Oklahoma Reader Spring 2020 Volume 56 Issue 1

ISSN 2640-1649 (online) ISSN 0030-1833 (print) VOLUME NO. 56 // ISSUE NO. 1 // SPRING 2020

THE OKLAHOMA READER YOUR LITERACY JOURNEY STARTS TODAY

A PUBLICATION OF THE OKLAHOMA LITERACY ASSOCIATION

Finding Inspiration through reading and writing

Contents

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Recording Book Groups: An Alternative to More Testing

Dr. Sarah Donovan Oklahoma State University

DEPARTMENTS 3

Editors' Expressions

4

Children's Book Reviews

10

Young Adult Book Reviews

52

Teacher to Teacher

55

Research Summary

59

Tech Talk

62

Policy and Advocacy

66

Letter From the Chair

67

Guidelines for Authors

68

OKLA Conference 2021

69

OKLA Membership

70

Back Matter

21 29

ON THE COVER COVID-19 Statue from harveyandfriends on Pixabay

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Helping Students Generate Higher-Level Questions to Improve Literature Circle Dialogue Amy Dunn Oklahoma State University

Is Writing Fluency Influenced

By Writer's Notebook?

Lisa Lancaster All Saints Catholic School Norman, Oklahoma

Creating a Techno-Literacy Environment Will Promote Literacy Success Dr. Latasha Holt University of Louisiana at Lafayette

EDITORS' EXPRESSIONS

We are pleased to share the latest edition of The Oklahoma Reader, the journal of the Oklahoma Literacy Association (OKLA). We hope you enjoy the articles and regular features in this edition.

We are excited to share with you four research studies and an excellent teaching idea. Both Dr. Donovan’s and Mrs. Dunn’s articles emphasized students’ reading of literature. Dr. Donovan used book groups for her formative assessment and Mrs. Dunn helped students develop higher-level questions. Ms. Lancaster saw a great increase in her students’ writing fluency as a result of writer’s notebooks. Dr. Holt presents a timely techno-literacy model that we can apply in our most recent transition to online teaching. Last, but definitely not least, Mrs. McMath’s students are change-makers. In sum, you will greatly enjoy and benefit from all five featured articles which focus on authentic texts and teaching that really matters!

We are sure you will enjoy Dr. Sue Parsons’ Children’s Literature Column featuring delightful books which model resilience for children. In the Young Adult Literature column she shares a collection of nonfiction books about previous medical epidemics which provide fascinating reading and may help our students find hope in the midst of the current pandemic. In the Research Summary Column, Dr. Linda McElroy highlights research on Book Clubs and how using them helps meet goals of ILA’s “Children’s Rights to Excellent Literacy Instruction.” In the Technology Column, Shelley Martin-Young highlights more Google add-ons and extensions which will support your instruction in, or out, of your classroom. The Policy and Advocacy Column will update you on the Oklahoma Legislature’s 2020 Session.

We are pleased you are including The Oklahoma Reader in your professional reading. Please note the Guidelines for Authors near the back of this edition and consider submitting an article, a column, a book review of a professional book, or a teaching tip to be included in a future edition! Be sure to check the information about the special theme for the Fall 2020 issue about teachers’ experiences adjusting to distance learning this spring.

This edition of The Oklahoma Reader marks the conclusion of our term as co-editors. We have enjoyed collaborating on the publishing of this professional resource. We now pass the torch to the new editing team: Drs. Barbara McClanahan, Susan Morrison, and Maribeth Nottingham, all faculty members at Southeastern Oklahoma State University. We wish them well and look forward to reading the journal under its new leadership.

Sincerely,

Donita Shaw, Julie Collins & Shelley Martin-Young

For inquiries, reach us

at:

Email: oklahomareader@gmail.com

Sincerely,

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RECOMMENDED: BOOKS THAT CHALLENGE, DELIGHT, AND INSPIRE Sue Christian Parsons, Ph.D. Spring 2020: Looking at Ourselves to See What We Can Do Near the end of a long life that saw the turn of a century (almost two of them), wars, epidemics, social unrest and change, and countless personal challenges as well as triumphs--my spunky grandmother penned her memoir. “I am not a writer,” she began, then went on to prove she actually was. When she wrote about struggles, those times when life threw a hard curve and she had to start again in a different way, she repeated this phrase: “So I looked at myself to see what I could do.” My grandmother was a woman of faith, grit, and creativity; she always found a way to thrive.

As we support children in the wake of recent big changes, we seek ways to model and teach resilience. As always, one of the best things we can do is look to books. The books in this set offer possibilities for what we can do: Observe the close-up world with fresh, appreciative eyes.

Value your people--and say “sorry” when you need to. Explore, wonder, and create. Call out when you need someone. Laugh whenever you can, and be reassured that some things, the best-of-all things, never change.

Look Closely Taking Time by Jo Loring-Fisher (2020, Lantana Publishing) When unprecedented global events brought a sudden stop to day-today business, the world changed in unexpected ways. People marveled at an image of a jellyfish undulating in a calm, clear Venetian canal.

Seismologists noted a sudden decrease in Earth’s vibrations when we all moved inside to shelter in place. Polluted air enveloping cities began to clear. And the rhythms of our lives slowed a bit as we stood and pondered our next moves. Families came back together, stovetops glowed, people walked more than they drove—and in the calm many noticed treasures they had forgotten--or at least forgotten to look for.

Taking Time , obviously penned before the pandemic, is now a particularly timely reminder to readers of all ages to go slowly enough to see life around us. Loring-Fisher’s gentle poetry moves verse by verse across two-page spans. Each page turn reveals a different place with a differently ethnic face, each a loving nod to family and nature. On the final spread, the individuals from throughout the book gather, each carrying a keepsake from their own worlds to share with the broader community. Taking Time is timeless and timely.

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Count on Me by Miguel Tanco (2019, Tundra Books) In a world with so many things to do, finding your passion can be a bit of a challenge. The girl in this book has tried a wide range of passion possibilities—drama, dance, cooking, singing, tennis, karate, painting, and instruments from tuba to trumpet. The thing she loves most of all, though, isn’t always seen as a passion possibility. She is oh, so very passionate about math. She loves to find it where it hides in the world all around her. She spies the geometric shapes on the playground and delights in the concentric circles from stones skipped on the lake. She searches for the perfect curve and specializes in solving difficult group problems like how to divvy up the portions at dinner. “I know that my passion may be hard to understand,” she explains. “But there are infinite ways to see the world…and math is one of them.” Reading Count on Me may just change the way readers see math, see the world, and even see themselves. The back matter takes the form of the child’s math journal in which mathematical concepts—fractals, polygons, concentric circles, curves, solid figures, trajectories, and sets—are explained clearly and accessibly in words and sketches.

Value Your People The Happiest Tree: A Story of Growing Up by Hyeon-Ju Lee (2019, Feiwel & Friends) Planted alongside an apartment, a tree matures over many seasons. Its view changes as each period of growth lets it peer into a different apartment. In the earliest years, the tree enjoys music wafting from the Rose piano studio, where children play and dance and peer out the window at the tree. Growth provides a new view, Mr. Artist’s apartment, adorned with portraits of the tree in various stages of growth. The current version sits on a canvas by the window where the tree can, for the first time, see itself, full and lush. Finally reaching the third floor, the tree enjoys a young family who, in turn, enjoy looking out upon it and coming outside to play under it. Continued growth brings sadness, as the tree peers in on a lonely older lady, sitting in the dark, holding pictures of her family. The next spurt reaches the window of an empty attic, making the tree feel lonely, too. But growth continues, boosting the tree beyond the roof where, with astonishment, it sees other trees like itself, reaching to the sky all around the city, each with a different view, but all growing together.

Perspective plays in profoundly here, thematically and as a playground for exploring literary and artistic device. The “eyes” of Lee’s tree focus on life’s true joys like art and community and remind us to seek out those whose lives may be shadowed. Its slow steady growth and changing views reassure us that troubles pass and remind us to cherish the present.

The interplay between personal engagement and expanded awareness are perfect for this time in our lives as a global community.

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Kisimi Taimaippaktut Angirrarijarani/Only in My Hometown by Angnakuluk Vuriisan and Ippiksaut Friesen (2017, Groundwood Books) Home is where your stories launch and live. Sisters Vuriisan and Friesen offer this loving portrait of their hometown, Nunavut, a territory in far-northern Canada. Written in Inuktitut (Inuktitut syllabary and with an English phonetic transliteration ) and English, the straightforward text feels at once reminiscent and current, intimately place-based and universal. In this town, children play on abandoned mining equipment, families feast on raw caribou meat, blizzards blow for weeks at a time, and the northern lights illuminate long dark nights. In this town, home floors are strewn with playing children while washing machines churn, people head out in the mornings to work and school, families and friends gather to enjoy food and laughter, and stories are shared between generations. The soft-edged, richly colored images pulse with life, a deft representation of the warmth shared in this place where, “Everyone could be family.”

Sorry, Really Sorry by Joanna Cotler and Harry Bliss (2020, Philomel Books) As Charlotte Zolotow reminded us years ago in The Quarreling Book, grumpiness is contagious. In Sorry, Really Sorry, Cotler and Bliss find just the right balance between silliness and wisdom. Cow is in a “nasty mood” because she wakes to muddy ground and her hooves sink right in.

When Duck walks by, Cow kicks mud in her face. “Why’d you do that?”

Duck asks. “I felt like it,” Cow responds. Of course, when Duck encounters her friend Frog, she calls him a mean name. Angry Frog is then rude to his friend Bird…and on and on the nasty mood moves from friend to friend until the cycle is broken by one kind caring pup—then the action reverses.

Apologies and kind acts are passed back down the line, all the way back to Cow who, really, truly sorry, accepts Duck’s invitation to play with all the other friends in the pond where, of course, Cow’s hooves are no longer covered in mud. Dialogue moves the action along and the language is lively. Though the lesson is clear the tone is never preachy. The structure and language choices make Sorry, Really Sorry a particularly good choice for reading aloud, supporting young readers, and using as a writing mentor text.

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Explore, Wonder, and Create The Boring Book by Shinsuke Yoshitake (2019, Chronicle Books) “I’m bored. So bored!” This oft-heard refrain, the classic battle-whine of children with time on their hands, is met by the child’s mother with, “What do you want me to do about it?” And, admiringly, she does absolutely nothing. That non-response and empty space that follows is just what is needed to ignite a spark of wonder; in this case, the child (Yoshitake draws the character with non-specific gender), begins to wonder about boredom.

Guess what? Wondering about anything, even boredom, banishes the boredom and creativity ensues. Yoshitake’s graphic style, making strong use of perspective, spacing, and color, makes the very act of reading the book an engaging exploration itself. Far from boring, The Boring Book is likely to bring rapt attention and more than a few laughs.

Window by Marion Arbona (2020, Kids Can Press) This interactive, wordless picture book begins with a cold open setting the scene. A girl peers wistfully out the window of her classroom then, once released, bounds out the school door and down the steps. Once we move past the title page, we see the same girl walking down a city street aswirl with activity. She continues past shuttered window after shuttered window. Just as she looked with longing out the classroom window, the girl gazes with wonder at each of the windows. What might be going on behind them? In the absence of visual access, the girl imagines the most fabulous of goings-on. Arbona uses three-panel gate folds, allowing the reader to open each set of shutters to reveal the wonders inside. On the first window ledge a bedraggled plant droops in a pot, but inside we see an apartment overgrown floor to ceiling, with lush and tangled plants tended by a little lady with a watering can. From here, the characters become more fanciful. A window shaped like a ship’s porthole, opens to reveal a whale on the loose in a water-filled apartment, a small raincoat-clad creature bravely navigating the surge from a floating bathtub. Behind others, a vampire plays badminton with bats, gnomes stack themselves in an intricate pyramid in an acrobatics contest and, in a scene with just the right touch of dark but literary humor, a child escapes being a witch’s lunch because, fortunately, he’d read the book, “How to Escape.” Both an ode to wonder and boundless possibility, each fantasy vignette, drawn with flourish in pen and ink, invites the reader to explore every nook and cranny.

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In the Garden by Emma Giuliani (2020, Princeton Architectural Press) Also interactive, and bursting with information, this oversized nonfiction text employs a cyclical narrative from winter’s end to winter again. Each seasonal shift—"winter’s end,” early spring, spring, early summer, “high summer,” fall, and “the return of winter”—is given its own two-page spread. A central descriptive narrative, top center of the left-side page, sets the seasonal stage. Just beneath, Plum and Robin, the two young gardeners featured throughout the book, are at work in the garden, brief side narratives explaining what they are doing and why. Labeled pictures and diagrams scattered around the pages introduce us to elements of the garden--plants, insects and animals--and gardening processes. Lifting flaps lead to more in depth information and next steps. For example, a picture and brief description of Plum aerating soil with a pitchfork opens to a flip-side featuring information about sap and detailing the water cycle. On the full page directly beneath the flap, we learn that Plum now plants starters and seeds in the aerated soil.

Other flaps featuring plants and parts of plants open to reveal informative diagrams. For instance, a winter squash flap opens to show a detailed diagram of the inside of the squash and a cherry tree branch flap opens to show how a flower changes to fruit. A tool shed opens to labeled pictures of garden tools and turning over a leaf reveals a ladybug hiding behind it.

Giuliani’s bright, graphic illustrations are appealing and inviting. Accurate terminology is employed throughout. Overall, there is a very good chance readers will not only pore over this book but also wear a path between the book and the garden.

Laugh and be Reassured Pokko and the Drum by Matthew Forsythe (2019, Simon & Schuster: Paula Wiseman Books) “The biggest mistake Pokko’s parents ever made was giving her a drum.” So begins this marvelously tongue-in-cheek romp. For a little frog family living in a mushroom, a drum inside is a bit of an issue. Pokko and her drum are sent outside with a gentle reminder to play quietly because frogs don’t like drawing attention to themselves. Pokko sets out into the shimmering forest, but the quiet is more than she can take. When she taps on her drum, “just to keep herself company,” something stirs behind her—a raccoon playing a banjo. The two are joined by a rabbit playing a trumpet and then a wolf, just happy to be near the music…and the rabbit. Oops! Pokko has to lay down the law: “No more eating band members or you are out of the band.” But the music goes on, dynamic Pokko drawing a crowd to her own concert. Her parents, looking to call Pokko for in for dinner, are drawn along mosh pit style, hilarious in their composure (Mom keeps reading her book). “’I think she’s pretty good!’” exclaims father, but he can’t be heard over Pokko and the drum.

Hilarious and touching all at once, this one will delight all ages.

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La La La: A Story of Hope by Kate DiCamillo and Jaime Kim (2017, Candlewick) All alone, a girl in a featureless white room sings a simple “la” out into the world. Then another. And another. She listens but hears no response. Seemingly dejected, she strides away but is stopped as a brilliant leaf falls at her feet. Then others cascade down, enticing her to follow them outside. She flings her “la” around and around but receives no response. Golden day turns to night and her search continues into the deep purple nightscape where she follows a promising glow. She calls and seeks, even climbing a ladder to try to reach the moon. Alone and unanswered, the exhausted child falls asleep but wakes to a strong response—LA! LA!—from the big, brilliant, glowing moon. Kim’s breathtaking artwork expresses powerful emotion as it moves the plot along. An author’s note articulates directly the theme that pulses through this vibrant book: “…even if we are small and alone and afraid, if we sing, sometimes someone answers back.”

The Stars Will Still Shine by Cynthia Rylant and Tiphanie Beeke (2005, Harper Collins) No matter what each year brings, the most important things will stay the same. This reassuring poem, offered in spare lines across expansive pages, is a litany of life’s enduring blessings. Stars are a constant. Life begins again and again. Flowers bloom, “a promise they keep.” And food (especially ice cream!) delights. When storms come, we draw close to our loved ones. In the midst of change, goodness and grace remain, and even in the dark, light shines. Rylant begins and ends with the same stanza—"the sky will still be there, stars will shine, the birds will fly over us, church bells will chime”— suggesting the ongoing cycle of life. Beeke’s richly colored, glowing artwork radiates reassuring warmth, even on the dark pages. Read this one aloud, with a deep satisfying sigh at the end. All will be well.

All will be well.

Suzii Parsons believes that books truly matter in the lives of young people.

She is the Jacques Munroe Professor of Reading and Literacy at Oklahoma State University. You can contact Dr. Parsons at sue.parsons@okstate.edu.

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ENGAGING PERSPECITVES: THE YOUNG ADULT READER Sue Christian Parsons, Ph.D. Spring 2020: History, Medical Mystery, and Hope: Books About Epidemics Covid19 is a novel virus. Human immune systems had never experienced it before so when it appeared, we were relatively defenseless against it. As scientists and medical professionals scramble to understand the virus so they can treat the illness, we struggle to adapt as our lives and social systems are affected. This particular virus is new to us but the story unfolding because of it is one humanity knows well. From prehistoric times to now, humans have been sickened by tiny but powerful enemies. Tuberculosis, Typhoid, Plague, Pellagra, Flu—these dread diseases and others have caused great suffering and for many years eluded attempts to vanquish them.

There is comfort to be found in history, though. With science and determination as our weapons, we have made it through and will again.

Each book in this collection tells of a real epidemic and shows how humans fought to conquer it.

These true-life stories are filled with mystery, suspense, and even gore, aspects that tend to appeal to teen readers. Lively writing and intriguing images draw readers into these deftly researched pieces that bring complex concepts and complicated contexts into clarity. Throughout the set, these truths resound: The first step to defeating a disease is understanding it. Scientific discoveries offer solutions but changes in human behavior informed by those discoveries make the ultimate difference. And Diseases are not easily defeated, but neither are we.

Invincible Microbe: Tuberculosis and the Never-Ending Search for a Cure by Jim Murphy and Alison Blank. (2012 Clarion Books) Murphy and Blank approach this work as a biography, of sorts—a biography of a germ that has been harming humans since prehistoric times and still lives among us today. As early humans drew together into communities, Mycobacterium tuberculosis found ideal conditions to thrive. And thrive it has, sickening people across centuries and around the globe. The authors approach this work from three angles--scientific, medical, and social—so readers get a clear understanding of the relationship between these aspects of disease. Tuberculosis has been known by a variety of names but always recognized as deadly. Over the centuries, doctors tried a wide variety of treatments, from bloodletting to sunshine. Even the touch of a king was touted as treatment in the Middle Ages. But without a clear understanding of the culprit, little progress was made. In 1882, Robert Koch announced his discovery that tuberculosis was caused by a bacterium. In 1889, Dr. Hermann Biggs initiated efforts to track cases by reporting them to the health department. The “germ” had been identified and scientists were in pursuit, but treatment options were still limited until the discovery of antibiotics in the mid 20th century. Vignettes, quotes, and photographs used liberally throughout the text keep the human experience at the forefront. Scenes from early 20th century sanitoriums spotlighting the experiences of teen residents may particularly resonate with readers.

Unfortunately, tuberculosis is alive and well, still active around the globe. Murphy and Blank address current conditions such as evolution of antibiotic resistant strains, ease of spread across an increasingly connected globe, and decreases in public health budgets that threaten to give Mycobacterium tuberculosis a boost back into action.

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Terrible Typhoid Mary: A True Story of the Deadliest Cook in America by Susan Campbell Bartoletti (2015, HMH Books for Young Readers) It was a public health mystery, and Dr. George Sober was determined to solve it. Mary Mallon, on the other hand, just wanted to work. In 1906, the wealthy Warren family employed Mary as the cook at their New York area summer beach rental. When typhoid fever swept through the family, the Warrens hired sanitary engineer Sober to track down the source of the illness. Noting a pattern of illness in homes where Mary had previously worked, Sober determined that, though asymptomatic, Mary must be the cause. Mary had moved on so he and Dr. Josephine Baker, a Health Department inspector, tried to track her down to test her for typhoid bacteria. Seemingly healthy Mary would have nothing to do with it. The resulting cat and mouse chase ended with Mary being arrested and forcibly quarantined in a cabin on North Brother Island for most of the rest of her life. She was subjected to a multitude of experimental treatments, but never clearly educated about her medical situation.

Mary was the first “healthy carrier” identified, but she was not the only one. Only Mary, however, an immigrant and a servant, was subjected to such treatment. Mary fought back through legal action and was released temporarily, but eventually died in quarantine. Though Mary was vilified by history, her entire being boiled down to the tag, “Typhoid Mary,” Bartoletti treats her story with respect, revealing the tensions between protecting public health and the civil rights of individuals. The narration is lively and engrossing, even charming, and the content is well-documented. Readers today will find much of interest and relevance here.

Gail Jarrow also wrote about “Typhoid Mary,” in Fatal Fever: Tracking Down Typhoid Mary. In fact, this former science teacher and multiple award-winning author specialized in writing about serious diseases with a strong focus on how scientific investigation and discovery saves lives.

The books in the “deadly disease trilogy” (https://forum.teachingbooks.net/2016/01/guestblogger-gail-jarrow/) address three different serious diseases—pellagra, typhoid, and bubonic plague.

Red Madness: How a Medical Mystery Changed What We Eat (2014, Calkins Creek)

Fatal Fever: Tracking Down Typhoid Mary (2015, Calkins Creek)

Bubonic Panic: When Plague Invaded America (2016, Calkins Creek)

Jarrow tells these true life mysteries in gripping detail, offering perspective through historical context and stories of actual people. The scientific information woven throughout is clear and relevant. In each book, and across the trilogy, critical themes emerge. Diseases have baffled and challenged us throughout history but, again and again, science has found answers and given us

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hope. Many practices we take for granted today came from great challenges and resulting solutions. Even when solutions are found, there is often tension between medical knowledge, individuals’ rights and needs, and sociopolitical systems. Disease eradication only works if the public is educated about causes and treatments and systems are put in place to support behavioral changes. Appealingly designed, with a wealth of fascinating primary documents including photographs, posters, cartoons, and records, this collection will fascinate as well as inform.

Very, Very, Very Dreadful: The Influenza Pandemic of 1918 by Albert Marrin (2018, Knopf Books for Young Readers) As the Covid19 pandemic swept across the globe, parallels were immediately drawn to the 1918 flu pandemic. What lessons could be taken from the terrible period in history that might shed light on how to face this new threat? Marrin starts at the beginning, in Fort Riley, Kansas, where an outbreak of flu spreading through the barracks began the first and mildest of three waves of infection. Marrin cites the grim statistics to impress upon readers the horrible scope of this “most deadly disease event in the history of humanity,” then reaches back to explore the broad history of devastating illnesses and human efforts to survive and overcome. He includes the gory details of early medical practices and describes both significant advances and the skepticism with which they were met, including the rise of a vehement anti-vaccination society. Addressing the 1918 epidemic directly, Marrin describes how WWI war conditions created the “perfect storm” for spreading disease and offers a clear, thorough explanation of how viruses and bacteria work.

Narrating wave after wave of illness and death, Marrin captures the horrific scope shown in the data but also maintains intimate focus on human suffering. Photographs, charts, public health posters, cartoons, news clips, and even poetry penned in the midst of the pandemic help the reader understand and feel the enormity of the situation. A step-by-step description of the search for solutions leading to breakthroughs that quelled the pandemic is extended to address continuing work to understand, prevent, and treat the ever-morphing, continually dangerous flu virus.

Suzii Parsons believes that books truly matter in the lives of young people.

She is the Jacques Munroe Professor of Reading and Literacy at Oklahoma State University. You can contact Dr. Parsons at sue.parsons@okstate.edu.

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Dr. Sarah J. Donovan __________________________________________________________

Recording Book Groups: An Alternative to More Testing One section of the whiteboard in my junior high reading classroom was a calendar. The horizontal and vertical black Expo lines were slanted because I didn’t use a yardstick ruler, and much of the lines were faint because the marker was dry. (Markers are always dry when you need them.) I began every eight-week quarter by mapping our plans onto this calendar. First, I plotted the school events: institute days, assemblies, fire drills, and, of course, testing. And then, I planned the upcoming reading unit.

On one particular cold February afternoon, I began the process with a blue Expo. I blocked out six days in February for Measures of Academic Progress (MAP) testing; five days for Assessing Comprehension and Communication in English State-to-State for English Language Learners (ACCESS) testing; and four days for state testing in March. The calendar squares that remained open were scarce and scattered throughout February and March, which made unit planning nearly impossible, and the loss of routine combined with the constant talk of testing was bound to create an atmosphere of disorientation and apprehension.

The once-blank, slightly slanted calendar that began in anticipation of reading possibilities became a lackluster-blue “testing” display sprawling across our days and weeks. So as I planned the next reading unit, I refused to add another test to our calendar.

Testing Culture Tests are one way that teachers hold students accountable for what they know, specifically in “objective tests” such as multiple choice or matching tests. However, education author Alfie Kohn (2014) writes, “[Multiple choice tests are] meant to trick students who understand the concepts into picking the wrong answer, and they don’t allow kids to generate, or even explain, their responses” (n.p.). Further, Starr Sackstein (2016) writes in “Overcoming the Pressure to Test” that a testing culture actually teaches students to view the test as the purpose of learning. When we assess student reading, we want to know what students know and can do, and test designer Roger Farr (1992) ultimately concludes, there is no way to “build a multiple-choice question that allows students to show what they can do with what they know” (p. 26).

Indeed, tests may do more harm than good in nurturing a healthy reading life in our students. If reading is to offer windows into the world and affirm our lives with mirrors (Bishop, 1990), the stress and anxiety of reading tests can actually undermine such experiences by creating negative associations. Kohn (1999) writes that tests have the potential to alter students’ goals and the way they approach learning. In other words, assessments should not be used to compel reading or assignment completion but rather help teachers figure out who needs support and what aspects of their instruction have been effective. Essentially, teachers should want to know how students are making sense of things. For that to happen, teachers have to be able to observe, watch, and listen as students make meaning, which is difficult to do in an independent, “objective” test.

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Teachers must plan for opportunities to observe reading-in-action. Frank Smith (1988) writes, “A teacher who cannot tell without a test whether a student is learning should not be in the classroom” (p. 26). I think many teachers would agree with Smith because we do, in fact, know a lot about our students from what Yetta Goodman (2002) calls our kidwatching. Still, the culture of accountability in schools makes it difficult for observational and conversational data to “count” in assessment realms as they defy the neat, quantifiable data that fits into points-based learning management systems.

But in looking at that February-March calendar on my whiteboard, I wanted to pilot a form of assessment that would require no formal test. I wanted to see if there was a way I could translate observational data from my kid watching and listening into data that could help me be a better teacher for my students while making visible to colleagues, administrators, and parents what I knew about the readers in my classroom. Of course, I also needed to develop a plan that could be scattered across the random calendar boxes in a meaningful way.

Reading-in-Action I began by stating several experience-based goals to work with standards-based objectives. I wanted to plan experiences that would do the following: 1. nurture a positive association with reading; 2. create multiple opportunities for students to demonstrate making meaning; 3. organize the classroom to observe and listen to students making meaning from texts (kidwatching); 4. support students in analyzing their meaning-making process with me so that they could be part of the assessment process instead of having testing done to them; and 5. allow the data from kidwatching and self-assessment to inform instruction.

In order to achieve these goals, I needed to have all students engaged in the act of reading and meaning-making during class time so that I could observe reading-in-action. I decided on book groups.

Many teachers avoid book groups because they can be difficult to manage and assess.

First, there is the issue of selecting books and organizing the groups. Then, there is the question of how to make sure every student does the reading. And then, in a class of twenty-five students (or more) with five or more groups going on at once, how can one teacher assess which students are understanding the text and how students are navigating the speaking and listening skills needed to make a book discussion effective? I understand why some teachers revert to quizzes and tests to assess progress toward standards rather than facilitating book groups. However, I offer below a process of facilitating book groups that gives readers agency and teachers a frontrow seat to every book group discussion.

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Selecting Books To support reader-identity formation, students need to have agency in choosing books, but for book groups, teachers need access to multiple copies of books. I started with the school book closet. On unstable shelving units rested long forgotten, dusty copies of The Prince and the Pauper (Twain, 1882), The Call of the Wild (London, 1903), and The Pigman (Zindel, 1968/2005), among others. I filled a box with five copies of everything, hoping I could entice students to look past the faded book covers. Next, I went to our school library and scanned the shelves for books that had at least three copies. I figured group sizes could be flexible, and that if I needed one more copy of a book, I could likely find it at my local library. I found Rain Reign (Martin, 2014), Everything, Everything (Yoon, 2015), and Broken Memory (Combres, 2011), among others.

Once I gathered all the book sets I could, I displayed book piles across the classroom, and when class began, I book-talked what I knew and read Amazon summaries of what I did not. I showed them the cover, the type face, available white space, and length. I talked about subjects, form, and genre. Then, students had five minutes to browse in a silent gallery walk. They wrote on a sticky notes their top three books, and then the beautiful chaos began of students organizing themselves into groups that balanced their preferences for books, topics, and group members. As each group formed, a group leader wrote the group and book title on the whiteboard.

After about ten minutes, the groups were formed, and five minutes after that, students were sprawled across the classroom -- some in desks and some on carpet—reading, getting acquainted with their books. We were already making progress toward goal #1, nurture a positive association with reading.

The next day, we plotted three meeting dates on our calendar, and groups divided the page numbers for each meeting. One thing was for certain, the students would have something to read when they finished their testing modules.

Preparing for Discussion We spent the class time we had in February and March reading our books. I handed out sticky notes and asked students to note unfamiliar or powerful words, identify setting shifts, ask

questions, write phrases that moved their hearts, and indicate passages they wanted to discuss with group members. I modeled my own process of doing this with the book I was reading at the time.

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And I kidwatched. Where did they want to sit or lay when they read? How did they use the sticky notes? How often were they turning pages? What did their faces look like as they read?

And I listened. Tell me what’s going on. Tell me about the setting. Tell me about the characters. Would you be friends with your main character? Why/why not?

And I taught. By watching and listening, I was able to personalize questions that would help me understand the students as a person and as a reader. I found how a conflict they read about connected to their own lives. They showed me passages, read a page or two out loud, and talked through their meaning-making process. During this time, I read alongside students pointing them to context clues if I noted a miscue or asking a probing question to deepen reading. Sometimes I invited students to Google information to clarify misreading or extend comprehension. Essentially, I was modeling readerly conversation that I hoped to see in their book groups as a way of practicing. I documented my kidwatching in a notebook – one page per student. If anyone asked me about the student’s progress, I had a page of data to share.

Reading Meetings The day before our first reading meeting, class met for just twenty-minutes because we had a shortened bell schedule due to testing. We spent that time organizing our sticky notes for discussion and confirming everyone was ready. Students also decided they wanted to bring a snack for their group. We put a green circle around the next day on our calendar with a smiley face – something to look forward to after a day of testing.

When students met in groups, I gave them a discussion guide (see below) that balanced reader response and standards-based analysis. Because students had marked words and passages with sticky notes, their conversations were supported by text evidence quite naturally. The group leader moved students through these five standards-based topics: 1. First, talk about anything you wish from your sticky notes. The part you most want to discuss.

(This elicited conversations about language, connotation, setting, characters, and themes with text evidence as support.)

2. Write four sentences that capture the first half of your book. Negotiate this together. (This showed students’ comprehension skills and ability to consider sequence while making meaning of the cause and effect plot elements. Students had to use text evidence to support their claims and collaborate toward consensus.)

3. Discuss words you noted and talk about what they mean in-context, then how those words related to the book’s subjects, characters, and/or themes. (In this part, I was looking for discussion about the impact of context on language use and encouraging them to look for patterns.)

4. Identify supporting characters and talk about why the author included them in the story. (I wanted to hear students talk about character interaction and how character interaction propels the plot.)

5. Identify subjects the book is exploring and talk about the themes or the author’s message he/she is trying to communicate to readers at this point in the book’s plot. (Finally, in this thread of the discussion, I was looking to hear readers analyze how a theme developed over the course of the text.)

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Half a dozen books groups going on at once means that the teacher will not be able to assess all the objectives of the discussion for every student; however, technology offers a great solution. Most Chromebooks and even cell phones have a recording feature, so I selected one student from each group to record the book group meeting and then share it with me following the discussion. Knowing the groups were being recorded allowed me to observe book group discussions from a distance so as not to impede authentic talk.

After our first meeting, I was anxious to assess students’ progress. I watched and listened to the recordings and made notes about reading comprehension, literary analysis, and discussion skills. I learned a lot about how students’ understanding of the text was impacted by the discussion, including the rereading of passages, the clarifying of meaning, and even adjusting misinterpretations.

The National Assessment of Educational Progress (National Assessment Governing Board, 2013) defines reading as follows: 1) understanding written texts; 2) developing and interpreting meaning; and 3) using meaning as appropriate to type of text, purpose, and situation (p. iv). When teachers and administrators are rethinking assessment and evaluation in their schools, this definition has deep implications because it conceptualizes reading as using the meaning that is constructed. The students were using their sticky notes, their independent reading experience, and the discussion itself to make and adjust meaning. Thus, the book group recordings uncovered how students used the meaning they constructed from reading. This is higher order thinking at its best and a way of reading that cannot be measured in a high stakes test. Below are two excerpts from one discussion that reveal “idea units” in the reading of Broken Memory (Combres, 2011).

Making Meaning: Three Boys Read and Discuss Broken Memory Broken Memory: A Story of Rwanda (2011) by Elizabeth Combres is a short historical novel about the healing of Rwanda after the 1994 genocide. The story begins with the main character, Emma. At the age of five, Emma was hiding behind a chair while her mother was being beaten. In her mother’s final breaths, she tells Emma, “You must not die, Emma!” Emma wanders out of her town, and an old Hutu woman takes her in, hides her, and cares for her during years of nightmares and flashbacks. Eight years later, when Rwanda’s establishes Gacaca courts to allow victims to face the perpetrators, Emma’s nightmares worsen. She befriends Ndoli, a torture victim who is re-traumatized with each year’s commemoration of the genocide, and together they begin to heal.

Below is a transcript of a twenty-minute discussion about the first half of Broken Memory among Joseph, Darren, and Alex (pseudonyms) as they follow the above discussion guide to negotiate together 1) summary and sequence and 2) meaning of words.

1. Negotiating Summary and Sequence Joseph: First, we have to write four sentences that summarize the first half of the book.

Alex: Life is hard, especially when you’re a little kid.

Joseph: No, we’re not going to do anything about the theme yet. Just summarize. The first part of the book is during the war. Emma witnesses the death of her mom.

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Alex: No, she doesn’t.

Joseph: Did she hear the death?

Alex: Yes. Joseph: Then, she witnessed it.

Darren: No. No. She covered her ears. She saw her mom’s dead body.

Joseph: She heard the men shout. She heard her mom’s suffering.

Darren: Okay, so we can say Emma “heard” her mom die. Okay, second sentence. She ran away to a nearby village.

Alex: You know what’s funny? Emma’s name is “normal,” but the other characters like Ndoli are…

Joseph: Then, Emma finds an old lady. Muk. Mukcris. Let me see. (Looking into the text.) Where does it say? Okay, so Emma finds Mukecuru and lives with her.

Darren: Till the war’s over.

Joseph: Also, Mukchris (sic) is a Hutu.

Alex: No, she’s the other one.

Joseph: No, Emma’s a Tutsi.

Alex: Oh, yeah.

Joseph: And right now the war is between the Hutus and Tutsis.

Darren: What’s the third most important thing? Um, Emma discovered the boy, Ndoli.

Alex: Wait, shouldn’t we write about how her mother said what she wanted before she died?

Darren: Yeah, keep on living.

Joseph: Right. Let’s add that here. Mom told Emma not to die.

Darren: What’s the last sentence? Emma found a Tutsi who also went through the war?

Joseph: Yea, he was tortured for information. He got his head beat in.

Alex: That is what you call a superman. He got hit by a machete and still survived.

2. Negotiating Meaning of Words Darren: How about “silhouette”?

Alex: How about “torrential”?

Joseph: Silhouette is like a shadow.

Darren: Rwanda. Let’s talk about that word.

Alex: So how do we spell. S-i-l-o. What page?

Joseph. Page 67.

Alex: What does it mean?

Joseph: It means like a shadow or a figure. No, wait, it's a person. You can’t really see any of the features.

Darren: “I came around the bend in a cloud of brown dust with a hazy pink silhouette…”

Joseph: So you can’t see them, but you can see their figure and maybe the color of their skin.

Alex: So the shadow?

Joseph: Not shadow. It’s actually the person.

Alex: I don’t get it. Why do they wear the pink?

Joseph: It said something about the prisoners that they wore a shade of pink.

Alex: Who has another word? I have like two more, but I don’t understand them at all.

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Kidwatching: Assessment that Informs Instruction What did I learn about Alex, Joseph, and Darren as readers from their video and transcript? I watched as the boys were going to the text to re-read passages and puzzle out what was happening in the story. Did Emma see her mother die? Can you witness something if you hear it but don’t see it? And what does it mean to survive as Emma had, as Ndoli had? The boys were engaging in deep questions about humanity.

As a group, they spent quite a bit of time on just one word from the novel: silhouette.

They were grappling with meaning and had questions that I thought needed a broader understanding of Rwanda, so in our next class, I met with Alex, Joseph, and Darren about how the word “silhouette” actually illuminates an important theme of the book as it relates to posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and trauma. I pointed to how the word “shadow” came up in their discussion. We discussed how Ndoli and Emma, because of their trauma, were moving about their lives as shadows. The past, the Rwandan genocide, was also like a shadow hovering, even haunting the country as it tried to heal. We discussed the Rwandan Gacaca courts, which was another word they brought up in the transcript, and I invited them to do further inquiry into the purpose of the courts through a Google search. They discovered that the prisoners wore pink and that the court proceeding were held outdoors, which led to a discussion about why. Finally, we reflected on the next steps for the book group, which was to monitor time better so that each person could guide the discussion toward a passage of their choosing and to interrupt less. I developed some sentences stems using direct address to be sure they were acknowledging each person’s suggestion such as I would like to discuss “torrential,” what would you like to discuss, Darren?

The recordings functioned as both a summative assessment where I could assess student learning at one point in time but also a formative assessment that I drew on in our reading conferences the next meeting. Audio files of students’ discussions are artifacts of evidence, evidence of thinking and making meaning that is difficult to capture in a written assignment or test. And over time, multiple recordings serve as evidence of growth. After a few book discussions, students could compare their first discussion to their most recent and reflect on the increasing sophistication of their analysis and discussion skills.

Conclusion After three book group meetings and MAP, ACCESS, and state testing, it was time to erase the slanted Expo lines and all remnants of lackluster-blue testing to begin planning for April. As I erased each box, I reflected on the rich literary and very human discussion students facilitated in the past weeks, a stark contrast to the many silent hours answering multiple choice questions on computers. I recognized that the recording devices were a bit of an intrusion and big brother-ish. Students, however, knew their discussions were being recorded and that it was an alternative to another form of assessment, and for some, the presence of the recording device helped focus the discussion. As I added school events to the calendar, I marked “Open House” and imagined setting up stations for parents to watch and listen to their children discussing books.

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Dr. Sarah Donovan is an assistant professor at Oklahoma State University. She may be reached at sarah.j.donovan@okstate.edu References Bishop, R. (1990). Mirrors, windows, and sliding glass doors. Perspectives: Choosing and Using Books for the Classroom, 6(3), ix-xi.

Farr, R. (1992). Putting it all together: Solving the reading assessment puzzle. The Reading Teacher, 46(1), 26.

Goodman, Y. & Owocki, G. (2002). Kidwatching: Documenting children’s literacy development.

New York, NY: Heinemann.

Kohn, A. (1999). Punished by rewards. New York, NY: Houghton Mifflin.

Kohn, A. (2014). Why the best teachers don’t give tests. Alfie Kohn. https://www.alfiekohn.org/blogs/no-tests/ National Assessment Governing Board. (2013). Reading framework for the 2013 National Assessment of Educational Progress. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office.

Sackstein, S. (2016). Overcoming the pressure to test. Education Week. http://blogs.edweek.org/teachers/work_in_progress/2016/01/overcoming_the_pressure_o _test.html Smith, F. (1988). Insult to intelligence: The bureaucratic invasion of our classrooms.

Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.

Young Adult Literature Cited Combres, E. (2011). Broken memory. Toronto, ON: Groundwood Books.

London. J. (1903). The call of the wild. New York, NY: Mcmillan.

Martin. A. (2014). Rain reign. New York, NY: Feiwel and Friends.

Twain, M. (1882). The prince and the pauper. London: Chatto & Windus.

Yoon, N. (2015). Everything, everything. New York, NY: Ember.

Zindel, P. (1968/2005). The pigman. New York, NY: HarperCollins Publishers.

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Mrs. Amy Dunn

Helping Students Generate HigherLevel Questions to Improve Literature Circle Dialogue Literature circles in my fourth grade classroom were not what I wanted them to be.

Small groups would select their texts and do the readings. However, when meeting for discussion, students would run out of things to say within ten minutes. Even though I had students place sticky notes on pages to discuss and write down a question or two to ask group members, their dialogue was superficial. For the most part, students were asking literal questions not conducive to critical thinking or deepening comprehension. I knew something had to change, so I began researching strategies to improve the quality of their discussions. The research led me to investigate the impact teaching my class to evaluate literature discussion questions might have on their generation of higher-level thinking questions as well as the quality of their conversations.

This review and the research that follows examine the value of student-generated questions during literacy instruction. The first part provides an overview of educational theory supporting dialogue and questioning in reading classrooms. The second section describes the benefits of encouraging students to generate questions as they read. The next portion synthesizes research-based strategies for helping students develop higher-level questions that support their overall comprehension of texts they encounter. The final part presents action research regarding how teaching students to evaluate the level of questions helps them generate better questions to improve discourse during literature circles.

Theoretical Perspectives Both constructivism and social constructivism support the use of student-generated questions in the classroom. According to Tracey and Morrow (2017) “Inquiry learning suggests that to optimize learning, students need to formulate hypotheses, collect data to test hypotheses, draw conclusions, and reflect on the original problem and the thinking processes needed to solve it” (p. 58). Constructivists argue students benefit from being given opportunities to generate and investigate to find answers to their own questions as they read (Tracey & Morrow, 2017).

Dewey’s early work suggests shifting the focus to being more student-centered enables them to play a more active role in their own learning, and doing so can serve as a huge motivator (Tracey & Morrow, 2017; Ness, 2016). The constructivist lens also suggests metacognition during reading supports students’ overall comprehension (Tracey & Morrow, 2017). As students generate their own questions, they employ metacognitive strategies while reading in order to answer questions and create new ones.

According to Vygotsky’s work in social constructivism, giving students opportunities to socialize with others supports their learning (Tracey & Morrow, 2017). As students interact, they provide scaffolding to their peers and receive it in return (Tracey & Morrow, 2017). This

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suggests asking and discussing questions helps students work through the text together in order to construct meaning.

Benefits of Student-Generated Questions Questioning is considered an effective strategy to support reading comprehension as determined by the National Reading Panel in 2000 and supported by many other researchers (Ness, 2014; Ness, 2016; Peterson & Taylor, 2012). Numerous studies have shown helping students generate questions improves their ability to understand what they read thus raising test scores (Ness, 2016; Peterson & Taylor, 2012). Accordingly, I wanted to teach my students to develop thought-provoking questions while reading.

Students need to be challenged to extend their thinking beyond the text itself, and questioning helps them do this (Boelé, 2016). According to Ness (2014), “as students analyze information, provide solutions, and demonstrate their thinking, they become actively engaged with information connected to their authentic interests” (p. 370). I wanted the literature circles in my classroom to enable to have authentic conversations about what they read. My goal was for discussions to help students extend their ideas and learn from the ideas of others in order to deepen their understanding of the texts.

Degener and Berne (2017) go as far as to suggest “the complexity of intellectual engagement with the text is not held within the text itself but, instead, in the demands placed on the reader by the teacher’s questions” (p. 596). They argue teacher modeling along with scaffolding provided during small groups enables students to engage in more productive discourse and derive more meaning from texts they encounter (Degener & Berne, 2017). I agree the quality of a teacher’s questions is important, but I wanted to teach the class how to generate their own thought-provoking questions. I felt doing so would empower them to base literature circle discussions on what they found interesting and important thus making their discourse more meaningful.

Research-Based Strategies for Encouraging Students’ Higher-Level Questioning Teachers can play a big role in influencing the types of questions students ask and are able to answer. Ness (2016) suggests a strategy she refers to as “Book Bits” to encourage students to begin asking their own questions before reading. Basically, it consists of providing each student with a phrase or sentence from an upcoming text without showing them the cover or telling them the title (Ness, 2016). Students read their “book bit,” discuss it with their peers, generate questions, and make predictions about the upcoming story (Ness, 2016). Doing so helps give them a purpose for reading and facilitates the development of their questions (Ness, 2016).

Another strategy recommended for English Language Learners or even struggling students involves showing students a concrete object related to the text (Ness, 2016). Then, allow the class to ask questions, make predictions, or write down their thoughts related to the object and how it might connect to the upcoming text (Ness, 2016). This provides scaffolding for the upcoming reading.

Modeling the process of asking higher-level questions and think-alouds that demonstrate complex responses help students begin to do the same (Peterson & Taylor, 2012; Degener & Berne 2016). Having students write out questions they have and/or answers can also support

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them when it comes to generating their own questions to discuss with peers (Peterson & Taylor, 2012). Doing so integrates reading, writing, speaking and listening which strengthens students’ overall comprehension. In the action research that follows, high level questions are modeled, and students write their own in preparation for small group discussions.

Background Research suggests helping students generate their own questions as they read and providing them with opportunities for discourse can engage them more deeply with a text and take their comprehension beyond its literal meaning. This study examines how teaching students to evaluate discussion questions impacts their ability to generate higher-level questions during literature circles. Participants were twenty-five fourth graders at a low-income school with a four-day instructional week in which every student received free breakfast and lunch. Students included twelve boys and thirteen girls, nine of whom received special education services. The class was primarily Caucasian but did contain four African American students, one Hispanic student, and several identifying as more than one race.

Data Collection and Analysis Students were separated into mixed achievement groups of five for literature circle discussions. Prior to instruction regarding questioning, each student wrote a question after an assigned reading. Students met with their groups and asked each other the questions they wrote.

Next, students wrote a summary of what their group discussed. Then, I collected the questions and evaluated them using the following scale I adapted based on one Fischbaugh (2004) created to analyze the complexity of students’ questions during book talks:

On the scale, questions earn between four and sixteen points with larger point values indicating higher level questions. I also developed the rubric shown below and used it to rate the quality of students’ discussion based on their individual summaries.

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After three weeks of instruction, students generated a discussion question and met once again with their group to talk about their most recent reading assignment. After that, I had them write a summary of their group’s discussion. Students turned in their question along with this summary upon completion. I then evaluated the question using my adapted version of the scale created by Fischbaugh (2004). In addition, I evaluated the summaries from each group using the rubric above. Finally, I compared the average point value for their questions to the average point value for the questions they generated during their pre-assessment along with the ratings from their pre- and post- discussion summaries in order to determine whether or not growth was shown in the quality of the conversations.

Procedures After administering the pre-assessment, I had a conversation with students about why we have discussions within literature circles. Students then met with their new literature circle groups and generated a list of norms for their upcoming meetings. Next, we went over those norms as a class and reviewed general guidelines for our literature circle meetings.

The next day, we talked specifically about how questions can be used to guide the conversations within our literature circles. We brainstormed as a class to come up with characteristics of good questions. Students struggled in creating this list, as many of them had never thought about question quality. They agreed that the questions needed to be related to the story and easy to understand. To expand on their ideas, I showed students the scale that we would be using in order to help us write good questions and evaluate one another’s questions, and we discussed the criteria. Finally, I provided students with a list of questions related to James and the Giant Peach, the novel we were reading at the time, for them to evaluate within their group, and students were given time to do so. After that, we compared the results between groups and had a whole class discussion about why groups scored them the way they did.

Students gave literal questions from the list such as “What happened to James’ parents?” around ten points based on the rubric. The previous question received a one in regard to both encouraging students to share their own ideas and leading them to make connections, but it earned a four for being related to the reading and being easy to understand. Questions like “Which character do you relate to the most and why?” or “What would you have thought if you were James entering the peach for the first time?” received fourteen to sixteen points. These two

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questions earned a four for relevance, clarity, and providing students with an opportunity to express their own ideas and thoughts. Students disagreed in regard to whether or not the latter question above required connections to be made. Some argued that they had to connect to James in order to determine how he felt, while others felt that connection was minimal. Despite this, students agreed both were higher level questions that gave them something to talk about with their peers.

The following day after completing their reading, students were encouraged to write a question using the guidelines from the scale. They met with their groups and talked about each other’s questions and how they might adjust them to promote more discussion as necessary.

Many of the questions posed were worth around twelve points, and a lot of them asked classmates for their opinion. Next, students took turns answering the question each group member generated related to that day’s reading. Then, they wrote a brief summary of their discussion and reflected over what went well and what could have gone better. We wrapped up with an informal conversation in which it was evident that the class was beginning to realize that not only did the higher level questions require them to think more critically than the literal questions they were used to asking, but their answers were more interesting to discuss with one another.

Students continued to generate their own questions for two weeks and use them to guide their discussions. I checked in with groups and gave them feedback on the questions they were writing and provided guidance on how to make them more complex as needed. Students met within their groups at least twice each week. During the first weekly meeting, students analyzed their own questions using the evaluation scale. Their goal was to transform them into questions worth twelve followed by fourteen points. After their second weekly meeting, students summarized their discussions in their reading notebooks. In addition to highlighting what they talked about, they provided feedback on the quality of their discussion. Each time they met, we wrapped up with a brief whole-class conversation about their self-generated questions and the discussions they had within their groups.

Findings When going over data, I worked to answer my research question “How can teaching students to evaluate literature discussion questions impact their generation of higher-level thinking questions during literature circles?” My pre- and post- assessment measured students’ development of higher-level thinking questions. In addition, I analyzed summaries students wrote of the discussions they had within their group in which students shared and answered each other’s questions.

The mean scores for the class are illustrated below. On average, the complexity of students’ questions increased by 2.81 points between the pre- and post-assessment. The summaries of their discussion revealed an average growth of 2.14 points for each student.

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Average Points Earned 15 10 5 0 Pre Assessment

Post Assessment Question Complexity

Summary Rating

Individual student data is depicted in the graphs that follow. Though the class contained twentyfive students, complete data was only obtained from twenty-one due to absences when the preand post- assessments were given.

Question Complexity Student 21 Student 20 Student 19 Student 18 Student 17 Student 16 Student 15 Student 14 Student 13 Student 12 Student 11 Student 10 Student 9 Student 8 Student 7 Student 6 Student 5 Student 4 Student 3 Student 2 Student 1 0

2

4

6

8

Initial Question

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10 Final Question

12

14

16

18

Summary Ratings Student 21 Student 19 Student 17 Student 15 Student 13 Student 11 Student 9 Student 7 Student 5 Student 3 Student 1 0

2

4

6

Initial Summary

8

10

12

Final Summary

Conclusions The mean increase of 2.81 in the number of points students earned from their questions between the pre- and post-assessments indicates that after explicit instruction on evaluating their questions, they began writing more complex questions. In addition, the 2.14 average increase in the summary ratings suggests developing higher-level questions is correlated with the depth of literature circle discussions.

It is important to note that four weeks passed between the pre- and post-assessments, and Spring Break occurred during this period resulting in only three weeks of instruction time. In consideration for future instruction, I would recommend teaching students how to ask and evaluate the quality of their questions early on in the school year rather than waiting until the end in order to improve the quality of students’ literature discussions.

The biggest limitation of this study is the summary ratings. Summary quality varied greatly between students. Some listed questions, wrote dialogue, or mentioned a comment or two that was made which suggests they need to review summarizing. Others gave a more detailed summary of their groups’ conversation. To get a better picture of the quality of the discussions for future research, it would be helpful to record the conversations and rate those rather than relying on student summaries. Analyzing a recording would provide a more accurate illustration of students’ dialogue. Another limitation was the fact that evaluations were only done by one person. Though I strived to maintain objectivity when scoring the questions and summaries, it would have been better for multiple researchers who did not know the students to evaluate them to eliminate bias and maintain consistency.

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Questioning can play an important role in supporting students’ reading development. It encourages students to delve deeper into what they read and take their comprehension to the next level. A variety of strategies can be employed in order to encourage students to ask questions before, during, and after reading. Explicitly teaching my students about characteristics of good questions and how to evaluate questions was beneficial. Doing so resulted in the generation of higher-level questions that improved the quality of literature circle discussions in my classroom.

Ultimately, it supported my students in their ability to read critically and improved their overall comprehension.

Mrs. Amy Dunn is graduate student at Oklahoma State University. She may be reached at amy.m.miller@okstate.edu

References Boelé, A. L. (2016). Text-dependent questions: Reflecting and transcending the text. The Reading Teacher, 70(2), 217-220. doi:10.1002/trtr.1493 Dahl, R., & Blake, Q. (2007). James and the giant peach. New York, NY: Puffin Books.

Degener, S., & Berne, J. (2016). Complex questions promote complex thinking. The Reading Teacher, 70(5), 595-599. doi:10.1002/trtr.1535 Fischbaugh, R. (2004). Using book talks to promote high-level questioning skills. The Reading Teacher, 58(3), 296-299. doi:10.1598/rt.58.3.7 Ness, M. (2014). Moving students’ questions out of the parking lot. The Reading Teacher, 67(5), 369-373. doi:10.1002/trtr.1226 Ness, M. (2016). When readers ask questions: Inquiry-based reading instruction. The Reading Teacher, 70(2), 189-196. doi:10.1002/trtr.1492 Peterson, D.S., & Taylor, B.M. (2012). Using higher order questioning to accelerate students’ growth in reading. The Reading Teacher, 65(5), 295-304. Doi: 10.1002/trtr.01045 Tracey, D. H., & Morrow, L. M. (2017). Lenses on reading: An introduction to theories and models (3rd ed.). New York, NY: The Guilford Press.

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Ms. Lisa Lancaster

Is Writing Fluency Influenced by Writer’s Notebook?

As you glance in the classroom you see students huddled in chairs with notebooks, students sprawled on the floor pencils moving across the page, and students in beanbag chairs with clipboards on their lap. You hear silence. What has these students so entranced in their work? They are “writing around the room.” Are you looking for a way to reenergize the writing in your classroom? This study will provide you with research and a simple way to increase your students writing skills and writing fluency. It is as simple as giving your students a journal and uninterrupted time to write daily. You will see that the data reveals the positive influence uninterrupted writing had on a second grade classroom.

Literature Review and Theory Buckner (2005) describes a writer’s notebook as “…a place for students (and writers) to save their words – in the form of a memory, a reflection, a list, a rambling of thoughts, a sketch, or even a scrap of print taped on the page.” (p. 4). Over the years, the writer’s notebook has been called a variety of things and served a variety of purposes. Angelillo (1999) saw the notebook as a valuable tool. In her classroom, Angelillo taught students “to use the notebook as a workbench for drafting, crafting, revising, and editing throughout the writing process.” (p. 30). The focus of the writer’s notebook is for students to have a place to write their thoughts and ideas daily.

These thoughts and ideas can then become topic generators for students to create their final pieces for publishing.

The writer’s notebook serves a variety of purposes. “It’s a place for them to generate text, find ideas, and practice what they know about spelling and grammar.” (Buckner, 2005, p.

5). In Rief’s (2003) article about writer’s notebooks, she illuminates how she shares the purpose of a writer’s notebook with her students. Some of those reasons include gathering ideas for writing, recording or reacting to what they read by writing or drawing, recalling their memories, recording observations of the world around them, keeping ideas together in one space, and showing their improvement in writing.

Kissel and Miller (2015) go a little deeper, detailing students’ use of their writer’s notebook to gain power and make their voices heard. In their research, they shared stories to show how students made their voice known and used their writing experiences to gain power.

One of those examples was about a boy who wrote about his dog going to heaven. The teacher met with the child and discussed his drawing and writing. She then encouraged and guided the child in writing his own story about his dog who was killed in an illegal dogfight. This writing opportunity gave this child the power to share his sad story about what was happening in his

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community. In his own young way, this child was empowered through his writing. He found the power within himself to tell a difficult story in his life.

Kissel and Miller (2015) also identified other ways students can gain power in the writing workshop. For example, the power students gain among their classmates. They identified two girls in the classroom whom the other students admired and looked up to. The other students wanted to imitate the girls’ writing. As these girls learned new writing techniques, the other students would aspire to be able to add these techniques to their own writing. These girls took on a leadership role in the classroom.

Using a writer’s notebook is beneficial for students. In Fragareta and Phillips’ study (2000), they revealed how the writer’s notebook changed students’ attitudes toward writing as well as how students improved their details in writing and sentence structure. In the beginning of the year, some students admitted the only reason why they did the writing in the notebook was because it was for a grade. When asked to reflect on their writing at the end of the year, the students had changed their attitudes and opinions about writing in the notebook. Their reflection would include responses about wanting to continue writing in their notebook after it was no longer an assignment. They also wrote about how the notebook had become important to them and how they would always keep it. Additionally, Fragareta and Phillips noted, student “writing was more detailed, leads were stronger, and sentence structure developed” (p. 112).

Writing fluency is the ability to get our words on the paper in the form of print. Often times students who are not fluent writers are the ones teachers identify as reluctant. They struggle with “…what to write, or how much to write, or they forget what they wanted to write.”

(Buckner, 2005, p. 7). Writing needs to become a habit for these students. By writing on a daily basis, students are able to practice getting their words on the page. Students generating words in the writer’s notebook will give them something to work with when they begin revising and editing.

DeFauw (2011) describes a variety of strategies she used to help get her students started writing in their writer’s notebook. When DeFauw began writing, she often found herself facing the same experiences her students faced, such as the urge to procrastinate. She began by personally trying different strategies over the summer. Then when school began, she slowly introduced the strategies to her students giving them time to try them in their writer’s notebook.

Some strategies she introduced included free writing, drawing, and list making. She also taught them how to stop writing in the middle of a sentence one day to give them an easy place to begin the next day. The sentence was already started, so students could complete the unfinished sentence and keep going. She would write with her students, allowing her to experience the struggles and celebrations of writing with them.

Using a writer’s notebook requires writing daily. This repetition of writing daily is what allows students to see themselves as writers. This repetition links using a writer’s notebook to the Mental Discipline Theory. The teacher’s focus is to improve writing through daily writing practice. The daily practice or repeated writing is a direct reflection of the Mental Discipline Theory because it is the understanding that writing skills need to be practiced daily to strengthen them (Tracey & Morrow, 2012).

Research Plan The purpose of this research project was to discover if using a writer’s notebook in second grade would improve the writing fluency of second graders. Buckner (2005) highlights

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the significant changes she noticed in her own experience of using a writer’s notebook. She learned how to write fluently. She was able to write and later return to the text to reread, reflect and add more writing. She also noted the importance of using a notebook to give students time to simply write. Additionally, this daily practice in writer’s notebooks allowed students time to practice and maximize the skills taught through mini lessons. Buckner tells us the daily opportunity to focus on writing is the most important aspect of a writer’s notebook.

Participants For this research on writing fluency, I used the second grade students at my school. We have a combined total of forty-nine students. For this project, I wanted two groups of students, so each classroom was a group. My class had thirteen girls and twelve boys. The other class had 15 girls and 9 boys. According to race, we had two students who are American Indian/Native Alaskan, four students of two or more races, and forty-three white students. Finally, when considering ethnicity, we had four Hispanic students and forty-five Non-Hispanic students.

Before beginning this project, I sought permission from my principal as well as the parents of the second grade students. Knowing I may want to share student work, I needed to seek parent permission to include their child in this research project (see Appendix C). I distributed these forms to parents on February 26, prior to beginning the research project.

Students were required to return the forms by Wednesday, February 28. This allowed me to inform parents of my current efforts in researching the best ways to improve the way I teach writing in second grade. By seeking permission at this time, I will be able to share results and student work samples with others who are interested in improving their teaching methods for writing.

Data and Procedures The data included the students’ written responses to the writing prompt as well as the writer’s notebooks. At the beginning of the study, both classes were given a writing prompt “What do you like about your school?” (see Appendix A) to use for creating a baseline score for each student. Since I feel our second graders perform their best in the morning, both teachers distributed the writing prompt after morning announcements on March 1 and allowed students a period of twenty minutes to write their response. When students finished writing, they handed their paper to the teacher who notated the time the child spent writing the response. These written responses were evaluated using the Written Response Rubric (see Appendix B). The following day the experimental classroom was introduced to their own writer’s notebook.

For this project, my classroom was the “experimental classroom” where I employed writer’s notebook every day. I worked with the second grade teacher in the classroom next to me.

Her classroom was the “control classroom” and did not change what they were doing. We planned together, so our students were taught the same skills. In the past, we both identically taught writing and grammar using our basal reader and grammar worksheets as our guide. The basal reader focused on one grammar skill per week using three to four sentences each day to model the skill followed by a worksheet page to practice the taught skill. Both classes continued lessons as previously taught using the grammar lessons and worksheets provided by our basal reader. In addition to these lessons taught in both classrooms, my experimental class also wrote daily using a writer’s notebook.

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On March 2, the students in my class selected their writer’s notebooks. I explained to the students how to use these notebooks, emphasizing how we would begin writing every day.

When I introduced the writer’s notebook, I simply explained it as a place to write their thoughts and feelings. I explained they could write whatever they wanted. They could write stories, songs, poems, or anything else. It could be a made-up story or a story of their day. The writing was free choice, so I did not give any specific topics for students to write about in their notebook.

I only had two rules during writing time. First, students must use this time for writing, not talking. The second rule stated, “No Musical Seats.” This meant students must choose their own space and not change spots. During these twenty minutes of writing, students would choose the writing spot that fit their individual needs and allowed them to focus. My classroom offers a variety of seating options including beanbag chairs, large pillows, office chairs, and stools of varying heights. Some students preferred laying on the floor to write, while others chose to sit.

My students soon dubbed these twenty minutes of writing as “writing around the room.” A few weeks after starting this daily writing routine, students began asking if they could “write around the room” when they finished their assignments.

On March 2, we began daily writing activities in our writer’s notebook. For four weeks, I dedicated an uninterrupted twenty-minute period for students to write daily. After using the writer’s notebook for a period of four weeks, I collected the final set of data on April 6. Both classes used the same writing prompt, “What do you like about your school?” (see Appendix A) and the same procedures. Both teachers allowed students a period of twenty minutes for students to write their response. As students finished writing, they again submitted the paper to the teacher who notated the amount of time the student spent writing.

Data Analysis After collecting the data, I began to analyze it. The first analysis took place before I introduced the writer’s notebooks to my class. Before I changed how I was teaching, I analyzed the initial writing prompt responses. I scored these responses using the Written Response Rubric (see Appendix B). Calkins (1994) explains the importance of constantly evaluating the process we use to assess our students. She encourages teachers to look at already created assessments and rubrics as well as where the students are in their learning process. Ultimately, she challenges teachers to create their own form of assessment making sure it guides their teaching and their students’ learning. After reading Calkins (1994) and reviewing several rubrics on the ALTEC (2008) Rubistar website, I created the rubric for assessing my students writing prompts. I evaluated the student writing responses using this newly created rubric. These initial writing response scores were added to the graphs showing student scores. The second initial piece of data was a graph showing the time students spent writing. This data gave me a baseline of where the students were before implementing the writer’s notebook.

After students used the writer’s notebook for four weeks, I collected the above listed data a second time. I followed the same procedures as explained with the initial data collection.

After I added the student scores from the written response rubric, I compared the scores. I looked to see if the students using the writer’s notebook increased their scores more than the students who did not use the writer’s notebook. The final comparison was the graph showing the time students spent writing their response. I looked to see if the students increased their time spent writing the response. I compared the writing time of each group to see if the time for the group using writer’s notebook increased more than the time of the students who did not use the

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writer’s notebook. By comparing all of this information, I was able to identify the influence using a writer’s notebook had on my students’ writing fluency.

Findings After analyzing my data, I created bar graphs, pie graphs, and a chart to share the data I collected. In reviewing the findings, it is important to note that each group had two students absent on the day of the final writing. Additionally, one student in the control group left during the writing time. He was unable to complete the writing prompt. The data for these five students was not included in the findings.

Bar graphs show the students score for both the first and final writing response. The graphs show how the writer’s notebook positively influenced the writing of the students in this group. In the writer’s notebook group, seventeen students increased their score. Six students’ scores remained the same. However, the students in the control group only had four students improve their score. The score remained the same for twelve students in the control group, while five students’ scores actually decreased.

Control Group Boys Writing Response Scores

Writer's Notebook Group Boys Writing Response Scores Student 10A

Student 9A Student 8A

Student 7A

Student 7A

Student 6A

Student 6A

Student 5A

Student 5A

Student 4A

Student 4A

Student 3A

Student 3A

Student 2A

Student 2A

Student 1A

Student 1A 0

5

Final Writing Response

10

15

First Writing Response

0

5

Final Writing Response

10

15

20

First Writing Response

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Control Group Girls Writing Response Scores

Writer's Notebook Group Girls Writing Response Scores

Student 14A

Student 13A

Student 13A

Student 12A

Student 12A

Student 11A

Student 11A

Student 10A

Student 10A

Student 9A

Student 9A

Student 8A

Student 8A Student 7A

Student 7A

Student 6A

Student 6A

Student 5A

Student 5A

Student 4A

Student 4A

Student 3A

Student 3A

Student 2A

Student 2A

Student 1A

Student 1A 0

5

Final Writing Response

10

15

20

First Writing Response

0

5

Final Writing Response

10

15

20

First Writing Response

A pie graph was created to show the time spent on initial writing as well as the final writing. These graphs show a large difference in time used for writing between the two groups.

The graph for the control group shows how student-writing time decreased from their first writing to their final writing. In this group, eighteen students decreased their writing time, while one person’s writing time remained the same and only two students improved the time they spent writing. The experimental group using the writer’s notebooks shows a different outcome. This graph clearly shows the students increased their time used for writing. In the writer’s notebook group, thirteen students increased their time spent writing. Two students writing time remained the same, while eleven students writing time decreased. The students writing daily in their notebook increased their stamina.

Control Group Initial Time Spent Writing

0-5 min.

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6-10 min.

11-15 min.

16-20 min.

Control Group Final Time Spent Writing

0-5 min.

6-10 min.

11-15 min.

16-20 min.

Writer's Notebook Group Initial Time Spent Writing

0-5 min.

6-10 min.

11-15 min.

16-20 min.

Writer's Notebook Group Final Time Spent Writing

0-5 min.

6-10 min.

11-15 min.

16-20 min.

In digging deeper into the writing scores and time spent writing, the data revealed information on specific areas where students improved. While most of the writing from the control group showed very little progress, specific areas of improvement appeared in the group using the writer’s notebook. All students in the writer’s notebook group showed growth in at least one area, except for one student. While this student did not show any growth, her writing skills did not decrease. The largest growth revealed on the rubric was a student who moved from the lowest score of writing off topic to the highest score of developing a coherent idea and adding details. Over half of the students decreased the number of errors in their spelling and increased their writing stamina. Eleven students began adding details to their writing.

Additionally, nine students increased the length of their writing and improved the sentence structure in their writing.

I could also see improvement in the students’ writing in the writer’s notebooks. It was interesting to read their notebooks as students used their time to use a variety of writing techniques and write about numerous topics. Some students wrote songs including the music notes on a staff. Others wrote personal journal entries, stories, poems, lists, and in one case math facts. I also noticed that while some started with lists they also used the list to branch out into additional writing. The topics were just as varied as the techniques they used in their writing.

Some topics included friends, family, silly stories, school, realistic stories, as well as unrealistic stories. The variety of writing styles and topics revealed the students’ individual personalities.

In looking at the writer’s notebooks from beginning to end, I could see the progression in writing fluency.

This data reveals that using a writer’s notebook did influence students’ writing fluency.

The control group showed growth in only a few students, while many students actually showed a decrease in their writing skills. The experimental group using writer’s notebooks showed growth in a variety of ways. This data shows the importance of giving students the opportunity to write daily. When speaking to my administration about making changes in how I teach, this data reveals the positive impact the writer’s notebook had on my students. It reflects how using a writer’s notebook directly influences students’ growth in writing. This data played a crucial role in changing how I teach grammar and writing skills in my classroom.

Since completing this research, I have also started teaching mini grammar lessons using mentor text. Serravallo (2017) explains how mentor texts model the skill or technique you are trying to teach. Then, students can apply these techniques to their own writing (p. 25). In adding these mini-lessons to my teaching while still requiring the twenty minutes of uninterrupted

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writing, I have noticed additional improvement in my students’ writing. I also noticed their moments of discovery as they used the mentor text to identify how the author used a technique to draw them in as a reader. One example would be a mini lesson on quotation marks. I put a mentor text on the board. Then, I asked the students what they noticed. We discussed why the author used quotation marks and how they helped the reader. This approach from a discovery standpoint was more exciting. The students then began using quotation marks during “write around the room." It is always exciting to see them using what they learned without telling them they have to do it.

This data revealed the importance of dedicated writing time. It does not have to be structured writing. Students just need time to write. This use of daily writing to practice and strengthen these skills directly reflects the Mental Discipline Theory (Tracey & Morrow, 2012).

Parents, teachers, and administrators need to see the importance of just giving students time to write. Parents and teachers can also model the importance of writing at home and at school with their children. Writing tasks parents can model at home include daily journal writing, writing letters, making a list (grocery, to do, or wish list), or writing a story. In addition, parents need to understand the importance of teachers allowing time for students to have uninterrupted time to write. After reading this data, I hope you are inspired to use a writer’s notebook, move away from using textbooks and worksheets for teaching grammar and writing, and give students uninterrupted time to write. Throughout this research process, my students grew to love and enjoy writing. This daily writing practice positively influenced my students and improved their writing.

Ms. Lisa Lancaster teaches second grade at All Saints Catholic School in Norman, Oklahoma.

She may be reached at llancaster@allsaintsnorman.org.

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References ALTEC at University of Kansas. (2008). Rubistar. http://rubistar.4teachers.org/index.php.

Angelillo, J. (1999). Using the Writer's Notebook across the Day and beyond the Writing Workshop. Primary Voices K-6, 8(1), 30-36.

Buckner, A. (2005). Notebook Know-How: Strategies for the Writer’s Notebook. Portland, ME: Stenhouse Publishers.

Calkins, L.M. (1994). The Art of Teaching Writing. Concord, Ontario: Irwin Publishing.

DeFauw, D. (2011). A Challenge to Write. Reading Teacher, 64(5), 374.

Fragareta, P., & Phillips, D.J. (2000). Working with a Writer's Notebook. English Journal, 89(6), 105-13.

Kissel, B.T., & Miller, E.T. (2015). Reclaiming Power in the Writers' Workshop: Defending Curricula, Countering Narratives, and Changing Identities in Prekindergarten Classrooms. Reading Teacher, 69(1), 77-86.

Rief, L. (2003). A Reader's-Writer's Notebook: It's a Good Idea. Voices from the Middle, 10(4), 40-41.

Serravallo, J. (2017). The Writing Strategies Book: Your Everything Guide to Developing Skilled Writers. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.

Tracey, D., & Morrow, L.M. (2012). Lenses on reading. New York, NY: The Guildford Press.

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Appendix A Writing Prompt Name

Date

What do you like about your school?

//////////////////////// //////////////////////// //////////////////////// //////////////////////// //////////////////////// //////////////////////// //////////////////////// //////////////////////// //////////////////////// 38

Appendix B Written Response Rubric

CATEGORY

4 - Wow!

3 - Almost There 2 - On the Way 1 - Work In Progress Earned Points

I used correct spelling for highfrequency sight words. I used my Quick Words book to help me with words I do not know. All of my words are spelled correctly.

I made a few mistakes in spelling highfrequency sight words. I used my Quick Words book to help me with words I do not know. Most of my words are spelled correctly.

I made a lot of mistakes in spelling highfrequency words.

I did not use my Quick Words book to help me with words I do not know. Some of my words are spelled correctly.

I used complete All of my sentences. They sentences are complete. I make sense.

I have at least three complete sentences. I believe my writing makes some sense.

A few of my I did not use any sentences are complete sentences. My complete. My writing is not sensible. writing does not make much sense.

I developed one I developed a coherent idea coherent idea and added with details.

I developed one coherent idea.

My idea is not developed.

My idea does not relate to the topic.

My response is mostly easy to read because I used spaces and good handwriting.

My response is missing spaces and somewhat easy to read.

My response is missing spaces and very difficult to read.

I used my best spelling.

believe my writing makes sense.

Most of the words in my response are not spelled correctly. I did not use my Quick Words book to help me with words I do not know.

details.

I used my best handwriting and included spaces between my words.

My response is easy to read because I used spaces and my best handwriting.

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Appendix C Parent Permission

February 26, 2018 Dear Parents, As many of you know, I am currently attending classes for my graduate degree. I have recently been in the process of planning a research project for this degree program and would like to complete it with the second grade students. I am researching the best way to teach grammar and writing to our students. I would like your child to participate in this project. I am asking permission to include student work samples in any future articles, publication, or books I may write upon completion of this research. I will identify student work with numbers. I respect student confidentiality and will not use any names in the publication of my research or results.

Please know that whether or not you give permission for your child to participate in my study, your child’s grade will not be affected nor will the amount of instruction your child receives in class change. Your participation is completely voluntary. If you are not interested in granting permission, your child will still participate in class and be taught the same objectives.

This will be a fun research project and will provide me with additional tools for teaching your students with the most successful teaching methods for grammar and writing instruction. If you have any questions or concerns, please contact me at the email address listed below.

Lisa Lancaster Second Grade Teacher All Saints Catholic School llancaster@allsaintsnorman.org Please complete and return to school by Wednesday, February 28th.

I give permission for my child to participate and the use of my child’s work.

Child’s Name Parent’s Signature Parent Email Address Date

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Dr. Latasha Holt ______________________________________________________

Creating a Techno-Literacy Environment Will Promote Literacy Success Both the words technology and literacy are commonly used in conversations relating to education. This article challenges researchers and teachers to partner their thinking to better serve students who are developing readers and writers. Traditional methods of teaching reading and writing did not necessarily include technology as the method of advancing their reading skill. This article defines techno-literacy and its relevance to the next generation of literacy learners.

The combination of these two disciplines and their relation to literacy growth can be a challenge to decipher in today’s classroom. With the recent COVID-19 pandemic, school systems have been closed for face-to face meetings to reduce the spread of the disease (Center for Disease Control and Prevention [CDC], 2020). These closures have led many schools to attempt a transition to online learning platforms to fulfill the needed literacy instruction. This is not a simple task. Despite the traditional brick and mortar classrooms that have been increasingly better equipped with resources such as computers, tablets, e-books, interactive smart devices, and digital presentation boards, affording more student technology interaction…but is this enough? Where does technology pedagogy meet literacy instruction? This article is dedicated to introducing the technoliteracy model that will lead the way for implementing appropriate literacy instruction for students. This article clarifies terms and introduces the model. Additional explanations on ways to create an environment to effectively put this model into practice are also detailed.

Differentiating Techno-Literacy from Similar Terms For this article, the term literacy refers to the process of learning to read and write. Some research uses the word literacy to describe the successful completion of a task using a certain identified method. It is important to differentiate from similar terms to avoid possible misunderstandings.

One example to compare is the concept of digital literacy. Over two decades ago, Glister (1997) discussed the term literacy stating that “literacy theorists have come to recognize that developing literacy is about engaging with culture, and the mastery of the mechanics of reading and writing” then went on to describe the term digital as the “engagement with the embeddedness of the digital in the culture and practices of society” (p.1). Overall, Gilster (1997) defined digital literacy as “a set of skills to access the Internet” and also elaborated on other technology-based tools (p. 290). Next, consider the terminology debate mentioned from Knobel (2008) which declared there is a “plethora of conceptions about digital literacy” which some define as a technical skill used to present information (p.2). More recently an article by Heitin (2016) discussed the

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term digital literacy as “more than communicating information” but often “broad” causing some experts to lean towards the “intersection of technology and literacy” (p. 5) versus the idea of a true integration of the technology and literacy in the classroom.

Techno-literacy is a classroom instruction learning model to teach literacy skills not a term to identify someone’s ability to get online or fluently use technology tools.

Another term to differentiate from techno-literacy described in this article is technology literacy which is also used in educational conversations with a variety of interpretations of what it actually means. The term technology literacy can be misleading when trying to connect the idea of the techno-literacy model described in this article. To acknowledge the differences, reflect on an article featured in Tech Trends that expresses misconceptions and the impact it has on classroom conversations. Davies stated, “technology literacy has been defined in different ways using a variety of labels” (Davies, 2011, p. 46). In a similar attempt Holt (2018) corroborated with both Davies and Heitin stating that “philosophical concerns regarding the integration of technology into the literacy classroom” need more reflective conversations to support the needs in today’s classroom (p. 23). It is important not to confuse techno-literacy with the terms described in the above section.

Techno-Literacy in 2020 While the research regarding digital literacy, technology literacy, and other similar terms have paved the way for discussion about technology in today’s classroom, a slightly different perspective is important as researchers, educators, and other stakeholders are charged with preparing students for a world yet to be imagined. The vision of a techno-literacy classroom is an explicit, purposeful integration of two important content areas, technology and literacy, which must merge into one thought, always keeping an explicit literacy output objective in mind.

An example of this might be using the output method of word sorting for phonics work using an app. This techno-literacy activity better prepares students to engage with literacy learning. It could also be a writing task that starts with organizing ideas using a site like Popplet or Coggle, then drafting, revising, and editing, a writing piece with a word processing tool like Google Docs. This process of writing combined with teacher feedback is needed to support literacy development.

To clarify the need for a techno-literacy environment, consider a school system with a variety of technology tools available for use in the teaching and learning process.

Even though the tools are in place, consider that within this school system, teachers each have their own ideas about technology in the classroom and each teacher expresses a different level of comfort regarding how these tools can be implemented. Furthermore, in this school some teachers express that more professional development is needed to monitor the use of technology. This type of situation can be problematic when attempting to move into a deeper implementation where students engage with technology during classroom literacy instruction. This disconnect of teacher beliefs and lesson application can be a hardship for students who are striving to function in a world that requires technology for most interactions.

While there are a variety of models that encourage technology and support literacy, the combination of these two in today’s daily classroom instruction should be

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more seamless to optimize student and teacher success when teaching students to read and write. So, what exactly is considered a techno-literacy environment and how can this topic enhance overall literacy success in today’s classrooms?

Describing the Techno-literacy Model To begin, it is important to clarify the language used in this conversation to separate it from other similar research. Techno-literacy is a teaching model that explicitly integrates technology and classroom literacy instruction to support the task of learning to read and write. The need to create an atmosphere of teaching and learning that supports the acquisition of life-long literacy skills without compromising whole-child principles is the goal. Being literate can increase educational opportunities to improve the life for an individual and the community in which they belong (Hoskins & Barker, 2014).

The model design has a central focus of helping students become literate. It is surrounded by the five-basic whole-child needs. These needs include feeling safe, healthy, challenged, engaged, and supported. As a researcher, it is my experience that if these basic needs are lacking, reaching literacy goals can be more difficult. These words were purposely added to the model to help emphasize the need for these considerations when implementing the model. For example, if you have a student that has food insecurities, the need for food should be addressed first. The words focusing on the whole child are placed in between six, colorful technology skills that are found at the top of the model. These include drag and drop, click, type, write, present, and read. A lack of knowledge of how to drag and drop, click, and/or navigate online text can be a barrier to literacy learning.

Techno-Literacy in Practice Just as exposure to literature is needed for growth in literacy, Davies (2011) reminds us that “to become technologically literate, learners must be exposed to the technology” (p. 48). The techno-literacy model is a spin on these considerations in the everyday classroom environment. Students need support and we must continue to help students as we guide them through the transition from a paper-pencil based world to a technology-based world (Holt, 2018). So how can we best integrate techno-literacy activities to better serve the students in today’s classroom? Consider a first look at the Techno-Literacy Skill Set Model I developed for this article to help educators and researchers see the specific parts that make each sector important.

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Figure 1: Holt Techno-Literacy Model When creating an effective techno-literacy environment, first we must revisit our understanding about the term and its importance in today’s classroom. This pedagogical meeting that includes integration of teaching technology skills combined with teaching literacy skills is key when supporting students who are learning to read and write.

A techno-literacy classroom is one where literacy instruction is taught in a method that uses technology tools like apps, presentation software, videos and e-books to teach reading and writing content. Continuing to use successful classroom literacy instruction strategies, such as the reading and writing workshop, is still possible with the implementation of the techno-literacy model.

Consider another example of the techno-literacy model in action that begins with teacher support in the face-to-face setting. The classroom teacher is prepared by implementing the changes to the four techno-literacy model areas that will help guide the class meeting and thus grow their literacy skills. The four techno-literacy model areas include the physical environment, classroom management, lesson planning, and assessment. In order for the student to be successful with learning to read and write, the teacher is prepared with skill-based activities like dragging and dropping during the literacy lesson. This foundational knowledge can be built upon throughout their learning career. The teacher has created an interactive lesson plan that uses this foundational skill to develop reading knowledge. The goal of the lesson is to work on identifying character traits but uses a technology platform in which the learner will sort various traits and drop accurate literary characteristics to later be assessed for accuracy.

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Clicking, typing, and presenting should also be taught explicitly in literacy lessons. The learners must be taught to navigate digital stories, type written ideas that can be shared, and present literacy related ideas using technology. Considering the goal of mastering literacy, these teachable opportunities are needed.

Additionally, the classroom teacher prepares by making changes to the physical classroom environment making it more suitable for techno-literacy learning. The physical classroom environment is purposefully designed to enhance technology engagement. The furniture in the classroom has been carefully selected to help eliminate techno-literacy struggles and enhance the overall flow between techno-literacy stations. The teacher has previously held mini-lessons modeling how the students will manage table space to allow for optimal use of the technology-based literacy tools. The teacher’s lesson plans include techno-literacy implementation and engage students who will be reading e-books while also using a hard copy of the text used as a scaffold into online mediums.

Students in the successful techno-literacy environment are observed gathering in centers, book clubs, or literature discussion groups using an online prompt discussion that is carefully prepared. The students are using a tablet to record progress that will be later reviewed by the teacher. Student share time is being held using an online class discussion board that is monitored for safe online discussion and supportive of learning about proper online etiquette. In a whole class wrap up session, students and teachers are discussing the online responses left by classmates. These teachable techno-literacy moments are a large part of transfer conversations about proper online behaviors and the feelings one received from peers in the online discussion. In the techno-literacy environment, assessments, both formative and summative and all in between, are administered using digital tools such as online portfolios that bridge the gap from paper and pencil assessment to the digital output methods that often catch both children and adults off guard.

The classroom ideas described are just a few countless ways that a techno-literacy environment can help teachers teach in a way that supports the growth of literacy skills, and monitors successes and struggles of students growing up in a technology infused world.

Exceptional Situations with Technology in the Classroom While implementing a techno-literacy classroom environment, one must not compromise the needs of the whole child (ASCD, 2007). The implementation of the techno-literacy model should coincide with the whole child principles. This is especially true with students who are identified with exceptional learning needs. If it is not developmentally appropriate for a child to use a particular technology tool to grow in their literacy understandings, then other methods should be considered.

Overall, it is important to remember that we must consider that if “the purpose of a school is to prepare students for society - and an ever-changing society - then effective schools must look toward what skills, aptitudes, and behaviors will be required and in demand” (Slade & Griffith, 2013, p. 26). We must not forget that “students are whole persons” (Noddings, 2005, p. 5). Using the techno-literacy model can help exceptional learners in many ways, but the model is not intended to employ negative consequences

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upon students who are without technology support or unable to thrive due to a unique situation.

The Importance of a Techno-Literacy Model in Today’s Classroom Creating a techno-literacy environment is important as educators and students attempt to demonstrate mastery of literacy skills using technology as the primary assessment output method. Teachers need to intervene as needed to support students who are challenged with techno-literacy making. Understanding that an illiterate member of a society faces additional struggles makes this a critical need for our attention.

Assessment is a big part of the world we live in. The word assessment can be as simple as a classroom test, but an assessment can also be successfully completing an online medical form needed to acquire health care. It is important to use the technoliteracy model to support all types of assessments. Consider the states using a technologybased assessment for standardized testing to determine literacy norms. This data is often used to make important decisions about needs affecting state, national, and even global successes. Without implementing a techno-literacy classroom environment, data collected on literacy proficiency can be misleading. Is the assessment being given a test of literacy skills or a test of technology skills?

Educators in grades K-12 must continuously reflect on current classroom instructional practices and engage with others in professional learning communities to achieve success with techno-literacy classroom needs. To help support educators, four main areas are discussed below. These areas support the implementation of the technoliteracy model as a framework. The four areas discussed are the physical classroom environment, classroom management, lesson planning, and assessments.

Connecting the Physical Environment and the Techno-Literacy Model Looking at the physical space in today’s classroom and changes that have evolved over the past fifty years can be described as remarkable, cutting-edge, and trendy. When attempting to create a techno-literacy environment, we must consider how the physical classroom environment plays a part. Furthermore, at times educators must take action to adapt the physical environment to meet the demands of a techno-literacy environment to better support learners. Consider the techno-literacy physical environment tips below.

1. Table groups and technology. Grouping is needed for effective literacy instruction. Classroom teachers should implement the reading and writing workshop approach that can transition into independent book clubs later in adulthood.

Small group instruction is often the best. When implementing the techno-literacy model into literacy groups, grouping in the classroom space should not be compromised to include technology. Maximizing space might include using round tables instead of computer lab-like rows that can hinder discussion and collaboration. Other furniture selection considerations for space management can include tables with built-in technology storage space and device charging ports. It

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is important to continue to monitor the physical classroom space for successful (or missed) opportunities for technology and literacy to be best utilized because of the physical space.

Even if space is considered, the student still may need explicit help managing technology during literacy tasks. If the students are working in small groups, students attempting to use a laptop along with an ebook on a tablet may need teacher instruction to set up the best physical environment space to support learning. If a student in a small group is struggling to manage the physical space utilizing the laptop, tablet, external mouse, and headphones, literacy instruction and peer collaboration time can be lost. Consider how using a techno-literacy lesson plan allows discussion about best practices that efficiently use desk space so that all the literacy tools are manageable to the learner.

2. Selecting furniture. With flexible seating being more commonly considered to better support learning styles, selecting furniture that supports the techno-literacy environment should also be included in the conversation. Ensuring the student has enough room in the physical classroom environment for whatever technology tool being used will afford more success with the literacy content being explored in the day’s lesson. Using furniture that stores technology tools might be considered.

If technology devices need to be charged, selecting furniture with charging stations may help from disrupting the literacy block. When creating an environment that has charging spaces that can be utilized in groups, student success with literacy can be obtained.

Establishing Classroom Management and the Techno-Literacy Model The techno-literacy model requires a new set of ideas about classroom management. Whether attempting to manage the classroom technology equipment or digital citizenship in the classroom, both should be discussed. “It is a common fallacy to suppose that because students are growing up in a technological age, they are somehow instinctively capable of using technology to learn what is expected of them in school” (Davies, 2011, p.47). Teachers will need to ensure that such is accounted for in their instruction (Hutchison & Cowell, 2016). Consider implementing the ideas below to enhance today’s techno-literacy classroom: 1. Survey of technology. Starting with a technology survey that includes both technology skills and digital citizenship is best. Educators can use the survey data to guide future techno-literacy lesson plans. Considering the variety of technology diversities that students bring is a must. Perhaps you learn from a techno-literacy survey that a student is unable to access the internet at home, lacks technology tools outside the classroom, or simply prefers using a tablet over a laptop? This data should affect your daily classroom instruction. Knowing a student's preference about presenting work using a digital platform instead of on a poster board should be considered. Educators need to consider that students may need

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support when making decisions relating to the engagement with technology and schoolwork.

2. Techno-literacy scaffolds. Coskie & Hornof (2013) explained that using technology scaffolds in the form of anchor charts would benefit classrooms implementing technology and literacy skills simultaneously. Scaffolding is needed to ensure that students are learning to work in a techno-literacy classroom with the proper support systems in place. Perhaps a student is a visual learner who often uses charts for support during independent learning times. Teachers will need to use co-constructed techno-literacy anchor charts that are displayed as a resource.

Lesson Planning for a Techno-Literacy Classroom According to Biancarosa & Griffiths (2012), “rarely is technology an organic part of a lesson plan” (p.149). Hutchison & Reinking (2011) hypothesized that one constraint teachers may face is that students lack the familiarity or experience with the digital tools being used. These concerns must be addressed to enhance student success in today’s techno-literacy classroom. Explicitly acknowledging the need for literacy lesson plans that integrate technology can better develop a techno-literacy environment that will best support these issues. Explicit, specialized lesson planning is needed to integrate technology and literacy into the curriculum (Holt, 2018).

1. Techno-literacy mini-lessons. The mini-lesson planning model requires explicit instruction stemmed from a standard, objective, and aligned with an assessment.

Daily plans should include technology in a variety of ways to support technoliteracy needs. Allowing students to use technology tools in the place of, or in addition to, traditional notebooks and pencils should be planned for. Post lesson planning, it is important to reflect and “revise your instruction” using the insights gained considering “sustainability, affordances, constraints, and impact of using the digital tool” (Hutchinson & Woodward, 2014, p. 464).

2. Techno-literacy: a workshop approach. The basic implementation of the literacy workshop approach when lesson planning should support engagement of students and technology. When students are sharing stories, reading grade level text, and writing pieces, ways of the past may not be best practice. Today’s students are interacting with media literacy more than ever before outside the classroom.

Therefore, it is critical that we use the collaborative literacy workshop models but infuse them with technology to best meet the needs of students. In a conversation about writing workshop and technology, Coskie and Hornof (2013) stated “meeting that challenge will require more from us than simple [simply] access to more computers and more programs” (p. 54). There must be a systemic plan in place using technology that is feasible for the developmentally appropriate level of the student, the sustainability of the school’s resources, and parallels the teacher’s personal technology teaching knowledge.

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3. Real technology tasks. In the lesson planning phase, real technology tasks should be included. Allowing students to grapple with a variety of word processing tools, digital classroom discussion forums, and other tools allowing creativity with literacy content expression is needed. Consider teaching a mini-lesson and including an assignment which students can create an infographic display that retells the main ideas from the chapter. Consider allowing vlogs, a video blog that can include video discussions about literature, to be used for literature discussion time to afford techno-literacy situations that may increase engagement and thus better prepare students to be a literate citizen living in a digital world.

4. Techno-literacy and exceptional learning needs. Techno-literacy can support students with exceptional learning needs. Consider the needs of an English language learner. Using technology tools in the literacy lesson plans can increase success in a variety of ways. Using screen readers, text-to-speech applications, and grammar checking tools can encourage reading and writing whereas without these technology tools, tasks may seem burdensome and discourage students.

Using Universal Design for Learning as a model can support a techno-literacy environment that is beneficial for all (Benton-Borghi, 2013). Universal design uses strategies that can reach all learners instead of the majority.

Assessment for a Techno-Literacy Classroom It is vital to remember that testing a student’s literacy skills is moving into a new age of assessment output. Literacy skill mastery is expected to be demonstrated within a technology program that requires students to drag, drop, click, type, and present knowledge and ideas. We must consider these techno-literacy output requirements and our classroom instruction to best ensure students are on the path of readiness.

1. Techno-literacy assessments. When assessing mastery of standards today, technology-based methods are often used. To ethically require students to take computerized literacy tests, it is imperative the classroom literacy instruction provide students with a strong foundation for success (Holt, 2018). More common than before, formal assessments used in the Response to Intervention model such as DIBELS, S.T.A.R., Accelerated Reading, and I-station are accessed in a fully digital format for easier data collection. With this considered, students can benefit from increased daily experiences with technology-based assessments to demonstrate accurate literacy assessment of skills in a formal assessment setting.

2. Collecting student progress over time. In other words, it is vital that the assessment data collected be a true test of literacy knowledge that is not hidden behind a layer of technology difficulties due to lack of meaningful instruction or classroom instruction.

3. Avoiding excessive stress and testing anxiety. Subjecting students to an unnecessary amount of stress by using techno-literacy methods in the daily classroom can be harmful to a student. It is important to support a student’s

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personal growth and engagement with literacy by preparing the child for standardized assessments just as they will encounter output methods. When the only assessments given are paper and pencil output methods, problems with testing anxiety can surface with young learners when faced with a technologybased testing situation. Furthermore, it is important to implement assessments that align with overarching techno-literacy goals.

Concluding Thoughts Creating a techno-literacy environment is critical in today’s classroom to ensure success for students in many areas of life. Whether it be a future job need, an attempt to manage an online application, or simply analyzing digital information needed to make an educated choice, students need early experiences. Students should be prepared to use techno-literacy skills in everyday life events. In today’s classroom, during the evaluation of a student’s literacy strengths and weaknesses, it is important to reflect on the literacy assessment and ensure the assessment is not a test of technology skills but is a true test of literacy skills.

Using the techno-literacy model to evaluate the utilization of physical classroom space and address needed changes can positively impact students engaging with technology and literacy. Additionally, reviewing classroom management models and adapting when needed to better support techno-literacy instruction can positively impact overall literacy learning goals. Planning lessons that maintain the workshop approach and are infused with technology can better support learners. Creating a techno-literacy environment will promote success for students and teachers in today’s K-12 classroom and beyond.

Dr. Latasha Holt is assistant professor of curriculum and instruction at University of Louisiana at Lafayette. She may be reached at latasha.holt@louisiana.edu.

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References Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development. (2007). The learning compact redefined: A call to action. A report of the commission on the whole child.

Alexandria, VA: Author.

Benton-Borghi, B. H. (2013). A universally designed for learning (UDL) infused technological pedagogical content knowledge (TPACK) practitioners' model essential for teacher preparation in the 21st Century. Journal of Educational Computing Research, 48(2), 245-265.

Biancarosa, G., & Griffiths, G. G. (2012). Technology tools to support reading in the digital age. The Future of Children, 22(2), 139-160.

Center for Disease Control and Prevention (2020). Interim guidance for administrators of US K-12 schools and child care programs: Plan, prepare, and respond to Coronavirus 2019. https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019ncov/community/schools-childcare/guidance-for-schools.html Coskie, T. L., & Hornof, M. (2013). E‐BEST principles: infusing technology into the writing workshop. The Reading Teacher, 67(1), 54-58.

Davies, R. S. (2011). Understanding technology literacy: A framework for evaluating educational technology integration. TechTrends, 55(5), 45.

Gilster, P. (1997) Digital literacy. New York: John Wiley & Sons Inc. Heitin, L. (2016, November). Digital literacy: an evolving definition. Education Week, 36 (5). Retrieved from www.edweek.org Hoskins, K., & Barker, B. (2014). Education and social mobility: Dreams of success.

Trentham Books. Available from: IOE Press, Institute of Education.

Holt, L. (2018). Online standardized testing with young children: teachers action research cries out for help. Arkansas Association of Teacher Educators, 8(1).

Hutchison, A., & Colwell, J. (2016). Preservice teachers' use of the technology integration planning cycle to integrate iPads into literacy instruction. Journal of Research on Technology in Education, 48(1), 1-15.

Hutchison, A., & Reinking, D. (2011). Teachers’ perceptions of integrating information and communication technologies into literacy instruction: A national survey in the U.S. Reading Research Quarterly, 46(4), 308 – 329.

Hutchison, A., & Woodward, L. (2014). A planning cycle for integrating digital technology into literacy instruction. The Reading Teacher, 67(6), 455-464.

Knobel, M. (2008). Digital literacies: Concepts, policies and practices (Vol. 30). New York, New York: Peter Lang Publishing, Inc. Noddings, N. (2005). What does it mean to educate the whole child? Educational leadership, 63(1), 8.

Slade, S., & Griffith, D. (2013). A whole child approach to student success. KEDI Journal of Educational Policy, 10(3). 21-35.

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Mrs. Amber McMath

One Requirement: Change the World “This is life people! You’ve got air coming through your nose. You’ve got a heartbeat.

That means it’s time to do something!” I show my students this pep talk from Kid President (Soul Pancake, 2013). Only three precious weeks remain before the state test. We’ve practiced testing strategies all year, so we don’t watch this YouTube clip to get pumped up for a standardized test. Kid President’s words fuel our next assignment: change the world.

Instead of a test prep packet, students receive a handout with that simple directive, “This assignment has one requirement: you must change the world for the better.” The directive is interesting enough to hook them, vague enough to fill their minds with What If’s, difficult enough to stretch them beyond a test prep packet.

The purpose of this assignment is to afford students opportunities to grow themselves, learn practical life skills, and improve the world. In short, students will carry out a venture of their choosing. It can be anything, as long as it makes the world a better place. Following I describe the three parts of this project.

Grow Themselves Students first tap into three parts of themselves they might never have explored. ● Passions: What do you love to do? What would you be doing right now if you weren’t here? ● Skills: What do you know how to do? What are you good at? Where are your talents and abilities? ● Problems: What issues keep you up at night? What wrongs anger you? What makes your heart ache?

Their venture lies at the center of this triple Venn diagram. Here are some actual ventures from my students based on their answers to the aforementioned questions.

Two students love animals and enjoy walking their dogs. They volunteer at a local animal shelter on weekends. Venture: Walk people’s dogs and give any money earned to the animal shelter. Done!

Five students love basketball and are skilled players. They want to help the community food pantry. Venture: Organize a school-wide three-point shootout and half-court shot contest where admission is one non-perishable food item. Done!

Three students are angered that the 13 schools in our geographically spread out district share only 5 nurses. They enjoy writing and are gifted communicators. Venture: Speak at the school board meeting about the need for a full-time nurse at every site. Done!

A student is passionate about poetry and wants to raise awareness about the dangers of human trafficking. He writes a moving poem and overcomes his shy tendencies to read it over the intercom to all 700+ students. Done!

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A few girls love wearing makeup and can do others’ makeup well. They are concerned that some of the students with special physical needs might not have the coordination to do their own makeup. They receive a donation to purchase makeup and give makeovers to the girls in the special education class. Done!

Learn Practical Life Skills How did these students accomplish such influential ventures? We followed the steps laid out in Laurie Ann Thompson’s book Be A Changemaker: How to Start Something That Matters (2013). This guide book is a must for implementing a changemaker project in your classroom.

She holds your hand so each phase feels less daunting and more empowering.

1. Research. Students finally had a practical application for the research objectives we’d practiced all year: using the best keyword searches, finding reliable sources, taking notes, organizing and sharing information with team members. They had to research questions like who would support and oppose the cause, what is the best way to help, and what is already available to solve this problem.

2. Elevator Pitch. In less than a minute every student could eloquently convey the purpose of their venture and what you could do to support it. They showed mastery of concise writing, knowing your audience and purpose, and domain-appropriate vocabulary.

3. Business Plan. Students did the real life work of creating a business plan including team member roles and responsibilities, materials/resources needed, a budget, and a timeline.

4. Meeting Agenda. Every individual or group had to hold a meeting. It could be with their group to make decisions, with an administrator to ask permission for something, or with a source who had valuable information about the problem (e.g. the director of the women’s shelter who told them about specific needs for their residents, the gym teacher who taught them how to organize tournament brackets, etc.) After studying the purpose and format of an agenda, they made their own.

5. Press Release. I’d never seen my students stress over commas and spelling more than when I said their writing was headed for the local newspaper. Every venture had to have a well-written press release worthy of publication.

6. Doing the Work. Obstacles abounded, but they did the work anyway. No one asked if it was for a grade. They just made it happen. The classroom was a loud mess, and many days I was pulled in a million directions putting out fires, giving feedback, and pushing them to take ownership of every ounce of their venture. But when I look back, I can say with confidence that they did the work.

7. Sharing the Joy. We held a Changemaker Summit for community guests: school board members, parents, teachers, school leaders, and participating students. Prior to the Summit each individual/group presented their venture to their class. The classes voted on the best presentations. That winner along with one “teacher pick” from each class had the opportunity to share publicly at the Summit. I highlighted all ventures at the Changemaker Summit, but it was a special honor and responsibility for those who were able to make a presentation.

If red flags are popping up in your teacher brain about “taking grades,” these seven parts and the brainstorming in “grow themselves” satisfied my two-grades-a-week requirement. I

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evaluated students’ work against the examples they were given and written expectations of each “assignment.” However, it’s noteworthy to mention that, to my relief, talk of grades was mostly absent during these weeks.

Improve the World Welcome to the easy part. As teachers we get to sit back and see the bigger picture of lives changed because of these ventures. Before my students went on to become big 8th graders, I had to make sure they knew reading and writing is not a class in school. It is our lifeline to making the world a better place. Dozens of ventures and countless lives prove they learned that lesson.

What about the objectives? I modeled every step of this process by carrying out my own venture along the way. I showed students my thinking as I brainstormed passions and problems, made an agenda and business plan, edited my press release, and scavenged for supplies. Since we undertook this during the 4th quarter, I constantly recalled skills and objectives we’d accomplished throughout the year.

When standardized test day arrived, they were energized. For three weeks prior they had immersed themselves in reading and writing in the real world. They had pulled off victories I had doubted. A little state reading test? No problem. They were changemakers!

Mrs. Amber McMath is a seventh-grade teacher in Owasso Public Schools. She may be reached at amber.mcmath@owassops.org References Soul Pancake (2013, January, 24). A Pep Talk from Kid President to You [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l-gQLqv9f4o Thompson, L. A. (2013) Be A Changemaker. New York, NY: Simon Pulse.

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RESEARCH SUMMARY Dr. Linda McElroy

Knowledgeable, Committed Teachers Staying Up-to-date on Research: Book Clubs, Literature Circles, and Multimodal Responses

Knowledgeable, committed teachers work throughout their careers to incorporate research-based concepts into their work with learners. This column will discuss some helpful resources, provide one example of new ideas to be used with a very familiar instructional activity, then discuss one example of using research to strengthen our awareness as teachers for ways to make the experiences even stronger for individual students.

The International Literacy Association website has several Position Statements that compile current research. The Position Statements have been developed by a panel of highly-respected literacy researchers. An overarching Position Statement is titled “Children’s Rights to Excellent Literacy Instruction”. This statement points out four major goals: • 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.

Each of these four goals has a separate Position Statement which elaborates on important points.

Teachers will find the Position Statements to be helpful sources for current research ideas.

Looking at these Position Statements can help us evaluate the instructional practices that we have valued for many years, develop new ways to expand them, and continue to critically evaluate them.

The research articles that are reviewed in this column fit with three of these major goals. They focus on the importance of a knowledgeable, qualified teacher and recognize that even excellent teachers need to continue to analyze their teaching practices and make on-going adjustments (goal 1). Committed teachers, like the ones in the research studies, try to implement welldocument reading strategies in a “supportive learning environment” (goal 3). The second research study strongly reminds us that even when the other goals are addressed, we need to consider individual students and adapt our instruction to support each learner in ways that “ensure equitable literacy instruction” (goal 4) for each individual student.

The familiar instructional activity that will be the focus of this column is “book clubs.” For this familiar instructional practice, I will highlight ideas from an article from The Reading Teacher supporting book clubs with digital resources, and then I will review some cautions from a Reading Research Quarterly (RRQ) article to help “knowledgeable and qualified literacy educators” (goal 1) continue to analyze our own practices so we are more aware of the needs of individual children.

Book clubs have been widely used for many years. An article in RRQ in 1995 (Goatley & Raphael) introduced the idea of book clubs as an organizational pattern where small groups of students read a piece of children’s literature or an informational text, then discuss the text in an on-going fashion throughout the reading, typically in student-led discussion groups. Teachers have adapted and implemented book clubs and literature circles in many different ways and in a

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on-going fashion throughout the reading, typically in student-led discussion groups. Teachers have adapted and implemented book clubs and literature circles in many different ways and in a wide variety of settings. Literature reviews from both articles document the value of this teaching approach.

In The Reading Teacher article a research project is described which took place during an eightweek novel study with 10-12 year old students (Cloonan, Paatsch, & Hutchison, 2020).

Incorporating multimodal responses to the texts extended the experience beyond the typical discussions. Members of the literature circles responded to the teacher’s instruction about novel themes and mood by planning and creating a digital presentation, using the Photo Story app, including the students’ perceptions of the themes in their novel. The students’ responses and negotiations within the groups demonstrated their responses to the lessons about novel themes and their personal incorporation of their prior knowledge. The research question was: “How might English teaching integrate literature and digital technologies and acknowledge student identity practices?”

The participants were students in one teacher’s classroom during a larger research study that spanned a school year. The majority of the participants were from relatively socioeconomically advantaged families. In the eight weeks of this focus study, data were collected through observation of classroom teaching practices, semi-structured interviews with the teacher, student semi-structured focus groups, teacher and leadership semi-structured focus groups, and document collection. Data types included work samples, photos of student work, field notes, teacher interview responses, participant interviews, and completed Photo Stories.

The students were familiar with expectations during literature circles, including active listening, turn taking, and negotiated decision making.

During the novel study, students rotated through literature circle roles: • Vocabulary enricher (identifying important words and phrases) • Illustrator (developing drawings related to the text) • Literary luminator (identifying sections of text suitable for reading aloud) • Summarizer (providing summaries of text read) • Connector (making connections among the text, the outside world, and other texts) • Discussion director (developing questions to guide discussion of the text’s big ideas) • Travel tracer (identifying words and developing maps describing scenes and settings) The teacher acted as the facilitator, teaching focus lessons and providing templates for student responses. The teacher provided a list of sample themes, discussed meanings, and prompted students to connect examples from their prior knowledge. Researchers analyzed the negotiations as students within the groups individually chose descriptions of the themes, sometimes using descriptions from the teacher’s examples, and at other times combining the examples or coming up with entirely new themes. Students located written language within the novel to support their decisions.

A similar process occurred as students responded to lessons about the mood of the novel. The teacher again generated a list of sample moods and a short explanation for each. Students discussed the impact of the setting, character attitudes, descriptions of mood, and the role of

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mood in affecting the reader’s emotions. They located textual evidence for moods, then discussed collaboratively.

The digital connection for these students involved planning and creating a 10-slide Photo Story presentation highlighting novel themes and moods. Students worked in pairs or groups of three to create a storyboard, located written responses and drawings, and made decisions on images and words that captured the themes and moods of their novels. Next, they decided on an instrumental piece of music that captured the novel’s mood. The negotiation process gave students the chance to include their personal knowledge of particular bands and music types.

Students shared their multimodal presentations at an assembly of teachers and peers, then participated in a question-and-answer session.

The research demonstrated the value of including student voice and choice, and going beyond the traditional strengths of book clubs or literature circles to incorporate digital responses based on verbal negotiation of meaning based on textual evidence and prior knowledge. Researchers acknowledged the time-consuming nature of developing the digital responses, but recognized the potential for students to draw deeply on their out-of-school knowledge. A caution from this study pointed out that these students were from high socioeconomic status backgrounds and that they had strong backgrounds with book clubs and literature circles. Further research should include students from other backgrounds to learn what support may be needed for other sections of the population to be successful.

The second article, from Reading Research Quarterly, illustrates the cautions from the first article and demonstrates the importance of experienced teachers’ continuing analysis of teaching practices and student responses (Lewis & Zisselsberger, 2019). The featured research study was done in a middle-school in the Mountain West of the United States. Students were sixth-graders in a community with a majority population of Latinx students. Participants in the research study included Latinx, white, biracial, and Bosnian students. Some participants were Native English Speakers (NESs), while others were Emerging Bilinguals (EBs). Students were placed into groups of like ability based on results of district and state reading assessments. The book club groups each read a different mystery novel.

The book clubs lasted four weeks, and students completed reading log summaries and sheets on different book club roles, such as discussion leader, connector, and word wizard. The book clubs met once a week for discussions. The two teachers led the meetings for two groups at a time, while other students read or completed assignments.

Each book club discussion was videotaped and transcribed. The focus of the research study was on analysis of the discussions. Analysis of the coded transcriptions revealed different patterns of responses from the teachers, the Native English Speakers (NESs), and the Emerging Bilinguals (EBs).

• Participation (number of turns, number of utterances, percentage of talk time for both teachers and students in the discussions) differed depending on the English-language proficiencies of the students.

• Teachers spent more time on establishing norms (such as explaining book club format) for EBs than on elaborating and extending student contributions.

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• •

Teachers afforded NESs more freedom with their contributions and ways of participating.

EBs were often stopped by the teachers to focus on word meanings and procedures.

The NESs marginalized the EBs by diminishing their contributions. The NESs dominated the student talk time. EBs were silenced as their contributions were less likely to be supported or extended by the teachers.

The researchers provided extended examples and descriptions of the interactions. They describe the results as “a cautionary tale for teachers working with EBs in mainstream English contexts (p. 183).” Their extended time in the classroom had convinced them that these were caring and committed teachers. The analysis of the transcripts, however, demonstrated that the types of interactions among teachers, NESs, and EBs can unintentionally marginalize the less-proficient students. Teachers will benefit from continuing to analyze and reflect on their practices to find the most effective ways to support all of their students.

In summarizing these two research studies, we clearly see the potential for book clubs and literature circles to give students positive, enriching experiences with literature. The inclusion of digital technologies can extend the experiences. An awareness of the impact of the role of the teacher, along with the types of scaffolding and interactions for students at varied stages of literacy proficiency, is vital. With these considerations in mind, we can move toward supporting each of our individual students in benefitting from the goals in the International Literacy Association’s position statement on “Children’s Rights to Excellent Literacy Instruction.”

Dr. Linda McElroy is a professor at the University of Science and Arts of Oklahoma.

She previously taught in Oklahoma schools as a classroom teacher and as a reading specialist.

References Cloonan, A., Paatsch, L., & Hutchison, K. (2020). Renewing Literature Circles: Pedagogies for Curated Multimodal Responses. The Reading Teacher, 73(5), doi.10.1002/trtr.1875 Goatley, V.J., Brock, C.H., & Raphael. T. (1995). Diverse Learners Participating in Regular Education “Book Clubs.” Reading Research Quarterly,30(3) 352-380. doi:10.2307/747621 Lewis, M.A. & Zisselsberger, M.G. (2019). Scaffolding and Inequitable Participation in Linguistically Diverse Book Clubs. Reading Research Quarterly, 54(2), 167-186. doi:10.1002/rrq.234

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TECH TALK: Making the Most of Technology in the Classroom Shelley Martin-Young

All Things Google, Part 2 This issue of The Oklahoma Reader finds us in unprecedented times. As I write this article brick and mortar schools are closed and all schools in Oklahoma have gone online. Teachers are required to take their teaching online. Many teachers unfamiliar or uncomfortable with technology have been forced into quickly learning how to teach in an online environment. This task can seem daunting. Google makes the transition to teaching online easy for everyone no matter the level of technology experience. In Part 2 of All Things Google, I will share more of my favorite digital tools for both teachers and students.

Google Apps Google apps are web-based applications that Google hosts on their servers. Google Apps for Education is a suite of free cloud-based tools created by Google for use in your classroom. The following is a list of the must have Google apps and how they can be used in your classroom both virtually and brick and mortar.

Google Classroom simplifies the way that knowledge can be imparted to students, especially when classrooms around the US are going virtual. With the app, students can easily view their assignments all in one place. All materials are organized into Google Drive Folders. Teachers can easily add their students to their Google Classroom and are able to provide real-time feedback to their students. Classroom is also an easy way to communicate with your students. It weaves Google Docs, Google Drive, and Gmail all into one place. Watch a short Google Classroom 101 video here.

Google Docs is an app that allows teachers and students to easily create, edit, and collaborate on projects and assignments. Advantages of the Google Doc app include the use of it on androids along with the ability to work offline. If your student is having connectivity issues, they are still able to use the Google Doc app to work on projects and documents. There is also no need to worry about losing things as Google Docs are automatically saved. Students can research right in the Google Docs app with Explore and opening, editing, and saving Word documents also works in the app. Teachers are also able to provide real-time feedback with this app.

With the Google Slides app students and teachers can create beautiful presentations in a matter of just a few minutes. There is a school app that allows multitasking to be fast, easy, and problem-free. With slides, students can easily add pictures and videos, text, and even their voice to presentations. Google Slide presentations can be converted to video calls and they can be shared seamlessly with others. More than one person can work on a slide presentation at the same time allowing for easy collaboration. Like all Google apps, Slides allow real-time feedback and work is automatically saved.

Google Keep is a notetaking app that will allow students to take notes wherever they are.

Students can create lists, keep pictures, videos, and even set reminders. The reminders will allow students to be notified of upcoming meetings or assignments. The great thing about

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Google Keep is that students do not have to type or write. Notes can be added by just using their voice. Organization is easy with the use of colors and tabs. A search bar also allows you to find what you need quickly. Notes can easily be turned into checklists by quickly adding checkboxes. You can easily add images to Google Keep by snapping a picture or “grabbing” one with the grab tool. There is also a drawing tool that allows students to draw pictures right on their device. Watch this short introduction video for more tips.

A great way to bring your lessons to life is with the app Expeditions by Google. This app uses virtual and augmented reality (AR) to transport students to over 900 historical landmarks and places. With VR students can explore the world virtually and with AR abstract concepts come to life. From Yellowstone National Park, to the North Pole, to Frankfurt Germany, students can experience over 900 virtual field trips. With the over 100 augmented reality expeditions, teachers can bring concepts such as a swirling tornado or a hive of bees right into the classroom. There are also hundreds of free lesson plans available.

Science Journal works as an interactive science notebook. This app is a great place to keep photos and observations for all of those science experiments you conduct in class. With sensors, students can measure light, sound, and motion. There is an observation tool that allows students to record their thoughts and observations. Students can easily take photographs to add to their experiments. Students can turn their devices into weather stations or measure their heart rate or respiration. Check out the science journal in action by watching this experiment. Students can experiment on their own with ready-made experiments and there are also plenty of lesson plans for teachers. This app is a must have for any science classroom.

Cloud Print is an app that allows students to print right from the cloud. Any type of document is printable with the cloud print app. Android devices work fine as long as they are compatible with the Google Cloud Print connected printer. The document or pictures can come from other apps and sent straight to cloud print.

Google Handwriting Input allows users to handwrite on their phone or device. The app comes with support for 97 different languages. It has printed as well as cursive writing. There are also hundreds of emojis that allows your students to draw their feelings. The app is helpful for languages that are tough to type on the keyboard. Input is a stand-alone keyboard. They app will also rate your handwriting.

Google Arts & Culture uses Google Cardboard to explore some of the greatest treasures of the world. Students can immerse themselves in arts and culture, browse artwork, take guided tours, and step into the world’s most famous museums. Students can visit the Taj Mahal, learn about the astronaut John Glenn, or explore the attacks of 9/11. Google partnered with more than 50 natural history museums around the world to create a catalogue of hundreds of interactive stories, videos, and photographs. Students can get 360-degree views of creatures like Rhomaleosaurus, a 180-million-year-old sea dragon that is currently on display at London’s Natural History Museum. Take a look at him for yourself here.

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Google Activities for Primary Students There are so many fun activities that have already been created using Google. Having a list all in one place makes it really easy to include technology into your classroom. Below is a bulleted list of fun activities to engage younger students with Google in your classroom.

• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •

Build a Snowman with Google Slides Build a Jack-O-Lantern with Google Slides Turkey Templates for creativity and writing One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish sorting Creating Storybooks with Google Slides Pixel Art Activities with Google Sheets Using Emojis to create graphs and books with Google Docs Wintertime Rebus Story with Google Docs Valentine Rebus Story with Google Docs Halloween Rebus Story with Google Docs Ways to Teach Math with Google Drawings Pattern Block Templates and Activities Magnetic Poetry with Google Drawings Learning with Chrome Music Lab Chrome Extensions for Struggling Students Mystery Animal with Google

Google seems to be a staple in our world and the world of our students. Gmail, Google Docs, and Google calendar seem to be prevalent. The use of technology is an important skill that our students need to learn to utilize. Learning to use these apps and activities makes the incorporation of technology into your classroom seamless. Google is user friendly and has so much to offer teachers and students alike. I have only listed a few of my favorite Google apps and activities, but I would like to encourage you to explore Google on your own. One place to get started with Google in your classroom is this Teacher’s Essential Guide to Google Classroom. Spend some time exploring and maybe try something new.

Shelley Martin-Young is a doctoral candidate and graduate teaching assistant at Oklahoma State University. She can be reached at dawn.martinyoung@okstate.edu.

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POLICY AND ADVOCACY Dr. Julie Collins Legislating During a Pandemic The Oklahoma State Legislature’s session runs each year from the first Monday of February through 5:00 PM on Friday of Memorial Day weekend. In March, about the time that bills that have passed the house in which they were authored need to be heard and passed in the opposite house, the legislature had to adapt to the COVID-19 pandemic’s effect on the country. Legislators started working from home, as educators did, and returned with guidelines at the Capitol in May. As a result they were not able to hear as many pieces of legislation and a priority list was developed for bills to be heard. The legislators completed their work a week before the last day of session, giving Governor Stitt the required time to review the passed legislation and sign or veto each. Legislators came back to the capitol on Friday, May 22nd, to address vetoed bills, although none of the bills included in this column had been vetoed. This column will summarize two important bills from the 2020 session affecting reading education, and others addressing education areas that may be of interest to all of us.

House Bill 2804, Dyslexia Screening, was authored by Representative Mike Sanders and Senator Stephanie Bice, and coauthored by Representatives Albright, Conley, Townley, Davis and Hill. This bill was signed into law on May 19, 2020. Beginning with the 2022-2023 school year this law will require any student enrolled in kindergarten, first, second, or third grades in public schools, and found to not be meeting grade-level targets in reading after the beginning of the year Reading Sufficiency Act assessments, to be screened for dyslexia. Screenings may also be requested by the student’s parent or guardian, teacher, counselor, speech-language pathologist, or school psychologist.

The first deadline in this bill is July 1, 2021, by which date the State Board of Education shall develop policies for the dyslexia screening. This shall include developing the definition and characteristics of dyslexia and related language disorders; the process for referring students in kindergarten through third grade for dyslexia screening; the process to notify parents of the use of a dyslexia-screening tool and notification of the results of the screening; the process for providing information about dyslexia to the parents of students who are screened; a process for monitoring the progress of any students identified as having characteristics of dyslexia; and information about the screeners and the training needed to administer them. The screening assessments should address the following components, as developmentally appropriate: phonological awareness; advanced phonemic awareness; sound symbol recognition; alphabet knowledge; decoding skills; encoding skills; rapid naming; and developmental language.

Each year, beginning June 30, 2023, school districts will report data to the Oklahoma State Department of Education (OSDE). This will include the number of students in each identified grade who were screened for dyslexia during that school year; the number of students in each grade level who were identified as having characteristics of dyslexia during that year; the process and/or assessments used to evaluate the students; the number of school district personnel trained to administer the assessments; the number of students in the identified grade levels who participate in interventions both in, and outside of, the school district; and, the programs used in the school district for interventions. Each year, beginning

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December 13, 2023, the OSDE will provide a report of the information collected from the districts to the Governor and the Oklahoma Legislature, and make the report available on the OSDE website (www.sde.ok.gov) with the 2021-2022 school year.

Beginning with the 2021-2022 school year, as funds are available, the OSDE will provide training for the screening of dyslexia. The OSDE has the Oklahoma Dyslexia Handbook and information about the Reading Sufficiency Act, Dyslexia, and accommodations for dyslexia on their website. You can read the complete text of this bill here: HB 2804 Senate Bill 1803, Oklahoma Imagination Library Program, was authored by Senator Haste and Representatives Townley and Pittman. It was signed into law by Governor Stitt on May 21, 2020. This law creates the Imagination Library Revolving Funds to be housed at the Oklahoma State Department of Education (OSDE) and will hold money from state appropriations, grants, and donations to promote reading development by developing the Oklahoma Imagination Library Program, a part of Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library. This program will provide age appropriate books by mail monthly to children across Oklahoma from birth to age five. The OSDE will manage the program, overseeing the development of programs in each county, and working to ensure enrollment in the program. The program is required to be funded by fifty-percent private funds and fifty-percent appropriated funds. You can read the complete text of this bill here: SB 1803.

House Bill 1230, Lindsey Nichole Henry Scholarship update, was authored by Representatives McBride and Rosecrants and Senator Weaver. This bill was signed into law by Governor Stitt on February 25, 2020. The revisions in the law now require that the Oklahoma State Department of Education (OSDE) list all of the accreditation associations approved by the Oklahoma State Board of Education. Additionally, upon approval of a private school to participate in the Lindsey Nichole Henry Scholarship, the OSDE must post the school’s application and all information and supporting material submitted by the school. Finally, the OSDE will prepare a report and post it on its website that includes information about the total number and monetary amount of scholarships awarded for each school; total number of scholarships denied; total number and monetary amount of scholarships suspended for each school; and information about participating students regarding the number of years of participation and demographic data. You can read the complete text of this bill here: HB 1230.

House Bill 3400, Advanced Placement Courses, was authored by Representatives Baker, and Senator Stanislawski, and co-authors, Representatives Provenzano, Waldron, Tammy West, Chad Caldwell, Dustin Roberts, Rosecrants, Vancuren, Dollens, Bennett, Conley, Randleman, and Brewer. It was signed into law by Governor Stitt on May 20, 2020. This law requires each school district to offer at least four advanced placement courses to their high school students.

This requirement begins with the 2024-2025 school year. The law includes options for ways to offer enrollment in these courses by having them offered through: one or more school sites within the district; a career and technology institution within the district; an online program offered by the Statewide Virtual Charter School Board; or a school site in another school district. You can find the complete bill here: HB 3400.

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House Bill 3466, Textbook Adoption, was authored by Representative Tammy West and Senator Stansislawski. This bill was signed by Governor Stitt on May 19, 2020. This law revises the membership of the Oklahoma State Textbook Committee, which will continue to have twelve members selected by having two from each Congressional District, with two members selected from the state at large who are lay persons who do not hold a teaching certificate, and who have at least one child attending a public school in Oklahoma. A new position on the committee is for the Superintendent of Public Instruction, or a designee, who will be the thirteenth member, and the chair of the committee. The committee will be subject to the rules of the Oklahoma Open Meeting Act and the Oklahoma Open Records Act. A new requirement for the textbook committee is to facilitate an application process to create subject specific review teams to advise the textbook committee members. These review teams shall be coordinated for each academic subject that is under consideration that year. Each of these review team members shall have specific knowledge of the subject area being reviewed. Each review team will have no fewer than twelve members, but they can be as large as considered necessary. The Textbook Committee shall create a new three-tiered rubric aligned to the current Oklahoma content area standards for the review committees. The review teams will submit their reviews and recommendations to the Textbook Committee, who may request additional information from the review team. The Textbook Committee shall adopt a final rating for each textbook or resource. The completed rubric, rating, and recommendation for each resource or textbook reviewed will be made publicly available on the Textbook Committee website, which is housed on the OSDE website. The law also includes details about how local textbook committees can make their choices from the items on the official textbook list, or how to go about requesting to purchase materials which were not on the list of adopted books or resources. You can read the complete text here: HB 3466 House Bill 3350, Cost of Living Adjustment, was authored by Representative Frix and Senator Thompson, and a long list of co-authors. It was signed into law on May 21, 2020, and went into effect immediately due to the passage of an Emergency Measure. This law will provide a cost of living adjustment (COLA) between two and four percent for retirees of the Teachers’ Retirement System of Oklahoma, and five other pension and retirement systems for public employees in Oklahoma. You can find the text of the bill, and the complete list of coauthors, here: HB3550.

House Bill 3398, Educators’ criminal history background checks, was authored by Representative Nollan and Davis and Senator Pemberton. This bill was signed into law by Governor Stitt on May 19, 2020, and will go into effect immediately due to the Emergency Measure passed with the bill. This law requires any person employed by an Oklahoma school district by May 19, 2020, who does not have an Oklahoma criminal history record check and a national criminal history record check on file with their school district will have until July 1, 2022, or at the renewal of their Standard Teaching Certificate if that date is earlier, to complete these required checks. You can read the complete text of this bill here: HB 3398.

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The following bills each address revisions to specific teacher certification areas. Short descriptions are provided and you can read all of the details in the bill if these apply to you.

House Bill 3142, Education Administration Certification, was authored by Representative Provenzano and Senator Pemberton, and co-authored by Representatives Waldron, Albright, and Davis. Governor Stitt signed this bill into law on May 21, 2020. This new law revises the requirement for candidates to complete a program in educational administration to state that any person with a master’s degree in education that includes competencies which are substantially equal to those of the educational administration degree, if the degree was completed prior to July 1, 2005. You can read the text of this bill here: HB 3142 Senate Bill 1115 Emergency Certification, was authored by Senator Sharp and Bergstrom and Representative Sterling. It was signed into law by Governor Stitt on May 21, 2020. This section of new law allows the Oklahoma State Board of Education to renew the emergency or provisional certificate for someone who has worked for a school district for at least two years The law outlines five criteria, of which two need to be met in order to be able to renew the certification. This law also specifies that emergency or provisional certificate teachers will not be considered career teachers and are not entitled to protections under the Teacher Due Process Act of 1990. You can read the entire bill here: SB 1115.

Senate Bill 1125, Out of State Certification, was authored by Senator Pugh and Representative McCall, and eight co-authors. It was signed into law by Governor Stitt on May 18, 2020, and became effective immediately due to an Emergency Measure. The new section of law states that a person who holds a valid out-of-state teaching certificate shall be granted an Oklahoma teaching certificate for the subject areas and grade levels most closely aligned to their out-of-state certificate. You can read the bill and the names of the co-authors at: SB 1125.

Senate Bill 1436, Special Education Certification, was authored by Senator Stanislawski and Representative Miller. This bill was signed into law by Governor Stitt on May 21, 2020, and became effective immediately due to the Emergency Measure passed for this bill. This law adds a new Comprehensive special education certificate. It also adds the word “disabilities” to the mild-moderate certificate, to now be named ‘mild-moderate disabilities’ certificate. You can read the text of this bill at SB 1436 to learn the details of the certifications.

Each Oklahoma State Legislature has two sessions. This 2020 session was the Second Regular Session of the 57th Legislature. Next year will be the First Regular Session of the 58th Legislature. This year all of the 101 seats in the House of Representatives are up for election.

There are 48 Senate Districts. This year all of the odd numbered districts are up for election, along with district 28, which is currently vacant. Please be sure you are registered and prepared for the Primary Election on June 30th and the General Election on November 3rd.

Dr. Julie Collins is a professor in the College of Education and Professional Studies at the University of Central Oklahoma where she is the graduate coordinator of the Master of Education in Reading Program. She can be reached at jcollins18@uco.edu.

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CHAPTER AFFILIATE Sheri Vasinda Chair, 2019-2020

On behalf of the Oklahoma Literacy Association Board, I hope this issue of The Oklahoma Reader finds you well and recovering from the exhaustion of the pivot to emergency teaching. We hope you take some well-deserved rest and take time to read the thoughtful articles within this issue. Teachers in Oklahoma and around the world responded to our pandemic crisis with epic care and heroic efforts to connect with students and families in so many creative ways from phone calls, emails, and video conferences, to pick-ups, parades, and serenades. Teachers rallied in valiant ways to care for the physical, emotional, and academic needs of our students in a context none of us imagined.

During this time, our Facebook page turned into a great resource sharing space and appreciate all the contributions and conversations. The generous outpouring of concern from some of our national literacy leaders, authors, and illustrators who held virtual office hours, webinars, lunch doodles, virtual story times, and created resources to support teachers, students, families, and caregivers was astounding. Publishers and commercial resource providers responded in kind by opening up subscriptions, services, and apps through the end of the school year and many, now, through the end of summer. We may have been physically distant, but I argue that we were not and are not socially distant.

Now, as we begin to reopen our nation and state, our hearts and souls grieve as we face a continuing crisis and tragedy of racial and ethnic inequities and violence. We, and our students, are reading the world through camera lenses that capture injustices. These are not new problems, but perhaps our response can be new. This is not the time to wish we were “back to normal.” Perhaps we can lean into our social networks that may be stronger now and more generous now because of the pandemic and start to have difficult conversations about persistent problems. Perhaps these conversations can turn into action where we hold each other accountable. Perhaps this time will be different, and we will take action, make change, and hold each other accountable with a generous and charitable spirit.

We are living in a time of great uncertainty. We don’t know how we will open school, and we don’t know what the new academic year brings. What we do know is that we are not alone; we are not socially distant; we can make a new normal. Knowing that we have colleagues from our campuses, in our professional organizations, and in our social media circles means we do not have to do any of this alone. Encourage your colleagues who do incredible work for equity and literacy to share their stories in our journal. Share your story, too. Please watch our website and Facebook page for opportunities to engage in some critical conversations that we hope will result. Together we are stronger. Together we are smarter. Together we can make change.

Sheri Vasinda Oklahoma Literacy Association Chair, 2019-2020

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Authors are requested to submit only unpublished articles not under review by any other publication. A manuscript should be typed, double spaced, not right justified, not hyphenated, and should follow APA, 7th Edition guidelines (Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association). Tables and graphs should be used only when absolutely necessary. Include a cover page giving the article title, professional affiliation, complete address, e-mail and phone number of the author(s). Special sections have specific requirements that are described below. The editors reserve the right to revise and/or edit all copies.

GUIDELINES FOR AUTHORS FOR THE OKLAHOMA READER

The Oklahoma Reader welcomes manuscripts that support the growth and development of classroom teachers, reading specialists, and other literacy professionals throughout their careers. Manuscripts should successfully translate literacy research into practice through concrete strategies and techniques.

Considering that the main audience of The Oklahoma Reader consists of PreK-12 teachers, manuscripts that offer practical ideas for successful literacy instruction are encouraged and prioritized. Manuscripts should be limited to 4000 words including tables, figures, and reference(s). Submit the manuscript electronically as a Word document attached to an e-mail message addressed to oklahomareader@gmail.com.

Manuscripts will be reviewed anonymously by three members of The Oklahoma Reader Editorial Advisory Board. Manuscripts are evaluated on the basis of clarity, interest, organization, content, and style. If accepted, revisions may be requested.

Manuscripts must be original work which has not been previously published nor is undergoing simultaneous review in another journal.

The Oklahoma Reader also seeks submissions dealing with instructional practices (teacher-to-teacher), and classroom research (teacher research). These are described as follows. All submissions should be submitted electronically as a Word document attached to an email message addressed to oklahomareader@gmail.com.

Teacher to Teacher: Submit descriptions of teaching activities that have helped students learn an essential literacy skill, concept, strategy, or attitude. Submissions should be no longer than 1500 words and align with the following format: Title (if adapting from another source, cite reference and provide a bibliography Purpose of Activity, including the literacy skill, concept, strategy, or attitude the students will learn Description of activity with examples, questions, responses. Please provide enough detail so someone can implement the activity.

How activity was evaluated to know if purpose was achieved.

Teacher Research: Submit manuscripts that describe research or inquiry conducted in classrooms. Submissions should be 1000-2000 words and align with the following format: Description of the question or issue guiding the research/inquiry, including a short review of pertinent literature.

Description of who participated in the study, what the sources of data were, how the data were gathered and examined.

Description of the findings and conclusion from the research/inquiry.

Title, author, publisher of the resource.

Short description of the resource.

Critical review of the resource including strengths and weaknesses.

Short discussion of how the resource might be useful to a teacher.Â

SPECIAL THEME FOR THE FALL 2020 EDITION:

oklahomareader@gmail.com

The editors are inviting teachers and teacher educators to share your experiences regarding abruptly moving your teaching online during the COVID19 pandemic. Write what you learned about distance learning, especially with the sudden change in your instruction.

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The Oklahoma Reading Association is now The Oklahoma Literacy Association (OKLA)!

Membership in the Oklahoma Literacy Association gives all persons interested in literacy education the opportunity to develop and support literacy initiatives and activities at the local, state, national, and international levels.

Opportunities to participate in activities that support quality professional development, partnerships with other agencies advocating for literacy, research, as well as the promotion of quality instruction, materials, and policies are all extended and enriched through membership in OKLA. We invite you to become a member of the Oklahoma Literacy Association if you are not yet a member!

Membership information can be found here.

https://www.oklahomaliteracy.org

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VOLUME 56

ISSUE 1

SPRING 2020

THE OKLAHOMA READER A JOURNAL OF THE OKLAHOMA LITERACY ASSOCIATION, AN AFFILIATE OF THE INTERNATIONAL LITERACY ASSOCIATION EDITORS

Donita Shaw Julie Collins

Oklahoma State University University of Central Oklahoma

ASSISTANT EDITOR

Shelley Martin-Young

Oklahoma State University

Gretchen Cole-Lade Rebecca Marie Farley Sylvia Hurst Linda McElroy Sharon Morgan Claudia Otto Brian Thompson Liz Willner Jodi Wolf Debby Yarbrough

Oklahoma State University Oklahoma Baptist University University of Central Oklahoma Univ. of Science and Arts of Oklahoma Oklahoma State Dept. of Education Oklahoma State University Sand Springs Public Schools Oklahoma City University Edmond Public Schools Woodward Public Schools

EDITORIAL REVIEW BOARD

Oklahoma Literacy Association Officers

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Chair

Sheri Vasinda

Oklahoma State University

Chair Elect

Sylvia Hurst

University of Central Oklahoma

Secretary

Rebecca Marie Farley

Oklahoma Baptist University

Treasurer

Debby Yarbrough

Woodward Public Schools

Past President

Linda McElroy

Univ. of Science & Arts of Oklahoma

ILA Coordinator

Linda McElroy

Univ. of Science & Arts of Oklahoma