It's time, it's time ... did she just say it's time?

There's a great stanza in a Veggie Tales song called "Promised Land" that goes like this:

It's time, it's time, did he just say it's time? (boom, boom, boom, boom)
We didn't have a lot of fun in the desert.
We didn't have a lot of fun in the sand.
But saddle up your cow and fall behind us now,
Because we're goin' to the Promised Land.

Whenever it's time for me to get cooking on something, I think of those lyrics.  Yep, it's time. And we're going to the Promised Land ... the land of Lit. Review.

The time has come at last for me to write a THE paper that synthesizes all I've learned about using picture books in high school classrooms. I have a fat, white binder that is bursting with my notes from 27 sources, notes that are contained on my brand new iMac, my old-but-reliable Sony laptap, and a couple of flash drives (that I hope I can put my hands on in the next few minutes).  I have sections of it written in various places, but pieces I have yet to draft.  All told, I believe the paper will exceed 30 pages, and it might be a heck of a lot closer to 50.

Here are the sections the review will include (but not be limited to and not necessarily in this order):

• Introduction explaining how I got involved in this project
• Definition of picture book; this will actually be a fairly lengthy section, as the components of a picture book are many and complex.
• Discussion on the importance of calling picture books "picture books" (I've run across some pretty silly alternatives, my favorite of which is "everybody books" -- uh, no.)
• How to choose quality picture books
• DOs and DON'Ts for using them in high school classrooms
• Theories about why they work; this section will include a description of efferent and aesthetic reading events, as well as read-alouds and visual learning.  Oh, and also situated perspective (yes, I'm perusing my fat, white binder right now). OH!  And also the stages of reading!
• Cross-curricular lesson applications (This will also be a pretty chunky section.)
• Teacher anecdotes (May or may not use -- have not decided on this yet; if so I'll spread them throughout; they'd certainly add interest to the paper, but they lack science.)

This is the basic idea. Lots to write. And I think it will be a whole heap of fun. I'm saddling up my cow ...

I wasn't going to cry ...

But I did.


I just read Pink and Say (Polacco, 1994).


This is a story about two injured boys fighting in the Civil War on the Union side.  One is white, and one is black.  One wants to continue fighting, and one does not.  One is educated, and one is not. One will lose everything, and one will gain an entirely new way to look at the world ... and an unforgettable story.


Here's the line that got me: "I know this story to be true because ..."


And here's the other line that got me: "This is the hand, that has touched the hand ..."


Read this book to your students.


Pink and Say has obvious teaching implications for American History. But I'd consider it, too, for:

• language arts, to study dialect and narrative structure
• a war unit for any social studies or literature class
• studying differences (relevant in any subject)
• the psychology of fear
• health sciences

This book would make an incredible companion piece to A Long Way Gone, Memoirs of a Boy Soldier.  Publisher's Weekly begins their starred review thus: "This absorbing account by a young man who, as a boy of 12, gets swept up in Sierra Leone's civil war goes beyond even the best journalistic efforts in revealing the life and mind of a child abducted into the horrors of warfare."


Our students often tell us they want to read books that are relevant.  And we know from experience they love to have their minds opened to new ideas.  Pink has something to say to us.


Have tissues ready.

Well! Then I'll share it here instead

Several days ago, I began the process of submitting a proposal to the International Reading Association for presenting at their conference in the spring. Cool, huh?  My thesis advisor suggested I go for it, or I honestly would never have considered myself qualified. Anyhow, about a week ago, I went to the appropriate web site and wrote down the questions for which I would need to write responses.

Then, I freaked out. FREAKED OUT!  The issue is that, the number of characters allowed for each prompt is high -- really, really high. They vary from 5,000 to 10,000 characters, for, oh, um,  like a dozen or so questions. Friends, that's a LOT of writing.

Dr. Wellman nicely told me to chillax and assured me that the proposal reviewers like brief submissions (thank you, Dr. Wellman).  So I spent a couple of days crafting what I hope is an excellent proposal.

Funny thing, though ... today, when I went to upload it (a rock solid 33 hours before the deadline, I want to point out), one of the prompts I'd written down had just disappeared.  Last week, there was a section called Classroom Implications (or, at least, I thought there was).  Today, nada.  No Classroom Implications.  Zip.

But, since I took the time to write an answer to that section, I'm going to share it here instead.  (And, Dr. Wellman, if you're reading this, you'll see something shockingly close to it in my lit. review.  We'll call that "efficiency.")

So, here are the classroom implications for the session I hope to present at the International Reading Association conference:

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The potential impact to classroom experiences for students and teachers alike is significant, most importantly in that picture books, when well integrated into unit lessons, offer pathways to deeper emotional connections and higher order thinking for high school students.  There are many reasons why this is so, including:

·      Picture books provide a way to connect with highly visual learners (Carr et al, 2001).

·      Well-chosen picture books provide background knowledge and context (Carr et al, 2001).

·      When illustrating a real-world concept, they provide a situated perspective for students, connecting classroom content to life outside of high school (Putnam and Borko, 2000).

·      When read aloud to students, picture books create a bond between the reader and the student that reinforces the power of words (Giorgis, 1999).

·      Picture books provide non-threatening access to tougher concepts (Gewertz, 2009).

·      Using picture books to increase vocabulary acquisition is effective because it encourages students to discover words based on their perceptions and experiences (Polette, 1989).

·      Teachers report that the personal connections students make (i.e., experiencing revulsion at disturbing historical events, recalling impactful memories, identifying dreams and hopes, bridging cultural differences) are unique to picture book use (Matthews et al, 1999).

·      Picture books tap into students’ earliest reading experiences, thus offering an aesthetic reading event (Rosenblatt, 1982).

·      Picture books have a unique power to create experiences and summon feelings (Florida Online Reading Professional Development, 2006).

These practice-grounded theories show that, a classroom environment that includes picture book use, taps into a compelling learning vehicle.  Once teachers make a connection with students using picture books, a connection facilitated by mutual trust, sharing early reading experiences, comprehension of an accessible text, and enjoyable engagement, they find that students’ minds are particularly ready for the link to rigorous concepts.

---

And there you go.  The proposal is finished, and I am a happy woman.

Got it

Here's the final version of my guiding research question:

How does the supplemental use of picture books in high school curriculum affect students' engagement and learning?

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Thanks for your all of your comments and suggestions, friends!

The Secret Remedy

I don't know where I found The Secret Remedy Book (Cates 2003), but here comes a Precious Alert ... it's so sweet.

A tall girl named Lolly, who looks like she's about 10 years old (and a lot, incidentally, like a very sweet girl I  know of the same age named Madeleine), gets to stay with her quirky Auntie Zep for a whole month. No Mom. No Dad. A whole month.

You guessed it ... she gets a little bit sad when her parents drive away, and then she gets a lot sad, and then she has herself a nice, big, head-in-hands kind of cry.

Gosh, I can relate.  First, my friend Madeleine is, right now, at this moment, at her very first away camp.  I'm proud of her.

Second, oh, who hasn't felt the ouch of loneliness?  The kind of loneliness that nothing can fix other than a good head-in-hands kind of cry?

But not to worry. Auntie Zep, with her reading glasses, overalls, and pink headband is not the kind of aunt to be daunted by a crying 10 year old. She knows just what to do. (Wouldn't it be nice if we all had an Auntie Zep?)

After a great deal of rummaging around in a old trunk in the attic (a trunk that contains sepia-colored photographs, bundles of love letters, foreign coins, dried flowers, a teddy bear, squares of lace, antique jewelry, a tea cup ... oh, such treasures), Lolly and Auntie Zep unearth The Secret Remedy Book.

Because I can't resist, I'll share here the remedies to Lolly's heartache.  They unfold slowly in the text, and the reader experiences their discovery with Lolly, one sweet remedy at a time. Here they are:

1.  Drink one glass of apple juice. You must drink it so carefully that you can almost taste the very apple tree that made the apples that made the juice.

2.  Plant a seed in good earth.  You must do something sneaky to keep the seed safe.

3.  Take a walk as far as you can. You must see something that you have never noticed before.

4.  Feed a wild thing.  You must make a solemn promise that you will always do everything you can to protect it from hunger and harm.

5.  Write a cheerful letter to some dear soul. You must put something unexpected in the envelope.

6.  Read in peace and quiet from a favorite book.  You must find one special part of the book that is so wonderful that you feel like reading it again and again.

7.  Dream of doing great things.  You must think of one small, great thing you can do tomorrow.

See?  Precious Alert.

The high school relevance piece is not difficult. Imagine a teacher who understands that some of our kids come to us having had life beat the stuffing out of them. They haven't had a head-in-hands cry in so long, they forgot what it feels like to feel. Or, they had a head-in-hands cry just that morning when someone said something unkind.  Or, life hasn't been so tough yet ... but loneliness is waiting for them in a dorm room in the fall.

So, I think I might begin by asking students to journal about a time when they felt lonely.  And then we'd read about Lolly. And then I would ask kids -- and, gosh, this could be powerful -- to craft their own seven remedies. Before beginning, we'd look at the characteristics of Auntie Zep's remedies (i.e., they are personal, they respect nature, they encourage introspection, they also look outward, they are tactile).  Although I would not ask students to come up with remedies that mirror the author's values, I would encourage them to imagine remedies that embody their values. For some students, that would mean exploring and discovering what their values are.  Mmmm, refreshing idea -- like a nice, long drink of cold apple juice.

Imagine that ... a roomful of high school kids exploring what kinds of healthy behaviors they could use to deal with the pain they experience.

So, instructional classroom implications? In a literature class, a connection to a text like Wuthering Heights, perhaps, in which the characters deal with pain with anti-remedies ... and the consequences that ensue.  Or, in European history or politics, a look at Rousseau's concept of natural man and his directive to "Know thyself."  Or, in psychology, the connection between a healthy environment and a healthy emotional life.

Lots of options from Auntie Zep, to be sure. I'm going to get going on my own list of seven remedies. Number one?

Wear slippers with sheep on them.

The Back Story

My first day in the classroom was late August 2002.  Because I had no formal teacher training, my first day in the classroom was literally my first day in the classroom. I knew two things: I needed to immediately connect with the twelfth grade language arts students who walked into room 132. And I had to fill up four 90-minute blocks without anyone setting a backpack on fire.

I was terrified.

It was pretty much touch-and-go.  I got a lot of hostile, challenging retorts, but some hopeful smiles, too.  Most of my efforts at discipline fell woefully flat, right alongside my silly attempts at humor.  No backpacks were set on fire, but unfortunately, no minds were, either. 

But several remarkable things happened that day.  All of them changed the trajectory of my life, and all of them shaped my teaching into something that, most days, I'm proud of. One event in particular is the reason for my independent study and this here blog-er-ooo.

Although no one told me that connecting with my students on a personal level would build their trust and provide a safe place for them to learn, I instinctively knew this. So my big grand finale for my day one lesson was this: I read my students Oh, The Places You’ll Go (Geisel, 1990).  Before I read, I asked my kids to think about the shape they wanted their senior year of high school to take.  I said something like, “You’ll never forget your senior year.  What this year looks like is almost entirely in your control. As I read, think about how this story connects with your story.”

Jorge yawned and asked if he could put his head down on the desk. Linda rolled her eyes.  Katherine clapped her hands and asked if she could sit on the floor in front of my podium.

I said yes to Jorge and Katherine, and tried to make eye contact with Linda. And then I began to read.

Something utterly magical happened.  Every one of those young men and women fully engaged in listening to and experiencing the text.  There was not a sound in the room whatsoever, except my voice reading the words and the rustle of the pages as I turned them.  Kids strained in their seats to see the pictures.  Breathing slowed, mouths hung open, bodies stilled ... well, you get the idea. I've described it on this blog a time or two.

My students' minds were not still, though.  They were experiencing what Rosenblatt calls an aesthetic reading event, some of them perhaps for the very first time.  I had chills. And extreme gratitude to the teaching gods that were smiling down on all of us.

The next day, as the kids sauntered or burst into my room, many asked if I was going to read them another story. “Indeed, yes,” I replied, and so began our mutual love affair with picture books.

After seven years of using picture books with regular, honors, and advanced placement students, with students with learning disabilities, and with students struggling to learn English, I had a theory or two about why picture books worked and how to use them effectively. But until a few months ago, my theories were just that – theories. I had little research-based knowledge of the underpinnings that supported my use of these texts in high school curriculum.  So, in the process of writing my master’s thesis, I decided to learn why picture books work and to share my findings with teachers interested in improving students’ literacy.

And now the real work begins. My research is complete. (Well, it will never be truly complete. But I think I have a pretty good sense of what's been written about using picture books in high school classrooms.) I have read about and formulated and agreed with and disagreed with theories about why picture books work. I have lists and lists and lists of picture books recommended by teachers and teacher instructors from all over the world. 

I have superb advice from my advisor.

I have a new computer. 

I have a comfy chair and a good cup of coffee and sheep on my feet. 

It's time to write.

Jam on Bread

Back to Rosenblatt ...

One of the brilliant things Rosenblatt discovered about teaching reading is something she calls the Jam on Bread approach. Back in the early 80s, she postulated that, for decades, educators had been primarily teaching kids to read efferently (that is, carry something away from the reading event), largely ignoring the aesthetic aspect of reading (the event that is experienced when an author, reader, and text come together). In her view, aesthetic reading had been understood as a nice goal to maybe someday attain, one that teachers could slap onto reading, if they had the time or inclination, once kids had mastered efferent reading.

She calls this Jam on Bread. In effect, bread equals efferent reading, and jam equals aesthetic reading. (Clearly, jam isn't necessary -- it's sweet, pretty, and yummy, but gosh darn it, it's not bread.)

When I read her views on this, my heart sped up.  Truly.  I was so excited that I started to read too fast, and then I had to go back ... a whole bunch of times.

Here's why.

I think that kids -- itty, bitty, teeny, tiny kids -- read aesthetically naturally. An aesthetic reading experience is what we live the first time someone shares a great story with us.  We bring our memories, our senses, and our wide open minds to reading.  We gaze at the pictures, we listen to the narrative, we stare at the words and wonder what they heck they are. We have an entirely aesthetic experience. And we immediately clamor, "Again!"

It is winsome and pure.  It is full of hope and delight and pleasure.  It is entirely aesthetic.

And then, as children progress through various grade levels, they move from a lot of aesthetic reading in early grades to almost no aesthetic reading by high school.  Upper grade teachers, for many reasons, focus on teaching kids to read efferently.  I'm not placing any blame or pointing any fingers. We've got to get our kids ready for all sorts of high stakes assessments and the next phases of their lives. In every scenario I can imagine for my students for their lives after shaking our principal's hand and smiling for the photographer, efferent reading is essential.

But this exclusive focus on efferent reading is why, I believe, when I open a picture book and read to my students, magic happens.  Magic! Because I am returning my students (or introducing them) to experiential reading.  Their brilliant, lovely minds open and engage. They laugh, they sigh, they get very still, they smile, they cry, and they clamor, "Again!"

And then ... well, anything can happen.