Literacy Now

Exactly how many days are between you and summer? C’mon, I know you know. If you’re anything like me, you’re already dreaming of your summer to-do list. (Yes, the summer to-do list—it is equal parts sad and fabulous.) In between the household to-dos (clean out that closet!) or the family fun to-dos (pick more berries together!) likely resides your list of reading to-dos (read more professional books!).

My summer reading list is epic. It includes professional books I have been fantasizing about (complete with new pens for underlining, of course). It includes deliciously breezy fiction perfect for the beach or for someone who can read only one page or two before falling asleep at night.  It includes back issues of magazines, two biographies, a recent award winner, and a stack of young adult lit that makes me want to squeal. 

I gather my future reading on my nightstand. Some nights, instead of reading, I peruse the titles, rearranging and organizing them into a “next at bat” stack. My husband considers this a very nerdy pastime, but I don’t care. I know what I love as a reader, and it is reflected in my prized (yet slightly unwieldy) stack.

Which brings me to my point: How many of our students truly know themselves as readers? I think one of the saddest things is a reader who is unable to name a favorite book, genre, or author. 

In your final days and weeks with your students, consider working with them to shape or revise their own reader selves. Here are a few ideas to get you started:

• Talk to your students about creating an “at bat” pile of books that are waiting to be read.
• Start a “Wall of Summer Reading” and collect titles students are excited to read over the summer. Make a take-home copy of this list.
• Ask students and families to tweet their favorite titles with a common hashtag (such as #room201faves).
• Provide students with library card applications for their families.
• Compile a list of favorite authors, titles, or genres from the school year to share.
• Help students set a goal for how many books they would like to read this summer with a quick and easy way for them to keep track of their progress.
• Collect a group of popular books that are appropriate for your class. Gather your students in a circle and give one book to each student. Let them read each book for 1 or 2 minutes, then ring a bell and tell students to pass the book to their left. The goal is to encourage students to create a list of books that interest them while giving them the opportunity to look through a large number of titles.

Mrs. Mimi, aka Jennifer Scoggin, is a teacher who taught both first and second grades at a public elementary school in New York City. She's the author of Be Fabulous: The Reading Teacher's Guide to Reclaiming Your Happiness in the Classroom and It's Not All Flowers and Sausages: My Adventures in Second Grade, which sprung from her popular blog of the same name. Mimi also has her doctorate in education from Teachers College, Columbia University.

Having a hard time focusing? Finding it difficult to stay in your seat? I'm just talking about teachers...forget about the students! This has always been the time of year where the routines of the day were both my best friend and my worst enemy. They were my best friend because my classroom ran like a well-oiled machine. Despite countless interruptions, meetings, and the inevitable spring fever, we were able to stay (mostly) on track. But, at the same time, these routines made the day feel so...ho-hum.

I have seriously rethought our independent reading habits over the last few weeks, trying to find something to give a new life to this essential part of our day. Yes, students are reading—and reading well—but are they loving it? Is there excited chatter about books? Are there groans when it's time to stop reading?

Here are a few ideas to pump up independent reading and turn spring fever into reading fever:

• Add two-minute book talks. I stole this one right from the great Donalyn Miller. Once or twice a week, right before dismissal, students take two minutes to "sell" a new favorite to the rest of the class. Now, this could quickly become a real drag if teachers slap a formula or rubric on this activity (put that graphic organizer down!). But, after a little modeling, and when kept fresh and casual, these two minutes have served to get more kids excited about what book is up next in their reading lives.
• Take a "shelfie." Although the idea of students posing for selfies and posting them on social media makes me cringe, posting a shelfie makes me want to jump up and down with nerdy joy. Ask students to pose alongside a set of books that are favorites or a stack of books that represent those texts that are in their “to read next” piles. Students don't even have to appear in the photo if you'd prefer. Post shelfies in your classroom and let them work their magic.
• Set a class reading goal. Work with your students to set a goal for the number of books you plan to read over the next three or four weeks. Ask students to keep track of their reading and create a bulletin board or chart to map the class's progress over time. Celebrate small successes and quickly set a new goal.
• Give students a voice. Instead of selecting your next chapter book read-aloud for the class, read aloud the first chapter or two from a handful of books over the next week. Then, allow the class to vote on the book the class will complete. Have copies of the contenders on hand so students who get excited about any of the books have access to them right away.
• Breathe new life into your classroom library. You don't need to spend millions at your local bookshop, but breathing new life into your classroom library can create big buzz around the room. Exchange books with a colleague to get some different titles in your room. Hit a garage sale. Put together a DonorsChoose.org request. Spend those Scholastic bonus points. Switch up your displays. Put out a new basket. Whatever! Then make the reveal a big classroom event celebrating books.

Mrs. Mimi, aka Jennifer Scoggin, is a teacher who taught both first and second grades at a public elementary school in New York City. She's the author of Be Fabulous: The Reading Teacher's Guide to Reclaiming Your Happiness in the Classroom and It's Not All Flowers and Sausages: My Adventures in Second Grade, which sprung from her popular blog of the same name. Mimi also has her doctorate in education from Teachers College, Columbia University.

Being a teacher means embracing constant change. Yet all too often, teachers are told when, how, and why to change. In this monthly column, Mrs. Mimi takes on creating change for herself by rethinking old practices and redefining teaching on her own terms. 

I feel like I am slogging through my day both literally and metaphorically. Do you? Yes, the weather is getting better (because in a strange, strange way 40 degrees is now the new 70 degrees in my life), but with warmer temperatures comes melting snow and with melting snow comes muddy yards, dirty shoes, and grimy floors. Hence the slogging.

I realized that other parts of my day feel like slogging through the mud as well. I can't decide what to make for dinner because everything sounds so ho-hum. I have no more creative ideas for crafts with my kids because we have been inside for the last jillion days. I am uninspired in my teaching right now because it all feels like the same old same old.

Maybe that's just how March feels and I should go with it, but that's not my personality. I am teaching students important skills and strategies and—because I am unafraid to toot my own horn—I am teaching them pretty darn well. But if my level of engagement and excitement is low, can we guess how those friends sitting around me are feeling? I never want my students to feel like school is the same old same old or that learning to read is a mechanical process free from excitement or passion.

So what's this girl to do? I mean reasonably do in the midst of the 10,000 things teachers are responsible for doing each and every day, slog or no slog. Please note: All slog-busting ideas have been proven effective by some very super colleagues. Also, most of these ideas work best when combined with caffeine.

Go to your local bookstore or library of choice and find a new author, series, or title that you can't wait to share with your friends. Finding a new read is powerful. Children pick up on the authenticity of your enthusiasm. It is catchy. It is motivating. It is slog busting.

Poll your class. What do they want to do as readers? Is there a project they would like to take on? An author they are curious about? Something new they would like to try as readers? Their enthusiasm is authentic. It is also catchy. It is also slog busting.

Make more time for the pieces of your teaching that inspire you the most. Love reading aloud? Me, too. Take a week and make more time for it. Luxuriate in it. No one died from altering their schedule slightly to meet students' (and teachers') needs for just one week. Slog busting.

Whatever you do, resist the temptation to give in to the slog. Reading is dynamic. It is community building and idea triggering. It is not a slog. But be kind to yourself. Forgive yourself for letting the slog momentarily take hold on you. It gets to the best of us.

Mrs. Mimi, aka Jennifer Scoggin, is a teacher who taught both first and second grades at a public elementary school in New York City. She's the author of “Be Fabulous: The Reading Teacher's Guide to Reclaiming Your Happiness in the Classroom” and “It's Not All Flowers and Sausages: My Adventures in Second Grade”, which sprung from her popular blog of the same name. Mimi also has her doctorate in education from Teachers College, Columbia University.

photo credit: UNIVERSITY_OF_THE_FRASER_ VALLEY_PHOTOGRAPHY via photopin (license)

Being a teacher means embracing constant change. Yet all too often, teachers are told when, how, and why to change. In this monthly column, Mrs. Mimi takes on creating change for herself by rethinking old practices and redefining teaching on her own terms. 

Ah, coaching.  The word “coaching” seems synonymous with the word “training” which is a word I have always disliked.  Training implies we are simply another employee being told a new way to do our jobs, as if our jobs are all the same or we have nothing to add to the conversation.  Like we are seals learning a new trick.  As if we don't already have enough balls to balance, now we have yet another new idea, strategy, or practice.

I get it.

This is, perhaps, why so many teachers are wary of the idea of coaches in their schools.  I have seen many resist or, in some cases, totally avoid their literacy coach.  Why?  Because it's scary to really open up and allow someone else to constructively critique your practice?  Because being truly reflective also means being open to change?

Might I suggest a meeting of the minds?  Teachers, be brave and model being engaged and enthusiastic for your students.  Remind yourself what it feels like to be challenged or learn something new.  Be excited to share your learning and growth with others.  Coaches, respect and honor the knowledge teachers already possess.  Build or expand upon that knowledge slowly, but with confidence and excitement.  Always add value.  Never do harm.

Some of my most thrilling moments as a teacher came from working closely with a coach as equals.  We investigated new ways to push read-aloud instruction.  We researched and read articles about student engagement, theories around questioning and hot new titles.  We wrote lessons collaboratively, taught them in front of one another and debriefed on successes and not-so-successes.  Meeting with her never felt like "another thing on my to-do list" because it was the opposite of an arduous task.  It was thrilling work we saw have an immediate impact on students. 

Together we explored new ideas and ways of working with students.  Together we grew and showed our students what it meant to be vulnerable, brave, and engaged all at the same time; we showed them how to be learners.

Is there anything else you can ask for as a teacher?

Mrs. Mimi, a.k.a. Jennifer Scoggin, is a teacher who taught both first and second grades at a public elementary school in New York City. She's the author of  “Be Fabulous: The Reading Teacher's Guide to Reclaiming Your Happiness in the Classroom” and “It's Not All Flowers and Sausages: My Adventures in Second Grade”, which sprung from her popular blog of the same name. Mimi also has her doctorate in education from Teachers College, Columbia University.

photo credit: World Bank Photo Collection via photopin cc

Teachers work hard. This is no revelation. It is just the truth, regardless of how many people make jokes about summers off. If everyone worked as hard as we do during the school year, they might need a few weeks to sleep too.

We have to be on top of our planning, monitor the progress of our students, deal with behavior management, communicate with parents, assess, go to meetings, sit on committees, prepare for the latest concert/art show/assembly/school sponsored event, etc. A very big ETC. Despite all of that, when our little friends are in the classroom with us, they should be working harder than us.

You heard me correctly. The students should be working harder than the teacher. They are supposed to be learning things and moving toward greater independence. You know, that.

While I believe most teachers are working with the greatest of intentions, I see far too many holding students’ hands and dragging them through the finish line. Let's see if any of this sounds familiar.

Do you remind your students roughly 700 times a day where the date goes on the page?
Do you entertain questions about how many words/lines/pages a piece of writing is supposed to be when it hasn't even been started yet and you don't teach high school where maybe this could be a relevant question? Do you work for hours to painstakingly make sure that each and every child has filled out the graphic organizer correctly?

I could go on, but these are definitely signs you are working too hard at the wrong things. (Our job is hard enough. Have I said that before?)

I was working with a teacher last week who felt daunted at the prospect of organizing her independent reading selections into baskets of characters who all had a specific trait in common. You know, shy characters, brave characters, mischievous characters, bullies. The idea of sitting on the floor for hours to create these baskets while the laundry wasn't doing itself, the gym was calling, she had a million other things to do made her want to put her head down and cry. Until she thought, "enough is enough" and, the next morning, asked her students to create the baskets themselves. Highly familiar with the selections in the independent reading library, her kids hopped to it, engaging in amazing conversations about which characters could be grouped together and why, what to label each basket, and what do to about characters who could go in multiple baskets. I mean, HOLY BRILLIANT, BATMAN! And you know what? This Super Colleague made sure her students were working harder than she was, allowing her to use her sacred time after school to devote energy elsewhere.

We all have these moments of clarity. Sometimes it is when we are alone in our classrooms and sometimes it is when we are in the thick of it that we realize, "this lesson feels too complicated," or "they are just not engaged with this work and I am up here killing myself." In those moments, I encourage you to stop. Just stop. Cut bait and move on with your day. Then, when you have a quiet moment (Ha!), consider these questions:

• Have you provided students with enough guided or shared practice?
• Have you provided students with the opportunity for oral rehearsal (before writing)?
• Is there another way to present this material/get this accomplished in which the children play a more integral role and take more ownership?

You work hard. Of course you do. But make sure your students are working just as hard, if not harder. It is the least we can do for them.

Jennifer Scoggin (a.k.a. Mrs. Mimi) is the director of the Connecticut branch of LitLife and a consultant in schools. She holds a doctorate in curriculum and teaching from Teachers College, Columbia University, and has been an IRA member since 2011. She's the author of the upcoming Be Fabulous: The Reading Teacher's Guide to Reclaiming Your Happiness in the Classroom and It's Not All Flowers and Sausages: My Adventures in Second Grade, which sprung from her popular blog of the same name.