Dynamic Teaching for Deeper Reading: Shifting to a Problem-Based Approach, section 1

Dynamic Teaching for Deeper Reading: Shifting to a Problem-Based Approach by Vicki Vinton is the 2017 #cyberPD summer book pick. You can find out more information about #cyberpd here. Throughout July I’ll be blogging my reflections on this reading with the purpose of clarifying my understandings and thinking through how my new learning will influence my teaching practices in my classroom.

What Readers Really Do: Teaching the Process of Meaning Making (2012) by Dorothy Barnhouse and Vicki Vinton significantly shifted the way I teach readers. “To Make a Prairie,” Vicki Vinton’s blog regularly stops me in my tracks and makes me reconsider my reading instruction. (Check out the recent post, “If We Want Children to Think.) So I shouldn’t have been surprised when Vicki’s newest book, Dynamic Teaching for Deeper Reading: Shifting to a Problem-Based Approach had me madly underlining and starring, talking back to the book, and opening up my unit plans to revise. And yet, here I am.

Challenging Assumptions

Right off the bat, in the introduction, Vicki starts challenging assumptions. Is what we’re currently experiencing in education yet another pendulum swing? Or is it, as she posits, a change more akin to the move from hand-cranked Victrola to color TV that her grandmother experienced in her lifetime? As a teacher working in a school district that has flung itself with full force into every innovative practice of the past ten years--Personalized Learning, Flexible Seating, Spaces, and Schedules, Maker Spaces, Design Thinking,1:1, PBL, Expeditionary Learning, Flipped Classrooms--Grandma’s experience fits better as an analogy for my experience than the idea of a simple pendulum swing.

Beliefs Confirmed

The first section of Dynamic Teaching reminded me of some of the positives that have emerged from that period of intense change in my district, chiefly that classrooms in my district’s neighborhood public schools are expected to be student-centered. (Half of our elementaries are charter schools or magnet schools and they have a variety of approaches.) In Dynamic Teaching I hear the tenets of student-centered classrooms:

• Authentic, critical, and creative problem solving
• Responsiveness to the student’s interaction with the text
• Building students’ agency as thinkers and learners
• Giving students opportunities to wrestle with problems/productive struggle
• Using strategies to reduce stress and build a positive emotional environment
• Choice, exploration, discovery
• Timely, responsive, and ongoing feedback
• Dylan William, “The thing that really matters in feedback is the relationship between the student and the teacher.”

Favorite Quote:

“Language actually creates realities and invites identities.” What If instead of answering students’ questions, “...teachers expressed uncertainty in response to students’ questions and then asked how they might figure something out? That language sends a very different message about who students are and what they're capable of doing.” It builds efficacy. “Rather than explicitly showing students how to do a strategy or skill, we're implicitly modeling how to be something. Specifically, we’re modeling the dispositions and habits of mind of complex thinkers, readers, and learners who are comfortable with uncertainty and know that stumbling is simply a part of the process.”(53) In addition to Peter Johnston, both Tom Newkirk and Ron Ritchhart suggest that this is the most important modeling we do, the most important stance we can take: that of an authentic learner.

Shoulders

In his excellent book, Steal Like an Artist, writer/artist Austin Kleon quotes Jonathan Lethem as saying that when people call something "original," nine times out of ten they just don't know the references or the original sources involved. See what I did there? I borrowed the quote from Austin Kleon, who was quoting Jonathan Lethem, on how nothing is original. My first in-the-flesh teaching mentor (Nanci Atwell was actually my first mentor, but I only know her through her books), Lori Conrad, regularly quotes either John of Salisbury (1159), Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1828) or perhaps Sir Isaac Newton, if you believe the British £2 coin, when she says, "We stand on the shoulders of those who came before us," or alternately, "We are like dwarfs sitting on the shoulders of giants.  We see more, and things that are more distant, than they did, not because our sight is superior or because we are taller than they, but because they raise us up, and by their great stature add to ours."

For obvious reasons, I can't continue attributing like this; it makes for clunky reading. Instead, consider this a blanket disclaimer, I make no claim of originality.  If you read something here and think to yourself, "I swear I read that in a book by RonRitchhartKatieWoodRayDonalynMiller KellyGallagherAimeeBucknerJeffAndersonKyleneBeers, you are undoubtably right. Swear away. I will attribute everywhere I am capable. Meanwhile, as Gary Paulsen said, "I owe everything I am and everything I will ever be to books." I would add, "...and to the brilliant colleagues, mentors, and administrators who have nurtured me over the years."

Breadcrumbs

Replete with allusions to the best in modern children's literature, while at-heart a retelling of the classic Hans Christian Anderson tale The Snow Queen, Breadcrumbs is a bookworm's dream come true. Meanwhile, it also captures a universal theme: the insecurity of the changing dynamics that beset tween boy/girl friendships, making it appealing to a wider audience. This, my second reading, was as a read aloud to my 6th graders, who were mesmerized. I'm more than a little in love with this book. It will live on a shelf with Cornelia Funke's Inkheart, Anna Quindlen's How Reading Changed My Life, and Jonathan Franzen's essay "How To Be Alone," and I will call the shelf, "Ode to the Reading Life."

The Art of Slow Reading by Thomas Newkirk

As an avid reader, and a teacher of tween readers and writers, I spend a lot of reflection time trying to figure out how to inspire a passion for reading, writing, and writing about reading, in others. How to help students understand that reading can move their thinking. How reflection about carefully read text can change us as people. This year, more than any previous year, I feel successful in this quest. I have students who awe me with their written responses to reading. Their writing is causing in me the reaction that I am hoping for for them in their own reading. I stop mid-response, mid-paragraph, or even mid-sentence and gasp. I reread to fully comprehend their brilliance, to suck out all the marrow. When I can hardly wait to write in response to their writing, I know have succeeded in communicating something essential, and that success makes me giddy.

Sadly, not everyone is there, and that eats at me.  But The Art of Slow Reading by Thomas Newkirk has provided me with new pathways, so that I have new ways to reach all of my readers.

First, a confession. For many of my students there is a conflict embedded in the very title: The Art of Slow Reading. By the time they reach me, my students have participated in Accelerated Reader (AR) for four years. Years ago, when I accepted a position at this school, I made peace with AR because there were bigger fish to fry. But I have to acknowledge that AR has warped the perception some of my students have of reading. For them, viewing books through a lens of level and points; surface-level, literal comprehension; and a get-through-it-and-take-the-quiz mentality is the damaging legacy of AR. The ideas inherent in Slow Reading run counter to that embedded culture.

However, when I come across text that rocks my world, as I have with The Art of Slow Reading, I am an evangelist. I re-read, I read aloud to students and colleagues alike, I write in response, I pull quotes, I memorize, I keep tape flag companies in business. I was Slow Reading before I had a name for it, because Newkirk advocates a focus on practices of reading that have stood the test of time: performance, memorization, centering, problem-finding, annotation, re-reading, reading like a writer, and elaboration. These Slow Reading practices, he says, are "...crucial to the deep pleasure we take in reading-for the way we savor texts-and for the power of reading to change us."

Chapter eight contained, for me, an experience we're all familiar with: when there is an idea skirting the edge of your consciousness, teasing you, staying just out of your reach. And suddenly there it is, in print! Dear God, what a relief! Someone put it into words. I fall a little in love with writers who can meet me at the edge of my thinking and take me a manageable distance along that same path. Tom Newkirk did this for me when he wrote about "the generative ways in which writers read... Fluency in writing, as in speech, comes from being responsive to what is happening. It involves a special conversational way of reading, of allowing writing to invite more writing--a process Don Murray called "listening to the text."...This was not reading to comprehend, but reading to create." (p.171) This is what I want for my students! I want them to be responsive in their reading, then to put pencil to paper, and be responsive in their writing, following the path of their own thinking. Listening to their own thinking. Questioning themselves. Asking, So what? What does it mean? What are the implications? What questions do I have? Where might I find the answers? How does that connect to what I already know and to what I'm beginning to know? What's next?!

"Part of this improvisational skill--which is what I take Murray to mean by 'listening to the text'--is a capacity for self prompting, building off what has been written. For experienced writers, these moves can be so automatic that it feels as though the text is 'informing" the writer...This generative, creative way of reading the evolving text accounts for the pleasure of writing--the sense of discovery, even learning, that comes in the process. It can also account for the pleasure of reading, the feeling of spontaneity, of being present with a mind and sensibility that is in motion..." (pp. 175-176)

I can't wait to see how The Art of Slow Reading will continue helping us all progress along this path!

What Cures Your Teaching Blues?

The box finally arrived on the porch. Time slows to a crawl when I am awaiting new professional books! Although I have quite a collection, I love books about the craft of teaching. For me, professional books provide inspiration, gentle guidance, and companionship on what can often be a lonely journey as a classroom teacher.

In that vein, I cracked open Donalyn Miller’s The Book Whisperer last night. It was just the right antidote to a simmering bout of teaching melancholy. Donalyn is like the little sparrows in The Tale of Peter Rabbit who “…implored Peter to exert himself.” Here is a bit from her introduction:

“I believe that this corporate machinery of scripted programs, comprehension worksheets…computer-based incentive packages, and test-practice curricula facilitate a solid bottom line for the companies that sell them. These programs may deceive schools into believing they are using every available resource to teach reading, but ultimately, they are doomed to fail because they overlook what is most important. When you take a forklift and shovel off the programs, underneath it all is a child reading a book.”

There is so much I don’t know, so much I don’t have the energy for, so many things I never seem to be able to get done. But Donalyn urges me to take heart! I am doing something right: I never fail to be a model of passionate reading and I have a rich and growing classroom library.

Learning From My Own Reading Process, part one

I must credit Ellin Keene and Susan Zimmerman, and their brilliant Mosaic of Thought, for teaching me the power of reflecting closely on my own reading process to inform my reading instruction lo those many years ago. (The 2008 edition of Mosaic contains 70% new material and I highly recommend it also!) After Karen and Franki (in Learning to Read: Teaching Students in Grades 3-6) helped me to recognize book abandonment for the complex reading problem it is, I challenged myself to observe my own process in order to better help my students.

But I need to back up a little and set the stage. I am an avid reader. It is often difficult for my well-read book club to come up with titles I haven’t read. But in the past few years I have become increasingly impatient with fiction. When it comes to fiction, mama is a rollin’ stone. I have collected a stack of fiction titles, all with bookmarks permanently wedged somewhere before page 100. I am now in the habit of returning to the library bags full of the latest and greatest from the New York Times Bestseller list, overdue, but largely untouched. When I had this epiphany about my students’ abandonment issues, I was in the process of packing my bags yet again. The Elegance of the Hedgehog by Muriel Barbery was my latest jilted lover.

Sure, everything started out all wine and roses. The Hedgehog was recommended to me by another avid reader, someone who is as close as they come to being my reading twin. Not only had she never steered me wrong before, she had recommended several books destined to become favorites. Recently, I ran into her at the grocery store and she couldn’t wait to tell me about this book I HAD to read. She insisted I would love it. I couldn’t wait to get to the bookstore. Full disclosure: I read an enticing review of the book long before running into my friend. I had picked it up, perused the accolades, and read the blurb several times already—without buying it. I just didn’t think it was for me. But after my friend’s recommendation, there was no hesitation. I trusted her that much, I simply had to read this book.

Once I got it home, my enthusiasm didn’t last long. There were two narrators, neither of which I cared about. Sure, I usually love gifted kids, but Paloma left me cold. And the other narrator was a stand-offish concierge in the girl’s exclusive French apartment building. I closed the book and set it aside, not having reached page 100. It was in that same week that I realized that observing myself as a reader at the edge of this precipice was a golden opportunity to better understand my students’ challenges.

My first step was to commit to reading it every day, at least a few pages. I knew that my attention would be even harder to engage if I didn’t keep the storyline fresh in my mind. It was hard enough without letting it get stale.

Step two was physically removing all other tempting fiction from my normal reading spots. I knew I could not fully engage with The Hedgehog while simultaneously reading some other tasty fiction morsel. With some books maybe I could have a little something on the side, but I just wasn’t that into this one. I had to be fictionally monogamous. (Of course I still clung to Still Learning to Read, but I had rationalized that in my own mind—it was helping me get through The Hedgehog, after all.)

Once The Hedgehog had my full and undivided fictional attention, I still wasn’t hooked. My attention wandered. I had to start mentally summarizing after each section to make sure I was getting it. It was painful. It took discipline.

True confessions: typically when I find myself in this quandary, I read the ending, and oh, was I tempted! Sure, that occasionally takes away any motivation I may have had to finish the book, but more often it re-energizes me. I’m no longer worried about who’s going to die and so I’m mentally free to step back and observe the author’s craft. (Thank you Katie Wood Ray for Wondrous Words!) But in this case I had more than myself to think of. What about the children?!

Reading the end is taboo. In my personal life I’m all too willing to violate social norms, but I’m usually careful not to model that in my role as a teacher. I feel an immense responsibility. I have learned that, even when I can’t see it, there are usually good, socially-important reasons for taboos. So if I read the ending I knew I would be opening up a whole can of worms. Alas, I was weak. I did it anyway… and it worked for me. So what now? Do I tell the kids? Do I tell the kids, but tell them it was wrong of me to do it, when I still don’t know if it is wrong? Do I lie? Help!

Learning from My Own Reading Process, pt. 2

Skimming ahead and reading the ending (and Karen & Franki) helped me understand that Muriel Barbery was setting up her story for the first 128 pages—the entire first section. By that point she has helped us come to know the narrators, our protagonists, quite well. Now we are ready for the rising action. Maybe now that I have a better understanding of this structure I will be able to break myself of this filthy habit?

With my temptation out of the way, I got hooked a little before the end of the first section, on page 110. I know I am hooked when there are passages I want to copy down into my notebook.

“Language and usage evolve over time: elements change, are forgotten or reborn, and while there are instances where transgression can become the source of an even greater wealth, this does not alter the fact that to be entitled to the liberties of playfulness or enlightened misusage when using language, one must first and foremost have sworn one’s total allegiance.”

What a lovely way of saying, “First you have to know the rules, then you can break them.” Soon after, on page 123, Barbery offers us this tribute to writing as thinking:

“…I witness the birth on paper of sentences that have eluded my will and appear in spite of me on the sheet, teaching me something that I neither knew nor thought I might want to know.”


And then, to fully set the hook, on page 164 there is a reference to the Japanese concept of Wabi, connecting this fine book synchronously to a string of others we have studied this school year: Love That Dog, Hate That Cat, A River of Words, and finally Wabi Sabi. Suddenly, I was in love! I read a hundred more pages that night, unable to quit until it fell out of my sleepy grasp at nearly 3:00am.

What lessons are there for my instruction?
• Trust recommendations given by people who know you well as a reader, especially if they have been right in the past.
• Read at least a little everyday to keep the story fresh in your mind.
• When a book is challenging, one at a time is more than enough! No books on the side!
• Pausing and reflecting is essential when you’re struggling. Writing about what is difficult is even better. When you are attempting to clarify your own thinking, the puzzle you’re trying to solve gives purpose to your reading.
• Know that long books often take the first 100 pages to “set up.” As Franki and Karen remind us, there are details in those pages essential to your understanding. Be patient and pay attention!
• Know what hooks you as a reader.

And what will I do differently next time as a reader?
• It might have helped if I had known how my friend knew I would love this book. When my enthusiasm began to wane, I could have focused on that as my purpose.
• Don’t be afraid to contact your recommending friend to ask for some coaching. Book lovers will gladly revisit a title they cared enough about to recommend!

Still Learning to Read

One of the best aspects of working in a year-round school is the opportunity it provides to pause, reflect deeply, and make mid-course corrections. In my third year of teaching fourth grade, after many years in primary and several in staff development, I am finally moving from unconsciously incompetent to consciously incompetent in my 4th grade reading instruction. Although I have talked to parents about “the fourth grade slump,” the (admittedly controversial) difference between learning to read and reading to learn, and the challenging transition to novels, it is only recently that I have truly begun to understand the challenges faced by my fourth grade readers.

I owe many thanks to Franki Sibberson and Karen Szymusiak and their excellent, Still Learning to Read: Teaching Students in Grades 3-6, which has been my course of study this break. I started putting a few of their ideas into practice at the beginning of the school year, but as so often happens, I got distracted. In the interim I have been leading a book study of three other excellent books on teaching reading, none of which pinpoints the precise reading instruction my students need, like Still Learning to Read does.

In fact, close study of their book has led me to suspect that Karen and Franki have been getting to know my readers behind my back. They recognized that book abandonment is the major issue in my classroom. Furthermore, they identified its contributing factors: difficulty keeping track of multiple characters, slow starts in long books, complex structure, hurried and careless book selection, and generally shallow reading. Fortunately for me, Still Learning to Read also offers seeds of lessons to help students overcome these difficulties.

Those lessons will be the basis of my reading instruction for the final 9 weeks of my school year! I’ll keep you posted about how it's going.