Literacy Now

With 24 years of teaching under my belt, I’ve apologized more than my fair share—to colleagues, to administrators, and to parents.

But in those 24 years, I probably have apologized to my students the most.

Teaching can make one humble very quickly. Some teachers may think they have all the answers, but good teachers know they don’t.

As a high school English teacher, I learned that to work as an authentic classroom community, I needed to take responsibility when the lesson didn’t go well and show my students that I was willing to try again, even if they weren’t.

It usually went something like this: I had a great idea for a lesson and created a plan that I thought was foolproof. As I look back to those early days of my career, I realize the lessons that didn’t go well were the ones that were poorly planned and tended to rely more on an activity I had briefly read about or on a three-minute video clip I had seen. But the activity seemed engaging and fun and my students would love it!

Of course, I was sure I would get the same result that the author flaunted or the same result displayed in the video: students hunched over their desks, working with peers with such ferocity that lunchtime couldn’t wedge them out of their chairs, followed by a discussion that would be one for the ages, with students eager to raise their hand to share wisdom beyond their years. Yes, I knew exactly what this activity would look like in my classroom, and I was eager to share it with students.

As an example, during Shakespeare’s The Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet, I decided to assign students Act I, scene IV to read at home. We had read the prior acts as a large group. I was confident that with the necessary scaffolding and background information I had given to them about Queen Mab, they could read it, interpret it, and come back the next day with incredibly insightful notes. I anticipated a discussion with perceptive analysis and keen awareness. I was ready to be mesmerized!

They weren’t. Most students came back with what looked to be poorly copied SparkNotes. Some read the scene and gave me a three- to four-sentence “overview” (Internet based, I’m sure), and others didn’t bother to read at all.

Then it hit me: The reason the lesson failed and the reason I owed students an apology was because I didn’t set a purpose for reading. I didn’t explain why the reading was important.

I didn’t blame my students. My desire to send them on their way to see what they could do “on their own” was poorly thought through. The discussion I had hoped for became a brief lecture by me of the four most important “takeaways” from the scene.

And so, I apologized. First, I apologized for not thoroughly explaining Mercutio’s chaotic personality and why the scene exemplified his personality. Second, I apologized for failing to highlight the value of the dream sequence and how that haunted Romeo later. Finally, I apologized for basically throwing them into the deep end without a net.

I had given students the background knowledge they needed for the scene. But I didn’t tell them to offer evidence of Mercutio’s chaotic personality. I didn’t ask them how those examples of evidence demonstrated his personality. I had told them briefly about Queen Mab but didn’t ask students to explain the dream sequence or ask them to predict how Romeo’s dream haunted him later in the play. I didn’t bother telling the students what I wanted them to look for in their reading. I gave them what could be considered arguably the most difficult scene in Act I and threw them in, feet first without a life jacket. No wonder some of them struggled to stay afloat.

That was 24 years ago. Now that I’m an instructional coach/reading specialist at a large, urban high school, I use “why” questions when I work with teachers on gathering resources, lesson planning, and assessment: Why are we using those resources, and what are we hoping students gain from them? Why are we using that standard to represent that skill? What do we want to assess, and why should students know that information?

Yes, I’ve apologized many times to students throughout my 24-year career in the classroom. Although apologizing has never been easy, I always knew it was the right thing to do. Looking back, I wouldn’t have done it any other way and I know my students feel the same way.

Peg Grafwallner is an instructional coach with Milwaukee Public Schools. Learn more about Peg on her website.

At our first department leader meeting this fall, I asked each person to share a one-word goal for the year. There were 14 people in the room, and three listed survival as their word. Their goal was to survive. One other said persevere and still another’s goal was serenity. Almost a third were thinking about their emotional needs and steeling themselves for what would come next. No one in the room was surprised; in fact several others said they had considered using the same word—survive—but weren’t brave enough to admit it to the group. There was a bit of nervous laughter, and we moved on to business. Teaching is a tough job, and getting tougher.

Inspired by these teaching warriors and Shanna Peeples’ article in October’s Literacy Today, I starting asking teachers for their stories. What happened that influenced your day? What made you smile? What made you change direction?

Hearing stories from the trenches helps us realize we’re not alone. Better yet, our students (and colleagues) might provide us with cause to laugh. I consider humor cheap therapy.

Let me provide you with some cheap therapy.

I was working alongside a dedicated, energetic secondary teacher. On this particular day we asked students to practice reading authentic online text and respond to what they had read. Engagement was high, keyboards were clicking purposefully, and we were feeling the rush of professional success and mentally high-fiving each other.

One young lady who had been typically distracted and disengaged broke away from her response writing and motioned for my attention.

“Hey, Reading Lady. Do I capitalize the ‘h’ in Hispanic right here?”

I smiled, proud of her question. She was making such progress! “Yes, of course.”

As I walked away, I heard her mutter to herself. “Duh. Of course I should. Hispanic is a pretty big religion!”

End scene.

A short time ago I was watching a phenomenal teacher perform a close reading lesson. She had the kids near her in a semicircle, each with a notebook and pencil. A few minutes into the lesson a young man popped up and headed to the pencil sharpener. He started sharpening…and sharpening and sharpening and sharpening and sharpening and sharpening—with occasional peeks to see if the lead was sharp enough yet.

The teacher motioned for him to have a seat. Reluctantly and dramatically he dragged his feet back to his space.

A moment later he popped up again, even more enthusiastically, and dashed to his chair. He dug through his backpack, tossing everything and leaving items strewn all over the floor, chair, and desk. Triumphantly he held up what he had been seeking: a small pencil sharpener.

He smiled and skipped back to his place in the front of the room…and began sharpening. Sharpening and sharpening and sharpening and sharpening and sharpening…. The teacher, valiantly continuing to teach, walked to her desk and pulled out a pencil. She walked to him and gave him a meaningful stare as she handed him her pencil. He looked at it as she walked away, perplexed. Then his face lit up with blissful understanding, and he started sharpening her pencil.

End scene.

You can’t make this stuff up.

To be fair, sometimes my colleagues provide me with cheap therapy as well. For instance, in recent years, I’ve helped to dispel many misconceptions regarding standards and testing. I’ve had conversations with colleagues referencing “formalative” assessment (as opposed to “summalative”). During curriculum writing, somone referred to our “new STRANDards.” One of my favorites is this: “What are we going to do about this CANNON Core?”

We all need to seek out the lighter moments and collect stories from our schools to share. It’s a matter of survival.

Do you have a good story? Share it with us on social media with #ClassroomTales.

Julie Scullen is a former member of the ILA Board of Directors, and has also served as president of the Minnesota Reading Association and Minnesota Secondary Reading Interest Council. She taught most of her career in secondary reading intervention classrooms and now serves as Teaching and Learning Specialist for Secondary Reading in Anoka-Hennepin schools in Minnesota, working with teachers of all content areas to foster literacy achievement. She teaches graduate courses at Hamline University in St. Paul in literacy leadership and coaching, disciplinary literacy, critical literacy, and reading assessment and evaluation.

Recently I took a trip to Martha’s Vineyard in Massachusetts, and some friends told me about this Polar Bear experience I just had to have while on the island. They would not tell me much about it, but the warmth with which they described this experience convinced me it was something to try.

The Polar Bear experience has been taking place for more than 60 years at the Inkwell, a beach on Martha’s Vineyard with strong African American ties. It opens the fourth of July and closes Labor Day weekend. According to the Vineyard Gazette, there are three types of Polar Bears who meet at 7:30 a.m.: swimming bears, nonswimming bears (“bear-watchers and talkers”), and the exercise bears.

I met my friends early in the morning to be an exercise Polar Bear. We walked to the Inkwell, and there were people, mostly African American women, holding hands, making their way into the water. As I approached the water, one of my friends said, “Let me hold your hand,” and we proceeded into the water to join the others.

Instantly, I felt part of the family. From holding of hands, songs, chants, and movement, to the engaging leaders who seemed to truly “see” all of us, I felt like I was part of this family.

I thought, “This is a perfect example of culturally responsive teaching that can used in classrooms all across the United States to reach all students, but especially those who have been marginalized by society and those who come from communal backgrounds such as African American and Hispanic students.”

Here are the Polar Bear lessons we can take into our classrooms:

Create community in the classroom

Oftentimes we tell students, especially high school students, to work independently. However, many of our minority students come from communal backgrounds, and we thrive and grow when we can help each other. With the Polar Bear experience, the more experienced were helping the new bears, instantly creating a sense of community. At one point, the new Polar Bears were asked to move to the middle of the circle. Being new, I was reluctant, and an older Polar Bear took my hand and went with me to the middle of the circle. Even I, a grown woman, needed this gesture to ease my anxiety.

Establish routines and rituals

People thrive off of routine, and they work in any classrooms along with norms that help students to feel they belong. Whenever I start singing, “Started from the bottom, now we’re here,” my students instantly join in and know that we would be referring to Bloom’s taxonomy. The Polar Bears sang their same songs, at the same time, and there was a sense of comfort in my next visit, because I knew exactly what to expect. Oh, the joy I felt in being able to help new Polar Bears.

Celebrate individuality

It is important that students are viewed not only as individuals but also as part of the group. It is important to celebrate differences in the classroom: culture, family dynamics, race, religion, gender, and so forth. Near the end of the Polar Bear session, there is a chant. People are called upon to call out a dance or move for the group to do. This is the part of the routine where individual personalities are highlighted and celebrated. Because a sense of community and trust was established, this was the time when people took risks and allowed their “little light shine.”

I had been on vacation and looking forward to lots of rest and relaxation, but because of the sense of community I felt at the Polar Bear experience, I got up most mornings to attend those 7:30 sessions. When we create community in our classrooms, establishment routines, and celebrate individuality, our students will continue to want to come back home—to our classrooms.

Jacqueline Stallworth is a high school English teacher in Northern Virginia and the writer of a literary blog, The Big Sea. She is also the founder of Stallworth Educational Consulting Team, a company committed to having school curriculum reflect the diverse world in which we live.

It is vital that future teachers understand research-based strategies and methods that will best serve their students, especially today, when there is a shift from how we teach a text to what text we are teaching. Literacy research has moved from a content area reading approach to a disciplinary reading approach in which strategies that are unique to specific disciplines are used to help students comprehend discipline-based texts. In fostering this shift, we must not move away from encouraging students to make connections in disciplinary literacy.

Content vs. disciplinary

Content area literacy focuses on techniques that readers use to comprehend content area texts; disciplinary literacy shifts the focus to the way that readers need to critically think, understand, or engage in the reading of a specific text to construct and convey meaning in an academic subject. Research has documented reading strategies that good readers use, and these can look similar across disciplines; however, they tend to neglect specific information necessary for discipline-specific comprehension. Consequently, literacy instruction must shift from general reading strategies to more specific ones that can be uniquely used, in order to make sense of texts in specific academic disciplines. This means that the student must read like a historian, mathematician, scientist, and book critic. 

Read like a historian

This type of reading engages students in historical inquiry through analysis and interpretation, involving critical literacy and inquiry-based learning. The strategies used in this discipline involve corroboration, analysis of multiple perspectives, questioning historical claims through evidence, determining importance, contextualizing sources, and summarizing and sequencing events.

Summaries would include the important social, political, economic causes or consequences of a historic event. Reading like a historian requires students to think critically and provide evidence from their reading. Students must be encouraged to make connections in this discipline in order to recognize how the ideas in the text connect to their experiences, beliefs, happenings in the world, and their knowledge of other texts.   

Read like a mathematician

This type of reading focuses on abstract concepts regarding numbers and space. Mathematical texts are written in compact form, containing many concepts wrapped in a sentence or paragraph. Students must learn to analyze, reason, formulate, interpret, and solve a variety of problems.

Strategies in this discipline include visualizing and conceptually understanding mathematical language, drawing conclusions and determining importance, analyzing and communicating ideas effectively, interpreting and formulating procedures, investigating the reasoning and arguments of differing opinions, transcribing detailed mathematical arguments, and evaluating data. Students must be encouraged to make connections in this discipline by relating mathematical content to real-world situations. Project-based learning and meaningful learning experiences engage students and make mathematical learning relevant to students’ lives.

Read like a scientist
Strategies in this discipline include making predictions, asking and answering questions, defining the problem, contrasting fact from opinion, reevaluating, reviewing, and reflecting. Students need to make connections in this discipline in order to engage in real-world problems and science-related issues that affect their world and other human beings. These connections empower and engage students to discuss and debate relevant issues such as global warming, access to clean water, and renewable resources.    

Read like a book critic

The study of literature involves critical literacy and analysis of texts that contain artistic uses of language and literary techniques used by authors to capture the human experience. In this discipline, elements of fiction and devices such as tone, foreshadowing, mood, and irony are explored, requiring the student to read critically in order to gain the most meaning.

The strategies used in this discipline include predicting, clarifying, drawing inferences, visualizing, analyzing text from differing viewpoints, questioning, examining story structure, leading discussions that include author’s purpose, and using summaries to identify the central issue, raise questions, identify literary approaches, and include characters’ emotional responses. Students must be encouraged to make connections in order to explore characters, scenarios, and viewpoints in an effort to explore questions involving purpose and meaning in their own lives.

Teaching literacy with a disciplinary literacy approach requires students to be immersed in the language and thinking processes of that discipline, learn the content in each discipline, and understand how and why reading and writing are used in each discipline. Connections are required in order to engage students in relevant and purposeful activities, which lead to engagement and motivation in everyday life. Engagement and motivation should remain our focuses in today’s classrooms in order to foster deeper comprehension and better learning in all disciplines.

Vickie Johnston is the program coordinator for the MEd Curriculum & Instruction Program in the College of Education at Florida Gulf Coast University where she teaches literacy and teacher education courses. Karen S. DiBella is an assistant professor and director of the Reading Center at the University of Tennessee at Martin and teaches graduate and undergraduate reading methods and foundations courses, content area literacy, children's literature, and adolescent literature courses. After 14 years as an elementary and middle school language arts teacher, Cynthia Dawn Martelli is an assistant professor of Reading in the Department of Curriculum, Instruction and Culture at Florida Gulf Coast University.

Chaz Bono. Martin Gitlin.
Caitlyn Jenner. Carla Mooney.
Lana Wachowski. Jeff Mupua.
Laverne Cox. Erin Staley.
2016. Rosen.

Series Summary

Transgender Pioneers is a four-book series written as short, factual reads that should appeal to teens of all ages. These books, written in a breezy fanzine style, focus on transgender trailblazers who are not only famous in their own right but also have become well known because of their sexual identities, which are different from those with which they were born.

Chaz Bono, the child of superstars Sonny Bono and Cher, grew up as sweet Chastity in the public spotlight and under the scrutinizing glare of the media. His story is told with sensitivity, highlighting the emotional and mental upheavals Chaz undergoes as he transitions into a young man. Bruce Jenner attracted fame and garnered awards, both athletic and monetary, after he claimed the title of World’s Greatest Athlete as the 1976 Summer Olympics decathlon gold medal winner. Contemporary audiences know Jenner as the stepfather of the Kardashian clan through their lucrative foray into the phenomenon of reality TV. Her struggles with her identity now as Caitlyn Jenner have been lifelong, and her transition from one role to another while in the public eye makes for an emotional read.

Lana Wachowski’s transition story weaves through the timeline of her impressive film career and features the challenges she faces with media relations, celebrity status, and family. Laverne Cox’s success as an entertainer gives her a platform for promoting awareness of issues that affect the transgender community while she publically embraces her transgender identity.

These four volumes not only reveal the unique aspects of each transgender celebrity but also detail the differences faced by each; their stories are written with sensitivity and accuracy. Considering the misconceptions and lack of understanding about transgender and gender nonconforming individuals, the series’ biggest impact could be in the factual information about these well-known persons, their private and public agonies and triumphs.

Cross-Curricular Connections: English, health, science, art, social studies

Ideas for Classroom Use

Creating a Visual Biography

For one of the subjects in the series, create a poster or infographic that depicts significant moments in that individual’s life. This might look like a timeline, a web, or a flowchart, but you are not limited to these suggestions. Using the timeline at the end of each biography, write a balanced and succinct summary of the book. Trade with a partner or another set of partners and evaluate using the following questions: Is there anything important that was left out? Is there anything unimportant that could be left out? If you hadn’t read the book, would you understand what the timeline was about? There are several poster creation websites; canva.com and PowerPoint offer options.

Group Summarizing

Assign small groups one of the six chapters of any of the books. Each group will form a list of significant events from their chapter on a large sticky note that has been folded in half. From this list, each group will generate a one- or two-sentence summary of the chapter. Groups will rotate, repeat listing and summarizing activities for the next chapter (on the same sheet of paper—bottom half). Groups will rotate once more to read and evaluate peers’ work. Students will then unfold paper and compare the summaries, asking: Is there anything important that one group/both groups left out? Is there anything unimportant that one group/both groups could leave out? Do you understand what the chapter was about? After students have considered these questions, each group will share their findings with the whole class. The teacher will create a list of common strengths of the summaries and areas for improvement that can be posted in the room.

“A Possibility Model”

Laverne Cox draws attention to the statistics of discrimination and violence against the transgender community and promotes open conversations and encourages love and empathy through her “possibility model.” Possibilities grow out of accurate definitions. Have students participate in a team project where team members research a specific aspect of the sexual spectrum, gather reliable information and resources, and present research findings to the rest of the class. Using the data gathered, teams will prepare and come to the next class ready to set up graphic organizers illustrating their understanding at the beginning of the class. Create a gallery walk of organizers and have students prepare an evaluation sheet of the effectiveness of team creations. Several graphic representations of the sexual spectrum appear on the Internet. A reliable source for LGBT Terms and Definitions is found at this link: https://internationalspectrum.umich.edu/life/definitions

Examining Prejudice

Conduct a Socratic seminar, using the following questions to guide discussion:

• What is prejudice? What are some reasons why we say people are prejudiced?
• What do you know about transgender persons? Where did you get your information?
• What sacrifices did these celebrities make in order to reveal their identities?
• Do celebrities have a greater obligation to the public in educating us about their transitions? Why or why not?
• What are our responsibilities in addressing discrimination against transgender individuals?

Developing an Action Plan

The Anti-Defamation League website provides a lesson plan involving videos of transgender teens in the news. After viewing and discussing, have students brainstorm an action plan using the grid provided on the site. Draft a proposal for developing a plan to build a safe and secure environment for all students and begin to implement the plan in your classroom and eventually in the school. This site also provides guidelines for teachers who want to teach sensitive topics but need reassurance and support.

Resources and Additional Recent Children’s/YA Texts With Similar Themes

Beyond Magenta: Transgender Teens Speak Out. Susan Kuklin. 2015. Candlewick.

Gracefully Grayson. Ami Polonsky. 2014. Disney-Hyperion.

I Am Jazz. Jessica Herthel and Jazz Jennings. 2014. Dial.

Jacob's New Dress. Sarah Hoffman and Ian Hoffman. 2014. Albert Whitman & Company.

Rethinking Normal: A Memoir in Transition. Katie Rain Hill. 2014. Simon & Schuster Books for Young People.

Some Assembly Required: The Not-So-Secret Life of a Transgender Teen. Arin Andrews. 2014. Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers.

The Teaching Transgender Toolkit: A Facilitator’s Guide to Increasing Knowledge, Decreasing Prejudice & Building Skills. Eli R. Green and Luca Maurer. 2015. Planned Parenthood of the Southern Finger Lakes: Out for Health.

Judith A. Hayn is professor of Secondary Education at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock. She is a member and past chair of SIGNAL, the Special Interest Group Network on Adolescent Literature of ILA, which focuses on using young adult literature in the classroom. Jay Cobernis an English Education graduate student at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock. Laura Langley is a teacher at Mills High School outside of Little Rock.