Week 8, Blog Post 8
In conclusion… The summer and this course on adolescent literature are coming to an end, and I definitely have takeaways. But because I believe conclusions, like good-byes, should be brief, I’ll give you just the two biggest takeaways. The first big takeaway this summer is the importance of finding the space to be a teacher who reads, where being a teacher who reads means reading books that belong in the hands of my students and therefore knowing which students' hands they most belong in. My other big takeaway is that the passion I have for representation and discussion and critical thinking about the world around us (especially the world around us that doesn’t look like us or talk like us or think like us) is represented in YA books. The work I want to do in the classroom, the conversations I want to have, they’re already started in the space of YA books. But what does this mean for my students? Well, they’ll see a reading community in their classroom, they’ll see bookshelves and book talks and book boards, and they’ll see meaningful books that lead to meaningful projects. They’ll see that I support them as individuals, as readers, and as members of a reading community. They’ll see that I’m excited for books… and for them. I think what I need and want now is more ideas, activities, and experiences. I want to keep this momentum and excitement. And, of course, I need (and want!) to read more YA books from my to-read list/annotated library. A few that I plan on purchasing and reading in the near future are: Ghost Boys by Jewell Parker Rhodes; Akata Witch (series) by Nnedi Okorafor; Throne of Glass (series) by Sarah J. Maas; Love, Hate, and Other Filters by Samira Ahmed; The Prince and the Dressmaker by Jen Wang; Hope Nation: YA Authors Share Personal Moments of Inspiration by multiple authors; We Are Okay by Nina LaCour; and The Memory of Things by Gae Polisner.
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Week 7, Blog Post 7
Thinking about historical fiction and my students, informed in part by a timeline of YA historical fiction books. As with all genres, there are good books and less-than-good books. However, I think historical fiction of the YA variety may be heavier on the not-so-good books than many other genres. Looking at the bookshelf of YA historical fiction, much of the genre is white-washed. This is deeply concerning and frustrating, as it can send the wrong and devastating message to our students that the individuals of their histories are not worth writing about. All people’s histories are worth writing about on their own terms, and I intend for the books in my classroom to reflect that. My students don’t have to think historical fiction is interesting, but they do need to know that their familial and ethnic histories are valued in literature and in my classroom. Historical fiction can contribute to this goal. I intend to use it as such (recommendations for this would bring me joy!) so that the students who are interested in historical fiction can have access to historical fiction that is respectful, genuine, and meaningful. Historical fiction should honor the individuals and communities it fictionalizes for it to have a place in my classroom (respectful: ✓). Many historical fiction books written for adolescents do this. Some do this very powerfully- Refugee by Alan Gratz is on my mind as I write this. His book is respectful, genuine, and meaningful (so my students will definitely have access to it). “Genuine” is vague, but I’m using it here as a criterion of worthwhile historical fiction to mean that the novel isn’t superimposing values that don’t belong to the individuals and groups represented. The emotions, thoughts, and experiences are appropriate to characters’ historical origins (genuine: ✓). I particularly love Refugee because not only is this a piece of historical fiction that seeks to honor and bear witness to the individuals of our world history, it is also a book that guides readers to see and assist the individuals of our own historical moment (meaningful: ✓). Therefore, as a book that can lead my students to experience, evaluate, and take action, his is the kind of book that most definitively belongs in my classroom. Which leads to the role that historical fiction will have in my classroom: helping students to witness and respect members of our history and to take action in our current moment. Judith Geary said it best: “History shows us a window into our past. Historical fiction can take us by the hand and lead us into that world.” Historical fiction should be about humanizing, individualizing, and seeing, really seeing, the people and circumstances of history. Where do you write? ![]() Starbucks (Starbuckses?) are a personal favorite writing location, particularly the one pictured. However, I feel like a fraud, trying to claim I have a singularly special spot where I write. A tidy answer of a tidy space where I write ideas in a way that’s also tidy. Because I have none of those things. I write wherever I can prop up my computer, although preferably somewhere with internet so I can find that pesky perfect word that eludes my fingers as they dash across the keyboard. Perhaps that’s what I should have pictured- my computer. By now, my fingers are perfectly attuned to my sassy little ASUS laptop and clumsily mis-step on any other keyboard even though they’re perfectly graceful on their home turf (home keys?). But even my computer isn’t the just-right answer, because I’ll have an idea and type it up on my phone (usually at the most inconvenient time, like three in the morning. Thanks, brain.) and email it to myself. I’ll sketch essay outlines and reflection ideas on any piece of paper unlucky enough to be near me when inspiration strikes. If there’s a method to my madness, I’m unaware of it. But I suppose I can stand beside my claim that Starbucks are my writing space because when I really need to hunker down and make myself write, I go to a Starbucks, order enough caffeine to energize an elephant, and type for hours. Drafts usually started out somewhere else, stitched together in those fleeting moments between classes, jobs, and other obligations. I’ll tinker over the course of a few days with all the focus of Dug from Disney’s Up (squirrel!) until I have something that resembles an essay, waiting to be revised into something (hopefully) worth reading. This act of revising into a real paper is when I sit down and write and really pretend to know what I’m doing… often at a Starbucks. ![]() Perhaps you’re wondering why I chose a Stephen quote about reading and writing when I’m talking about where I write. (Perhaps you didn’t notice the quote, or perhaps you simply don’t care. Those are fair, too, but I’ve already decided to explain. Disinterested readers have my blessing to call this post finished right here.) Whenever I write, I usually have books or articles beside me, dogeared and written in (articles usually covered in my colorful notes and notations, my books a little more gently loved), made into tools for the task at hand. And as hard as it is to answer where I write, it’s easy compared to trying to choose a picture for where I read. I read anywhere there’s something to read and light to read by- sitting in the hall on the floor between classes, in the church when it’s empty, on my couch by sunlight or lamp-light, in my bathtub, in the car, at the library- I’m not going to pretend there’s a location that is my “reading place.” The whole world is my reading place. Week 7, unnumbered blog post, "From the Writer's Desk" “There is hope, even when your brain tells you there isn't.” ― John Green, Turtles All the Way Down7/16/2018 Week 6, Blog Post 6 Responding to mental health in YA literature, including ideas from Using Literature to Confront the Stigma of Mental Illness, Teach Empathy, and Break Stereotypes, published in the Language Arts Journal of Michigan and Language and Symptoms of Mental Illness in Young Adult Literature. For the most part, the realization I wanted to teach came in these seemingly haphazard moments that I now realize were etched on my heart from the moment they happened. One of those magical moments was the very honest and very necessary conversation with my own high school English teacher about mental health. It was a turning point in my life in more ways than one. I treasured these moments then and I treasure them even more now. I believe I have found my calling in the relationships, conversations, and support that English teachers especially are positioned to offer students. My own experiences as a high school student continue to motivate me, but I since have found more encouragement in the breadth and depth of YA books I’ve begun to witness this summer. All this to say, what does teacher-me have to say about mental health in YA literature? It has a place in my classroom, although where in my classroom- on my bookshelves, in my desk, book-talked, or taught- depends on the book and the students… which is delightfully vague and not particularly helpful. Nonetheless, I argue that it’s the necessary reality. More than any other genre, books dealing with mental health need to be carefully read and the student(s) carefully known before I’m offering them. This isn’t to encourage the stigma already surrounding mental health, but to make sure a book doesn’t do the exact opposite of what it intends. However, acknowledging that very prevalent and powerful stigma around mental health, these books will be shelved as realistic fiction (if my shelves are organized by genre at all. We’ll see). Beyond just acknowledging that stigma by books’ physical locations, I want to be intentional about having conversations about mental health and mental health books (including book talks, perhaps many of them by peers) and addressing that stigma. As the articles here (and hundreds others) mention, the number of students with diagnosed mental illnesses is increasing, in part because we are finally starting to understand and talk about mental illness and getting diagnoses. Regardless, as the number of students with diagnosed mental illnesses increases, we’re making progress in the mental health conversation as a society. Consequently, we as teachers are positioned to start talking more about mental health. Understanding one’s own mental health and empathizing with peers’ mental health is important. (I don’t think too many readers will disagree with that.) Books contribute to students’ ability to empathize. (This is also hard to disagree with. Research heartily supports this position.) The next step seems to announce itself then: we should use books to help students understand their peers and empathize with them regarding mental health and many other topics. The tricky part comes with the how to use books. And which books do we use? (Here’s where disagreement abounds and often rightfully so. Both articles offer excellent book suggestions.) I don’t have an answer. At least not yet. And I’m guessing that even once I do have an answer, it will be frequently changing, responding to new publications, new understanding, and always responding to my students’ needs. To quote Dr. Bickmore, “YA lit can demonstrate how our language signifies our beliefs” and “YA lit can showcase authentic symptoms of mental illness.” This is part of the empathy thing and therefore is part of having these important and often difficult conversations. YA books offer exercises in empathy in many topics- mental health is just one. YA literature provides foundations for conversations about mental health and many other relevant concerns. YA literature is a resource for encouraging our students as individuals in so many ways. In short, teacher-me thinks we should be using YA books to have conversations with our students about mental health and so much more."I want my [students] to become readers with my help, not in spite of me." —Stacey Riedmiller7/9/2018 Week 5, Blog Post 5 Reflecting on what it means to be a teacher who reads based on the ideas in this LLED course and this article by Stacey Riedmiller. We're hitting the big questions here: Have my thoughts about what it means to be a teacher who reads shifted because of this course? What have I learned here that I'll use out there in the classroom?
To start, before this class I knew comics had a place in my classroom (and they still do, but now I have even more evidence to disprove the nay-sayers!). However, I also knew that I personally skipped the YA genre for the most part and was woefully underinformed. My mom stuck a Stephen King book in my hands back in fifth grade (I’m not advising or suggesting you do that, in fact, please don’t give young children books very obviously not meant for young children) and from there it was all Stephen King and Dean Koontz and the random classic that I wasn’t really equipped to properly appreciate and then whatever was assigned for class. The exception to my decidedly “adult” reading was James Pattern’s Maximum Ride series (I do suggest you put that series in the hands of your students) and I still think about Maximum Ride. In hindsight, I think my love for those books comes from their appropriateness for who I was as a young person at that moment. Informed educators would agree, I believe. (Look at the takeaways for the last few weeks. There’s a pattern.) All this to say I didn’t (couldn’t?) appreciate YA books the way so many YA books deserve to be appreciated. And I definitely didn’t recognize their value in the classroom. Now I’m ready to fight anyone who doesn’t believe in YA books for their students (okay, maybe not fight, but I’m certainly armed with some intelligent ideas and empirical evidence to make my point thanks to this course). I’m excited about YA books. (I’m an excitable person in general.) Excitement is so often contagious. (I'm going to capitalize on that contagious quality of excitement with book talks and a "books I'm reading board" [see earlier posts] because being a teacher who reads means being a teacher who reads books that belong in the hands of their students and therefore knows which students' hands they most belong in.) On the other hand, grumbling and resisting are even more contagious. Stacey Riedmiller talks about this, about encouraging kids to read what they want to read and being excited for their choices. If we can’t get excited about reading and about YA books, how can we think our students will be excited? And here’s where a new (new to me) idea comes in: rewarding students isn’t helping them. Some of the educator books discussed earlier talk about this and it made sense, but I Riedmiller drove it home for me. Students need to read for themselves and be excited about reading on their own. Young readers need to motivated by their personal internal reasons, not our superficial external motivators that do nothing to support the bigger picture of supporting lifelong readers. We don’t want to discourage students from reading (grumbling about their choices), but we also don’t want to make students read only because they’re seeking something from us (rewards, grades). We want to support the choices students make and offer suggestions and encouragement as they’re wanted. But it’s something else from this course that I’m really, really excited about. The passion I have for representation and discussion and critical thinking about the world around us, especially the world around us that doesn’t look like us or talk like us or think like us, that passion is represented in YA books. The work I want to do in the classroom, the conversations I want to have, they’re already started in the space of YA books. (Just look at “the ‘write’ books” part of this blog. It’s right there at the top right of your screen. There I’ve sorted books by what they’re doing. And for the most part, these are just the books I’ve read this summer- there are so so many more out there!) I am so excited for these books and the ideas and the conversations they’ll ignite in my classroom. My thought process making this was “how do I do this in a way that gives students ideas without being too simple or too intimidating?” I want this to be a kind of mentor text, so I chose a method of presentation that I didn’t see already present online (other examples of book trailers below- I chose them because they fit that space between not enough and too much, and many of them show the playfulness I want students to have with a project like this). I want variety in my examples and options because I want students to see an option that they can envision themselves flourishing in. For Children of Blood and Bone in particular, I wanted to capture that this book takes place in Africa and engages with African mythologies and traditions. To do this, I used free music from African artists on Free Music Archive. I think it’s a resource I’ll share with my students because Free Music Archive has thousands of tracks free for use- like pixabay for audio! Potential book trailer examples: With students as actors: With images from the internet: https://youtu.be/I7xFu0xU5Rc Stop-motion: https://youtu.be/cKv773vUmU4 Week 4, unnumbered blog post Week 4, Blog Post 4 Adding more voices to the reading pedagogy conversation. Takeaways for Pernille Ripp’s “Teacher Reading Identity and How It Matters” and “Developing Student Reading Identity by Making Reading a Personal Journey” in Passionate Readers: The Art of Reaching and Engaging Every Child:
In short, students need “choice, time, access to books, and a supportive environment” (Ripp 97) for reading success. Running like a current through Ripp’s chapters is the understanding that we may not see the transformation our students make to become readers, but we’re helping our students make progress toward that transformation. I think this will be one of my bigger struggles, watching my students seem to stay immune to my enthusiasm about reading and resistant to their own development as readers without becoming too discouraged myself. But in Ripp’s words, we can only hope we’re making progress with our students as readers if we “purposefully create the conditions for this shift in [reader] identity” (89). Like Kittle and Buehler, she offers suggestions on how to create those conditions rooted in her own experience as a teacher. “Consequently, on that day, four years into teaching, I realized that merely having some books and time to read them was not enough…” Pernille RippI can’t say I agree with Ripp as frequently or enthusiastically as I did with Buehler and Kittle because I’m concerned that some of her ideas aren’t as beneficial in the bigger academic picture. Yes, student choice is important. I’ve seen that for myself in addition to reading it in many respected texts. I can also get behind letting students abandon books. But I think student accountability is also important. Written-down personal accountability, sometimes in the form of reading logs, should have a place in addition to the public goals Ripp promotes. I suppose it depends on the class as to what exactly is the best fit, but Kittle’s argument in favor of logs with weekly goals (set to the student’s pace- Kittle explains how students log page numbers according their reading pace for each book and how this method of determining students’ reading investment is usually accurate) is more aware of students’ future needs as potential college students and adult readers. Students need to read consistently and rigorously to develop reading habits that will continue to serve them beyond high school. Kittle’s suggestion for two hours of reading each week is, I believe, more likely to encourage those consistent reading habits than Ripp’s one big goal. Consequently, I’m more inclined to agree with Kittle than Ripp on reading accountability. However, returning to student choice, Buehler, Kittle, and Ripp all agree that choice is important. All three also recognize the importance of teachers matching books to students, although Ripp gives less focus to these teacher-student-book relationships. Considering my own personality and my experiences teaching and tutoring, I think I’ll focus heavily on those relationships. In particular, Ripp has given me two new things to think about in my developing YA pedagogy: audiobooks and book abandonment. Personally, I very rarely abandon books. But I get what Ripp is saying when she explains that book abandonment is empowering to student readers and valuable for encouraging the reading habits found in reading adults. Also, a hesitant reader is going to be even more hesitant to read a book they aren’t enjoying. It’s better that they trade the “wrong” book for one that’s going to give them a positive reading experience because those positive reading experiences are what make life-long readers. As for audiobooks, they’re a valuable tool that somehow managed to slip past my radar. A friend of mine in high school would listen to the audiobook version of a text while they read the physical book along with it to understand the books assigned in our AP Literature class. I’m not sure how I forgot about that until now. I guess that’s part of why I’m so glad books like Passionate Readers exist. I’m not only getting new ideas, I’m also remembering old ideas that I already know work. And if you wanted another voice on twitterchats and/or a cute anecdote:
Directions: create a scrapbook for a character in the book you read. Book: Wolf by Wolf I did the scrapbook activity from Diana Mitchell's Fifty Alternatives to the Book Report and then kind of modified it according to both the book's needs and my own teacher-ish expectations. Opposed to an entire scrapbook, I did a single page combining a central component of the book (Yael's tattoo) and the scrapbooking aspect (modified to lean more towards the notes Yael carries to reflect both what she would have and the larger story. I included the push pin she carries and Adele's victor medal as well). The superimposed words are her words as she finally kills "Hitler." They're also the words that haunt her because her identity haunts her, so I wanted that to overwhelm the picture. I always love an excuse to draw a little and design things. One of my high school teachers had us make an illustration that captured how we experienced the story (with a 500 word write up to explain our reasoning/thought process. It was one option of many and they each had writing components- she knew we would all choose the one that didn't require any writing if there was one). I spent way too much time on those projects, but I loved them. I think that idea merged with the scrapbooking one in this little project. I like this as something for my students because you could draw or clip/print pictures. You have to engage with both a single character and the larger plot in a way that's fun and accessible for almost all students. Week 3, unnumbered blog post Week 3, Blog Post 3 Putting YA literature pedagogy in conversation with Kittle. I’ll start with my biggest takeaways again, this week from Penny Kittle’s “Understanding Readers and Reading,” “Building Stamina and Fluency,” and “Opening Doors into Reading” in Book Love: Developing Depth, Stamina, and Passion in Adolescent Readers.
Buehler’s and Kittle’s beliefs about being teachers of readers are largely harmonious. The passages for this week and last interact for me as an introduction to the idea of YA lit (Buehler) and then how to teach reading (Kittle) in such a way that Buehler gives the larger ideas and material that Kittle then situates inside a more tangible teaching methodology. They certainly complement each other, and I enthusiastically agree with much of what both teachers have to say. When Kittle says it’s important for students to take pleasure in reading, it doesn’t mean avoiding challenging or potentially “dry” texts. It means letting students read what they want to read in addition to those texts. Their pleasure reading will often be a means of building the stamina to read these more difficult texts. As Kittle excellently explains it, students need “sustained engagement with stories” (21) to be better readers. We must encourage students’ confidence that they can be better readers. This is about teacher-student relationships and students’ relationships with books. We must trust students to trust us and to more importantly trust themselves. This looks like many things inside and outside of the classroom, but I believe Kittle suggests that the most important one is setting goals. The goals should be attainable (Kittle suggests setting reading paces to determine how many pages two hours of reading looks like and setting that as a weekly goal) and student-driven. Just as we have to trust students when they write and give them choice with writing (also from Kittle), we have to trust students to read and making reading choices. We as teachers must support students and therefore we must support students’ choices. And just like with writing, some of this support looks like conferences. Reading conferences! A novel thought (pun intended), but one I can get behind. Reading conferences support student-teacher relationships, give teachers the opportunity to match students with books (Buehler), the opportunity to check in on reading goals and progress, and the chance to catch “fake-reading” (where the student isn’t actually reading the book, just Sparknotes-ing it or maybe not even that). With reading conferences, we create a space where we can check and celebrate engagement with books to encourage our students as readers inside and outside of the classroom- and isn’t that one of our biggest goals as English teachers? “Developing reading stamina by cultivating an individual reading habit requires relationships with students and systems that support, encourage, and challenge readers; it also requires will.” Penny Kittle I enjoyed Kittle’s writing on writing and find myself also enjoying what she has to say about reading, which is probably obvious by my slightly-too-lengthy list of takeaways. If I was better at brevity (it’s a work in progress), I would have limited myself just to this excerpt from page 52:
Consider the reading we need to balance during a yearlong English class: 1.We need to study literature (whole texts). 2.We need to read short mentor texts (in all genres) to understand the writer’s craft and create a vision for what we ourselves will write. 3.We need to develop an independent reading life. This is also a reminder of just how interdependent reading and writing are to each other. reflecting on twitterchat as teaching tool #uga_yalitWeek Two, unnumbered blog post |
AuthorI'm a high school English teacher looking to share with students, parents, and peers some of what I'm learning in the classroom as a teacher. Archives
October 2018
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