Literacy Now

Are you afraid of Captain Underpants, lead character of Dav Pilkey’s series of the same name? Does a superhero clad only in his underpants spark offensive language, violence, and danger? According to the American Library Association’s “Top Ten Challenged Books 2013”, the Captain Underpants series does that in the mind of many. It was the most challenged book last year and from the most well-known children’s books to relatable young adult novels and classics, books in schools are challenged for sexual explicitness, offensive language, and racism among a host of other reasons.

Young adult favorite The Hunger Games made the list for containing religious viewpoints and being unsuited for the 12-14 age level the story targets. Jeffrey Wilhelm, English professor at Boise State University and author of more than 20 literacy books, taught The Hunger Games as a lead-in to George Orwell’s 1984, a frequently challenged classic. He described how, by reading both books, students were interested in the topics at hand and reading strategy improved. “Reading [both texts] taught current culture and predictions of what might happen, making a text to world connection,” he says. “It is important to have [students reading] books related to their current state of being.”

Here’s the 2013 challenged book list:

1. Captain Underpants (series), by Dav Pilkey
   Reasons: Offensive language, unsuited for age group, violence
2. The Bluest Eye, by Toni Morrison
   Reasons: Offensive language, sexually explicit, unsuited to age group, violence
3. The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, by Sherman Alexie
   Reasons: Drugs/alcohol/smoking, offensive language, racism, sexually explicit, unsuited to age group
4. Fifty Shades of Grey, by E.L. James
   Reasons: Nudity, offensive language, religious viewpoint, sexually explicit, unsuited to age group
5. The Hunger Games, by Suzanne Collins
   Reasons: Religious viewpoint, unsuited to age group
6. A Bad Boy Can Be Good for A Girl, by Tanya Lee Stone
   Reasons: Drugs/alcohol/smoking, nudity, offensive language, sexually explicit
7. Looking for Alaska, by John Green
   Reasons: Drugs/alcohol/smoking, sexually explicit, unsuited to age group
8. The Perks of Being a Wallflower, by Stephen Chbosky
   Reasons: drugs/alcohol/smoking, homosexuality, sexually explicit, unsuited to age group
9. Bless Me Ultima, by Rudolfo Anaya
   Reasons: Occult/Satanism, offensive language, religious viewpoint, sexually explicit
10. Bone (series), by Jeff Smith
    Reasons: Political viewpoint, racism, violence

Banned Books Week (Sept. 21-27) is meant to raise awareness of how books are still challenged or even removed as an option for school children. And, of course, there is no shortage of educators willing to speak out against book banning.

Many banned books deal with social issues children and teenagers are faced with. The censorship of such novels hinders students from gaining support through characters that reassure them they are not alone, experts say.

“I think it is a wonderful idea for students to be able to read and discuss books that are ‘edgy’ so once they leave their community to enter the world, they will be prepared to understand people and be tolerant of lifestyles and ideas other than their own,” says Nancy Bauman,  retired librarian and literacy consult. “Books can help students through problems they aren't able to discuss with others, and helps them to feel they are not 'alone' in having feelings that may be different than their peers or community.”

“I see it as limiting the intellectual freedom of students and teachers and an attempt to keep certain points of view from being expressed. By doing so, aren’t we banning ideas and limiting the free discussion of different ideas and viewpoints?” asks Barbara Ward, literacy professor at Washington State University and chair of International Reading Association’s Children’s Literature and Special Reading Interest Group.

“The honest truth is that there is probably something offensive in just about every book being published,” says Ward. “To try to stick to the safe book means lulling yourself into a false sense of complacency and refusing to stand up for anything. That’s a terrible lesson to learn or to teach to someone else.”

Morgan Ratner is the communications intern at the International Reading Association.

There is nothing International Reading Association would ask educators to do that we aren’t willing to do ourselves. So when the International Literacy Day 60-for-60 challenge was launched, asking teachers to engage their students in an extra 60 seconds of literacy-focused activities every day for 60 days, we wanted to get in on the fun, too.  As a staff, we agreed to take part in the challenge and squeeze an extra minute  into our days. Every weekday for 12 weeks, we’ll complete an activity from the ILD 2014 kit (get yours here). The kit contains suggested activities for ages 4 to 15+, including a category that’s appropriate for students of all ages. We’ve chosen variety of activities from each of the age groups and are tackling them in two-week intervals. For example, today we are finishing up the “Would You Rather…” activity (from the ages 4 to 8 section). Every day our social media strategist, Jayme Gravell, sent a question to the entire staff at IRA. We took a minute to think about it and debate our answers with co-workers and/or email a response to Jayme.

Here’s a sampling of our questions and answers:

Would you rather watch a Quidditch match or the Triwizard Tournament?

Anette Schuetz, creative services manager: "Quidditch is a wizarding sport played on broomsticks. Having been accused of riding a broomstick to work, I find this sport engaging!”

Would you rather live in Narnia or Oz?

Sara Long, web content manager: “That is a really tough question! I definitely wouldn't want to live in Narnia when it's winter all of the time without Christmas. After spring returns, though, Narnia is beautiful with all of the talking animals and creatures, but so is Oz. I guess I'd choose Narnia because I'd rather live in a place with a powerful Aslan than a bumbling Wizard.”

Would you rather take a ride in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang or Stephen King’s Christine?

Vicki Morris, accounting and finance assistant: “This is an easy one for me. I would rather ride in Christine since I am a huge Stephen King fan (and I would be nice to her), as opposed to the Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (I don’t fly in anything anymore).”

Would you rather have the power of invisibility or the power to fly?

Lara Deloza, communications manager: Hands down: power to fly. Because who wants to be invisible? Sure, it SOUNDS good in theory, but in practice? You’d end up seeing things you could never unsee, hearing things you could never unhear. Plus, flying is just awesome. And you’d save a heck of a lot on gas.

Would you rather take Ophelia or Juliet to the prom?

Bill Hyman, purchasing/facilities/contracts manager: “Can I go with neither? I mean they both died, and who needs that aggravation, am I right?”

Play along with today’s question: “Would you rather have street smarts or book smarts?”

As for our next activity, Jayme will send out a “word of the day” and its definition to staff. The challenge will be to see who can work the word into conversation as much as possible each day. Want to join in? Follow @IRAToday on Twitter starting Monday, September 22. Tell us how you’ve made the word yours over the course of the day!

Don’t forget to share all of your 60-for-60 activities with us. Email stories and photos to social@/ or post them to Twitter or the IRA Facebook page using the hashtag #ILD14.

April Hall is the editor of Reading Today Online. She can be reached at ahall@/.

As teachers, we are fortunate to see positive change in our classrooms every day. To make a difference in my community, I look to my local council, the Toledo Area Council of the International Reading Association (TACIRA) in Ohio, to volunteer my time. And this year’s council service opportunities really touched my heart.

In 2013–2014, TACIRA collaborated with Cancer Connection of Northwest Ohio (CCNWO). Our work together has made our members aware of several important issues within our community. We have now learned that there are not many resources for children with cancer, there are very few resources for teachers who may have a student with cancer and there are many misconceptions about cancer,
especially childhood cancer.

We supported CCNWO by offering resources to assist with teacher education about cancer and share the goals of raising awareness for children with cancer in the Toledo area. We also offered insight into creating a cancer awareness program for schools with resources found on teacher websites, assisted with research to help CCNWO reach educators, and sought out materials from other cancer agencies to help with teacher education about students with cancer. Our members even worked together to reach out to our local chemotherapy patients served by CCNWO. TACIRA opened our September meeting during National Childhood Cancer week to be the first organization to view the CCNWO PowerPoint presentation.

In September, I met a 7-year-old girl, Zoey, by chance.

She was at the hospital to give out her rubber band bracelets to patients while visiting and comforting her grandfather who was undergoing chemotherapy. Zoey was asked to leave the cancer hospital due to an emergency at the facility. I got in touch with Zoey’s family to see if she would like to sell her bands
for the Toledo Council’s Childhood Cancer Awareness project.

The Zoey Band sale was very successful, and the Council sold out at our first meeting. The money raised was used to purchase the materials for the holiday ornament project to reach out to chemotherapy patients at several clinics and hospitals.

Hundreds of area students made handmade ornaments and cards with a positive message using readwritethink.org’s interactive tool to create theme poems. We were able to purchase 200 ornaments thanks to Zoey Bands. This Childhood Cancer Awareness project resulted in additional supports from Mercy College of Ohio, who attended our TACIRA meetings and presented to their students about the efforts of our local IRA council and sold Zoey Bands there at the college. CCNWO was awarded funds to support the needs of children with cancer in part due to our work to spread the word. Several members of the medical college and Cancer Connection of NWO are now members of TACIRA.

The children served by CCNWO were invited to attend our May 2014 Children’s Literacy Day event at the Wildwood Metro Park, a collaboration with Metro Parks of Toledo. More than 600 parents, teachers, and students attended the event to meet award-winning Ohio Author David FitzSimmons (Curious Critters series), and many of our members purchased and donated Curious Critters books for the children attending!

To further connect literacy with healing, I collaborated with Jean Schoen, founder and director of CCNWO, to develop a children’s book for cancer awareness. Created by CCNWO, Someone I Know Has Cancer helps children who may have loved ones with cancer. We are very proud of all that we were able to do to help CCNWO, and we hope to continue making a difference in our community. For more information about our council, see www.tacira.org. To find your local IRA council, see /councils.

Julie Greenberg is the TACIRA President, a reading teacher and intervention specialist at Coy Elementary, Oregon City Schools, and has been an IRA member since 2008.

Have some news you want to share with the whole of International Reading Association? Want to spotlight a colleague’s accomplishment or announce your own? In the ongoing effort to better serve our subscribers, Reading Today recently started a “Member Spotlight” section with the spotlight on—you guessed it—our members.

If you take a look at the September/October issue of the magazine, you’ll notice the section has pertinent information about free benefits for IRA members, as well as a new feedback page called “In Your Words.” Starting in the November/December issue, we’ll take it a step further with our “News & Notes” member news page.

Members should submit career news, including new books published (professional development, fiction, nonfiction, etc.), awards/grants, promotions/retirements, and the like. Please include contact information and links to background information, if applicable, for verification. Photographs must be 300 dpi for reproduction and may be PNG, JPEG or GIF files. Submissions, which must be 200 words or less, may be edited for clarity or length, and IRA reserves the right to all final editorial decisions. Due to space, anything not included in Reading Today may be published on Reading Today Online.

Submissions should be sent either in Word or copied into the e-mail, with separate photo attachments, to readingtoday@/ with the subject line “News & Notes.”

For your news to be included in the debut “News & Notes” page in the November/December issue, submissions must be sent by Oct. 8.

April Hall is the editor of Reading Today Online. She can be contacted at ahall@/.

As the school bell rings and we saddle up for another year in the classroom, International Reading Association publishes “Essential Reading for Back to School,” a new, cross-journal virtual issue featuring popular articles from the IRA’s three respected journals. The Reading Teacher (RT), Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy (JAAL), and Reading Research Quarterly (RRQ) provide tips and industry news, from advice on close reading to advancements in literacy research. The 11 pieces included in this issue are free. 

From The Reading Teacher

Articles in RT include step-by-step guidance from experts in literacy, as well as suggestions for creating rich classroom experiences to ensure success. In this virtual issue, “How Do I Write…? Scaffolding Preschoolers’ Early Writing Skills” by Sonia Q. Cabell, Laura S. Tortorelli, and Hope K. Gerde looks at how the first writing experiences for preschoolers can be greatly enhanced by productive writing instruction and encouragement.

Douglas Fisher and Nancy Frey’s “Scaffolded Reading Instruction of Content-Area Texts” focuses on the complexity of the texts chosen for small-group instruction. Similarly, “Words, Words Everywhere, But Which Ones Do We Teach?” by Michael F. Graves, James F. Baumann, Camille L. Z. Blachowicz, Patrick Manyak, Ann Bates, Char Cieply, Jeni R. Davis, and Heath Von Gunten delves into the challenges teachers face when selecting vocabulary words.

In their RT article, Kathleen Roskos and Susan B. Neuman shed light on improving children's motivation to read, proficiency in reading, and their likelihood to become lifelong readers and writers in “Best Practices in Reading: A 21st Century Skill Update.”

From the Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy

Published specifically for teachers of older learners, JAAL offers practical ideas for the classroom, as well as reviews of young adult literature and advice for integrating cultural trends into teaching style. The virtual issue includes the JAAL article “Close Reading as an Intervention for Struggling Middle School Readers” by Douglas Fisher and Nancy Frey examining the effectiveness of close reading for struggling middle school students.

Zhihui Fang suggests moving toward discipline-specific language and literacy strategies in “Preparing Content Area Teachers for Disciplinary Literacy Research.”  Mary Beth Monahan’s “Writing ‘Voiced’ Arguments About Science Topics” is a teacher research study advocating the importance of “voice” in writing compelling scientific arguments. “Text Complexity and Young Adult Literature” by Marci Glaus, points out that providing broad, qualitative evaluations of fiction is an important variable of English language arts instruction, especially as high school students prepare for college and careers.

From Reading Research Quarterly

For those interested in diverse viewpoints on educational practices and reports of vital studies, RRQ is dedicated to literacy scholarship for learners of all ages. “Teachers’ Instruction and Students’ Vocabulary and Comprehension: An Exploratory Study With English Monolingual and Spanish-English Bilingual Students in Grades 3–5” by Rebecca D. Silverman, C. Patrick Proctor, Jeffrey R. Harring, Brie Doyle, Marisa A. Mitchell, and Anna G. Meyer explores the relationship between teacher instruction and student vocabulary and investigates whether the relationship differs for multilingual students.

Thomas G. White, James S. Kim, Helen Chen Kingston, and Lisa Foster summarize an experimental study on the part poverty plays in summer reading programs with “Replicating the Effects of a Teacher-Scaffolded Voluntary Summer Reading Program: The Role of Poverty.” In “Effects of Educational Technology Applications on Reading Outcomes for Struggling Readers: A Best-Evidence Synthesis,” Alan C.K Cheung and Robert E. Slavin discuss the effectiveness of educational technology in improving the reading skills of struggling students.

Read and share IRA’s free cross-journal virtual issue now through the end of December. Interested in gaining access to more reports on the latest research and reflections on education across the globe? Join the International Reading Association and subscribe to RT, JAAL, and RRQ to receive issues throughout the year, view online editions and supplementary material to keep current on new studies, best practices, and resources in literacy.

Morgan Ratner is a communications intern at the International Reading Association.