Tim Fredrick's ELA Teaching Blog

Can we make them read?

I received an e-mail from Julie, a reader of this blog, and she agreed to let me post her letter and my response:

Tim,

I agree with your "we've beaten reading" down philosophy and have taken the fun out of it. I'm just starting out in the world of teaching English and have a special ed background as well. One of the things I'm having my students do is pick out a book to read and then, they have to do a book report on it. The reason I'm asking them to do the report is because I don't have enough time to read 1,000 books to see which ones kids in 9th and 10th grade actually like. I'm doing live research by having them read these books and rate them so that I will know what books I should recommend based on student picks.

 

How can we assess reading if we don't use a "book report" form? I had to do them when I was young and although I hated them, too, they at least forced me to read those books. Sure, a lot of them I didn't even finish, but I always attempted to read the books. I discovered a lot of good books that way and equally bad ones. I've iterated and reiterated to my students and will do so again Tuesday, when we go to the library, that if they don't pick out books that they're genuinely interested in reading, their success rate will also be diminished.

 

I'd like to hear your opinion on this topic and how to assess reading without a "book report."

Thanks!
Julie

I wanted to post her e-mail because I think it very clearly articulated a valid and major concern of ELA teachers.  My response:

Julie,

Thanks for your e-mail.

You can assess if the students have been reading by occasionally having them read in class silently for 15 minutes.  Keep a log of what they are reading and what page they are one every time they read in class.  It takes a minute or so to go around the room and write down page numbers on a chart.  You will be able to tell who has the same book over and over again and makes progress on the page numbers.  In addition, talk to the kids about their books on a regular basis.  If the kid can't be specific about the book or his/her opinion, he's not reading.  This should not be punitive and if the kid isn't reading just subtly let him know you notice and move on.  Having "the talk" with him about it will only make it worse.  It becomes a way to rebel against you and then you are dealing with strong, strong forces.

As I tell teachers, there's no way to MAKE a kid read a book. There are only ways to make the act of reading something that they want to do.  Have patience, it doesn't happen right away.

Let me give an example ... I had a student who approached me at the beginning of the year, put his hand on my shoulder and said, "Tim, I need to tell you this: I don't read." I said, "But ..." He said, "No, Tim, you don't understand.  I ... don't ... read."  Knowing that I could not make him read no matter how many reports I assigned, I let it go.  Every once in a while I might put a book on his desk and say, "I know you don't read and won't be interested in this, but I wanted to try."  I did it with books that I saw his friends reading or books that had really great covers.  Eventually, after a LOT of doing this, he picked up the book. A week later, he left the book in the classroom when he left to go to lunch and someone in the next class picked it up.  He had lost the book.  He came to me the next day very upset that the book was missing (and, of course, blamed me!).

It happens slowly - but it can't be forced.  Sometimes the trick is finding the right book.  Don't look at it as trying to MAKE them read.  Try to MAKE reading something desirable.  You can't go home with them and force their little hands to pick up the book and their little eyes to read the words.  You simply can't.  You can only create conditions in which they will want to pick up the book and read.

Hope that helps.  Keep me informed!

Tim

She replied, asking how to handle being asked by an administrator for proof of assessment.  My response:

Your chart on reading progress would provide accountability.  If you have those conversations individually and take notes in a notebook, this provides accountability.  If you don't feel that this will be satisfactory to the administration, have the kids write for 10 minutes every time they read in class and hand it in.  Ten minutes is not a lot of time and won't feel like a book report.  The assignment could be to have them write you a letter saying whether or not they would recommend the book at this point and why.  This would probably wind up being more writing than a book report, anyway, but it is very low stakes and because you are the audience will seem more informal and personal.  The words 'book report' have certain meanings and feelings.  If you do keep it an end of book assignment, call it something else!!  :)

I know this will be an unpopular idea, but book reports need to go!  For students who struggle with reading, it is just another reason not to read when we should be giving them more reasons to read.  I can tell you from experience, that the methods of assessment I suggest (the progress chart and individual conferences) provide you will much more information to assess a student than any book report (which many students just copy from the back of the book, each other, or the Internet!)

Choice in ELA, Continued

Steve Lazar at Outside [The Cave] has posted a thoughtful reaction to my recently published article "Choosing to belong: Increasing adolescent male engagement in the ELA classroom" as well as some ideas of his own on how to use choice in a social studies curriculum.  He had several good thoughts, critiques, and questions regarding the article.  Here are some of my responses:

On the issue of why certain texts are valued more than others:

Tim mentioned that during free-reading or during class he "began to notice similar situations with my own students—boys reading sports pages and video game manuals during class. Technically, they were reading and writing—activities we wanted them to be doing. They just weren’t reading and writing what I asked of them " (152-153). I immediately began to wonder why these texts could not be used, to some extent, in teaching general English concepts. There are likely to be just as many literary terms in a video game manual as there are in Shakespeare.

I agree.  There is no reason not to use a wide variety of texts in the ELA classroom.  It prepares students for real-world reading as well as recognizes the varied interests of your students.  Why aren't these used more?  ELA teachers are typically English/Literature majors.  We love literature most of all.  We are well-meaning in wanting to share that love with our students, but we overlook many viable texts as a result.  In some cases, it is a matter of elitism.  Many English teachers think we should teach the great works of literature and that is it.  I happen to disagree with that position.

On gender roles:

My one significant critique of the article, which may very much have been outside the scope of inquiry, is that it sometimes does not offer a critical eye towards the construction of gendered roles and differences.

Quite frankly, I didn't want to get that academic with what I was doing.  I think it is important to recognize biases among teachers in selecting books for ELA classes.  Most ELA teachers are women or those of us men who have succeeded in a female-dominated field, so we are more likely to want to share and work with texts we like - those which many adolescent boys would find "girly".  Choice overcomes that issue, as long as the teacher is able to offer the right kind of variety in the menu of choices.

On what makes a book female- or male-centered:

Similarly, Tim writes, "I thought about the books as being male or female centred, according to the gender of the protagonist" (156), but this seems to be an oversimplification (I can think of a lot of books with masculine protagonists that could be viewed as "feminine," High FIdelity come to mind, though I'm having trouble thinking of the converse example).

Steve is absolutely right; this does not reflect the true nature of how a book would be considered.  I did it this way for two reasons.  The first is not that thoughtful - it was simpler for me.  The second was a little more thoughtful - one could only decide on the "centeredness" of a book after reading it.  The students would be selecting books to read, based solely on the cover, reading a few pages, and the description.  Also, I assumed that adolescents would not be as attuned as those of us critical adults and be able to see that a book about a guy could be more female-centered in terms of theme (at least upon first glance/selection).  I thought of a lot of my boys looking at a book with a girl on the front cover and comparing it to a boy on the front cover, and not being very deep about which to choose.

On the effect on girls:

It also seems that the implications of Tim's argument, while having more dramatic effects amongst boys, should have positive effects for girls as well. Tim mentions this, though does not provide comparative data for his female students. I would be very curious to see this.

I do have that data.  I believe the specific numbers are on my computer at school, though.  From what I can remember from a year ago is in preferences.  Girls were more likely to cross gender boundaries in selecting books - meaning that a girl was much more likely to pick a male-centered book than a boy was to pick a female-centered books.  Girls reported liking choice almost as much as boys did, but not as quite (again, I have the numbers, just not on this computer).  This makes sense - they succeeded under no-choice systems, so choice would be nice, but not nearly as much of relief as it would be to the boys, who were suffering.  Anecdotal evidence suggested that many of the girls who were not succeeding began to succeed when they were able to pick their own books and topics for writing.  I focused in the article on boys and didn't go into specifics about the girls because it seemed to be out of the scope of the article.  I mentioned it briefly in the article to put aside common fears that focusing on boys would leave girls behind.  Close to the end of the study, I began to recognize the power of choice for all students, but had begun the study through the lens of looking at boys and thus kept that focus.  (I've since then begun writing and speaking about the power of choice for all students.)

Thanks to Steve for the ongoing collegial conversations.  These conversations are the reasons I blog.

Check out Steve's blog, his response to my article, and his own ideas about including choice in the Social Studies curriculum.  You can e-mail me for a copy of my article, published in this month's issue of Changing English.

Students don't read because ...

One of the search terms that brought someone to my blog recently was "students + don't + read + because".  I'm not sure they found the answer, but here it is ...

Because English teachers have killed reading.  We've taken every inch of fun, amazement, and adventure out of it.  We replaced it with book reports and multiple choice tests.  We've used daily reading quizzes to make sure students read.

Want to know how to make students read?  Give them books they're interested in!  Then you won't have to make them do anything.  They'll want to read.

How are we going to do this?  Choice.  Something I've talked about before and will continue to talk about. 

It's time we English teachers end our tyranny over books and allow students to read books of their choosing.  This requires that we restructure our classrooms and how we teach.  This is good!  It allows us to focus on the skills of reading - the skills we should be teaching in order to help students become better readers in life -- and to continue reading even when it is not shoved down their throats.  I've talked about this here,  here,  here, and here.  If you 'd like to know more you can e-mail me (see link on the right side of the page) or ask a comment here.

Put an end to ...
(1) book reports - even the "fun" ones that we know aren't fun at all unless you already love reading and ELA class
(2) reading quizzes
(3) tests about a book
(4) reading a book because it was the teacher's favorite
(5) reading a book because somebody (Lord knows who) decided it was "good"

Save students from bad English teaching!

Choice in reading and writing activities

I was recently at the New York State English Council conference in Albany.  On Friday, I made a presentation on incorporating choice into the secondary ELA classroom.  My interest in choice in the classroom came about from my research on helping adolescent boys become more engaged in ELA.  I will be presenting directly on that research at NCTE this November. 

My presentation at NYSEC was how choice in reading and writing activities can help all students be more engaged and learn those skills that true readers and writers need.

Here you can find the (very) rough script I used.
Here are the overheads I used:  Download nysec_transparencies.pdf
Here is the handout: Download nysec_handout.pdf

A question about literature circles

A School Yard Blog had a question about my use of literature circles, but couldn't post her question on the comments section of the old site.  I've put her question here and posted my reponse.

ASYB:  Did you notice students showing some interest in books that they weren't reading but others were? I guess what I am wondering is if, say, a struggling reader overheard a group of less struggling readers having an interesting conversation, would the struggling reader challenge himself to try their book? And in the other direction, might a great reader hear something from a "struggler's" book conversation that would make that book seem like one to read? I liked the pop-up cards, especially because you used them to start group work more than force it. Lucky kids in your class!

TF: I haven't had that exact situation develop. The social aspect does play a role. I've had students recommend books to each other, I've had them give a book a second or third chance because their friends or peers liked it. I've had students want to read a book that was too difficult for them because a friend was choosing that (but this was in the choosing stage).  I find the social aspect of it to be very important. Especially when you get a group of boys together reading the same book they all identify with. It really shows that our boys are CAPABLE of doing this work as long as we engage them in it. I've seen some amazing stuff come from all-boys' groups.

Choice in reading - using literature circles to engage reluctant readers

The Problem

            I first ventured into using literature circles while researching the best ways to help adolescent boys perform at the same levels as their female peers.  This research, done through my MetLife Fellowship at the Teachers Network Leadership Institute, pointed me in the direction of allowing students more choice in their reading and writing activities.  This helps boys and girls become more engaged in class, as well as utilize their interests and strengths.  Literature circles are one very important way to help students select reading materials that conform more to their personal interests, while allowing us as teachers to be more directive than we can during independent reading, or Silent Sustained Reading.

My Expectations

            One of my main goals was to increase student engagement in the learning process.  I hoped that allowing students to choose from a selection of texts, they would have more buy-in into the class activities.  Whenever I worked with one common text with the whole class for an extended period of time (such as reading a class novel), I was challenged to keep all the students engaged for the entirety of the unit.  I would typically have less than half the class engaged

            I also hoped to help students work better in groups – a skill they were certainly lacking.  Our school, and the city for that matter, is incorporating cooperative learning into all the classrooms, but we are not necessarily teaching students how to work in groups.  To the students, working in groups has meant sitting together while they individually complete the ask, while I wanted them to be really discussing the task, negotiating a common response, and completing the task together, not just while they were sitting together. I wanted to use the structure of the Literature Circles and commonly associated roles to help them work better in groups.

            Finally during the 9^th grade year, students are grouped in mixed ability classes.  In every class, there are a few students who read extremely below grade level, a few who read above grade level, and many who read at or just below grade level.  Another major goals was to differentiate the reading material so that each group had accessible texts in order to work on the necessary thinking and analysis skills.

How it Works

            I was initially concerned about how I could incorporate whole-class mini-lessons and NYC standards into a curriculum where the students were reading different books.  How could we have a class discussion?  How could I continue to teach character analysis when there were six or seven different books, each with different main characters?  How could I overcome not having enough books for students to take home and read?

            I see each of my 9^th grade classes every day of the week – 3 times a week for 45 minutes and 2 times for 90 minute blocks.  My first goal in planning was to schedule in-class reading time.  For each 90 minute block, students were scheduled to read for the first 30 minutes and respond in writing for 15; in addition, they would read and respond for one of the single period classes.  I also decided that the groups would meet and complete activities about their book each Friday.

            But, the biggest challenge was in continuing the necessary work of character analysis, which I would need to teach in mini-lessons using common texts.  I decided that these mini-lessons would occur on Wednesdays using a short one-day text.  Then, during their Friday meetings, they would apply the Wednesday mini-lesson to their books.

            For instance, I wanted to discuss character goals and motivations, as well as the obstacles they face in reaching those goals. During the Wednesday lesson, we read a short chapter from a memoir and completed Somebody Wanted But So’s as described in Kylene Beers’ When Kids Can’t Read What Teachers Can Do (2003).  This was a structure which we had used before and asks student to create sentences like, Steve (Somebody) wanted to be acquitted of the crime (Wanted), but no one believed him (But) so he began to write in his journal.  I then used their SWBS statements in a mini-lesson to identify goals, obstacles, and the character’s reactions.  During their Friday Literature Circle meeting that week, the groups received a chart that had the following columns:
            A.  What does the character want?
            B.  Why does he/she want this?
            C.  What stands in his/her way of getting this?
            D.  What is the character’s reaction or prediction reaction to the obstacle?
            E.  What is your opinion of the effectiveness of this reaction?
In this way, students were doing a task similar to a SWBS, but it appeared more advanced to them and also asked them to evaluate what the character did.  It became my goal for each Friday Literature Circle meeting to make the work just slightly more challenging than what we had done together on Wednesday. 

            In helping students working better in groups, I used roles created by Dr. Spencer Kagan in The Pop-Up Social Role Card Kit (2004).  I knew that throwing too many roles at my students at once would be unsuccessful, so I started small and used Recorder (the person who writes down the group’s work) and Taskmaster (the person who makes sure the group stays on task and on topic).  Kagan’s books has tent cards with each role on one side and suggested comments for the role on the other.  When students were working with their roles, I circulated and commented specifically on how each group was using the roles.  If the group was doing real group work, they would receive small smiley face stickers added to their folders.

Results

            Student engagement in their books was remarkable.  During each reading period, students were engaged in reading their books; their engagement and comprehension were evident in their contributions to the Friday Literature Circle meetings.  With students who have such a variety of interests and tastes, Literature Circles helped me match the best book with each student – both in terms of reading tastes and abilities.  Students were able to read at their own pace, rather than at the pace I had set.  I had no complaints from students about their book, which was not the case when we did whole class novels.

            The thinking and analysis skills the students developed during the Wednesday whole class mini-lessons and the Friday Literature Circle meetings were also significant.  Because in planning my curriculum I was forced to think about the sequence of activities and how they taught the skill, the students learned the skill rather than “the novel”.  There was much less danger of my interpretation of the books leaking into their interpretations, because during the majority of their work individually and together, I was not with them.  They were able to help each other and work together towards interpretations – most of the time being forced to do so without relying on the teacher’s interpretation.  Students were also able to focus specifically on the thinking skills I was asking of them because the books they were reading were at the right level for them – something that could not have been done with a whole class novel.  With a whole class novel, the book may have been too difficult for them to even have understood the basics of the story, not to mention doing critical analysis of the character.

            Working in groups using roles helped students discuss, negotiate, and complete their activities as a true group rather than students sitting in close proximity to one another.  Students also completed weekly reflections for homework about their group work – how they benefited the group and how one other person in the group contributed to the success.  I noticed during other group work when I did not give our the role name cards, that student were still using the roles, declaring “I’m the Taskmaster!”  I even observed offering to be the recorder when the other recorder got tired, or getting the group back on task even when they weren’t the Taskmaster.

Conclusions

          Literature circles helped me reach my goals of differentiating texts, helping students learn group work skills, and most importantly, increasing student engagement in my classroom.  It is important for English Language Arts educators to hand over the choice of texts and the thinking about the texts over to the students.  Students are often unengaged in our classrooms, because they do not know their place in the teaching and learning going on.  Literature Circles help students take real control over their learning and it focuses them on learning skills which make them feel more successful in English and other classes.

TNLI and Research on Helping Adolescent Boys Be Engaged in the ELA Classroom

Today was the first meeting of the 2005-2006 MetLife Fellows in the Teachers Network Leadership Institute.  This is my second year as a MetLife Fellow.  Each year, this group of classroom teachers conducts action research in their classrooms.

Last year, my research was on how I could help the adolescent boys in my class be engaged at the same levels of their female counterparts.  I'm hoping to have this paper (Download boysandchoice.pdf ) published in a journal in the near future.  I will be presenting the research at the 2005 National Council of Teachers of English conference in Pittsburgh PA. 

What I found was that boys do read and write outside of the ELA classroom and these literacy activities are centered around their own personal interests.  The literacy activities that happen in the typical ELA classroom do not interest boys and are typically centered around literacies and interests that are viewed as feminine.  I wanted to find a way to engage both girls and boys in my class, but that would mean engaging 25-30 different interests.  How do you incorporate so many outside interests?  Choice!  Including choice in reading and writing activities can give all students the opportunities to utilize their outside of school interests in the ELA classroom.  Read my paper for more information.