Literacy Now

Just when we, as a society, begin to think we are making headway with social justice and tolerance, we are reminded of how much more there is to do. Young adult authors take this challenge seriously and continue writing thought-provoking fiction and nonfiction to offer contemporary adolescents a view of past struggles. The National Book Awards provided the impetus for this project when the 2014 Longlist for Young People’s Literature included Steve Sheinkin’s The Port Chicago 50: Disaster, Mutiny, and the Fight for Civil Rights and Deborah Wiles’ Revolution: The Sixties Trilogy, Book Two while Jacqueline Woodson’s Brown Girl Dreaming won the award. We wondered what choices teachers have from recently published works to help them blend civil rights into literacy instruction. Here are the texts and ideas we came up with.

Stella by Starlight (Simon & Schuster, 2015)
by Sharon M. Draper
Ages 9-12  
Historical Fiction

Young Stella chronicles her dreams of reading in a library, improving her writing, and living in an equitable world when she sneaks out of the house to write in her journal under the starlight. For a young African-American girl in rural, segregated South Carolina in 1932, these simple dreams sometimes seemed out of reach. Stella chronicles experiences and challenges of growing up, racism, and prejudice. She is profoundly impacted by her community’s encounters with the Ku Klux Klan and segregated classrooms that only receiv out-of-date worn books the white schools no longer want. In Stella by Starlight, Stella’s indomitable spirit and optimism shine through, taking the reader beyond challenges to a place of hope.

Teaching Ideas

Discussion: When Stella’s father asks her to come with him on the day he goes to vote in the presidential election, he indicates that Stella is his “standing stone.” What does her father mean by this reference? What does his reference indicate about Stella’s character and about her relationship with her father? What does her father’s reference to the need for a “standing stone” indicate about the situation he is likely to encounter as he goes to vote?

Writing project: Direct students to consider supportive people in their own lives. Identify one of those people they would consider a “standing stone.” Have students write several specific reasons why they consider that person a standing stone. Direct students to include a detailed narrative about a situation in which the selected person offered support and gave strength through a difficult situation. If a student feels as though s/he does not have a person to depend on, have the student write some of the qualities s/he would look for in a standing stone. All students should then write about how they can be a standing stone for another person in a difficult situation.

The Port Chicago 50: Disaster, Mutiny, and the Fight for Civil Rights (Roaring Brook Press, 2014)
by Steve Sheinkin
Ages 10-14
Non-Fiction

The story of 50 courageous men who stood on the frontline of the civil rights movement is chronicled in The Port Chicago 50: Disaster, Mutiny, and the Fight for Civil Rights. Only the African-American service members in the highly segregated U.S. Navy during World War II were required to load deadly ammunition and live bombs onto cramped ships at the Port Chicago base. After a deadly explosion that killed 320 servicemen and injured many more, the African American sailors demanded safer working conditions before they would load the ships with explosives again. The Navy classified this resistance as mutiny, and threatened the African-American sailors with death by firing squad if they did not comply with orders. Some of the men backed down, but 50 did not. This historical narrative recounts the painful Port Chicago disaster and ensuing controversial court-martial of 50 African American service members after the incident. The book is built on painstaking research of the facts, and is made richer still with the narrative of many of the men who experienced the incident. Images of original photos and documents throughout the book make this non-fiction text extraordinarily insightful and approachable for adolescent readers.

Teaching Ideas:

The epilogue offers an excerpt from the Navy’s official 1994 report of the Port Chicago incident stated although racial discrimination was institutionalized by segregated working and living conditions, “…racial prejudice and discrimination played no part in the court-martial convictions or sentences, and that there was nothing unfair or unjust in the final outcome of any of the Port Chicago court-martials.” Instruct students to consider the following question: Do you agree or disagree with this statement, and why? As students write their answers, they should include at least five references to evidence in the text to support their opinion. This writing activity could be used as an informal planning session to organize for a thoughtful classroom debate or as a planning activity prior to writing an essay after reading The Port Chicago 50.

Ask students to research a contemporary issue that involves civil rights issues. Each student will then compose a persuasive letter to a newspaper editorial page or blog like The Huffington Post stating a stance on the issue. The op-ed piece must be supported by the research.

Brown Girl Dreaming (Nancy Paulsen Books, 2014)
by Jacqueline Woodson
Ages 10+
Non-Fiction Novel-in-Verse

Jacqueline Woodson does not disappoint in her National Book Award-winning novel-in-verse Brown Girl Dreaming. She eloquently weaves a story of how who she was has made her into the woman she is today. Memories paint a picture of what her family means to her as well as her idea of home, which while it changes its physical location several times, stays the same in her heart. Through Woodson’s words we can see a child’s understanding of history as she moves from Ohio where being colored does not define her, to South Carolina where she must quickly learn to sit at the back of the bus and refrain from making eye contact with white people during the Civil Rights movement. Adolescent readers will benefit not only from the historical context in which the book is set, but also by the author’s examination of home, family, freedom, and sense of self. Teens are on a journey of self-discovery, and this novel poetically shows them someone else’s moments of impact as well as their effects.

Teaching Ideas

Free verse is a form that allows more freedom than other types of writing, so it is hopefully one that adolescents will be comfortable using. The last two poems, “what i believe,” and “each world” sum up what Woodson has learned through the parts of her life that she shared with us in the novel. Students could be asked to produce a free verse poem that sums up what they believe after they are guided through the process of examining important things in their lives. As the students read the novel, have them journal on certain selected poems from the book making sure that it is a reflection on their own lives. For example, “other people’s memory” on page 17 would require them to talk to different members of their family about their birth and construct their own story of their birth to tell. In “as a child, I smelled the air” on page 95, students would have to examine sights, smells, and sounds of important places in their lives. Page 131 offers a poem entitled “sometimes, no words are needed,” which would guide students to think about such a moment in their own lives. Woodson demonstrates how she modeled a poem off of a Langston Hughes poem in “learning from langston” on page 245. Instruct students to pick one of their favorite poems and following the style of that poet, write their own stanza about the same subject from their own perspective. As their assessment for this unit, have them write their own free verse poem about what they currently believe about themselves and life.

The Fog Machine (Lucky Sky Press, 2014)
by Susan Follett
General Audience
Historical Fiction

Joan from Follett’s The Fog Machine examines a bookcase in one of the freedom summer schools that was set up in Mississippi in 1964. “Reading would be no fun at all, she thought, if you couldn’t imagine yourself into the story.” Follett manages in this beautiful tale to not only pull readers in and imagine themselves in the story, but she also forces them to question how they would behave during interactions that occur throughout the novel. The Fog Machine is a poignant tale of a search for equality and justice by different people during the time of the Civil Rights movement. Told from the points of view of C.J. who is a colored girl of 12 years old at the beginning of the novel, as well as sometimes from Joan, the little white girl that C.J. cared for at one point in her life, and Zach, a white boy C.J.’s age who impacts her in ways she could never have predicted, we see the varying perspectives of both races during the tumultuous times in the late 1950’s and early 1960’s. We watch the characters grow up separately and interact with people that will help them to shape their own beliefs of what is right and how people should be treated. All of them will be forced to leave their comfort zones as they ultimately decide how hard they are willing to fight for freedom and whether or not the price is worth it. Lives separate and then intersect again throughout the novel leaving the reader with a sense of connectedness between the characters that the time in which they live attempts to destroy. It is a realistic story that breaks the reader’s heart at times with its truth, leaving one to ponder how things could have turned out differently for the characters at a later time in history.

Teaching Ideas

There is a historic timeline in the front of the book that is helpful for students to cross-reference events as they happen in the story, but also serves as a topic list for potential group projects. Have students pick an event from the list and ask them to research more about that particular topic. Students can have control over how they present the information they learn to the class, but they must be sure to also reference how the characters in the book felt, or what they did in reaction to the event or topic that the group has researched. They must also individually write a reflection on how they personally feel about the event or person now, and what they imagine they would have done if they were living in those times. As groups present their topics, all students should take notes so that at the end of the presentations each individual will turn in a completed timeline of events that were discussed, with three main points about each thing included.

The Freedom Summer Murders (Scholastic, 2014)
by Don Mitchell
Ages 14+
Non-Fiction

Andrew Goodman, James Earl Chaney, and Michael “Mickey” Schwerner were household names in Freedom Summer 1964 because of their gruesome deaths that were covered up by law enforcement in Neshoba County, Mississippi. The Freedom Summer Murders is a non-fiction look at these three gentlemen; who they were and what they stood for, as well as the story of their brutal murders followed by a look at the investigation into first finding their bodies, and then attempting to prosecute the guilty parties. The black and white pictures serve to enhance the story, and many highlight the racial tensions of the time. Students who read this book will come away with a better understanding of what was at stake for African Americans during this tumultuous time, as well as the risks that the freedom workers –black and white- took together in an effort to fight for civil rights. This book would work well paired with The Fog Machine, since the disappearance of these three young men was discussed in that work of fiction. There were some volunteers in that book who knew one or more of the men, and it was certainly an event that overshadowed the work of the characters during Freedom Summer.

Teaching Ideas

As a pre-reading activity, display a few of the pictures found in The Freedom Summer Murders without the captions on an Elmo, such as the ones on page 105, 109, and pg. 145. Instruct the students to journal about what they think is going on in these pictures. Tell them that they will see these photos again as they read the book.  As they come across each picture while reading, have them journal about each photo again now that they understand the context of the photo. Break the students into small groups and assign each group one of the pictures. Instruct them to create a t-chart of their reaction to the photo when it was taken out of context, and then their reaction as they came across it while reading and understood what was really going on in the pictures. Have each group share with the class and ask them to discuss how their reactions changed to the photos once the background on each was discovered.

Countdown (Scholastic, 2013) and
Revolution (Scholastic, 2014)
by Deborah Wiles
Ages 8-12
Historical Fiction

These companion texts are part of a trilogy set in the turbulent Sixties; each features a young teen girl growing up amid a tumultuous and changing world, one she often does not understand. In Countdown, Franny Chapman is 11 and living with her family near Washington, DC, in Camp Springs, Maryland, during the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis. The threat of nuclear war is not just for world leaders, but becomes very real for Franny and her family. Her younger brother annoys her since he always behaves himself. Her older sister Jo Ellen gets caught up in mysterious, secret meetings on campus at the University of Maryland. Her dad is in the Air Force and gets calls to report to base more frequently than he should while her mother tries to hold it all together. Uncle Otts, a World War I veteran, is determined to build a bomb shelter in their front yard. Amidst this turmoil, Franny is losing her best friend and perhaps gaining a boyfriend and trying her best to grow up no matter what is going on.

What makes both of these books remarkable, however, is Wiles’ documentary novel approach. Pop songs of the era, along with Red Scare reminders, overlay powerful images from that time period. Interspersed with the narrative are accounts of those who influenced our society. In Revolution, protest songs and poems are also embedded with the disturbing photos and memorabilia.

In the second book, the scene shifts to Greenwood, Mississippi, and the summer of 1964. Sunny Fairchild is 12, and she and her family, along with the community, prepare for the “invaders.” Freedom Summer is coming bringing the outsiders who will try to register Negroes to vote. As the tension builds in the community, Sunny tries to cope with a new family now that her father has remarried. Annabelle, who is pregnant, her son Gillette and little sister Audrey hope to fit into Sunny’s life, but she resists with everything she has. The tie-in between the two storylines is Jo Ellen Chapman who comes to Greenwood with SNCC, Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, to help register voters.

Teaching Ideas

Have students select a song that reflects the times they live in. Prepare a collage using the lyrics of the song along with pictures from magazines and the Internet to explain the theme of the song. Each student should write a brief explanation of how the lyrics and photos suggest the theme the student has chosen. Alternatively, students could work in pairs for a team approach.

The author David Levithan, who used bleak photographs as the backdrop for his book Every You, Every Me (2011), advised Deborah Wiles on the juxtaposition of images and words when writing a novel. Students can create their own documentary novels by using original photographs and tying them together with a story line. Sharing can be done via PowerPoint, Prezi, and even easel paper storyboards.

Do these work for you? Do you have your own methods of including this type of historical fiction or nonfiction? Share your stories at social@reading or on Twitter at
@iratoday.

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 IRA which focuses on using young adult literature in the classroom. Karina Clemmons, associate professor of Secondary Education, and students in the Masters in Secondary English Education program and Heather A. Olvey is a graduate assistant.

As a literacy consultant for 20 some years, I’d heard this question often. Many teachers fail to understand the value of individual, developmental guidance during the process of writing, especially in the first 18 months of learning to read, as evidenced in research by Marie Clay. While most teachers today agree that writing (encoding) is crucial to decoding, there is much disagreement about how to teach writing.

Changing my mindset

Prior to becoming a literacy consultant, I was a teacher for more than 20 years, but I didn’t understand how conventional writing could help teach beginning reading—I didn’t understand the developmental process of writing. Neither did the kindergarten teacher on my team in the early ‘90s as we tried to develop the best kindergarten literacy program possible. We both truly believed all children learned to read just from being read to, and reading “any way” they could, within a program of immersion and exposure to meaningful print, and we developed such a program. We did include some writing—journal writing, and a story starter every week in centers, but there was no individual, developmental guidance during the process of writing. (We hadn’t heard of Cambourne’s Conditions).

A kindergarten test worth doing

To be sure our program was the “best,” we decided we needed to test the children at the beginning of our program, and again at the end. We used Clay’s Dictation, because along with testing phonemic awareness, it also tests the alphabetic principle which signifies the beginning of reading. At the end of the year we were shocked by what we saw! Our highest score was 22 out of 37, and the lowest was a zero (with four other scores only slightly above)! My fellow teacher and I were heartsick. We had failed five children by not teaching them the alphabetic principle and it was they, not us, who would bear the burden of not being able to read or write. I decided to give writing a “hard look” and I began to read everything I could find on the subject which led me to a wealth of research.

Experts taught me that writing is of major importance to early reading progress. Furthermore, a writing workshop is the best structure to use for writing, because it is based on and promotes Cambourne’s Seven Conditions of Learning: immersion, demonstration, approximation, time, responsibility, feedback, and expectation. This structure and these conditions provide for developmental learning and individual guidance during the process of writing which is important for all children, but absolutely critical to the child who is falling behind, as many scholars know.  

I began implementing writing workshops in kindergartens. In the past 20 some years, every student in every classrooms where I’ve served as a consultant has passed Clay’s Dictation with flying colors. The lowest score recorded in any of these classrooms was a 22 out of 37, the next lowest a 28, and all the rest were over 30 with many children having perfect scores 37/37. (Today they also pass the PALS Test). All these children can read and write.

Writing Workshop allows for all the right conditions of learning literacy

The appropriate transformations that enable children to understand message at the early reading stage take place only in the presence of print, and when the child is engaged and actively seeking to discover how his/her oral and written language are related, according to Clay. Writing prevents learners from overlooking many things they need to know about print, and reveals things that the teacher needs to know. All children can be introduced to a writing program at some level with which he or she can engage, and then go forward with the teacher providing some individual, developmentally appropriate strategies at points of need within a writing workshop, as seen and described in my video and book, Helping Children Become Readers Through Writing. (Note: we will refer to videos produced to support Helping Children Become Readers Through Writing. The time will refer to particular sections of the video, but will be hyperlinked to the entire video.)

Unfortunately, for kindergartners and preservice teachers, all schools do not provide writing workshops based on Cambourne’s Conditions, and this was the dilemma facing Dr. Cindy Cate and myself as we tried to plan a “hands-on” program for her preservice teachers who would work with younger children.

What is considered learning? 80% or 100%?

My testing matched Clay’s observations. Indeed 80% of kindergartners and first graders do learn to read and write on their own regardless of the teacher’s methodology; these children are flexible and able to re-orient their previous learning to the teacher’s demands.  However, with observant, supportive teachers guiding them during their process of writing, this 80% would learn to think through their reading and writing more “closely,” often generating further learning or inquiry as seen with Ryan (36:47-37:22).

What about the remaining 20%? Programs that do not allow for some individual, developmentally appropriate guidance during the process of writing or “lock-step” programs that demand a young child’s first steps into literacy be predetermined, such as teaching letters, words, and skills in isolation first while downplaying the need to work at understanding message, may be an insurmountable barrier which turns these children off into a side-road of failure. This 20% needs frequent opportunities to write and test the rules of literacy they are discovering as they actively seek to discover how their oral and written language are related, as reported by Clay. They need guidance that focuses on constructing meaning while learning strategies to aid them during the process of writing such as the Letter Name Strategy (25:02-25:33). This guidance must be individual and developmentally appropriate, or these children will struggle with literacy all their lives.

Passing the pen to Dr. Cindy Cate

My reading methods course is packed with 100 preservice teachers divided into 4 sections. We meet two times a week for an hour and 15 minutes. Luckily we have a hands-on place to practice literacy planning, instruction, and assessment. Classes are held in a literacy lab within a kindergarten-second grade elementary school, and there is also a 15-hour practicum.

I welcome the idea of setting up practicums for each preservice teacher, and I try to place them in classrooms that mirror my curriculum. In these practicums, preservice teachers document their student’s literacy behaviors, strengths and needs which guides their instruction. This documentation is supported by class discussions and required course readings.

In the beginning of the semester, the first three chapters of Arlene’s bookare required reading, because they focus on guiding the emergent writer-reader. Additionally, we view her instructional video and read Chapter five in conjunction with the video.  The preservice teachers were eager to apply the lessons in the classroom.

Once they were well into their practicums, I was approached with confusions and disappointment from those working with kindergarten students who did not have a writing workshop. These students didn’t know why their practicum experiences should be so different from what they were learning. They wondered how they would be able to foster their students’ literacy growth stage from emergent to early writer-readers.

Unfortunately, it is a fact many kindergarten classrooms do not implement a writing workshop that embraces immersing children “in the process of meaningful writing where the proper conditions of learning language are valued,” as recommended by Schulze. These conditions, based on Cambourne’s research, are discussed during the first week of classes with my preservice teachers for good reason. Similar to what Schulze cites, I, too believe that teaching preservice teachers “how” to teach reading and writing in a workshop, literacy lab environment is the only structure or approach to use.

I rely on Cambourne’s Seven Conditions, the consistent referencing of these conditions support the activities and assigned tasks in my reading methods course. Cambourne informs us that the same conditions that support children as they develop oral language can be used as a developmental model for all literacy learning—basically, using strengths to teach weaknesses (Routman).  Preservice teachers easily latched on to these conditions, especially when they read sections of Arlene’s book and were able to connect them to what they know they are learning.

When my preservice teachers share their documentations of their students’ behaviors, strengths and needs, we discuss the methods they used and weigh their usefulness against Cambourne’s Conditions as to being developmentally appropriate. For example, one of the preservice teachers reported his kindergartner’s assignment was to copy the letter “M” repeatedly on a worksheet, however, the kindergartner did not understand how to communicate his oral language into written language yet. The class decided because the kindergartner had not been “immersed” in the process of writing, and did not yet understand the alphabetic principle, he did not have the “responsibility” to derive any learning from this assignment. For letter knowledge to transfer to conventional writing, letters are learned best in the “process of writing” as can be seen with Trent (32:13-33:51).

This is how we resolved our problem of “haves” and “have nots.” Even though all my students couldn’t have a hands-on practicum experience in a writing workshop based on Cambourne’s Conditions, we were able to provide a positive experience through class discussion utilizing Cambourne’s Conditions.

Arlene C. Schulze is a longtime reading teacher-specialist, consultant and author, and she remains active as a literacy coach and speaker in Wisconsin promoting writing's value to reading, especially  on the emergent reading level and author of Helping Children Become Readers Through Writing. Cindy Cate, a graduate of UWSP, worked as  a Title I reading teacher and specialist in the Appleton Area School District of WI.  Currently she is an assistant professor of reading for UWSP .  Her doctoral study focused on preservice teacher's perceptions of planning reading instruction, and currently she chairs the preservice teacher committee of the Wisconsin State Reading Association.

“Congratulations, Kip Glazer! You are the newest winner of our One Classroom at a Time Grant!”

A perky news reporter walked into my classroom with her cameraman in September 2013, holding an oversized check. She truly surprised me because I sent the application in June and completely forgot about it!

As a veteran teacher, I have written many, many grant applications. On my LinkedIn profile, I have listed several I have won over the years. However, I have always felt a bit uncomfortable about talking about my experience. Don’t get me wrong—I am not shy about submitting grant applications. I submit several of them each year, but many of them have been rejected. I have learned to deal with the feeling of getting polite rejection letters. They all pretty much say the same thing, they regret not being able to fund my project. They wish that I try another time. But as Shakespeare once said, “Wise men ne’er sit and wail their loss, but cheerily seek how to redress their harms.”

One of the reasons I win grants is because I do not let rejection get to me. Although I feel the reason I win grants was because I was at the right place at the right time, I am happy to share a few things I have done. I hope it will help teachers in a small way in submitting their own grant applications.

Just start!

Arthur Ashe once said, “Start where you are. Use what you have. Do what you can.” Anyone interested in winning grants should just start. Don’t wait. Do it now! Type in “teacher grants” into a search engine and begin. There are tons and tons of websites helping teachers find grants online. I also subscribe to list services that send out grant applications weekly. I usually look at the emails when I have about 20-30 minutes to spare. When I see a grant I think I should apply for, I just sit down and write the application and hit submit. I don’t stop until I am finished because I know it is unlikely I will go back to it later. Remember, you can never win a lottery unless you play! Just keep writing!

Create a go-to document

To expedite the process, I have a Google document I keep with all the list of projects I would like to pursue. Whenever I think of a new idea, I put it in that document. I add bullet points under different projects. I add what the project is about, how many students it will serve, what types of standards it will target, what supplies I will need, etc. That document also houses the paragraphs from some of my previous grant applications. I definitely keep paragraphs from winning grant applications!

Leverage media and target local organizations to build personal relationships

Several of the grants I won were small and they came mostly from local educational agencies or charitable organizations. Some of them were unsolicited. The first time I won a grant from my county office of education, there was a newspaper article. I cut out that article and sent it to various local charitable organizations with a letter asking for more donations to the project. I received a lot of polite rejection letters, but some led to making connections with people at local organizations. Even when they say no to me, I send a thank you card for their time. As a result, these new friends have donated money to my students who need help with AP testing fees.

I have also cultivated friendly relationships with local media. Prior what I consider to be innovative projects, I typically do an additional lesson with my students on how to write a press release for local media. I also email different online news sites to connect with the writers. One communication resulted in a Mindshift blog post. With that, I was able to contact other local charitable agencies to request additional funding for other projects.

Crowdsource and collaborate

In addition to asking for donations, I often ask my friends and their acquaintances to share information on various grants. Just the other day, a parent of one of my graduates sent me information on a $150 grant. It only took me five minutes to complete the application. It is worth letting people know you are always on the search for grants. I have also shared information on grants with other teachers that didn’t quite fit me. So please email me if you know of any grant for which I should be apply!

Always consider collaborating. The largest grant I won was with two other teachers. The grant was brought to me and we wrote the application together. While working on the grant application, I learned so much about what my colleagues are doing and we all benefited from winning the grant.

Document and share the results

Each time I won a grant, I made sure to create a quick digital presentation or a blog post of how the money was spent. No matter how small or how much large the award, funders love to see that their donations are making a difference. I not only honor the people whose generosity made things possible but also teach my students that no one does these things alone. It has always been important for me to teach my students to be gracious. A picture on a blog with credit accomplishes that more quickly. It has helped my cause as well. I have used my links to the pictures and videos more than once for additional projects. Pictures really are worth a thousand words!

I don’t mean to profess to be an expert grant writer. I am not. I am a teacher who won a few grants during her career. I sincerely hope you find some use from my experience. Good luck to you all!

Kip Glazer is a native of Seoul, South Korea, and immigrated to the United States in 1993 as a college student.  In 2002, she graduated Cum Laude from California Polytechnic University in San Luis Obispo with a Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science. She earned her Master’s Degree in Curriculum and Instruction from Chapman University in 2004, while receiving her California Single Subject Teaching Credential in both Social Studies and English. Since then, she has earned additional teaching credentials in Health, Foundational Mathematics, and School Administration. Glazer is currently pursuing a Doctorate of Education in Learning Technologies at Pepperdine University. She is the current team leader for Independence High School’s Teachers’ Professional Development Grant funded by California State University, Chico. She maintains a blog about her projects and grants.

This is an invitation, a moment to pause, think big, and reclaim your children’s voices in the classroom. This is an invite to twist.

I am fortunate to have frequent visitors to my classroom. Many of them are students in the graduate education courses I teach in the summers and evenings. Often, as my visitors depart, they ask, “What do you do to make your classroom work and how can I do it, too?” This question is BIG and bewildering, because our community of learners is built atop a mass of small decisions grown out of my larger philosophy of how students learn.

I roll just outside of tradition. It is hard to encapsulate the theories that build up our days, but as I reflect, there are some specific decisions or “twists” that, over time, have changed the way my kids “do school.” I call them twists, because they are small tweaks on big traditions offering new opportunities, ways of seeing, and possibilities for who "drives the bus." I would like to shine a light on my top 10 twists sitting just outside of the ordinary but have brought out the extraordinary in the children I teach.

Leave your walls blank for the first day of school

Give yourself a break. Step back from the luring calls of websites like TeachersPayTeachers and Pinterest. Throw away all of your commercial posters, and open up the year with bare bulletin boards and walls. Watch how your students become empowered as they make the classroom their own.

Ditch behavior management systems based on penalties and rewards

Take down the behavior chart, review the research on motivation, and invite students to take the lead in running the classroom. Try out community meetings, one-on-one conferences, and empathy as chief tools for helping students grow emotionally and socially.

Let your students choose their seats

Each week invite students to select where they sit in the room. Choice seating prompts students to have authentic conversations about learning styles and peer collaboration and increases their level of ownership for the places where they thrive. Encourage students to construct and reconstruct desk and table configurations to best fit the learning goal.

Step away from the copier

Take one day when you step away from the copier and refrain from using any previously copied worksheets and materials. Instead, invite students to orally tell stories of their learning, reflect in a spiral notebook, or use a variety of artistic representations to show what they know. Notice what happens when students no longer need to learn how to “complete” the worksheet and instead concentrate on experiencing the content on their own terms.

Take a wonder walk

Take a walk with your students across campus, in the surrounding neighborhoods, or simply through the halls to another part of the building. Before you walk, voice an intention—to search for environmental print your students might use in their poetry, to capture dialogue by unexpected bystanders to serve as inspiration for their writing, or to notice how the desks in different classrooms are arranged and why. These walks engage students and extend the learning spaces in your classroom.

Try oral storytelling

Throughout the day tell oral stories. Invite professional storytellers, parents, school employees, and members of your larger community in to tell their story. Storytelling builds empathy, awareness, and connections while building the foundational skills for growing lifelong writers and readers.

Give your leveled library a vacation

Un-level your library and discard your buckets with letters indicating who can and will read what particular books. Then engage your students in thoughtful conversations about how to select books that grow them as readers, and how readers select different books for different purposes. Invite students to reorganize the library in a way that best fits their needs.

Create a student-teacher writing/reading dialogue journal

Each week ask students to write to you in a composition book about what they are writing and reading. Then respond narratively to their journey. Occasionally, send the composition book home and ask parents to join in on the written conversation. Use this book to engage students in the talk of real writers and readers, to show the interconnection between writing and reading, to highlight individual trends, and to document growth over time.

Read books that spark critical conversations

Read provocative books aloud to your students that speak to issues of race, power, poverty, sexuality, and gender. Engage students in oral and written conversations on whose voices are heard, whose are silenced, and why.

Put the Lined Paper Away and Step Away From the Stapler

Provide students with multiple types of paper to write on including plain white, lined, and colored. Instead of giving children pre-made blank books, invite ownership and innovation by letting them take charge of the stapler and tape dispenser.

Want to share your classroom twists? Email them to social@/.

Dorothy Suskind is a fifth grade teacher at St. Christopher School in the Richmond, Va., area and an associate adjunct education professor at University of Richmond.

Fifth-grade teacher Emily Keifer believes in professional organizations. Since joining International Reading Association she has thrown herself fully into the group, attending meetings, taking a role in council, attending conferences and a leadership retreat.

The Indiana educator, who researches the role of multicultural literature in schools, says all of these experiences have enriched her teaching and she looks forward to a long and fulfilling career that will be sure to include inspiration from her peers and continued growth in IRA.

How did you begin your career and what led you to your current position?

My career began long before I ever attended an education class in college. I fell in love with teaching when I would sit my brother and sister down for “class” in our basement. I knew from a young age I had to have a career where children were the main component.

Since graduating in 2007 I have been working at Cowan Elementary School in Muncie, IN, as a fifth-grade literacy block instructor. Two years ago social studies was added to my curriculum. Language Arts has always been my subject of passion and I love helping place books into hands of eager readers.

How long have you been a member of IRA? How has membership influenced your career?

I have been an IRA member since my senior year of college. Dr. Rice, my beloved English professor, instilled in my class the importance of joining and actively participating in professional organizations. I joined IRA and started attending local council meetings. This led to taking a position in the local council, and becoming active in the state council. IRA has profoundly impacted my career as an educator. I have been fortunate enough to attend the past four IRA Conferences, which has given me a great deal of professional development, networking, and resources for my teaching. Attending the IRA summer leadership training retreat this year was also a wonderful experience that helped me grow in my career.

What do you consider to be your proudest career moment?

The proudest moment in my career isn’t just one moment—but many different, yet similar, instances. I love helping kids find “their book.” I firmly believe every individual has a book, or multiple books, that speak directly to their heart. There are books that have changed my life and impacted who I am; and helping kids find theirs is a joy. Sometimes I think of myself as a matchmaker—only instead of finding mates, I find book matches. When I see a child come alive while reading a book, my heart just beams. There is a book like that for everyone—educators just have to help find that fit.

Talk a little about your research. Why do we need multicultural literacy?

There are so many pieces of literature that help children not only learn about a life experience different than their own, but also expose a lifestyle that may be completely out of their range of knowledge. These books are a necessary part of the reading curriculum. However, just offering them as a choice is not enough. Students need to be engaged in discussion and research learning that helps them challenge the views they have. Why do they have these views? Where did they get them? Do those views need to be changed? Through these conversations, students can grow their thinking and challenge others in a respectful way.

So many more examples of multicultural literacy are finding their ways onto bookshelves and into classrooms. Educators are seeing the impact these titles can have when brought into a collaborative effort of teaching. However, we need to ensure all students have the opportunity to push their thinking—and the thinking of those around them.

What do we do next to make improvements?

I believe more educators need to become aware of the power multicultural literature can have in their classroom. Educators also need to be given the opportunity to study this literature, and learn strategies for creating a classroom discussion where all student voices are valued.

What role do you think literacy takes across subject areas? Do you see a shift in awareness?

There has been a huge shift in the role literacy takes across subject areas—even in my eight years of teaching. All content areas have literacy as their cornerstone. Fifth grade, the grade I teach, is such a pivotal age for requiring students to be proficient readers to understand content areas. Students continue to really use their reading skills to gain knowledge in areas such as social studies and science. This is great! Students start to really understand all learning is tied together. Educators need to help students construct their understanding that by gaining skills in one area—they will grow in other areas too. This also means educators need to understand the importance themselves, while seeing the importance of teaching other content areas from a literacy standpoint.     

What are you reading (personal, professional, or even children's/YA)?

Currently I am in the middle of eight books—all very different however. Personally I am reading Positive by Paige Rawl, a student at Ball State University, which is where I teach a children’s literature course, and where I graduated with my Bachelors and Masters. A second personal book is Jodi Picoult’s new novel Leaving Time. Professionally, I am always reading Donalyn Miller’s books, Reading in the Wild and The Book Whisperer (this may be my fifth or sixth time through them, and Word Nerds by Brenda J. Overturf. Last week I was introduced to the story The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore, which made my heart sing from the very beginning. I am working on a lesson to use with my fifth graders, read it to my family over the holidays. I hope everyone gets a change to read this amazing title!   

What advice would you give a new teacher that either you received or wish you had?

During my first year of teaching I took the advice of Kenny Chesney and started a “The Good Stuff” binder. In this binder I placed encouraging notes from other staff members, drawings from students, thank you cards from teachers, positive emails, and newspaper clippings. The things in this binder made me smile when I received them, and still make me smile when I look over them today. Everyone has rough days, and whenever I have one, I will look through some of these notes and letters and it really helps me remember what is important about education—being in it for the kids! 

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