I remember my 7th grade English teacher assigning a book for the entire class to read. We began reading in class but I took the book home, read it on the bus and didn’t stop reading even at night by flashlight under the covers. By morning I had finished the book. I loved the story. I loved to read.
For the next six weeks, the class continued to read and discuss the same book. I told the teacher I had already finished the book and her response was that I shouldn’t have read ahead. I remember about two weeks into this book study, sitting in the hallway, team reading a chapter with one of my classmates. He labored during his turn, reading aloud word-by-word. At the time, I wondered if he understood any of the text. We didn’t talk about it but something didn’t seem right to me.
Not So Current Trends In Language Arts
In my current work, I visit many secondary classrooms where students spend weeks on the same book. I’m not against using a core text with the entire class to showcase various aspects of literature. However, I think the same can be accomplished using a short story and students can read multiple texts in multiple genres. Students should be reading at least 25 books and stories during the school year. In fact, there are so many good books to read, and any number of texts could serve a variety of purposes that these reading lists are underwhelming. We need to do something different in schools to engage students in reading.
First, let’s make a brief examination of the students who are diverse in so many different ways. We can see that one text will not fit all.
- Students like to learn in different ways—interactively, quietly, hands-on, experientially, reflectively, and so on—and they are digitally savvy.
- Young people have different interests in and perspectives on life with varying levels of maturity and experience.
- Students speak different languages with some districts counting over 50 different native language speakers in a single school.
- Students come with learning disabilities and special needs and read at all different levels.
- Students are outstanding and gifted and talented in some aspect of life.
- They love to read.
- They hate to read.
Next, let’s consider the state standards for Language Arts, especially at the high school level. They are pretty general and don’t list specific texts, but focus on reading, responding and presenting skills, all in standard academic English. In fact, most of the student learning indicators can be part of any lesson objectives. After all, students read in all subjects, not just English. This means that a variety of texts can help students make connections, both personally and to other content. Perhaps the most obvious example might be reading books about World War II when students are studying this topic in a History course.
Given the diversity of the student population, and the fact that state standards don’t call for a specific title or author to be read in order to meet the grade level expectations, it is possible to let every child read a different text, or select from a list of texts. Elementary grade teachers use this method readily but secondary teachers might think this spells chaos. The plan does need to be organized. It starts with assessing each student’s reading level, which happens at the elementary level, but is often not done in the upper grades. There is no reason why a teenager should not know his or her reading level, how books are leveled and how to find a book’s level, how to choose an appropriate text, and read a text for the meaning the student can make, and sharing his or her ideas orally and in writing in various formats for a variety of audiences.
Let’s take the World War II example. The readability levels on the books on the dozen or so books on this topic on my personal bookcase indicate that I have a range of books written at the 5th to 12th grade levels (as understood by sentence length, lexical items, and themes). While the topic is WWII, the books contain other themes related to music, animals, mystery, resiliency, faith, the French, the Polish, the Italians, the Germans, the Japanese, to name a few.
A Process for Getting Started with Multiple Books
For schools who are excited about getting young people to read more and are interested in allowing students the freedom to read widely, use the following process.
Decide what the units of study are in Science, Social Studies/History, and Math and when they are taught throughout the year. Use pacing guides or create new ones. You may find that these need adjustment and alignment. Support the committee of educators who are using this process to move units around where it makes sense. The curriculum is not starting at page 1 in the textbook and marching through it to see how much material can be covered before the end of the year. Math can be an exception. Social Studies/History can be taught geographically rather than chronologically, and Science by domain or topic.
Enlist a committee of teachers to come up with a list of fiction and non-fiction texts of varying lengths, from short story to book length. Include graphic novels, poetry and songs in the selections. These texts should in some way be related to the themes in the other content areas. Level these texts using a readability formula.
Empower the reading specialist to help train teachers to find students’ reading levels, using a reading inventory. In addition, ask students to fill out a questionnaire regarding their attitudes and interests in reading. These surveys can also be accomplished in an interview format. I tell students that a reading inventory and survey is like a scale. The scale lets you know if you need to gain, lose, or maintain your weight. From time-to-time, you need to weigh-in to let yourself know how you’re doing. If you need to lose weight, then you need to know how much, what kind of diet is going to work for you given your interests and lifestyle, and how much time and energy it’s going to take. Otherwise, it’s just random and there’s no way to set any goals. To select appropriate interventions, strategies, and reading goals you need a scale.
Show students the texts for the unit and discuss the time frame. Use a selection process whereby students write down their top three choices to start their reading. Explain to students that they might not get their first choice because there are limited texts. Examine the student’s choice with the reading level and the text’s readability level. Make sure students only read at their independent level, or if there will be classroom support, their instructional level. Many students today are given texts to read at their frustration levels, so they aren’t reading at all. Remember, texts can be challenging in qualitative ways (i.e., content and themes) and not just quantitatively (i.e., sentence length and word usage).
Select and use a short, core text to model for the entire class author’s craft, literary devices, and reading strategies. Let the students become more competent by using their own texts to identify what has been shown in class. For example, the teacher might begin a lesson by showing a clip from a scary movie without any speaking. Students can identify the features: The music, it’s night and it’s raining or foggy. The teacher can illustrate, using the core text, how the author uses the setting to convey a particular mood. The lesson stops there. The teacher asks, “How does your author use the setting to show the author’s purpose?” The rest of the period the students read independently, making notes on the setting of their individual texts. Students can discuss and read sections of their texts aloud to show what the author is doing with the setting. During the reading time, the teacher conferences with each student, or a small group of students, about a variety of topics: the book, reading strategies, number and types of books read to date, written work, among other things.
Provide students with meaningful assignments to showcase what they’ve learned from their text, including new vocabulary, writing styles, connections to content areas, and personal reflections. This can be reviewed in the context of an academic conference, placed online for classmates to view at various times, or presented on a given day either solo or with other students who are also ready to discuss and present.
Create rubrics for the assessments and invite participation in the assessment process by others. This can be accomplished online or by portfolio review. This process allows students to work at an individualized pace and read as widely and as many books as possible. Allow students to self assess, thinking about the strategies they used and how those strategies furthered their understanding of the story and what the author might be trying to communicate.
Teaching For Learning
A lot of educators are put off by this method of teaching. Many teachers feel they are not teaching if they are not standing in front of the class telling the students what the book is about. And teachers have to tell the students what the book is about because the text is too difficult to read, or the students can decode but can’t comprehend the mature or culturally irrelevant theme or are not interested in it so they don’t read it. However, if students aren’t learning, is anyone really teaching? What do students actually learn from this method? What did I learn in 7th grade? I learned to schedule music lessons during English and I learned to check out small books from the library and put them inside my larger textbook during class, so I could read. I never stopped reading.
Naomi Migliacci - International education consultant, speaker and author on topics of education, travel, language, culture and lifestyle
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