about one girl’s traumatic journey from wartorn Sudan to the United States, where she must figure out if she is American, Sudanese, or both. The Radius of Us by Marie Marquardt (St. Martin’s Griffin) focuses on a young girl who finds love with a boy facing deportation while his younger brother sits alone in a deportation center, all because of running away from gang violence in their local town.
Gender identity and sexual orientation Funding is being pulled from LGBTQ+ organizations, same-sex couples are fighting for equality, and states are proposing laws defying human rights and protections for students. Some students are left without a safe forum for discussion regarding their identity and that of others. YA literature provides an outlet to analyze texts through new lenses, focusing on gender or LGBTQ+ perspectives. Some additional topics addressed are human relationships, isolation and alienation, homophobia, acceptance, bullying, violence, guilt or shame, and perseverance. Some texts to consider: If You Could Be Mine by Sara Farizan (Algonquin Young Readers) is the beautiful and moving story of Sahar and Nasrin, a young couple in love living in Iran, where it is forbidden and illegal to love the same sex. Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda by Becky Albertalli (Balzer + Bray) has readers follow Simon as he is bullied and humiliated when his peers decide to tell his secret, outing his sexuality to the public without his permission. Georgia Peaches and Other Forbidden Fruit by Jaye Robin
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Brown (HarperTeen) is the story of Joanna, whose normally supportive father remarries, moves them to a conservative town, and asks her to keep her sexuality a secret.
Adolescence Middle and high school students are often told that they are “too young to understand.” However, many teenagers do understand the realities and consequences of their decisions and are often in adult roles in their personal lives. According to the research of Robert Petrone, Sophia Tatiana Saringianides, and Mark A. Lewis, emphasizing in class that adolescent experiences are not universal and are often misconstrued will allow for teachers and students to learn together about what makes each unique and different while allowing for a safe space to address nonacademic issues that influence their school success. These researchers maintain a youth lens can be used with nearly any YA text to help students understand how society places expectations on youth, regardless of accuracy or need. As they read and discuss, students can be positioned to answer questions such as “How did this novel represent adolescents/ce?” or “How are youth positioned in relation to adults?” Students can analyze and debate how the novel disrupts the traditional view of adolescence, such as being rebellious, out of control, and full of hormones. This type of discussion and ability to confront stereotypical representations allows students to reflect on personal experiences and expectations placed on themselves, and relate to the characters, all while allowing teachers to acknowledge and value their individuality. Arsenio Silva and I examine this further in our Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy article, “Defying Expectations: Representations of Youths in Young Adult Literature,” available through early view. Some texts to consider: The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas (Balzer + Bray) features
protagonist Starr Carter, who demonstrates how one voice can empower a community to speak up and advocate change. This Is Where It Ends by Marieke Nijamp (Sourcebooks Fire) focuses on four high school students who uniquely capture their individual fears, frustrations, and hopes as they experience being held captive in their school by a classmate who is intent on ending it all. Property of the Rebel Librarian by Allison Varnes (Random House Books for Young Readers) shows what happens when June Harper’s school bans books and starts throwing out most of the library.
Moving forward Through discussion of nonmainstream topics and the use of YA literature, teachers and students alike can build stronger rapport and a sense of community that appreciates multiple perspectives. Through these discussions, teachers push their students to dig deeper, to interrogate stereotypes and generalizations that have been pontificated throughout social media platforms, to understand how authors disrupt or provide counter-narratives, and to use this new information throughout their own lives. YA literature provides a way “in” for teachers and students to not only address required standards, but also relate instruction to personal experiences and important and relevant issues. This lends itself to more meaningful and engaging conversations. Teachers accepting this new role and taking on the challenge of making instruction relevant and impactful, addressing critical and pertinent issues their students face, and opening their own eyes and hearts to what is happening to and around their students’ lives is vital. Only then will their students not only demonstrate understanding and comprehension of literature, but also share their hopes, dreams, and struggles while becoming more prepared for our diverse and often inequitable society.
Rachelle S. Savitz (savitzrs@gmail.com), an ILA member since 2010, is an assistant professor of adolescent literacy in the College of Education at Clemson University in South Carolina.
literacyworldwide.org | September/October 2019 | LITERACY TODAY
Standards for the Preparation of Literacy Professionals 2017 INTERNATIONAL LITERACY ASSOCIATION Developed by literacy experts across the United States, Standards for the Preparation of Literacy Professionals 2017 (Standards 2017) sets forth the criteria for developing and evaluating preparation programs for literacy professionals. These updated standards focus on the knowledge, skills, and dispositions necessary for effective educational practice in a specific role and highlight contemporary research and evidence-based practices in curriculum, instruction, assessment, and leadership.
© 2018 ISBN 978-0-87207-379-1
Standards 2017 addresses the following roles: Ŷ Reading/literacy specialists
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FEATURE
THE LITERACY
ILA 2019 Justina Schlund will join Pedro A. Noguera, Jovanni Ramos, Stephanie K. Siddens, and Kathleen Theodore on Friday, Oct. 11, for ILA’s Equity in Education Program event, “The Intersection of Literacy, Equity, and Social-Emotional Learning.” This is the second of six offerings in the Equity in Education Program at ILA 2019, which now spans all four days of the conference. For more information, read our article on page 24.
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literacyworldwide.org | September/October 2019 | LITERACY TODAY
CONNECTION Examining the intersection of literacy, equity, and social-emotional learning
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By Justina Schlund
stared at the fresh graffiti on the wall in my Head Start classroom: “I M S AGR.” Moments earlier, Diana had jumped up from the rug, grabbed a dry-erase marker, and scribbled the letters as she painstakingly sounded out each word: “I a-a-m s-s-so a-ang-g-ry.” I froze, unsure whether to reprimand her or to document this display of phonemic awareness in my observational notes.
After I calmed my initial reaction, I asked Diana what happened. She told me she became really mad because another student was always “mocking” her (those were her words). We talked about those feelings, how the classroom was a shared space, and why respecting that space is important. Later, she helped me scrub the wall and we made an “angry journal” that was kept in a special place for her to use anytime she felt her emotions rising. I’ve thought about Diana frequently since then. In that moment, I saw a challenging student and a disrupted lesson. Now, as director of field learning at the Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning (CASEL), I reflect on her self-awareness, remarkable for a 5-year-old, and how effectively she managed big emotions through her words and drawings— and I’ve come to understand a deep connection between how students read, write, and communicate, and how they develop socially and emotionally.
Connecting social-emotional learning and literacy instruction Social and emotional learning (SEL) is the process through which children
and adults understand and manage emotions, set and achieve positive goals, feel and show empathy for others, establish and maintain positive relationships, and make responsible decisions. SEL goes beyond weekly lessons on empathy or mindfulness: It’s also about how teaching and learning happens across all subject areas. Literacy in particular provides rich opportunities for reflecting on the connections between our thoughts, feelings, and actions; taking on someone else’s perspective; and using language and writing to navigate social dynamics and build relationships. SEL also supports literacy goals by helping students make meaning of content, deepening engagement, and boosting academic performance. At CASEL, we’ve partnered with 21 major school districts in the United States in our Collaborating Districts Initiative to implement SEL systemically by cultivating supportive learning environments, explicitly teaching social and emotional competencies, and integrating SEL into academic instruction. Here are a few ways we’ve seen these districts connect SEL and literacy:
LITERACY TODAY | September/October 2019 | literacyworldwide.org
Aligning SEL and academic content so SEL objectives are embedded into the curriculum in reading and writing. In Naperville 203 School District in Illinois, teachers and district leads developed detailed curriculum maps for each grade level with instructional practices and ideas for SEL instruction and integration, related vocabulary, and suggested reading lists. For example, a fourth-grade reading unit on character development connects with SEL benchmarks around describing situations that cause a variety of emotions and behaviors. “SEL is not one more thing on the plate. It is the plate,” says Lisa Xangas, Naperville’s director of student services. Fostering academic mind-sets so that students see themselves as learners and feel they have something to contribute. The Sacramento Unified School District in California, for example, launched a districtwide campaign to foster growth mind-sets. When the district adopted new English language
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arts/development curriculum in 2017–2018, coaches integrated SEL into professional learning and teachers designed exemplar lessons that elevated social and emotional skills needed for challenging academic tasks. “A lot of the work is about reminding people that SEL is not an end in itself, but how we think, process, and create conditions to support student learning,” says Mai Xi Li, director of social and emotional learning. Making learning interactive and elevating student voice by using instructional practices that encourage student-led discussions, interactions, and teamwork. Metro Nashville Public Schools in Tennessee encourages educators to center on three guiding questions for integrating academic instruction and SEL:
1. How do we get all learners to do the thinking and heavy lifting first before teachers weigh in with their thoughts?
2. How do we get the voices of all learners to exceed teacher talk?
3. How do we get all learners to regularly reflect on SEL and academic skills? A model lesson plan that the district developed on Langston Hughes’s book Thank You, M’am (Child’s World) asks students to analyze text to draw inferences and cite evidence to support conclusions while applying empathy to understand the interactions and perspectives of the characters. Throughout the lesson, students are asked to engage in conversations with each other, create questions and answers around the text together, and ultimately reflect on how well they met their own academic, social, and emotional objectives.
SEL and literacy as a lever for educational equity The integration of SEL and literacy also has the potential to nurture more inclusive and equitable classrooms, schools, and communities. When leveraged intentionally, SEL and literacy instruction can promote better
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understanding of different cultures and power dynamics, foster positive ethnic/racial identity, and support students and adults in developing relationships and interacting with others across diverse backgrounds. Outside the classrooms, students are already exploring language as a way to understand their own racial, cultural, and social identities, says Deborah Rivas-Drake, professor of psychology and education at the University of Michigan and coauthor of Below the Surface: Talking With Teens About Race, Ethnicity, and Identity (Princeton University Press). Her research on ethnic and racial processes in youth development has found that students explore through their friendships “who they are and where they belong” and what it means to be of a particular race and culture. For example, children whose families are from Puerto Rico may trade stories with friends whose families are from El Salvador to compare the vernacular for a particular Spanish word or how a traditional holiday is celebrated. Although these interactions can have many positive impacts on a youth’s development, it can also lead to joking and teasing that reinforces ethnic and racial stereotypes. Additionally, how young people of all backgrounds develop their ethnic/racial identity shapes how they understand themselves in the context of our larger society, their empathy for others, and their ability to forge positive relationships across different groups. This is why “kids need opportunities to talk about race with their peers to learn how to do so productively,” says Rivas-Drake. By integrating SEL and literacy, educators can engage students in exploring their ethnic/racial identities and communities through discussion, reading, or writing. Young adult fiction, in particular, is ripe with opportunities for exploring identity and how characters deal with pressures and expectations from their families and communities, RivasDrake says. Similarly, historical texts that are intentionally chosen and paired with well-planned discussions
can provide opportunities for students to explore and analyze the ways that decisions and events impact equity and outcomes for others. The integration of SEL and literacy can also promote intentional teaching practices that support more inclusivity, such as strategically grouping students in ways that create shared experiences across differences. For example, a jigsaw cooperative learning technique divides students into diverse groups and assigns one student from each group a different segment of a reading. Students present that segment back to their group, serving as the “expert” on one piece of content and demonstrating that the group needs every member to understand the full text. When paired with reflection, this technique not only promotes deeper engagement with the text along with social awareness and relationship skills but also has been shown to reduce racial conflict among students.
Back in the classroom Looking back on that moment with Diana, I see many more opportunities for teaching and learning. The potential of SEL goes far beyond resolving a classroom disruption to giving all young people opportunities to demonstrate their strengths, express their voice and agency, and pursue their sense of purpose. At CASEL, we believe that SEL can help create schools and classrooms that support all students in reaching their fullest potential. When integrated with literacy, this potential is even greater. Although SEL and literacy alone will not solve long-standing and deepseated inequities, they are avenues to help us build cross-cultural relationships, examine who we are, reflect on and address the impact of racism, and co-create solutions that close opportunity gaps and lead to healthier communities.
Justina Schlund (jschlund@casel.org) is the director of field learning for the Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning.
literacyworldwide.org | September/October 2019 | LITERACY TODAY
ILA 2019 CONFERENCE
New Orleans, LA October 10–13
CREATING A CULTURE OF LITERACY How can educators and administrators create the environment students need to reach their full potential in the classroom and beyond? By infusing literacy in every aspect of education! At ILA 2019, you’ll learn how to create and grow a thriving culture of literacy in your school, district, and community—one that inspires and empowers students and teachers and sets them up for greater success.
Why ILA 2019? ƒ A FOCUS ON LITERACY: ILA 2019 offers a robust and well-rounded program of research-based and peer-reviewed sessions on hot topics and best practices in literacy. ƒ AN EMPHASIS ON EQUITY: ILA believes that literacy is the pathway to equity in education, and it drives everything we do—including this conference, which will help you create an inclusive learning environment. ƒ RESEARCH + PRACTICE: ILA 2019 is where research meets practice. Here you’ll find evidence-based ideas for classroom instruction and community engagement.
ILA 2019 CO General Session Speakers
CHELSEA CLINTON
New York Times bestselling author, early literacy advocate, and vice chair, Clinton Foundation
PEDRO A. NOGUERA
Groundbreaking researcher and advocate for equity in education
RENÉE WATSON
HAMISH BREWER
Award-winning author and founder of I, Too, Arts Collective
Educational disruptor and school turnaround specialist
Core Conference (October 11–12) Experience two full days of professional learning on the topics you want, delivered in a variety of formats. Core Conference registration gives you access to the ILA General Session, 300+ educational sessions, 100+ exhibitors in the Exhibit Hall, and countless networking opportunities.
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Maximize your learning by adding another day! INSTITUTE DAY* (October 10)
Select from 10 interactive, full-day courses that allow you to take a deep dive into a literacy topic of interest with leaders in the field. Topics include early literacy, research into practice, responsive teaching, literacy in high-need schools, implementing word study, engaging in anti-racist practices in schools and classrooms, building positive adolescent reading identities, and more.
CHILDREN’S LITERATURE DAY* (October 13)
This full-day event for children’s literature enthusiasts and educators features keynote addresses, author panels, educator sessions, a plated lunch, and access to an exclusive book signing event. Author Meetup tickets are available for an additional fee.
*Additional registration is required.
ILA members save up to $200!
Register at ilaconference.org/registernow
NFERENCE
New Orleans, LA October 10–13
Highlights WELCOME TO ILA 2019 EVENT*: Laissez les bons temps rouler (let the good times roll) at this exclusive event in the Exhibit Hall on Thursday, October 10. Mix, mingle, and explore new products before the conference starts. EXHIBIT HALL: Check out the latest classroom innovations and cutting-edge resources and take advantage of additional learning opportunities (and freebies!) here. EQUITY IN EDUCATION PROGRAM: Interactive programming, inspiring panels, and collaborative work sessions allow you to explore the intersection of literacy, equity, and social-emotional learning across all four days of the conference. EDCAMP LITERACY**: Take charge of your professional learning at this free, attendee-driven, peer-to-peer learning unconference. LITERACY NIGHT AT MARDI GRAS WORLD**: Go behind the scenes of Mardi Gras with fellow attendees at this event, where you’ll see floats from the famous parade, sample tasty cuisine, listen to a live party band, and more. *Open to ILA Core Conference attendees and Institute Day participants **Additional registration is required (fees may apply)
Featured Speakers
DAVI E. KIRKLAND
Leading national scholar and advocate for educational justice
DONALYN MILLER
The original Book Whisperer and coauthor of Game Changer! Book Access for All Kids
TRICIA EBARVIA
Educator, teaching fellow with The Educator Collaborative, and cofounder of #DisruptTexts
DAVE STUART JR.
Award-winning educator and author of These 6 Things: How to Focus Your Teaching on What Matters Most
The conference for Ŷ Classroom Teachers Ŷ Reading/Literacy Specialists Ŷ Literacy Coaches Ŷ Principals Ŷ College/University Faculty Ŷ Researchers Ŷ Librarians Ŷ Administrators Ŷ Preservice Teachers Ŷ Nontraditional Educators
ilaconference.org/registernow Call 855.202.6379 (U.S. & Canada) or 303.731.1048 (all other countries)
ILA 2019
THE TRANSFORMATIVE
TRIFECTA
Driving change through literacy, equity, and socialemotional learning By Alina O’Donnell
i Alina O’Donnell (aodonnell@reading.org) is the communications strategist at ILA and editor of ILA’s blog, Literacy Daily.
n June 2019, the Ohio State Board of Education adopted a set of social-emotional learning (SEL) standards for K–12 students. This comes as part of the state s new strategic plan for education, in which SEL is one of four “learning domains” outlined—a move that essentially says SEL is as important to a child s education as literacy, numeracy, and technology. Ohio isn t alone in these efforts. Between 2011 and 2018, the number of states with K–12 SEL standards jumped from 1 to 18. Outside of the U.S., the popularity of SEL has also grown significantly. This isn t surprising, given today s social climate. More and more schools around the globe are prioritizing SEL, which aims to develop interpersonal skills, self-regulation, and the ability to feel and demonstrate empathy. Educators are turning to SEL-embedded instruction to foster equitable learning environments. What is surprising is that despite this, and despite how SEL-informed literacy instruction paves a powerful pathway to equity, very little has been written about how the three intersect. This is the driving goal of the Equity in Education Program at the ILA 2019 Conference, October 10–13 in New Orleans, LA. The program, which has expanded across all four days of the conference, will draw clear connections between literacy, equity, and SEL.
The intersection of literacy, equity, and social-emotional learning Over the past 15 years, the United States has increasingly emphasized assessments as an index of school performance. This emphasis on academic rigor has left many
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educators feeling pressured to choose between strengthening SEL skills and growing academic skills. Justina Schlund, one of this year’s Equity in Education Program speakers, is here to shatter that false dichotomy. Central to her work as director of field learning at The Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning (CASEL) is her steadfast belief that social-emotional competence is inextricably tied to academic achievement. “Foundational to how all learning happens is how students engage socially and emotionally with each other, with themselves, and with teachers in the classroom,” she says. “In order to achieve any other goals, we need to be focused on students as whole people.” A long body of research shows that inequities such as disabilities, poverty, and discrimination can pose barriers to children’s social and emotional development. Schools have an important role to play by helping students develop the skills, habits, and dispositions that equip them for success in school and beyond. Schlund sees social and emotional development as a lever not only for academic achievement but also for increasing educational equity. “I’m not saying SEL is the solution, but it contributes to how people understand each other, how we explore and examine our own biases, and how we make decisions that impact others,” she says.
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Supporting teachers’ social and emotional development Although Schlund stands by CASEL’s definition of SEL, she believes it’s often misinterpreted to apply exclusively to children. She views SEL as a lifelong process needed to navigate every context, from the classroom to friendships and first jobs. “We do not talk about SEL exclusively for kids, even though that is often the focus of SEL in schools,” says Schlund. “I think it’s important to remember that everyone is engaged in this process of learning and answering questions like, ‘Who am I?’ and ‘How do I relate to the world?’ and ‘How do I make decisions that benefit the community and the world at large?’” Just as a history teacher needs to learn history to be effective, educators wishing to teach and model SEL must first build their own competencies in self-awareness, selfmanagement, responsible decision making, relationship skills, and social awareness. “In order to do this work, you need to take care of yourself and you need to take care of your own socialemotional needs,” says Katherine Theodore, senior technical assistance consultant at the American Institutes for Research (AIR), also a speaker during the upcoming Equity in Education Program. The Equity in Education Program session on Friday, Oct. 11, “The Intersection of Literacy, Equity, and
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LITERACY TODAY | September/October 2019 | literacyworldwide.org
Social-Emotional Learning,” will focus on preparing teachers to develop their own social-emotional skills through self-reflection on practice, curriculum, personal biases, and growth opportunities. After a short opening keynote, five literacy leaders will share how they build capacity and prepare educators to accomplish goals around SEL in their schools and communities. Along with Schlund and Theodore, attendees will hear from Pedro A. Noguera, distinguished professor of education at the Graduate School of Education and Information Studies at UCLA and founder of the university’s Center for the Transformation of Schools; Jovanni Ramos, principal of Foundation Preparatory Charter School in New Orleans, LA; and Stephanie K. Siddens, senior executive director of the Ohio Department of Education’s Center for Student Supports. Following these TED-style presentations, Noguera will facilitate an audience-driven Q&A, allowing time for attendees to respond, exchange ideas, and ask questions.
Identifying key challenges and outlining next steps Led by a panel of classroom practitioners, the Equity in Education Program session on Saturday, Oct. 12, “Integrating Social-Emotional Learning in the Literacy Classroom,” will shift the focus onto classroom implementation. Following the same format as Friday,
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presenters will demonstrate what evidence-based SEL looks like in literacy education, highlight potential pitfalls, and offer recommendations for educators seeking to implement SEL. Attendees will hear from Kimberly Eckert, 2018 Louisiana State Teacher of the Year, high school English teacher, and reading specialist at Brusly High School; Shawna Coppola, middle school language arts teacher and literacy specialist/coach; Gerald Dessus, middle school cultural studies teacher at The Philadelphia School in Pennsylvania and an ILA 30 Under 30 honoree for 2019; Tiana Silvas, fifth-grade teacher at PS 59 in Manhattan and former Heinemann Fellow; and Tamera Slaughter, manager of educational partnerships with Center for the Collaborative Classroom. Eckert will deliver the opening keynote, during which she’ll share her own SEL journey and discuss the main challenges to implementation—one being recruitment. “Too often, teachers enter the profession because they still follow the antiquated ideal of ‘you love English, so you teach English’ instead of ‘you love humanity, so you teach,’” she says. “We need to recruit and attract people who are seriously engaged in changing the world and who have a 4.0 in people, not necessarily a 4.0 in physics.” In addition to the Friday and Saturday sessions, this year’s Equity in Education Program is also bookended by events on Thursday, Oct. 11, and Sunday, Oct. 13—Institute Day and Children’s Literature Day, respectively. These all-day events require separate
Schlund
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Siddens
Foundational to how all learning happens is how students engage socially and emotionally with each other, with themselves, and with teachers in the classroom. registration and are not included in Core Conference. On Thursday, educators Kathy Collins, Shawna Coppola, Matthew Kay, and Aeriale N. Johnson will lead the Equity in Education Program institute—“Equity in Education: Roles, Tools, and Approaches for Engaging in Bias-Free Practices.” During Children’s Literature Day on Sunday, a morning session, “Equity Through Empathy,” will be led by educators, authors, and activists including Chad Everett and Tricia Ebarvia, who will examine the role children’s literature plays in social-emotional learning. Finally, an afternoon workshop, “Empathy and Identity,” led by Everett, Ebarvia, and San Diego State University’s Virginia Loh-Hagan, will unpack the latest research about representation in the classroom.
educational landscape rather than a fleeting fad. “It needs to be tightly embedded within the curriculum. You can have an SEL program, but when you are designing your lessons and your curriculum, you need to have that SEL language in there,” says Theodore. “It cannot be taught in isolation of the curriculum.” “SEL is the underbelly of everything that we’re doing,” adds Schlund. “If we care about our kids and we care about the world at large, we have to care about SEL.”
ILA 2019 For more information about the Equity in Education Program, as well as information about how to register for Institute Day, Core Conference, and/or Children’s Literature Day, visit ilaconference.org.
Takeaways When asked about what they hope attendees will take from this year’s program, presenters said they hope attendees will start to see SEL as an indelible landmark in today’s
Silvas
Slaughter
Theodore
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ILA’s Literacy Glossary— Together, we can define our profession, one word at a time
Learn more and share your feedback at
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ILA 2019
A GREATER ROLE Kimberly Eckert (kimberly
How my eyes were opened to a flawed education systemâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;and what we can do about it
.eckert@wbrschools.net), the 2018 Louisiana State Teacher of the Year, is a high school English teacher, reading specialist, and innovative programs coordinator.
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By Kimberly Eckert
a
fter spending nine years as a special education teacher, reading interventionist, and English teacher, I started the school year in fall 2017 with a different title: 2018 Louisiana State Teacher of the Year. Generally feeling like an impostor in my own skin, I called my best friend and fellow teacher, Anne, to chat through it. However, instead of talking about my self-doubt, she asked me to brace myself for news of a student Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;d taught for two years. He was a jewel in my class. His smile,
literacyworldwide.org | September/October 2019 | LITERACY TODAY
curiosity, and charm melted me each day, and as his confidence in reading continued to grow, there were days where I lived to see his face light up when I gave him a high five and told him how proud I was. But on this morning, it was reported that my student Dedrick* was arrested, suspected of committing murder. Anne and I burst into tears. In our anguish, we questioned who else was crying for him and the harsh reality that he was born into a system that was deeply damaged from the start. As his reading interventionist, I questioned myself. What if I’d given him just one story that remotely resembled his life, just one experience that was made to empower him? I had access to a world of stories, yet I’d never given him one where someone as special as he could emerge the hero and not the villain. I cried as I sat in my car in the school parking lot because that day, I was going to walk into the building as Teacher of the Year. He was going to walk into a state penitentiary. At the end of the day, I never prepared him for the one test that would matter.
“They’re the solution” As the bell rang, I gathered my strength and entered my first-hour honors English class. I began to explain to my students everything we were going to learn this year and how I was going to help them become their own geniuses through supporting their passions for 20% of our class time. I explained that each person would have an opportunity to do, learn, change, or create something that was deeply important to them. Predictably, “that one kid” grudgingly asked what everyone was thinking: “Is this for a grade?” In that moment, everything about our education system that fails students became apparent to me. I’d never before seen what appeared to be two different problems as one. The system that shut Dedrick out because he was never going to learn how to play the game was the same system that labels students as “honors” or “advanced” because of
their ability to cram their way through assessments. It’s the same system that leads many of my students in honors to be terrified of real experiences where there is uncertainty and where they don’t feel guaranteed that experiences are worth it unless there’s an A to be earned. We, as a system and society, praise people who think outside the box, but we’re the ones who designed the box and stuffed students inside and put on the lid and tossed the key. We throw out the ones who don’t fit in the box, and far too often without the tools to thrive. That day, I declared that I’ll be damned if at the end of a year, all I’ve given students was the ability to pass a test, pass a class, or get an A. Every minute in my classroom is another opportunity to embrace the fact that students are not the problem. They’re the solution. Every Friday that year, I pushed students to find what mattered to them most and to do something, learn something, change something, create something for the world. All of my students demonstrated growth and scored well on assessments, but what was more impressive was that one student wrote a play, another designed a video game, and all 125 created websites. Some connected to farming communities, some raised over $8,000 for everything from scholarships to a program for widowed women. My students revamped our school’s mentor system, flooded hundreds of lockers with positive messages, and created spaces for conversations on racism, sexual assault, and processing grief. All felt valid and worthy and powerful. That’s an education. School shouldn’t be the least real-world place a student goes. Literacy should be about opportunities to cultivate empathy and to figure out what you care about so you bother to solve problems. Classes should offer experiences that help you develop confidence, problem solving ability, resilience, and perseverance, not because you have 50 minutes to take a
LITERACY TODAY | September/October 2019 | literacyworldwide.org
multiple choice test but because your school, community, and world needs you.
“What matters most” My role is to help students access a better life. I just wished I’d figured it out sooner. As a society, we need to empower schools to empower teachers to empower students to be ready for life’s tests. We must prepare students for the world that’s going to ask them to choose growth over stagnation, learning over ignorance, and honest work over a hustle. The world that will thrive when they choose change over status quo, innovation over destruction, and love instead of fear. The first time they’re faced with these options, they shouldn’t be facing them with only a pocket full of verbs, nouns, and independent clauses. They should be facing them with confidence that they can figure it out and make choices they can live with. I can’t let myself off the hook for Dedrick. But I can ensure that my classroom is a space filled with everything my kids are and can be. I can ensure the most important part of the syllabus is filled with what matters most: my students. *I previously told this story using a different name for my student. However, Dedrick was murdered on Jan. 29, 2019. I will never forget his name and I will use it every time I tell the story of the lessons his life taught me.
ILA 2019 Kimberly Eckert will lead a Q&A with General Session speaker Chelsea Clinton on Friday, Oct. 11. She will also be a presenter during the Equity in Education Program session on Saturday, Oct. 12, “Integrating SocialEmotional Learning in the Literacy Classroom.” For more information, visit ilaconference .org/iplanner.
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ILA 2019
LOOKING INWARD Reflecting on the journey toward equitable schools By Chad Everett
Chad Everett (chad.everett@ dcsms.org) is the assistant principal at Horn Lake Middle School in Mississippi.
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i
leaned down, looked in my nephew’s eyes, and asked him, “How was your day at school?” In the moment after I asked this question, I felt the fear of generations come to rest on my chest. Generations that have sent black boys into schools with backpacks filled with supplies and prayers that their brilliance would be seen and valued, that the color of their skin would not be ignored but celebrated.
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I am glad to see the number of conversations happening around diversity and inclusion, because there is no amount of glue sticks or construction paper that can make an institution that was not built for your child love your child. Now as he begins kindergarten, I feel that weight on my chest. Again, I’m glad to see so many educators questioning how they begin the journey to creating more inclusive, equitable schools, but I worry that many are beginning the journey in the wrong place. The journey to creating more equitable schools does not begin in the back-to-school faculty meeting or in the first Parent-Teacher Organization meeting—the journey begins in the mirror. Until we are willing to confront the educator in the mirror and ask how we are complicit in maintaining inequitable environments for students, I do not believe we are truly ready for all that the journey to creating more equitable schools will bring.
We have to examine ourselves As a teacher of literacy, it is natural for me to think of my bookshelves before I think of myself. I must recognize, however, that who I am shapes who is and is not present on my shelves. The way that I look, live, and vote all shape my classroom library. There is no booklist, no matter how carefully cultivated, that can overcome an individual educator’s biases or oppressive policies that are ingrained in our systems. Truly, the policies of our classrooms and libraries are extensions of the policies of our lives. The voices who are absent from our personal lives will often be absent from our shelves. The voices who are not heard in the world outside our schools are often the voices who are not heard inside our schools. It is wonderful for our students to be able to wrap themselves in the words of Jason Reynolds, Elizabeth Acevedo, and Renée Watson, and it is admirable for our students to be able to see themselves in the words of Cynthia Leitich Smith and Walter Dean Myers. But as long as we live in a world where students worry whether they
The voices who are absent from our personal lives will often be absent from our shelves. The voices who are not heard in the world outside our schools are often the voices who are not heard inside our schools. will be able to wrap themselves in their family’s arms at night, and parents worry whether they will be able to see themselves in their children’s faces at night, we must recognize that the work we have to do extends far beyond our shelves.
The impact of an inclusive classroom As my nephew told me about his day, my mind immediately went to one of my teachers who was committed to creating an inclusive classroom before it was a hashtag on Twitter, so I want to end with a thank you to her, Ms. Rayford. Dear Ms. Rayford, From the moment We walked into your classroom Eyes bright with innocence And the space filled with promise You made one thing clear: We were yours. All of us. But on another level, some of us felt more like yours— In you we could see mothers, aunts, and grandmothers. With you, we could feel the love that cared for and raised generations Eye-to-eye with you We could see ourselves. Ten-year-old boys With the energy of a thousand. You never suppressed Black Boy Joy. You found a way to harness it So that we could light the way for those who would come after us. And so we shone. In honors programs where there were so few of us We shone.
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As we watched others try to harness the energy coming from us With lassos woven from acronyms: A.D.H.D. and S.L.D. We shone. Because you taught us When you try to put a 100-watt bulb In a lamp that can only handle 40 Don’t blame the bulb. Instead of teaching us to code switch You taught us how to switch the code. So, I’m writing you to simply say thank you. When I wake up at 4:00 To drive bus 186 I think of you and how you worked two jobs But never clocked out on loving us And it pushes me to be better for my students. You are a major reason why I do what I do. Love you always, Chad
ILA 2019 Chad Everett will be a keynote speaker during Children’s Literature Day on Sunday, Oct. 13. He will also be a presenter during the morning and afternoon Equity in Education sessions, “Equity Through Empathy” and “Empathy and Identity.” Please note that Children’s Literature Day requires separate registration. Visit ilaconference.org for more information.
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ILA 2019
IN THEIR WORDS Matt Mendez and Linda Sue Park in conversation
w
e recently asked Matt Mendez and Linda Sue Park, authors and keynote speakers for Children’s Literature Day at ILA 2019, to interview each other for a Literacy Today feature—and they did not disappoint. What they gave us, as you’ll see below, was not a regimented interview, but instead a candid, flowing conversation full of insight into the authors’ craft. Read on for their thoughts on the writing process, voluminous and diverse reading for students, and their messages for educators—and be sure to hear them in person during Children’s Literature Day on Sunday, Oct. 13. Linda Sue Park: Your descriptions of setting are striking. What’s your process for writing setting? Do setting details come automatically to you, or are they something you add while revising? Matt Mendez: Setting can be tricky for me. My problem is writing way too much of it. I tend to overwrite early drafts and then I trim in revision, hoping to find the right detail or something to call a reader’s attention to. Park: That’s so interesting! I do just the opposite. My early drafts are what the characters are doing and saying. I have to add during revision—I’m always having to go back and strengthen the setting. I think it’s important for parents and teachers to realize that how someone writes can be as unique and personal as what they write. Both you and I want to write good stories, but there’s no single formula or recipe. We’ve each developed our own methods for getting there. Mendez: When writing, I like to inhabit the space my characters are in, to capture what they see and hear, what they sense, and how a space makes them feel. The way characters occupy a space—how they interact and interpret it—reveals a lot about who they are and what they value. I write almost exclusively about the desert Southwest. I love the landscape, how its beauty can also be extremely harsh. That is a duality I love exploring, and I do so in Barely Missing Everything (Simon & Schuster). I believe
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the setting informs who Juan, JD, and Fabi ultimately are. Park: I love that. Those kinds of dualities are such rich territory for writers! And what you’ve said about space points to another way our work is different. Several of my novels are historical fiction. I can’t physically put myself in the actual spaces the same way that a contemporary novelist can. It’s still important for me to spend time in the places where my work is set, but it’s almost always the case that so much has changed in the intervening years. I tend to pay extra attention to objects—tangible things, stuff you can actually touch, whether natural or made by humans—that were around back then and that I can still access now: the pottery in A Single Shard (HMH Books for Young Readers), for example, or the wild turnips in Prairie Lotus (HMH Books for Young Readers). Park: Name one or two or a few books that are of vital importance to you. Mendez: Two books that have greatly influenced me are Pedro Páramo by Juan Rulfo (Grove Press) and Century of the Wind: Memory of Fire, Volume III by Eduardo Galeano (Pantheon). Published in 1955, Pedro Páramo is a slim novel that breaks a lot of the “rules” writers have for themselves. The narrative is fragmented, the narrator fades from the story and, set in post-revolutionary Mexico, it
is openly political. The novel begins with Juan Preciado fulfilling his mother’s dying wish for him to return to her hometown and find his father, Pedro Páramo. But when Juan arrives, he soon realizes that the town is populated by ghosts, that his father is dead, and that even he is dead. Pedro Páramo is a ghost story, a love story, a father–son story, a story about hope and misery. It is about history, life and death, about memory and regret. This book creates such a powerful mood, one that carries a reader all the way through it. Century of the Wind is the last book in Galeano’s trilogy that chronicles the history of the Americas. In short vignettes, Century of the Wind covers history from 1901 until 1984. And each vignette reads like a fable, like reporting, and like an essay. Written with such precise lyricism, Galeano’s histories come alive and sweep a reader into a whirlwind of ironies and beauty. These two books, these two writers, have given me the courage to
always take risks in my own writing. And I think I take quite a few in Barely Missing Everything. I decided to have multiple narrators and to add epistolary sections. There is even a math test that comes to life in the middle of the novel. Because of these two books, I feel free to push a story where it needs to go. Park: I don’t know either of those books. I love it when folks recommend books that I’ve never heard of. I see a trip to the library in my very near future. In our email exchange, you said something that I really relate to: “I know when I write, I often feel my writing is in conversation with books that I love.” I think that my whole writing career is a response to the books I loved as a young reader. Specific titles? This answer for me changes constantly, depending on what I’m working on or when I’m asked. As a young reader, I was both voracious and indiscriminate: I read everything from the award winners to all the
For young readers to discover both the joy of reading and the power of reading: That’s why I write for kids.
LITERACY TODAY | September/October 2019 | literacyworldwide.org
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Nancy Drews and Trixie Beldens I could find. Because of the sheer amount I read, certain aspects of story and craft, especially middle grade, seem to exist on a mitochondrial level for me. Character development, pacing, arc—I have a lot of trouble articulating how I do these things, because my answer is always, “Um, I read a lot.” What I think that means is that my own writing process is a wide-ranging and long-term variation of the mentortext approach. I would have loved trying this as a school student, especially with short forms like poetry. But once again, I want to emphasize how important it is for educators—especially administrators—to understand that no single approach to writing will work for every child. Park: What kind of kid is your ideal reader? Who are you trying to reach with your stories? Mendez: First, I would just love to say how much I love the idea of stories we love being with us at a mitochondrial level! I totally feel that way. And again, we have another difference that I think is interesting: our reading backgrounds. I want to reach kids who were like me growing up. I wasn’t an avid reader as a young person, and I didn’t come from a family who read. Looking back, I think a big reason for that was the lack of books with characters from my world, a lack of books with characters who looked and sounded like me. I never found, or was given, stories about brown people or about brown boys. Reading is a way to develop empathy, to inhabit a world that is different from your own and experience the unfamiliar, but for kids who don’t see themselves in popular culture— or when they do, it is stereotype city—books can become just another unwelcoming space. They can become a barrier to, instead of a vehicle for, selfdiscovery. Of course, I want everyone to read Barely Missing Everything, but
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Reading is a way to develop empathy, to inhabit a world that is different from your own and experience the unfamiliar.
my hope is that this novel finds its way into the hands of brown boys and girls, especially in the Southwest, who may feel invisible or worse, like they are under attack by their own country and government. By creating space for them on the page, we are expanding the spaces these kids can explore and inhabit. Park: That’s so important. Books for young readers have the ability to shape a child’s worldview. For writers, this is a tremendous opportunity and an equally great responsibility. I have two kinds of “ideal readers.” First, the kids who are my kindred spirits—the ones who read everything, who gobble books. But I’ve also learned a crucial lesson from my young readers, which is that I cannot predict how my books will affect them. Thousands of young readers have read A Long Walk to Water (HMH Books for Young Readers). Their response to the book has moved them to become social justice activists. It has been amazing and humbling to learn about their incredible efforts to raise money for water-related causes around the world. I hope Nya’s Long Walk (HMH Books for Young Readers) will bring even more readers to the understanding that they can make a difference in the world. My forthcoming novel, Prairie Lotus, shares some of the characteristics of your book, in that we’re both telling stories that have been overlooked for too long. It’s historical fiction set in what the U.S. government
called Dakota Territory in 1880—but with a protagonist seldom seen in that setting. My wish is that Prairie Lotus will help readers begin to understand that the “textbook” version of U.S. history is an incomplete and therefore flawed one. For young readers to discover both the joy of reading and the power of reading: That’s why I write for kids. Mendez: Exactly! And that’s what Children’s Literature Day is all about. Celebrating that power and the ability books have to not only change a child’s view of their world, but of themselves as well. I’m looking forward to talking more about this with the audience of educators. Park: Me too—I love talking about books with teachers and librarians. See you in October!
ILA 2019 Matt Mendez and Linda Sue Park will be keynotes during Children’s Literature Day on Sunday, Oct. 13. Mendez will also take part in the “Equity Through Empathy” morning session and the Young Adult Author Meetup. Children’s Literature Day requires separate registration. Visit ilaconference.org for more information.
literacyworldwide.org | September/October 2019 | LITERACY TODAY
Bridge Research to Practice: Live With the Author Get the inside scoop about Reading Research Quarterly articles from the authors who wrote them. Check out these podcasts and videos to learn about each authorâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s background; find out what the author would tell teachers, parents, principals, policymakers, and other stakeholders based on the studyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s findings; and more!
literacyworldwide.org/rrqauthorinterviews
photo by Magda Starowieyska/Fotorzepa
ILA 2019
THE MAGIC OF
RUTA SEPETYS Known as The Crazy Reading Ladies (crazyreadingladies .blogspot.com), Mary Cotillo, above right, and Erin O’Leary (2crazyreadingladies@ gmail.com) are middlelevel educators from Massachusetts. They created All In!, a schoolwide reading initiative that ignites adolescents’ passion to read.
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Highlighting the Children’s Literature Day keynote’s ability to captivate a challenging audience: middle schoolers By Mary Cotillo & Erin O’Leary
e
arly adolescent readers are a daunting audience for an author. Middle schoolers are not going to read a book they don’t like. When they do read a book, if it isn’t exceptional, you’re going to hear about it. Even some of the greatest literature of all time is labeled “Meh” or “OK, I guess.” Adolescents have no problem offering their opinion, and they love to be critical. So please know that it’s a pretty big deal when we tell you that all of our students love Ruta Sepetys. Each one. The lot of ’em. Admittedly, we were a little late to the party. Her first novel Between Shades of Gray (Penguin) was published in 2011. A few million people heard about it, read
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it, and loved it, including The New York Times, Publisher’s Weekly, the American Library Association, and the Carnegie award folks. We didn’t read it until five years later, and a few hundred middle schoolers followed suit. Since then, we haven’t stopped talking and our kids haven’t stopped reading. Though only three books bear her name (soon to be four: The Fountains of Silence [Penguin] will be published in October), Ruta is one of the most acclaimed authors of our time. She has received attention and accolades because people read something they loved and talked about it—a triumph exemplifying what happens when readers share good books. Her appeal is nearly universal, attracting adult and young adult readers alike. Eight years after its publication, Between Shades of Gray (now published as Ashes in the Snow) remains the most widely read book in our building and a favorite among literacy professionals. She is first on our list when we recommend titles and the closest to a “sure thing” we have in middle school. Whether your kids are fans of fiction, nonfiction, action, adventure, realistic fiction, or drama, hand them Salt to the Sea (Penguin). If your students are ravenous readers or have never completed a novel before, have them start Ashes in the Snow. If you are seeking something that will keep a student company over a long weekend, engage a dormant reader, build background knowledge, or support the development of emotional intelligence, Ruta is the answer. Her historical fiction brings to light stories that have been kept in the dark, perspectives that have been ignored or even silenced. Salt to the Sea tells the story of the worst maritime disaster known to mankind: the sinking of a ship with a death toll six times greater than that of the RMS Titanic, perpetrated upon civilians by the Allies in World War II. Ashes in the Snow tells the story of Lina, one of thousands of innocent Lithuanian children sent to languish in Siberia because their parents were intellectuals. The Fountains of Silence uncovers deeply shrouded secrets from Franco’s Spain.
Her historical fiction brings to light stories that have been kept in the dark, perspectives that have been ignored or even silenced.
Sharing adolescent frustration and outrage at the injustice in the world, Ruta encourages students to learn more and teach others. “If historical novels stir your interest, pursue the facts, history, memoirs, and personal testimonies available,” she writes in the author’s note in Salt to the Sea. “What determines how we remember history and which elements are preserved and penetrate the collective consciousness?” Such challenges tap into the powerful sense of right and wrong that is at the core of every middle school student. And then there’s Ruta herself. She’s warm and generous and patient with our students. Whether cheering them on via Twitter or waving from a video conference screen, Ruta is there for our kids. She greets them with an open and grateful heart, as if she is the lucky one. She speaks to them like thinking, rational young adults and tells them to keep reading, keep writing, keep researching. It’s magical, witnessing the power of the personal connection our students feel to this best-selling author. They hold her in high esteem, with a sense of admiration typically reserved for professional athletes and box office superheroes, yet they speak of her as a friend. She has earned the familiarity of first-name basis (as in, “When is Ruta’s new book coming out?”). Though we were initially late to the party, it’s safe to say we’ve never left. Some of our favorite moments in teaching—our personal highlight reel of conversations and experiences with our students—are courtesy of Ruta Sepetys. Her novels will help you forge connections and strengthen relationships with your students. The current climate of the United States
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presents unforeseen challenges for educators, not the least of which is deciding how many sad stories are too many sad stories. With reality rapidly taking on the dark tones of a dystopian novel, we often hear colleagues advocate for certain books because they are “so happy and positive,” and it’s easy to understand why they gravitate toward lightness. In the reality of mass shootings, of course we want to wrap our children in warmth and love. This is why her books are important. They don’t shy away from difficult topics. Nestled safely between the pages of a story, we can engage our students in life-changing dialogue about what it means to be human even in the most inhumane circumstances. If you find yourself in this situation, faced with a desire to deliver to students a truly rich and meaningful reading experience while also celebrating the enduring positivity of humanity, you must give them Ruta Sepetys. They will love you for it.
ILA 2019 Ruta Sepetys will be a keynote speaker during the Children’s Literature Day lunch on Sunday, Oct. 13, which will be emceed by Mary Cotillo and Erin O’Leary. In addition, she’ll be participating in the young adult session in the morning with fellow authors Kekla Magoon, Daniel José Older, Steve Sheinkin, Renée Watson, and Kiersten White. For more information, visit ilaconference.org/iplanner.
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THE ENGAGING CLASSROOM
START WITH
THE HEART Dave Stuart Jr. (@davestuartjr) is an awardwinning high school teacher who writes and speaks about literacy and motivation. Heâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s a best-selling author, the creator of an online professional development course on student motivation, and a blogger with a monthly readership of 35,000.
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How to strengthen key beliefs that motivate readers By Dave Stuart Jr.
f
or our students to grow as much as possible from a given reading experience, two basic things need to happen:
1. They need to do the reading. 2. They need to care about the reading.
There are many ways to coerce students into doing the readingâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;grades and pizzas, pressure or fear. These methods end in frustration, however, because of
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that second condition: In order for students to care, something deeper and more beautiful than coercion has to happen. That something is belief. Specifically, there are five key beliefs beneath student motivation: credibility, value, belonging, effort, and efficacy. Here, we’ll look at the three that are most foundational when building a classroom in which all students read with care.
Credibility When our students believe that we care about them, that we know what we’re talking about, and that we approach our work with passion, it’s more likely that they’ll read a text simply because we have asked them to. Credibility is prominently featured in John Hattie’s meta-analytical work as one of the top ways to influence student achievement. I love a few things about the power of the credibility belief. First, it’s not based on favoritism. Every teacher can be credible to a child, whereas only one can be that child’s favorite. Second, it has this mix of folksiness—if students believe in you, they’ll read—and scientific backing. And third, like all of the other key beliefs, it is malleable. You and I have an influence each day on whether our students find us to be a good teacher. If you’re looking for a credibility breakthrough, here are some moves that help: Share something you read recently and explain why you read it. This demonstrates passion and competence. Take a moment to genuinely connect with a student on an interest of his or hers or on something you notice about him or her as a student. In a moment of genuine connection, students sense that the teacher sees them, values them, and respects them. Each year, make sure you tell all your students why you became a teacher. (William Damon, a Stanford researcher who has spent his career studying purpose
in young adults, writes about the impact this can have.)
belief boost to students who struggle to see the relevance of a particular class.
Value
Belonging
None of us find it easy to care about work that feels pointless. You can likely think of a time or place where you’ve felt this, right? The good news is there are all kinds of avenues through which human beings arrive at valuing something. Our students can value reading because it’s fun, or because it’s useful, or because it’s important for their future, or because a given text is on a topic they’re passionate about, or because a book is challenging. I’m always fascinated to see the different roads my students take to finding value in the reading journey. If you’re looking for a value breakthrough, try this:
Much has been written about helping students think of themselves as the kinds of people who read—and rightly so. As Stanford researcher Greg Walton explains, when students don’t feel that they “fit” in an academic environment, they’re likely to have a whole part of their brain fixated on whether other people are judging them and whether they belong. This is bad not just because it is nerve-wracking for students, but also because it is really hard to read when your brain is in this kind of turmoil. So how do we boost this belief in our students? A simple place to start is leveraging the credibility and value beliefs toward getting our kids to do some reading. When our students find us credible (Belief 1), and we make a case for the value of reading (Belief 2) as best we can, then we shouldn’t be surprised when more than a few of them give it a try. The doing of the thing, over time, starts to shape our students’ reading identities. I cover all three of these beliefs— as well as the remaining two of effort and efficacy—in more depth on my blog (davestuartjr.com) and in my book, These 6 Things: How to Focus Your Teaching on What Matters Most (Corwin). The key beliefs, in my experience and in the research of numerous scholars, provide intrinsic motivation that is far more engaging than any coercive method. And the best news of all is that all of us can shape them in our classrooms.
1. At the start of class, have students brainstorm two specific lists on a single sheet of paper. List 1 is all the things they’re interested in, things they value, things they like doing, things they hope to do someday. List 2 is all the things that they’ve learned or done or accomplished or studied in your class in the past month. Have them share these lists with a peer.
2. Next, challenge students to draw a line between anything in List 1 that connects with anything in List 2. Again, have them briefly share with a peer. Walk around and interact with a few students.
3. Finally, have students write a few sentences about one of their connections. You want them to explain, as clearly and convincingly as possible, how something they’ve done in your class recently connects with something they value in their actual life. This idea comes from Chris Hulleman, a motivation researcher at the University of Virginia. Hulleman and his colleagues have repeatedly demonstrated that this “build connections” exercise gives a value
LITERACY TODAY | September/October 2019 | literacyworldwide.org
ILA 2019 Dave Stuart Jr. will present a featured speaker session, “Motivating Readers From the Inside Out: The Five Key Beliefs That Matter Most for Student Literacy,” on Friday, Oct. 11, 1:00 PM–2:00 PM. For more information, visit ilaconference .org/iplanner.
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THE ENGAGING CLASSROOM
Debbi Arseneaux (darseneaux@ thelearningalliance.org) is an educational consultant and teaching artist with The Learning Alliance and a program manager for Moonshot Institute.
LEARNING IS A
CONNECTION PROJECT
How social-emotional learning drives literacy By Debbi Arseneaux & Liz Remington Liz Remington (lremington @thelearningalliance.org) is a cofounder of The Learning Alliance and the director of professional development.
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w
hat does it take to cultivate literate, compassionate, creative citizens who will improve our world? This is the question we aim to answer through our work at The Learning Alliance, in which we use a comprehensive, integrated approach to learning that develops foundational literacy skills through supporting studentsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; social-emotional needs and providing authentic opportunities for applied learning. How do we teach children to read? This is a good, practical question for an early elementary educator. However, we propose that we need to ask another question first: How can we create the conditions in which students feel safe and connected and become available to learn? Without engaging students in the
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success of their own learning, we cannot teach them anything. CASEL, the Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning, defines social and emotional learning as “the process through which children and adults acquire and effectively apply the knowledge, attitudes, and skills necessary to understand and manage emotions, set and achieve positive goals, feel and show empathy for others, establish and maintain positive relationships, and make responsible decisions.” So how might we support this process?
It starts with you Think about the last time you were asked to try something new. How did you feel? Ready and eager, or terrified and insecure? Were you in a familiar context with people who made you feel safe, or were you in unfamiliar territory and unsure how to proceed? Whether students are ready to take a leap, or they experience frustration early and often, depends on how safe and connected they feel in your classroom. You can help cultivate the ideal fertile soil for growth and learning by thinking about how you can create a positive, connected learning environment. You can model a growth mind-set and show students that not knowing everything is OK. Finding out is the adventure!
Learning is social Dan Siegel, who studies interpersonal neurobiology, confirms that our brain is inherently social: “We evolved from tribes, grow in families, and learn in groups.” Our relationships shape the way our brain functions, and the quality of our interactions is key. This applies to the relationships we form with our students as well as the ones they form with each other. When you put students in groups to work on solving problems or reading an article, for example, those who are struggling may learn more from
a peer who has only recently cracked the code himself or herself. These conversations are also a critical part of developing foundational oral language skills. Project-based learning (PBL), or any collaborative creative project, like putting on a play, is a great way to provide ongoing, embedded opportunities for students to collaborate and learn from each other. In both instances, the project or the play is not entirely the point. The task-oriented creative process itself provides the learning opportunity.
Emotion drives attention With so many of our students experiencing the effects of stress and trauma, how can we counter this in our classrooms? Emotion drives attention, and attention drives learning, as researcher Robert Sylwester said, so we need to help our students manage their emotions and develop the skill of self-regulation. The good news is, this skill can be taught. We can do this through movement and focused attention activities and by giving students the tools and language to identify emotions and help them recognize that the emotion does not have to take over. This is critical for us to remember as adults, as we cannot help a child de-stress if we are also in a heightened emotional state ourselves. Incorporate moments to pause and breathe throughout the day to disengage stress and activate focus, for both yourself and students. Freeze Dance or Point of Focus games are a great way to practice self-control and direct attention. Think about how you might connect these to content: Pass vocabulary words around the circle with an accompanying gesture, or move and freeze as different character traits from a story. Mary Helen ImmordinoYang, a neuroscientist from the Brain and Creativity Institute, tells us, “It is literally neurobiologically impossible to build memories, engage in complex thoughts, or make meaningful decisions without emotions. Emotions are not add-ons but dimensions of the
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academic skill itself. We only think about things we care about.” We need to give students learning experiences that they care about.
Connection is the key Becky Bailey, founder of Conscious Discipline, says, “No significant learning can occur without significant relationships. Connection is the key.” Beyond intra- and interpersonal relationships, students also need to feel that what they are learning has relevance and purpose in their lives. Even psychologist Lev Vygotsky said in 1935, “Teaching should be organized in such a way that reading and writing are necessary for something…reading and writing must be something that the child needs.” We need to pay close attention to the way our students see the world and provide opportunities to bring their lived experience into the classroom. We need to look for ways they can authentically apply their learning through handson projects, creative experiences, and community collaborations. PBL, STEM/STEAM, and arts integration are all powerful ways we can bridge the classroom and the community to give meaning and purpose to students’ literacy experiences and foster socialemotional learning. Attention to building students’ social and emotional capacities is critical if we hope to have any success in teaching our children to become compassionate, creative, literate citizens who will improve our world.
ILA 2019 Debbi Arseneaux and Liz Remington, along with Leslie Connelly and Fran McDonough, will lead one of 10 institutes on Thursday, Oct. 10: Learning Is a Connection Project: SocialEmotional Literacy Through Project-Based Learning. For the full list of institutes, visit ilaconference.org/institutes.
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THE ENGAGING CLASSROOM
FOCUSING ON
DISCOURSE Joe Heilman (heilmajm@ miamioh.edu) teaches third-, fourth-, and fifth-grade gifted reading and math at Talawanda School District in Ohio. He recently completed his masterâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s degree in cultural literacy at Miami University.
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Fostering an environment for safe conversations and conflict resolution By Joe Heilman
a
fter teaching reading, writing, and United States history to fifth graders (the age of drama and hormones) for a few years, I knew I needed to do something to help ensure our classroom environment was one that fostered a safe space open to studentâ&#x20AC;&#x201C;teacher discourse when controversial subjects, as well as common, everyday topics, arose in discussions.
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I discovered that, up until then, I was spending 10 minutes after recess every day refereeing disagreements. I was painstakingly pulling writing topics from reluctant writers. And I was dealing with the typical lesson interruption to have a rule breaker “flip a card” on the behavior chart. Something needed to change. In response, I implemented the oftused system of community meetings, but I created a 30-minute monthly version in which I would teach a social skill or a conflict resolution skill while allowing students to make choices about how our community runs. During each meeting, we celebrated the successes for the month and set a goal for the next month. This helped, but what made the greatest difference was a white envelope, three colored chips, and a resealable plastic bag.
Starting the conversation I wanted my students to make daily use of the social skills and conflict resolution skills I taught, so I created a system called “Did I Do Something That Upset You?” This system consisted of students having a resealable, snacksize plastic bag with their name on it attached to the side of a filing cabinet located next to the door, out of direct sight of the students most of the day. The students were also given three colored chips with their name on them. Among the skills I taught was how to stand up for yourself if someone in class disrespected you or someone else, and how to tell that person in a constructive, polite way. Sometimes people don’t know they have upset you. By bringing it to their attention, you educate them and stop the behavior. My new system helped by getting those conversations started. The disrespected student put his or her chip in the offending student’s bag. At the end of the day, we cleared the bags. Students removed the chips from their bag and returned them to the owner, but when returning the chip, they were only to ask, “Did I do something that upset you?” This allowed the other student the opportunity to explain how
he or she felt and why. I explained that putting a chip in a bag was an attempt to maintain a friendship, not an attempt to get that person in trouble. If the two students could resolve the issue themselves, the chip was returned. If they could not, it went back in the bag and I pulled the two together the following morning. After introducing this system, when a student came to me with a complaint about another student, I could simply say, “That sounds like a chip issue,” and continue with instruction time. Full disclosure: I often eavesdropped on those end-of-day student conversations to ensure the conversation went well, and I was frankly amazed by how responsibly they handled it. Students who never had a voice in class were standing up for themselves and for others. And, oh yes, I had a bag also and would occasionally have chips in my bag. A child who can express his or her feelings to a peer can openly discuss most topics in a reading or social studies context. The quality of our classroom discourse was amazing after implementing this system, especially when looking at character analysis and examining why events occurred in history. Experiencing and resolving their own conflicts provided my students with a deeper understanding of themselves and others.
I would frequently peek into students’ envelopes to see what was being written. (We had learned in a community meeting how to give a specific compliment.) My eyes teared up often while peeking at those cards when students would write to the “lonely kid” or to the kid who was bullied at recess, but even better was reading compliments from one student thanking another for standing up for one of the less accepted students in the class. My community became so bonded, they were protecting even their least accepted. The self-confidence of every student in that class increased. I did not have to pull answers or responses from students. They wanted to contribute to our educational discussions. While reading books with characters who represented multiple identities (e.g., racial, cultural, sexual), there was no giggling or whispering about the differences. Instead, students asked questions to learn more about those who were unfamiliar to them. Other teachers often commented that there was something different about my class. I simply said “thank you” and celebrated the compliment with my class—and I knew the difference was the decision the students made to be responsible, respectful, and inclusive, and to take control of their learning environment.
Improving self-confidence There was not only a conflict resolution system in class but also an opportunity for students to thank one another for daily acts of kindness. I gave each student a white mailing envelope and asked them to decorate it with their name and symbols that represent them. I laminated them and hung them on a bulletin board labeled “Thank You!” Attached to the bulletin board was a box of colored index cards. Students were encouraged to write classmates notes of thanks when they noticed a classmate helping them in some way or when they noticed a classmate assisting someone else.
LITERACY TODAY | September/October 2019 | literacyworldwide.org
ONLINE EXCLUSIVE The digital edition of Literacy Today includes an additional Engaging Classroom article by Rebecca M. Grove and Kristine M. Calo about literacy lessons learned through a pen pal project between preservice teachers and fifth-grade students. Print readers: Log in at literacyworldwide.org/ literacytoday to read the digital issue.
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ONLINE EXCLUSIVE
Rebecca M. Grove (grove@hood.edu), an ILA member since 2018, is an assistant professor at Hood College. She teaches in the secondary education program and directs the Multidisciplinary Studies in Education graduate program.
DEAR PEN PAL Building literacy through letter writing By Rebecca M. Grove & Kristine M. Calo
e Kristine M. Calo (calo@hood .edu) is an associate professor at Hood College.
ven in today’s digital world, who does not love to see a handwritten letter or card in their mailbox? That feeling of excitement is a regular experience for college students and fifth graders who participate in our pen pal project designed to promote literacy learning and teaching. The heart of the project, which connects Hood College in Frederick, MD, with a nearby Title I school, is a letter exchange that provides rich learning opportunities and sparks genuine excitement about reading and writing. The project also illustrates the type of community partnership called for in ILA’s 2018 What’s Hot in Literacy Report. The partnership makes literacy authentic and engaging—and the benefits are many.
Along with teaching courses, she directs the college’s
Letters for engaging with texts
Curriculum and Instruction
While reading a common text, Inch and Miles: The Journey to Success by John Wooden (Perfection Learning), pen pals wrote back and forth last school year to
master’s degree program.
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“discuss” the book. This school year, pen pals are connecting with Wonder by R.J. Palacio (Knopf Books for Young Readers). In their letters, college pen pals, who were teacher candidates (TCs) studying literacy instruction, intentionally supported students’ comprehension and engagement with the content. For example, one TC wrote, “Coach Wooden writes about action next. He writes, ‘Don’t fear failure. Try your best. Take some action for success.’ Action is really important to me, especially how he writes about it. Some of my classes are hard, and instead of just letting myself fall behind in class, I talk with my teachers so I can make sure that I do well in the class.” Such letters gave TCs authentic practice in modeling literacy discourse while inviting fifth graders into the conversation in scaffolded and engaging ways. Additionally, fifth graders benefited from having an authentic audience for their writing. Knowing that their college pen pal would read and respond to their letters, they wrote about the text in purposeful ways, not only unpacking the content but also detailing personal connections. For example, after reading about successful teamwork habits, one student wrote, “I also show cooperation to my friends and self-control to my friends when they play football even though I don’t want to.” Students incorporated many of the discourse moves they saw their pen pals using, participating as active contributors in a literary conversation.
Letters as mentor texts When students received a letter from their pen pals, they had a tangible connection to their partner and a concrete example of good writing. The letters served as mentor texts in several ways. The letters written by the TCs modeled the format and structure of a friendly letter. More important, they modeled the tone and content of a quality book discussion, including how to identify character
Knowing that their college pen pal would read and respond to their letters, they wrote about the text in purposeful ways, not only unpacking the content but also detailing personal connections.
traits, ask engaging questions, respond to questions citing text evidence, make purposeful text-to-self and text-toworld connections, and determine main ideas.
Letters to build relationships Saying whether the college students or the fifth graders were more excited to receive a pen pal letter would be difficult. Woven into each missive, along with insights into the common text, were personal anecdotes and questions. The fifth graders were quick to connect with their college pen pals, and this connection provided further motivation and engagement in the authentic reading and writing tasks. Both TCs and fifth graders experienced the benefits of positive relationships. One student shared, “The best thing about having a pen-pal is that their [sic] is a confersason [sic] by letters. Another thing that I like about having a pen-pal is that you get to learn more about the person.” As the fifth graders grew to know their pen pals, they not only explored the themes and content of the book, but also shared about themselves, their families, and their goals. One student wrote, “Both of my parents did not go to collage [sic], my older sister is one year away from collage. So I will be second to collage because I want to make my parents proud.” Fifth graders looked to the TCs as mentors and models of what they, too, could aspire to be.
LITERACY TODAY | September/October 2019 | literacyworldwide.org
TCs experienced the process of relationship building and continually reflected on the benefits. At the onset of the project, one TC wrote, “I’m hoping to learn about what kinds of things the student is interested in and their opinions and experiences when it comes to reading. I think this will give me good insight and will help me to plan lessons in the future.” Throughout the project, TCs learned that they can connect with individual students by asking thoughtful questions, offering constructive and positive feedback, and showing genuine interest in their ideas.
One step in the journey We know that building strong literacy skills is a long, multifaceted process. This pen pal project is one step in that journey for the students who participate. For the duration of the project, they experience the motivation and engagement that comes with authentic literacy practices, and TCs witness the value of such experiences for their students. As letters travel back and forth between pen pals, relationships and connections develop, which we will foster with continued interactions with these students as they move through middle school. The partnership aspect of the project helps locate literacy outside of the traditional classroom, giving students an opportunity to see how reading and writing is a life skill, not just a school skill. And that, we believe, is something to write home about!
41
THE ILA NETWORK
Author Tae Keller with students from Oceanside Middle School
SENDING A Allison Glickman-Rogers (aglickman-rogers@ oceansideschools.org) is the principal of Oceanside Middle School in New York.
POWERFUL MESSAGE How one middle school used literature to break down the stigma associated with mental illness By Allison Glickman-Rogers & Beth Zirogiannis
a
Beth Zirogiannis (bzirogiannis@ oceansideschools.org), an ILA member since 2007, is the director of English for the Oceanside School District in New York.
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s middle school educators, we are keenly aware of our role in supporting the social and emotional well-being of young adolescents. The structure of our school, the classroom environment, curriculum, and extracurriculars are all implemented with this goal in mind. The New York State Education Department recently mandated mental health education in schools. Oceanside Middle School (OMS), an Essential Elements School-to-Watch, has long been addressing this important topic through a robust health curriculum, a group guidance class that promotes social-emotional competencies, and various assembly programs. However, knowing the statistics on young people personally experiencing mental illness or living with a loved one who is experiencing mental illness—the National Alliance on Mental Illness reports that 20% of youth ages 13–18 live with a mental health condition—the staff at OMS wanted to do more. As a school, we wanted to push beyond the curriculum and programs in place to further eradicate the stigma associated with mental illness, a stigma that can
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isolate students and prevent them from accessing appropriate support. We agreed that literature was the perfect vehicle to further this dialogue.
Coming together through literature The New York State Office of Mental Health (OMH) was seeking schools and organizations to devise programs to promote mental health awareness. OMS applied for and was awarded a $5,000 grant by the New York State OMH to conduct a schoolwide read-aloud. We first had to find the right novel. We decided that a middle grade novel with a mental health lens would make the best fit and fell in love with The Science of Breakable Things by Tae Keller (Random House Books for Young Readers). Natalie, the novel’s main character, embarks on a personal mission to “rescue” her mother, who suddenly has difficulty getting out of bed each day. This novel, named a Best Book of the Year by Kirkus Reviews, had a relatable middle school setting, an accessible plot, and endearing characters. We believed these qualities made it the perfect entry point into what we hoped would be a meaningful dialogue focused on mental health and wellness. We kicked the program off in September 2018 by selling copies of the novel at Back-to-School Night to encourage families to read alongside
their children. In November, we launched the read-aloud and witnessed the entire school gather around this singular topic. “It was a whole new experience knowing everybody around you was listening and reading the same story,” says Noah, an OMS seventh grader. Nearly every department in the school read aloud over the course of several weeks. For example, on one day, every math teacher in the building read their assigned chapters aloud to their classes, and the following day, every science teacher read the successive chapters aloud to their classes, and so on until the book was completed. “I loved sharing a different side of myself with my students and seeing a different side of them as well,” says math teacher Dan Art. English language arts (ELA) teachers participated just like every other department and provided students more context and support when needed, but they were not participating in this literacy initiative alone. “The best part about the readaloud was that students had the opportunity to talk to teachers, other than me, about a book they love,” says ELA teacher Alexandra Mangano. This event was even more powerful because it culminated with a visit from author Tae Keller in December. She conducted grade-level assemblies, visited classrooms, autographed
students’ books, and hosted an evening community book talk for our families.
Creating a safe place Although a schoolwide read-aloud is not going to solve the mental health crisis currently facing the United States, the positive participation of the OMS staff sent a very powerful message to the students: This is a safe place. “It was good to expose middle school students to the topic of mental illness and how it affects everyone involved, not just the person suffering,” says Juliana, an OMS eighth grader. And, according to our school counselors, psychologists, and social workers, students and staff have been more open to discussing mental health concerns. The assistant principals have also shared that students are taking greater advantage of Sprigeo, a confidential reporting system subscribed to by the middle school, to report situations in which they are concerned for their peers. At OMS, we do have plans for another schoolwide read-aloud, and we have gathered feedback to ensure our 2019–2020 event is even more successful. “This isn’t only about sharing the love of reading or only about learning a valuable lesson through literature; it’s about both,” says Art.
MORE TITLES TO THINK ABOUT Although we chose The Science of Breakable Things, there were four other excellent middle grade titles that we considered:
1. Umbrella Summer by Lisa Graff (HarperCollins) portrays the struggle of a young girl who is overcome with fear after the sudden death of her brother. Lost in the Sun (Puffin Books) is the companion book for this title.
2. Some Kind of Happiness by Claire Legrand (Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers) deals with adolescent anxiety and depression. The protagonist, Finley, has to face her parents’ issues, try to understand her “blue days,” and get to know grandparents she never met.
LITERACY TODAY | September/October 2019 | literacyworldwide.org
3. Small as an Elephant by Jennifer Richard Jacobson (Candlewick Press) focuses on how the protagonist deals with his mother’s mental illness. After Jack’s mom abandons him, he works hard to find his way back home without notifying anyone who could potentially separate him from his mother.
4. Nest by Esther Ehrlich (Yearling Books) portrays the impact of a mother’s severe depression and suicide on an entire family, specifically the protagonist, “Chirp.”
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THE ILA NETWORK
A LITTLE HEALTHY
COMPETITION Forty-five schools come together in Nigeria for an educational competition honoring literacy leaders By ILA StaďŹ&#x20AC;
t
he iRead to Live Initiative, a Nigerian nonprofit founded by ILA 2019 30 Under 30 honoree Jacob Olaoluwa Sule, recently hosted its Fourth Annual Literacy Competition. The event drew students from 45 schools including private and public schools across Osun State.
Winners of the Pius Adesanmi Literacy Awards
Senior students participating in the debate competition
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Winners of the Simonetta Lein Literacy Awards
Staff and volunteers during the Literacy Competition
literacyworldwide.org | September/October 2019 | LITERACY TODAY
The competition is among Sule’s many initiatives to raise literacy levels across his country and help students become more enthusiastic about their education. His organization works in collaboration with individuals, international organizations, and government officials to supplement current education efforts focused on achieving the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goal of quality education by 2030. During the event, students from secondary school junior classes participated in a quiz competition in mathematics, English language, and general studies while students in senior classes participated in a debate session on topics including education, technology, and the learning environment. Prizes such as iPads,
textbooks, backpacks, and exercise books were presented to students. The Literacy Competition’s top awards this year—the Simonetta Lein Literacy Awards for the junior students and the Pius Adesanmi Literacy Awards for the seniors—were named for two people Sule says contributed greatly to education in Nigeria. Lein is a model, author, TV personality, and founder of the Wishwall Foundation. She seeks to inspire girls to become the next set of global leaders and changemakers. Through the Wishwall Foundation, she recently donated school bags, sandals, exercise books, and sanitary pads to young girls in Nigeria. Adesanmi was a Nigerian-born Canadian professor, writer, literary critic, and author. His writings were often satiric in nature while focusing
LITERACY TODAY | September/October 2019 | literacyworldwide.org
on the absurd in the Nigerian social and political system. He was assistant professor of comparative literature at Pennsylvania State University in the United States before joining Carleton University in Ottawa, Canada, in 2006, where he served as the director of Carleton’s Institute of African Studies until his death earlier this year. For more information about iRead to Live, visit ireadtolive.org.
30 UNDER 30 To read more about Jacob Olaoluwa Sule and the rest of ILA s 2019 30 Under 30 honorees, visit literacyworldwide .org/30under30.
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EVENTS
SEPTEMBER 2019
NOVEMBER 2019
14
1–3
Indiana State Literacy Association Conference Indianapolis, IN indianareads.org
25–27
Latin American Congress for the Development of Reading and Writing Conference Lima, Peru
Florida Literacy Association Conference Orlando, FL flareads.org
6–7
Connecticut Reading Association Conference Southbury, CT ctreading.org
8–9
OCTOBER 2019 3–5
Illinois Reading Council Conference Peoria, IL illinoisreadingcouncil.org
5
Palmetto State Literacy Association Fall Literacy Workshop Columbia, SC scira.org
10–13
Literacy Association of Ireland International Conference Dublin, Ireland literacyireland.com
14–15
Arkansas Literacy Association Conference Little Rock, AR arareading.org
15–16
New York State Reading Association Conference Albany, NY nysreading.org
International Literacy Association 2019 Conference New Orleans, LA ilaconference.org
21–22
17–18
DECEMBER 2019
Montana State Literacy Association Conference Billings, MT montanareads.org
18–19
California Reading Association Conference Sacramento, CA californiareading.org
25–27
Alaska Cross Content Conference Anchorage, AK akliteracy.org
28–31
Keystone State Literacy Association Conference Hershey, PA ksrapa.org
West Virginia Reading Association Conference White Sulphur Springs, WV wvreading.com
8–10
Literacy Association of Tennessee Conference Murfreesboro, TN lat.wildapricot.org
7–8
Oregon State Literacy Conference Portland, OR oregonread.org
13–15
Palmetto State Literacy Association Conference Hilton Head, SC scira.org
Baltic Sea Conference on Literacy Tallinn, Estonia 4bscl2020.ee
FEBRUARY 2020 6–8
Wisconsin State Reading Association Conference Milwaukee, WI wsra.org
9–12
Australian Literacy Educators’ Association Conference Sydney, Australia regodirect.com.au/ aleasydney2020/registrations
OCTOBER 2020
28–29
1–3
MARCH 2020
DECEMBER 2020
22–24
6–8
Texas Association for Literacy Education Conference Odessa, TX texasreaders.org
North Carolina Reading Association Conference Winston-Salem, NC ncreading.org
Illinois Reading Council Conference Peoria, IL illinoisreadingcouncil.org
Literacy Association of Tennessee Conference Murfreesboro, TN lat.wildapricot.org
26–28
Virginia State Reading Association Conference Roanoke, VA vsra.org
APRIL 2020
FEBRUARY 2021 10–13
Wisconsin State Reading Association Conference Milwaukee, WI wsra.org
1–3
State of Maryland Literacy Association Conference Hunt Valley, MD somla.online
2–3
Massachusetts Reading Association Conference Quincy, MA massreading.org
JANUARY 2020 16–21
JULY 2020
JUNE 2020 23–24
Iowa Reading Association Conference Ames, IA iowareading.org
MARCH 2021 21–23
North Carolina Reading Association Conference Winston-Salem, NC ncreading.org
APRIL 2021 12–13
Massachusetts Reading Association Conference Quincy, MA massreading.org
JUNE 2021 22–23
Iowa Reading Association Conference Ames, IA iowareading.org
Please email intldev@reading.org to confirm dates and locations of international events. To have an ILA-affiliated event added, send event information to literacytoday@reading.org.
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literacyworldwide.org | September/October 2019 | LITERACY TODAY
Editor Search Open for the Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy The International Literacy Association invites applications from qualified members for the position of editors of the Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy (JAAL). This prestigious editorship functions as a two-person team of either two coeditors or one editor with one associate editor. These volunteer positions have a term of 6 years: The first year overlaps with the current editorial team, and the subsequent years constitute the volumes for which the new editors provide material. Editor search open: August 1, 2019 Application deadline: October 15, 2019 Term: June 1, 2020, to May 31, 2026 Volumes: 65 through 69 publishing July 2021 through May 2026 JAAL is the leading peer-reviewed journal for educators of literacy learners ages 12 and older. The journal reflects current theory, research, and practice in support of effective literacy instruction. Readership includes middle school, secondary, and postsecondary classroom teachers; university researchers and scholars; literacy consultants; administrators; and policymakers. Qualified applicants must be recognized experts in the field of literacy education of learners in this age group and in professional development of pre- and inservice teachers; they must also demonstrate a commitment to translating sound research to practice. For further information and application instructions, visit www.literacyworldwide.org/jaal-call.
Editor Search Open for The Reading Teacher The International Literacy Association invites applications from qualified members for the position of editors of The Reading Teacher (RT). This prestigious editorship functions as a two-person team of either two coeditors or one editor with one associate editor. These volunteer positions have a term of 6 years: The first year overlaps with the current editorial team, and the subsequent years constitute the volumes for which the new editors provide material. Editor search open: August 1, 2019 Application deadline: October 15, 2019 Term: June 1, 2020, to May 31, 2026 Volumes: 75 through 79, publishing July 2021 through May 2026 RT is the leading peer-reviewed journal for educators of literacy learners up to age 12. Its special emphasis is primary and elementary classroom instruction, and its readership consists of school-based educators, university researchers and scholars, literacy consultants, administrators, and policymakers. Qualified applicants must be recognized experts in the field of literacy education of learners in this age group and in professional development of pre- and inservice teachers; they must also demonstrate a commitment to translating sound research to practice. For further information and application instructions, visit www.literacyworldwide.org/rt-call.
LITERACY TODAY | September/October 2019 | literacyworldwide.org
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MEMBER SPOTLIGHT
news & notes
Hawkins Named Fellow by Deans for Impact Kim Hawkins, assistant professor and chair of the Department of Education and Counseling at CarsonNewman University in Tennessee, was named a 2019 Impact Academy Fellow by Deans for Impact. Hawkins is a member of the organization’s fourth cohort, which is composed of 19 fellows from 12 states. Over the next year, Hawkins will work with Deans for Impact to improve programs and enhance teacher readiness. Hawkins has served as chair of the Department of Education and Counseling since 2014. She received the university’s Teaching Excellence and Leadership Award that same year. The following year, she received the Excellence in Academic Advising Award. Along with serving as chair, she has been director of CarsonNewman’s Reading Specialist program and the university’s Best Buddies chapter.
Bradbury Launches New Children’s Lit Blog Judy Bradbury, literacy specialist, professional development consultant, and the author of several professional resources and children’s books, launched a new blog, Children’s Book Corner (blog.judybradbury.com). Each post includes an interview with a children’s author or illustrator and suggestions for using their books to enhance curriculum while boosting social-emotional learning. A member of ILA, New York State Reading Association, and the Niagara Frontier Reading Council, Bradbury serves as professional development chair for her local council.
ILA AWARD AND GRANT RECIPIENTS ANNOUNCED The following award and grant winners were announced by ILA in July: Primary Fiction Book Award Winner: Julián Is a Mermaid by Jessica Love (Candlewick Press) Honor: Alma and How She Got Her Name by Juana Martinez-Neal (Candlewick Press) Primary Nonfiction Book Award Winner: Let the Children March by Monica Clark-Robinson (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt) Honor: Prickly Hedgehogs! by Jane McGuinness (Candlewick Press) Intermediate Fiction Book Award Winner: Hope in the Holler by Lisa Lewis Tyre (Penguin Random House) Intermediate Nonfiction Book Award Winner: Trash Revolution: Breaking the Waste Cycle by Erica Fyvie (Kids Can Press) Young Adult Fiction Book Award Winner: Dear Rachel Maddow: A Novel by Adrienne Kisner (Feiwel & Friends) Honor: The Beauty That Remains by Ashley Woodfolk (Delacorte Press) Young Adult Nonfiction Book Award Winner: I Have the Right To: A High School Survivor’s Story of Sexual Assault, Justice, and Hope by Chessy Prout with Jenn Abelson (Margaret K. McElderry Books)
Constance McCullough International Research Grant Samuel DeJulio, University of Texas at San Antonio Corwin Literacy Leader Award Presented by ILA Stacia Lewis, Sevier County Schools, Tennessee Diane Lapp & James Flood Professional Collaborator Award Richard L. Allington, University of Tennessee Anne McGill-Franzen, University of Tennessee Dina Feitelson Research Award Dani Kachorsky, Lindsay Moses, Frank Serafini, and Megan Hoelting, Arizona State University Elva Knight Research Grant Shea Kerkhoff, University of Missouri–Saint Louis Erwin Zolt Digital Literacy Game Changer Award Margaret Hawkins, University of Wisconsin– Madison Helen M. Robinson Grant Stephanie Reid, Arizona State University, Phoenix
Jeanne S. Chall Research Fellowship Shih-Yuan Liang, Vanderbilt University, Tennessee Jerry Johns Outstanding Teacher Educator Award Amy McClure, Ohio Wesleyan University Leaders Inspiring Readers Award Jan Wasowicz, Learning by Design, Illinois Maryann Manning Special Service Award Tilka Jamnik, Centre for Youth Literature and Librarianship, Slovenia Nila Banton Smith Teacher as Researcher Grant Scott Storm, Harvest Collegiate High School, New York Regie Routman Teacher Recognition Grant Kelly Palomeque, Riverside Elementary School, Wisconsin Steven A. Stahl Research Grant Blythe Anderson, Michigan State University Timothy & Cynthia Shanahan Outstanding Dissertation Award Courtney Hattan, Illinois State University William S. Gray Citation of Merit D. Ray Reutzel, University of Wyoming
ILA’s award and grant recipients will be honored during the ILA 2019 Conference in New Orleans, LA, Oct. 10–13. Keep an eye out for our awards feature in the November/December issue of Literacy Today.
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literacyworldwide.org | September/October 2019 | LITERACY TODAY
social scene Building Enthusiasm
MEMBER SPOTLIGHT
If there’s anything that brings literacy educators together, it’s books—more specifically, ideas for how to get them into the hands of readers. Check out this recent exchange in which educators enthusiastically shared their thoughts on how to entice readers to take advantage of their classroom libraries this year.
Be sure to follow @ILAToday on Twitter, where you’ll find conversations and connections like this one every day. Bonus: View the digital edition of Literacy Today at literacyworldwide.org/literacytoday and click on the images above to access the tweets and handles. LITERACY TODAY | September/October 2019 | literacyworldwide.org
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MEMBER SPOTLIGHT
reflections
Emotions Matter
a
s I overheard a heated Viber conversation between a 21-year-old female (we shared space in the same girls’ hostel in Kathmandu) and her boyfriend (who was studying abroad in the United States), I experienced a sinking feeling that made me question: Where are we heading as human beings? In today’s age, we have more opportunities than ever before. Yet, as the conversation I heard suggested, we are not happier and we are more stressed and overwhelmed. This young woman came to Kathmandu with high expectations to achieve her dreams. But life is not that easy. Kathmandu is expensive and remaining resilient every day in light of her family’s increasing expectations was frustrating for her. Unable to manage her emotions, she was venting to her boyfriend, who had his own share of struggles as an international student in the U.S. from a third world country. If critical thinking is regarded as a fundamental aspect of 21st-century education, why aren’t we starting with thinking about our own lives—what we are feeling and why, how we can manage our emotions better, and what our values are so that we can cultivate relationships and pursue careers that give us fulfillment? Always fond of asking questions, I started out as a journalist when I was 17 and later switched careers and served in rural Nepal through the Teach for Nepal fellowship. This was when I realized how emotional well-being plays a crucial role in the learning process. Later, when I joined a faculty for undergrads, I realized students even in the city struggled with emotional intelligence. A 2013 study by Travis Bradberry and his team at TalentSmart concluded that only 38 out of 100 Nepalese could explain what emotions they experienced a day prior. Astonished, I conducted my master’s research on 200 students to measure the state of emotional intelligence
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By Bhawana Shrestha
in Nepal. This led me to understand that the skills of emotional intelligence were lacking in teachers, and because the teachers weren’t empowered to nurture such important skills in their students, those students would go on to lack crucial skills to deal with life’s challenges. All these years, I have witnessed pain in a lot of confused youth who could do so much better if they learned the skills of emotional intelligence. But every time I talk to a crowd of 30, only two raise their hands when I ask if they know about emotional intelligence, and only one usually gets its definition right. This has led me to my latest venture, My Emotions Matter, a social enterprise committed to developing emotional intelligence in students, teachers, and working professionals. Through self-reflective experiences, we introduce emotional intelligence as a learnable life skill so that individuals are more aware, intentional, and purposeful in their personal and professional lives. If people develop the capacity to understand and manage their emotions, they will be in a better position to interact positively and form meaningful relationships. They will be better focused on their goals and resilient in
the face of setbacks. These skills can help people navigate fluctuations in their emotions that come from 24/7 connectedness, cultivate intentional face-to-face conversations, respect others for who they are, and pursue meaningful careers. The World Economic Forum predicts emotional intelligence to be the sixth most important skill in the workplace by 2020. This crucial ability is what I believe can help human beings flourish.
Bhawana Shrestha (bhawana@myemotionsmatter.com), an ILA member since 2015, is from Nepal. She holds a master of philosophy degree in English, with her research concentration on the state of emotional intelligence in Nepal. She is the cofounder of My Emotions Matter, which helps improve school and organizational climate through emotional intelligence. Shrestha was an ILA 2015 30 Under 30 honoree.
literacyworldwide.org | September/October 2019 | LITERACY TODAY