52 Short Books for 11-CCR Students: TLDR and What HS Students Are Reading (and NOT)

image: from OpenClips on Pixabay

TLDR: Too Long, Didn't Read.  Scroll down if you want to skip this short read and go directly to The List.

A recently released study by Renaissance Learning finds that HS seniors read on average 5.2 books a year, down from 55.4 in grade 2 and 16.2 in grade 6.  There is also a decline in the number of words contained in the reading, from a high in grade 6 (419,121) to 304,252 in grade 12.

Wait a minute.  Do the math.  The books read by HS students must be longer.  That must explain the decline in the number of books read.

Nope. My quick study of the Top 20 lists for 6th and 12th grades provided in the report suggests that 6th graders are actually reading longer books, on average, than their HS counterparts, who are overwhelmingly reading fiction under 250 pages (must have small print). With the exception of The Hunger Games (which first appears on the grade 5 list, 810L) and another light read titled Safe Haven (830L), the longer texts read are found in the bottom (least read) 10. These include some zingers: Twilight (another light read but 544p 770L), Kite Runner (402p  840L), and Divergent (501p HL700L). Hardly a sterling list in terms of challenge.

Supporting my contention that 12th grade students are selecting books well below what they should be reading is the report's finding that the average ATOS book level (similar to the lexile scale) in grade 12 is 7.1 (one month into 7th grade).  The average ATOS in grade 6 is 5.3, which is not great, but at least it's not embarrassing.

I don't think too much should be made of this report, although it purports to be important (it's important for Renaissance Learning). How many of these titles are assigned and how many are choice independent reading?  The titles are all Accelerated Reader quizzed titles, which certainly directs choice and limits what titles are entered into the data.  The identity of the cohort is unclear; the HS students in the sample may not - probably do not - represent the full top-bottom range of student readers.

On the other hand, today's NPR post Why Aren't Teens Reading Like They Used To? reiterates the Renaissance report's finding that HS students are reading well below the level recommended by CCSS and other standards. It is possible to chalk the Renaissance report up as representative of the American public school student reading population.  OK through 5th grade in terms of fiction reading quality and quantity, but downhill from there.  Too far downhill in the 11-12 grades.

The essays which "pepper" the Renaissance report stress the importance of e-reading in today's classroom, suggesting perhaps that digital texts will spur students to read more.  I believe it is valid that e-reading is engaging and, for readers who use the tools, supportive of deeper reading. But a page-turner is a page-turner and a plod is a plod and long is long and a tool can not change that. What needs to change is access to better reading choices.

If we want our HS students to read more than 5.2 fiction titles a year (I am not mentioning nonfiction because the report finds it amounts to no more than 15% of their reading, despite recommendations to the contrary), we need to consider the fact that, in their/our culture of e-communication and e-research, TLDR (Too Long Didn't Read) is a message HS students send out every day.  By not reading.  By selecting short rather than longer titles.  By selecting easy reads with ATOS reading level 5-6.

This is not helping/challenging/growing our students.  What we need to offer HS students are high quality, high challenge, high engagement short books.

I have spent some time with lexile.com and with good lists over the last few days.  It is possible to mine the classics and good contemporary fiction for excellent short books.  Alas, many of these probably are not in the Accelerated Reader quiz bank.  You may not have read or heard of many of them.  But it's high time HS readers were encouraged to make better reading choices, so gather up as many of these titles as you can.

My arbitrary short book cutoff is 250 pages.  Where possible, lengths are from lexile.com. Amazon.com is the backup.

Here is my list of 52 short fiction books (and one or two nonfiction titles) for 11-12 grade readers, generated by mining lexile.com (for pages and lexile ranges) and other lists.  They are in lexile order, something a bit questionable, but at least this is a consistent measure in line with Common Core standards. More about that later. Only two titles have been carried over from the Renaissance report's grade 12 top 10.  It adds up to one book a week for a year.

Note: We can not really rely on lexiles to determine suitability and challenge. Examples: most of Gary Paulsen measures well over 1100L and ditto with the best of Zindel (e.g. The Undertaker's Gone Bananas measures 1050). Both novelists are great for MS, but with only a few exceptions are not suitable for HS. Ray Bradbury and Steinbeck, on the other hand, score much lower on the lexile scale than this reader would expect and are suitably complex for HS. Of Mice and Men belongs on this list, but since it is often read in grade 9 or 10 anyway, I have omitted it.

Moreover, many non-Western titles and short story collections have not been lexiled. Surprise! My list is more multicultural than most lists.

The Common Core, by the way, has realigned lexile bands with grade levels to make "stretch" reading the norm. Only the last 2 books on my list fall within the 11-CCR band.  That's absurd. A book does not have to have a lexile over 1200 in order to be great or to be an intellectual challenge for a 16 year old. I stand by all of these short books for 11-CCR.

The List, in lexile order (do you notice a pattern in the titles not lexiled?):

1. Day of Tears: A Novel in Dialogue - Lester - not lexiled
2. I See You - Shukri - not lexiled (fictional contemporary African country) - a Best Book of 2014, Africa is a Country
3. Every Day is for the Thief - Cole - not lexiled - selected for many Best of 2014 lists (Nigeria)
4. Citizen: An American Lyric - Rankine - not lexiled - America Book Award 2014 shortlist - poems and short pieces
5. The Thunder that Roars - Garda - not lexiled (South Africa, Muslim)
6. How to Escape from a Leper Colony (stories) - Yanique - not lexiled 
7. The Strange Library - Murakami - not lexiled
8. The Dead Lake - Ismailov - not lexiled (trans. from Russian)
9. Family Life - Sharma - not lexiled - India/America - Named one of the Ten Best Books of 2014 by the New York Times Book Review and New York Magazine
10. Things We Found During the Autopsy - Manickavel - not lexiled - South Indian short fiction - a Best Book of 2014, Africa is a Country
11. Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood - Satrapi GN380 (Iran) or American Born Chinese - Yang GN580
12. The Metamorphosis - Kafka 670 or The Room - Karlsson - not lexiled - find a great short film of the Kafka here.
13. When the Emperor Was Devine - Otsuka  810
14. Snow Country - Kawabata 820
15. Drown - Diaz 830 (stories, Dominican Republic immigrants)
16. If I Die in a Combat Zone: Box Me Up and Ship Me Home - O'Brien  830 or How To Slowly Kill Yourself and Others in America - Laymon - non-lexiled (NF)
17. Slaughterhouse-Five - Vonnegut 850
18. Things Fall Apart - Achebe 890
19. Ceremony - Silko 890  (Laguna Pueblo)
20. Grendel - Gardner 920
21. The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith - Keneally - 920
22. The Thing Around Your Neck (stories) - Adichie  920 (estimated) (Africa and United States)
23. Montana 1948 - Watson 940
24. Life and Times of Michael K: A Novel - Coetzee 940
25. The Bluest Eye - Morrison 960
26. July's People - Gordimer 970
27. Being There - Kosinski - 980
28. Nip the Buds, Shoot the Kids - Oe 1000
29. Nothing - Teller 1000
30. The Pearl - Steinbeck 1010
31. Snapshots: 20th Century Mother-Daughter Fiction - Oates, ed 1020
32. The Secret Agent - Conrad 1030
33. Frankenstein - Shelly  1040 
34. The First Fast Draw - L'Amour 1040
35. Interpreter of Maladies (stories) - Lahiri 1050 (India, United States)
36. The Heart of Darkness - Conrad 1050
37. The Crying of Lot 49 - Pynchon 1060
38. The Great Gatsby - Fitzgerald 1070
39. The Time Machine - Wells 1070
40. Bridge of San Luis Rey - Wilder 1080 (or perhaps The Scatter Here is Too Great - Tanweer, set in Karachi - not lexiled)
41. The Bad Seed - March 1100
42. The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie - Spark 1120
43. Picnic at Hanging Rock - Lindsay 1140
44. The Bridges of Toko-Ri - Michener 1140
45. My Life in Dog Years - Paulsen 1150  (NF)
46. Animal Farm - Orwell 1170
47. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Haddon 1180
48. Hiroshima - Hersey  1190
49. Ransom - Malouf 1200 (estimated lexile)
50. Forrest Gump - Groom  1210
51. Eighteen Best Short Stories by Edgar Allan Poe - Poe 1220
52. Chronicle of a Death Foretold - Marquez 1270

It goes without saying that most of these books will require more effort to read than The Hunger Games trilogy. That effort is one of the reasons that readers find Animal Farm, Of Mice and Men and Gatsby turn-offs and Percy Jackson so captivating, and it is probably the real motivation behind TLDR. Educators can give in to this, or they can combat it with titles like those above. One approach builds lists of easy, long, page-turners; the other approach builds better and better-educated readers. Your choice.

This is, of course, just one solution to our national non-reading dilemma. There are others:

• If you really want students to be stretched, assign books and articles about fiction and authors.  That's the best place for students to meet those higher lexile texts.  Some might find these essays lead them to great novels.
• Allow/encourage your students to read multi-culturally and diversely.
• Celebrate the humanities as well as STEM.
• Write and read.  Introduce students to living writers and their works.
• Encourage collaborative reading in 11-12 grades.  What?  This means groups encouraged to read like a book club reads.  
• Invest in great audio books for your students. Time well spent.
• PBL: Oral histories of the reading memories of parents and seniors; Twitter reading selfies and campaigns.

Want to add a book or an idea?  Write a comment or email me directly.

Close Reading and Poetry: Why Poetry and the Common Core Don't Mix

[update: In case you disagree totally with my premise, you can stop reading and click here to find three titles recommended for Meeting the CCSS Through Poetry.  Or perhaps head over to The OWL and follow their close reading of a Shakespeare sonnet. I have continued this idea in a post called On Listening to Poetry.]

There are times when a passionate and highly qualified ELA teacher needs to disregard the advice of experts. The teaching of poetry is one of these times.

To be blunt: Poetry should not be read using a Close Reading Method.  This will destroy for students both its beauty and its power.

As you know, The Method recommended and now being modeled for teachers all over the country and in numerous videos requires a 3-step read:

1. What does the text say? (may include teacher read-aloud - some recommend marginal and in-text notation, although these are generally discouraged)
2. How does it say it? (reread, focus on structure and language, tone, mood, symbol, POV, etc.)
3. What does the text mean? (relate to other texts, to me and my life maybe, author's purpose, support ideas or thesis with textual quotations)

Shanahan argues that not all texts require a close reading, because they are not deserving of it. I would hate to have poetry lumped into this category and therefore disregarded in ELA classrooms.  

I argue that no poetry requires a close reading because poetry deserves something else.  What?  My thoughts are captured (and better expressed) by poet James Dickey. His (selected) thoughts can be found in this piece from Brain Pickings, "How to Enjoy Poetry."  In sum, he is saying that poetry must be made intensely personal from the first reading. A poem does not mean in the same sense as a narrative, argument, or informational text.  That is not to say that any meaning is OK. A reader can be totally wrong about a poem. 

For example, Frost's wonderful poem "Spring Pools":

These pools that, though in forests, still reflect
The total sky almost without defect,
And like the flowers beside them, chill and shiver,
Will like the flowers beside them soon be gone,
And yet not out by any brook or river,
But up by roots to bring dark foliage on.
The trees that have it in their pent-up buds
To darken nature and be summer woods---
Let them think twice before they use their powers
To blot out and drink up and sweep away
These flowery waters and these watery flowers
From snow that melted only yesterday. 

The poem can be grossly over-read (as it is here), over-simplified (as it is here), and definitely it can be confounding (as it is here).  As is true of much of Frost, dichotomy obscures meaning; dichotomy often, in fact, is the meaning.  Not at all simple. Not at all impersonal. All of the images are open to a dichotomous interpretation. Students asked to parse this poem will find it easy to support a simple meaning (nature is violent, for example) without grappling with the deeper questions embedded in the poem.  

Should students be asked for meaning when the poet does not offer it?  

Many poems require feeling deeply - in the sense of using all of the senses as a reader rather than emotion - rather than finding meaning.  That is Dickey's point. To teach poetry, then, it is important to examine the text itself (How does it work? What is the effect of...) for the purpose of understanding and translating the feelings aroused in the reader. In Dickey's words, "You will come to understand the world as it interacts with words, as it can be re-created by words, by rhythms and by images."  

The reading of poetry can not reduced to a formula with accompanying organizer. I am afraid this will mean that fewer and fewer ELA teachers will teach poems that do not have a clear thematic relationship to another text - less complex poems that Shanahan and I would agree do not merit a close reading.  What will be lost is the joy of the single word, the moment of clarity when a reader makes a personal and deeply realized connection to...something.  

ELA teachers need to fight to keep great poetry in the classrooms.

Myth #8: The Teacher's Role is New and Different

8 Myths About Digital Learning

"Technology has even changed that old and traditional notion of the teacher as the main source of knowledge and turned him/her into a simple facilitator, organizer, and collaborator."  (25 Techy Tips Every Teacher Should Know About).

We have read this so many times in the last 5 years that we all assume it is true.  It is a myth.

Unfortunately, digital is not yet human.

At its core is the belief that technology will create heightened student information seeking, gathering, and curating, followed by the collaborative building of understanding.  "Teachers can be with students as they learn and give feedback as they go" (Five Ways Technology Enhances Education).

I have written previously about Myth #5: Collaboration.  Let's look now at the changing role of the teacher.  I think that over the last five or so years this role did move toward a new paradigm in some 1:1 classrooms, but also in expeditionary classrooms, PBL and experiential learning environments, and lit circle classrooms.

However, for the most part, the role of the teacher as content curator and deliverer has not, by and large, changed.  Take a look at this piece of information from a new PBS LearningMedia survey of teachers:

Teachers Embrace Digital Learning Strategies

Does this data suggest in any way that teacher's perceive their role in the classroom to be changing as a benefit of educational technology?  Does it suggest a shift of content management from teacher to student?  

To me the survey data suggest that technology in the classroom has not changed the teacher's role at all, and may in fact be returning it to that of the pre-digital educational timeline.  

Why would this be?  Many reasons come to my mind, including lack of adequate teacher preparation, professional resistance at all levels, the primacy of "motivation" or "engagement" over deep learning, and the conservative ELA methodologies many believe are proscribed by the new Common Core Standards (Consider this from Learning Unlimited's Common Core Cheat Sheet: "The standards define what students should know and be able to do, not how teachers teacher. Decades of literacy research should provide the framework for instructional best practices in reading, writing, speaking and listening." If anything, the recommended strategies for close reading and writing instruction put the teacher more than ever front and center).  

Combined, these create a powerful blockade to changing the teacher's role in the classroom. 

But wait, there is more. Placing one adult in a room with a passel of students creates an imbalance. There was a time when Teacher Power was expected in the classroom.  This power came from Knowledge + Technique, and Technique contained many elements that have disappeared from our school culture (Discipline is a big one, Failure is another).  

Technology is perceived by many today as a way to solve that imbalance by turning student attention from teacher to tool, geting the teacher not off of the podium, but off of the classroom see saw. This would be terrific, but it doesn't generally happen.  

Most of the time, technology is expected to be a middleman - a deliverer, a diffuser or filter (as needed), a communicator.  On one end is the teacher, whose goals and roles remain the same (define & clarify content, design activities, units and assessments, address the needs of individuals as well as the group as a whole).  At the other end is the student, who has a body of new skills and content (Standards) to master in a given time and to communicate clearly back to the teacher. 

It would fall to the middleman - technology - to be the true Guide on the Side.  But, unfortunately, digital is not yet human. The quality of what goes in still determines the quality of what comes out.  Technology is not a teacher; the Knowledge and Techniques of the teacher in the classroom are still of utmost importance.  

Myth #7: Digital Learning Develops Problem-Solving

8 Myths About Digital Learning

OK - I have to compromise on this one. I do believe that using digital tools develops the problem-solving skills necessary to use "new" digital tools.  In fact, I suspect that the thinking that leads children to succeed in any problem-solving digital game becomes a habit of mind that helps in solving similar non-digital, real-life problems.  Students who can, for example, advance steadily in Cut the Rope are more likely to be able make suggestions to get a team over a wall challenge or are more likely to contribute key language to a class constitution.

Here are some problem-solving basics (this is my own list):

• I have to understand the problem and what makes it hard
• I have to think about what I already "know" about the problem topic
• I have to take a deep breath and think critically about what I read, see, think, feel, hear, and already "know" - throw out the unimportant, wrong, false, exaggerated, emotional, and biased
• If I don't see a solution, I have to take a risk and try something different
• If I do nothing, there will be no solution
• I have to accept and learn from my mistakes, missteps, and failures
• I have to give this time
• If I find a solution right away, this doesn't mean I have the best solution
• Some problems are too hard for just me
• Being in a team has advantages, so listen to team members
• Finding, keeping, and evaluating evidence and experience as I work for a solution is important
• I have to test my solution (unless it obviously works)
• Solving a hard problem gets me ready for an even harder problem and makes me better at similar problems

Problem-solving requires Critical Thinking. In education, Critical Thinking is today thought of as, well, critical.  As expressed in this post from Educational Technology and Mobile Learning, it has these elements:

Other researchers use different terminology for critical thinking skills:

It's In the Genes

Whichever language you choose, notice that individual judgment and opinion are embedded in these research models of Critical Thinking (on this point I quibble with critical thinking as applied by the Common Core to reading.  Personal response and previous knowledge matter. Enough said).  Note also that research supports that critical thinking skills can be taught, but also that once learned, they are not applied with automaticity by any individual.  Their optimum application in the classroom should, therefore, be monitored, and must be required.

The above research article (It's In the Genes) also states that problem-solving style preferences are innate (adaptive/narrow solution focused or innovative/wide solution focused).  This suggests to me that the design of an educational problem is, for many students, directly related to its outcomes - for an individual student and for a problem-solving team.  This requires a teacher or teaching team.

[Aside: the relationship between Problem-solving and Critical Thinking is a complex one, characterized by overlap and interdependence.  I have found this article to be very helpful in understanding the components of both as they related to education.]

So what?  It is clear to me that the skills of critical thinking can be assisted by digital tools, and to this degree digital learning does develop them.  Multiple cases have been made for the use of technology to enhance and develop each of the elements of critical thinking identified above.  Tools such as blogging and backchanneling can even develop the student's ability to self-examine and self-correct.

On the other hand, problem-solving is not developed, but supported, by technology. Ready access to information, including that previously explored and that converted to knowledge, and the communication of solutions and their analysis, are more easily done with facile use of technology than without.  But it only through solving problems that we get better at solving problems.  Ready access to multiple challenging problems may be better for students than extended access to one large, hard technology-rich problem.

So, when we speak of learning, we do better to speak of Critical Thinking.  When we speak of gathering and demonstrating learning - of the processes of learning (writing, reading, researching) - we do better to speak of solving problems.

I have touched on this previously:

• Writing as Problem Solving
• The Literacy of Failure
• The Literacy of Critical Evaluation
• Writing/Thinking Smarter Tools

The CCSS Dilemma: Comment #2 on the CCSS for ELA

student artwork used with permission

Comment #2  [see also Comment #1: Don't Buy the Split and my companion post Two Literate Responses to the Common Core]

"New standards do not require new methods, just new takes on old methods.  A little technology helps as well, but is not required." 

The CCSS for ELA (well, not really for ELA are they?) add one thing to the reading curricula, k-12, that I celebrate: rigor.  We can measure this in lexiles, the grade level equivalents of which have jumped up almost two grade levels.  We can measure this by reading assessment indices.  Or we can measure it in terms of classics that have been in the curriculum for as long as any successful ELA/English teacher can remember plus new-classic and contemporary texts that deserve the label "literary."  It comes down to the same list.  We are talking about rigorous text.

By this I mean: print text that is not "just right," friendly, safe, transparent, or easily recognizable.   For the most part, these are what we used to call literature and now call literary fiction texts. Students often label rigorous fiction "boring books."  They have been dropped from many classrooms because "students don't read them."  They don't appear in literary circles or book groups because they are not "a best fit" for the measured reading level.  They have been replaced by books that are not rigorous - readable, but not rigorous.  Worst case scenario - they have been replaced by "literary" nonfiction that approaches the same themes.  

In better words than mine, Scott G.F. Bailey describes rigorous fiction texts in And there are sword fights: 

"I'm going to claim that the works in question aren't "boring," so much as they are in some way difficult. What's difficult about the works in question is merely that reading and understanding them requires an active reader who is willing to pay attention and examine the ideas put forth in the works, to be willing to work within narratives that differ formally from other narratives they've read, to read books that might defy their expectations as readers. In other words, the difficulty is that there is work--action--required of the reader, rather than passive reading. This can be, for readers not used to the activity, fatiguing, and I claim that particular fatigue is often mistaken for boredom. (This does not rule out the soporific effects of some books.)"   

Which brings us to The CCSS Dilemma: How to lead/teach students to read rigorous text at the grade level proficiency standard (do well on the test) if they will not, or can not, read the rigorous texts?  

ELA teachers, you need to meet this question head on.  I ask you:

• Have you recently read a legal document, a prospectus, a grant proposal, an R&D report, a scientific journal, an explanation of turbodrive or Medicare Part B, an action plan, a credit report, a terms of service agreement?  Would you say this is easy reading?  

• Have you read from the Printz, Booker, National Book Award, or Best Books of 2012 list?  Would you read Proust? If you have, would you say this is easy reading?  

My guess is that you, a college educated adult, have been fatigued by much of this text. You may not have finished it.  With so much comfortable, easy reading available to you, it is easy to close the page, file it away and forget about it, and seek a summary (if necessary) from another reader.  Not reading is an option, but does it get you anywhere? Does it gain you anything new?

You are no different in this respect from many of your students.  Yet if you were to read such text frequently, you would get better at it.  Reading exercise shares this with body exercise.  It is NOT only true of "just right" reading that practice makes better.  That is a myth that has overtaken much of ELA curriculum in the last 7 or so years.  Rigorous texts, fiction (especially) and literary nonfiction, belong in the ELA curriculum at all grade levels.  Teachers who are daunted by them need to get over it.

So here are some concrete ideas, most of which you have probably heard or read before. New standards do not require new methods, just new takes on old methods.  A little technology helps as well, but is not required.  

• Clue students in to the difficulty of their reading.  Talk with each about what makes the text rigorous.  This is where testing data can be your ally, along with knowledge of the reader as a person.  

• Differentiate by reading down and up the standards as necessary and by being sensitive in terms of reading "activities." Less able readers should read as many rigorous texts below grade level as possible (short is good), increasing complexity and length as the child is ready.  I  have had students grow as much as two years this way. More able readers should be turned loose to read.  GoodReads or similar online social reading network is very helpful here, but daunting and often embarrassing for the less able readers.  

• Differentiate by content.  I have found that many frustrated, bored, or "lower level" (by assessment) readers make great strides when they are reading a challenging text that is a fit in terms of genre and point of view.  Many middle schoolers, for example, prefer to read an "adult-centered" text because their lives and responsibilities are already more adult than we would like to think.  Other students continue to love the "child hero," "child adventure," or the "child problem" genre.  Take the time to talk about life with each student - before reading.  I found it helpful to begin each year with literary nonfiction in the form of memoir - short essays like "Death of a Pig" for example, or chapters from a longer texts like Bad Boy, The Things They Carried, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings.  These are avenues not just for reading-to-standard, but for you learning about students and students learning about themselves.  

• Cover the UR classics (Alice, Wizard of Oz, Arabian Nights, fairy tales, etc.) before grade 7.  Surprise!  many of these lexile over 1000, so be aware of their rigor!  Because you are reading more for story (patterns, stock characters, symbolic settings, core themes) with these texts, you can spend more time with vocabulary and related writing.  It is important to make the books fun so that they will be memorable.

• Reading partners - not groups, but trusted and liked partners in the same class with whom a student can discuss hard text.  I use my husband now, but have also used my teaching peers or a book group pal.  The partner can be an iPartner (email, chat, wiki, blog, etc.), but there is nothing like the immediacy of oral f2f sharing.  I have been lucky about half of the time to be able to build trust groups of 3-5 around a shared text, but when this does not work, reading becomes a waste of time, literally.  And this is not pair-reading, by the way.  Sometimes the partner will have to be you (:  )

• Read with media support - in many posts (and in my Classics in the Classroom Scoop.It) I make a case for graphical, video, audio and performance interpretations of classical and difficult texts.  Making these presentations is one way to meet CCSS standards.  Viewing them, experiencing them, is a powerful way to gain an appreciation and understanding of rigorous print text. This is also, by the way, the only rationale I can accept for read-alouds after grade 5.

• Don't read the entire text. OMG !  A rigorous text is a complex story with complex, diverse characters, settings, moods, tones, symbols... The strongest readers, and often the fastest readers, will complete the whole text.  For others, a smattering, experienced fully and closely, will do.  Check out Moby Dick in Pictures or The Graphic Canon (any volume will do) if you want to see the power of careful selection.  The advantage of this, of course, is that selections are what students will be asked to respond to on tests.  Having students select the passages for their peers to read is also always successful.

• Don't over-teach the text.  Reading questions, vocabulary lists, plot lines, character charts, Cornell notes, trifold organizers... all of these interrupt the reading of any text.  Remind yourself of best practices that might well be reexamined for the Common Core by reading this post from Julie Adams: What Makes a Teacher Effective...  I could not disagree more. For the most part, instead of engaging students, these practices disengage.  Let the kids read.  We used to teach one novel during each quarter of the year - overkill!  and boring to all.  I despair when I read requests for "lessons and activities" to accompany a classic text.  Throw them out, stop sharing.  Schmoop.com is about as complex as most readers will ever need, and students can access it on their own.  Your job is build in students appreciation, understanding, and facility and the ability to communicate these to others (orally, digitally, in writing).  Many a bad poster, bad video and boring presentation result for student failure to actively engage in a text.

• Require some form of "marginalia" response of all readers (I would not do this for purely choice reading done mostly outside of class).  Pre and post-reading discussions and journaling are helpful if you follow the 5-minute rule (each student must read/discuss for 5 minutes... - and grade this 0 or 1 every class), but providing texts that can be annotated (with a pen, post-its, or digitally) is the most useful preparation for analysis and the most helpful overall rigorous-reading skill for college.  Students need to know that responding is a expectation for much school-based reading. Let the kids design their own short-hand for annotation (adult models are often not sensible or palatable for kids). Some kids have an almost photographic memory for the passages that grab them and need only to "turn the page down". Some kids take  in-text notes. Some kids like copious paper notes. Some kids do best with highlighting.  Some kids like symbolic marginalia, other like words, others make lists and indexes (on paper, in the back of the book, using digital tools...).  Give them space to explore - but require active responses.  Provide basic categories if necessary.  

• Build appreciation and skills for reading a specific text before beginning it, not while it is being read!  For example:

• Multiple narrators can flip a  upper elementary or MS reader sideways the first time - do dramatic exercises until all students understand what it means to have multiple narrators (including omniscience, of course) - this ties in nicely with a creative/interpretive writing piece (iJournalism, I-essay)

• Complex sentence structures will lose readers until they get the hang of reading the author's rhythms.  Begin with random sentences for students (again in pairs perhaps) to simplify and restate, to read aloud (recorded readings if possible), to talk about (punctuation, perhaps other grammar), use good audio recordings and (if available) textually accurate video 

• Shakespeare and other dramas are vastly more teachable if they are acted (yes, memorized) and viewed (acting by professionals)

• Cover any necessary historical /biographical background before reading - don't let it interrupt the narrative!   If possible, take advantage of literate informational text and media to address some of those other pesky standards.

• Reading a truly daunting author (e.g. Bradbury, Faulkner, Hawthorne, Joyce)?  Use a story instead of a novel.  Readers who are intrigued will read more on their own.  Your lesson materials will still be useful, by and large.  Read, for example, Gabriel García Márquez's "A Very Old Man With Enormous Wings."   

• Accept the fact that hard text is hard work.  It will be hard work for you too.  If you fall back on pat lesson plans gleaned from the net, you will fail and so will your students.

• Steer students to texts that you like and appreciate.  
• Expand the options.  This means accessing more than is available in the classroom library you may have inherited. Use eBooks, use digital freebies, borrow, swap...  
• Remind yourself and your leadership of this:  You are NOT teaching college students.  Don't accept the fact that you have to pretend you are.

This will probably be my last long comment on CCSS for ELA, at least until testing begins.  This is a challenge for ELA teachers, a sort of gauntlet thrown down. Whether or not you agree with the CCSS, the reading bar has got to be raised.  A throw-back task?  Partly. But as the teacher leaves the front of the room, as digital tools are embedded in the reading experience, it is a task that is eminently more doable than it was just 10 years ago.  

Don't Buy the Split: #1 Comment on the Common Core for ELA Teachers

student sketch, used with permission

Comment #1:

ELA and reading teachers who find it painful to put aside literary texts (either classic or contemporary literary or even just YA fan-fiction) in favor of informational texts:

• I am tired of reading about compromises you have made to CCSS trainers.
• I am tired of reading requests for lessons and parallel informational texts.
• I am tired of reading requests for ideas for good research paper topics.

ELA teachers: You need to energize.  The CCSS do not, at any level, say you have to do this.  Go to your principals and literacy leaders.  Have a dialogue about what it means that: "The Standards set requirements not only for English language arts (ELA) but also for literacy in history/social studies, science, and technical subjects. Just as students must learn to read, write, speak, listen, and use language effectively in a variety of content areas, so too must the Standards specify the literacy skills and understandings required for college and career readiness in multiple disciplines. Literacy standards for grade 6 and above are predicated on teachers of ELA, history/social studies, science, and technical subjects using their content area expertise to help students meet the particular challenges of reading, writing, speaking, listening, and language in their respective fields."

Therefore - you must convince leadership that as soon as subject-specific education begins in your district (the CC assumes this is grade 6, but it is not always) the 50-50 or 30-70 rule applies to ALL reading done by a student in a grade level.

If ELA teachers were to teach only literary texts, the other subject areas could easily cover 70% of the reading - the informational part.

Teachers - you need to be proactive about meeting with subject teachers.  You need to get them to take on the role of teachers of the informational texts their disciplines require.  Add this reading to the whole reading pie at each grade level.

It may well be, probably should be, that you will include some literary nonfiction (creative nonfiction) and some informational texts (background readings, images, media) in each of your units. Great!  Many students, especially reluctant boy readers, respond better to fiction and other literary texts if they have a very concrete frame of reference.  Doing that is nothing new.

But don't give up the texts that have proven to make life-long readers of our children simply to satisfy a misunderstood standard.

PS: PBS Teacherline has some excellent, inexpensive, short(er) "teach reading" courses to for science and history teachers.  Maine has similar offerings in the state university system. Check to see what is out there!  You can also find basic basic, oft-repeated informational reading strategies in many reliable places online and also (OMG) in many good books.  Avoid talking with them about lit circles, though!

A Path to Closing the Skills Gap

source

Here in Maine, we are told by our governor and our DOE commissioner that our kids don't learn in school the skills needed for the 21st century workplace.  I quote Commissioner Bowen: "we need to make every effort to prepare all students for college and 21st-century careers. For instance, our schools can do a better job of exposing students to potential careers throughout their time in school. And they need to align the skills taught in the classroom with the skills in demand at hospitals and machine shops, in wood lots and engineering firms."  His comments make the point that we have a skills gap in the state, a gap that can be filled by altering the educational path, and demands, for students whose goal is to enter the workforce after high school.  Bowen's concern is for those students who should enter the workforce immediately after high school or technical school, but I think it is the needs of all of our students that he is addressing. 

We also hear from Governor LePage that there are 21,000 unfilled jobs in this state - jobs that our students do not, and will not, have the pragmatic skills for - jobs that our students do not, and will not, have the habits of mind for.

In the 2007-08 school year, there were 17,270 enrolled in the state's graduation classes and 14,425 graduates.  Assuming that the governor is guilty of hyperbole, and that the actual number is really more like the 4,000 worker shortfall suggested in this Press Harold article, it would seem that Maine's drop-outs alone could do a good job of closing the jobs gap.  If there were a "track" for these at-risk (of unemployment) students, would the skills gap disappear? 

I think so.  Where the jobs in Maine (for both the college-educated and the trades-educated students) will come from is a separate question.  Preparing both cohorts for jobs in Maine is the key educational issue for our state.

But first let's have clarity: What is a "skill," educationally speaking?  Let's look at the origin of the word itself: Old Norse skil - discernment, knowledge.  In other words, skill originally meant that combination of executive function and learning that sets one worker or doer apart from others.  As used today, it also means expertise.

The best understanding for Maine students is found in combining the old and the new. In my exploration of this idea, I was pleased to see that Maine's Commission and Governor understand this, perhaps without knowing that they do.

Educationally speaking, developing skills means providing instruction, practice, and challenge in specific activities that will develop expertise while at the same time instilling the habits of mind that lead to success (such as hard work - more about that later) - and also measuring deeper "content knowledge" by assessing the ability to discern nuance, variation - to apply content learned to new situations, whether academic or pragmatic.

The habits of mind are Executive Function.  Dr. Judy Willis concisely lays out the what and how in her Edutopia article, "Three Brain-based Teaching Strategies to Build Executive Function in Students."  [Note: this should be the UR article for all discussions of Maine's assessments, not to mention PD.]  Willis writes:
As the caretaker of your students' brains during the years of rapid prefrontal cortex development, you should consider how you can activate and guide the development of your students' greatest resources -- strong executive functions. The opportunities you provide for mental manipulations using these critical neural networks are precious gifts. These tools will empower them to achieve their highest potentials and greatest satisfaction as they inherit the challenges and opportunities of the 21st century. 

The best classroom teachers in Maine are already employing strategies to develop this resource, but as students move up the grade-level ladder, the content of those activities is increasingly academic.  For as many as 60% of our students, this content is not serving their needs. 

What does executive function have to do with the 21st Century workplace that was not also true of the 20th Century workplace?  Nothing. The problem is, we have left the educational pathway to ensuring equal success in its development for our kids.  Somewhere along the way the practical and pragmatic have gotten lost.  This is a great time to re-evaluate.

What are the skills our kids lack for success?  Not digital skills, surely.  Maine is a 1-1 state with a high rate of computer access k-12, so students will become digitally adept and up-to-date simply by going to school.  This is the great gift of the 1:1 program.  I discount "digital" as a lacking skill set. 

A month ago Commissioner Bowen was singing the praises of the adaptation of the CCSS; now he is calling for a totally new accountability and assessment measure that takes into account the need for job-related skills.  He appears to support contradictory philosophies of education.  But I think that what he envisions, overall, is a paradigm change backward - to the type of k-12 structure that was in place when I was at East Brunswick High School - updated by hindsight, by lessons learned - improved by appropriate assessments - expanded by appropriate schooling. [It would therefore be nice to include some "older folks" in the discussion, but that is another discussion].

It seems to me that mandated testing + the Common Core Standards will handle academic skills for college-bound students, even if the testing is slightly off-track for ELA.

But should the CCSS and its aligned testing be the standard for ALL students?  Yes and no.

Our governor is quoted as saying: "Quite frankly, one of the most disturbing things I heard today is our educational system is geared to send all students to a four-year college."

I find myself agreeing with Governor LePage - our k-12 educational system should not be totally geared toward 4-year college.  We need to quickly develop an educational alternative path that begins in middle school.  We might as well do this at the same time we are discussing plans for an NCLB waiver application and making post-secondary courses available to high school students.  We might as well look beyond pre-K and elementary literacy program improvement and envision what education should look like for the students who will not be college-bound.

Let's call it what it is: A job-bound path more focused on hands-on skills and real-world content knowledge than on intellectual/academic skills and knowledge.

I have no problem with that. 

The fact of the matter is that we have, in the guise of differentiation and the genius in every child, created a k-12 system in which heterogeneity is mandated.  All students are guaranteed access to the academic skills and knowledge needed to gain proficiency in the Standards (true of Maine's standards before the CCSS). Those who gain low proficiency do not fail, they continue on, with what supports the school is able to provide (there is a wide range of supports within Maine). Those who gain proficiency but are not interested in college as a goal become disaffected.  Those who want proficiency gain it, and with it gain a college-bound diploma.  For over a decade, public assessments and curricula declined in rigor to accommodate the less proficient and the disaffected. Rather than develop their strengths, interests and genius, our system has ignored it. This is the 21st century public educational system, so far. 

But it is changing - the CCSS are a return to rigor in ELA.  At the same time, states like Maine are taking a serious look at lack of proficiency growth overall.  Is testing an appropriate and reliable measure of the quality of education?   

I think this question is a good one - better to ask it than to summarily blame the quality of teachers.  [On that question I side with Brad Pitt and against Arne Duncan]. 

Not all students need or want Common Core proficiency in the academic skill and knowledge set. Equally important in Maine is a pragmatic skill and knowledge set. We are talking about the practical skills that get many kids jobs after focused training, just as an academic skill set is focused on obtaining a different type of job: traditional 4-year college.   

Commissioner Bowen wrote this week, "Employers said they need workers who are dependable and adaptable. They need to be able to work in teams, communicate clearly, think critically and learn new skills as needed. More need to be skilled in the trades."   He is speaking to the educational choice of proficiencies expressed in this diagram:

Performance skills, those that reflect habits of mind for success and the application of skills/content knowledge (underlined above), apply to all. These are executive function skills. With the exception of a small overlap, pragmatic and academic skills/content do not apply to all.

Assessments based on the CCSS do cover both academic skills/content and performance skills (at least, newly planned assessments should cover performance skills), but they do not cover pragmatic skills/content.  And these are the gap skills of concern to Maine.

The potential employers cited by Commissioner Bowen have it right. Our current k-12 educational system, focused as it in on standardized (not standards-based) testing, is letting those executive function skills fall by the wayside.  As my schematic suggests, the academic-focused students also need and lack these skills.  [Note: I think that is largely what post-secondary professors are seeing - a lack of performance, not a lack of academic preparation.]

We need to develop performance skills for all students, but also to attend more directly to the development of pragmatic skills and content knowledge. Commission Bowen appears to be suggesting a smooth path to skills development for students who are not academic/college-bound [Note: a small percentage of students will be academic but NOT college bound; they will want to be well-educated small business owners, entrepreneurs, parents, and otherwise self-employed]. These students need an education focused on the practical skills and content that will help them to aim for, secure, and keep good, solid jobs in Maine.

At the same time, ALL students should be held to rigorously assessed performance standards.

I can speak to ELA:  reading, writing, listening, and speaking through the 6th grade level would do the trick for the pragmatic path ("levels" as aligned to the current CCSS).  Doesn't seem possible? Check out the Common Core Standards.  Academic-specific language escalates after grade 6.  Students with a pragmatic life-goal do not need their standards to escalate - they need to attend to learning the skills that will help them to achieve a non-academic goal - and they need to focus on their performance skills.  In short, they need a different ELA path.  This might include:

• collaborative reading of lexiled texts, followed by collaborative projects that make use of digital tools to create hands-on products
• graphic novels
• global/international reading lists, with a great deal of group discussion
• Wabanaki culture study and speakers [this is a Maine specific need]
• collaborative gaming [Note: read this MindShift post for a rationale: Is Gaming the New Essential Literacy?]
• informational texts (manuals, guidebooks, how-to's, newspapers, trade journals) of scaffolded difficulty
• informational writing tasks (creating manuals, guidebooks, how-to's, in-house journals) that make use of digital tools and collaborative idea development
• digital tools and facilities appropriate to developing trade-based skills and performance skills: digital printing facility, garden center, in-school credit union, health/beauty center, food bank, small motor and technology repair shops, car detailing shop, wood-working shop, etc.  all within the middle school complex if possible.
• community integration - use of community facilities, mentorships, partnerships - from the ELA point of view, the application process should require that those grade 6 ELA standards be met.
• placements in the field - rigorous quasi-apprenticeships that prepare students for both the pragmatic and the performance demands of jobs - with placement assessments that include oral and written communication, listening, and speaking, as well as dependability, adaptability, teamwork, critical thinking, and ability to learn new skills and knowledge.  [Note: there should be an app for that.]
• a Literacy certification or badge, with advancement levels, in place of SAT testing and an academic diploma.
• faculty who can multi-teach: writing and programming, for example, are a successful mix (that is my mix); reading and industrial design might be another.  These would be difficult hires - so here is another idea from the past: team teaching.  Place a literacy and a trade expert in the same room at the same time.
• blended online learning - although this is widely available for HS credit recovery in ELA and humanities subject, it tends to be "standards based," which means that it does not really meet the needs of pragmatic learners.  Adult citizenship and ELL course materials would be more appropriate.

Literacy (reading, creating, viewing, communicating in all media) needs to be seen and sold as a pragmatic skill necessary to success and expertise in the workplace.

Some students will develop a love of reading fiction, others will not.  We need to give up on this as an educational goal. 

And what if a student wants to cross paths?  Say a 10th grader on the academic path wants a partnership to explore a career in retail business, environmental planning, or IT entrepreneurship.  These partnerships should be built into the core of a free education in Maine - with the option to opt out (to take AP level classes, for example, in place of a partnership).

A more disruptive decision might be that made by a 15-year old who wishes to switch into an academic path.  What happens to the missed classes in ELA and mathematics?

• Online, blended learning is made for this scenario
• Formative, standards-based assessments are made for this scenario
• Online tutoring (check out TutorCloud, an upstart education business) is made for this scenario
• 1-1 or small group tutorials on the English model are made for this scenario - students pursue classes and independent work, meeting regularly with a tutor to assess progress.

are key.

Am I proposing a redesign of Maine's schools?  Yes - partially - this is a return to the mid-20th century concept of the "vocational track" in combination with a fast-track to technical school/community college (a European concept already adopted by several states). 

The 21st century twist is this: It is equally viable and respectable not to be college-bound.  Civil rights for the pragmatic path.  It's time. 

The problem is that change is a problem.

Graphic Novels

[Update: check out my Graphic Novels page for book lists.]

Below is a post I made today in response to a serious query on English Companion Ning about the validity of teaching graphic novels as "text."  I got so excited about the topic that I ordered three graphic novels while working on the comment.  My love of the graphic began with picture books - my own childhood books, many of which were saved by my mother and now live in my granddaughter Bea's bookcase.

I believe that my fascination with this genre is also connected to my reading history.  I learned to read in Nebraska and Wisconsin cemeteries, on long walks with my college professor dad.  From him I also learned early to love fantasy (Arthurian) and SF.  From my mother's collection of Horizon magazines I learned the power of myth and image.  Graphic novels, like the best iPad apps, are among today's best tactile and literary venues for showing students different paths to reading and learning.

Learning what?   

• "The need to conduct research and to produce and consume media is embedded into every aspect of today’s curriculum."  (Common Core Standards, Key Design Considerations).
• "Integrate and evaluate information presented in diverse media and formats, including visually, quantitatively, and orally." (Common Core Standards, Anchor Standards)
• every single ELA analytical term and method can be visually demonstrated using selected graphic novels - the best of them cover most of the tested content

Comparing texts in different formats is not a new idea - I was doing that with 16mm film long ago - what a pain.  It is now much easier to integrate film media, thanks to YouTube, but graphic media has been more of a challenge to teachers.  The graphic novel, it seems to me, fits the bill for today's teachers, at all grade levels.

Matching graphic text to student in terms of appropriateness is important.  So read the books before giving them to students.

My post is in response to this query (the following discussion is going to be good as well - take note of the post by Karen LaBonte pointing teachers to Scoop.It, which in turn points us at this Book Shelf interview: Graphic storytelling and the new literacies and many more terrific resources for teaching with graphic novels.  Check it out.

You might also want to explore the concept of the picto-essay.  Syncopated: An Anthology of Nonfiction Picto-Essays is a starter collection. These short graphic pieces eyeball an experience (e.g. memoir), place, or time, crossing back and forth from history to "you are there" as only the visual world can.  I would use them along with the web to enrich visual literacy and visual history lessons. Students with drawing-disability can generally create a wonderful product with a digital camera.

[My response to Raef Earl Williams, who writes: "With the pressures of teaching all standards and standardized testing, can you rationalize teaching this type of text year in and year out? "] There is also new pressure to teach creative thinking and textual interpretation, and to have students work in purposeful discussion groups.  I think that the best graphic novels are a legitimate text source for developing higher order skills - including comprehension.  I also agree with you that the power of images is a literacy that should be taught.  One approach might be to compare graphic to text versions of literature.  I did this with Fahrenheit 451. The Gunslinger, The Martian Chronicles, Something Wicked This Way Comes, Twilight, The Odyssey, and Beowulf (several graphic and comic versions of this are available) are other possibilities  [and, I have since discovered, most of Shakespeare and Mark Twain, many great moments in US history... the concept of compare/contrast is HUGE using this format].

It is certainly possible to study any element of literature through its visual presentation in graphic novels - much as you might study a visual image (painting, photograph, etc.).  [in fact, some concepts might be best introduced or reinforced with graphic novels: irony, mood, point of view, contrast, parallelism - to name a few]

Here are some titles I would love to teach: American Vampire, Vol. 1 (because Stephen King was involved - but there are also a vol.2 and 3 is on the way), Persepolis, Trickster (Native American storytellers and graphic artists), American Born Chinese, Stitches - a Memoir, Shaun Tan (The Arrival, Lost and Found), and (of course - you would have to offer this) Maus.

American Library Association maintains lists of the best YA graphic novels published each year.  The number of titles alone is one reason to attend to them in the classroom.

Since I am having fun imagining this:

• Hark a Vagrant and Wondermark are online sources of excellent, intelligent "shorts" - check out the Hark archives to show kids that graphic is not "dumb." Find a 1-panel short called "The Hole" at this unlikely source: ELL online resource Grammarman (also noted in my post Storytelling Spirit). Grammarman Comic also offers short graphic lessons: comics with errors, worksheets, answer sheets.  And another in the .pdf download from, of all places, spirit - the journal of Southwest Airlines, October 2011.
• There are many comic apps - so your students should have no trouble finding DC and other titles for their smart phones. I use Comics, the reader for ComiXology.com.
• I would probably begin with a study of wordless picture books: The Mysteries of Harris Burdick (there is a collection of short stories - one for each picture - due out this fall), Woolvs in the Sitee, Varmints, and Chalk are four of my favorites, but ask a children's librarian. 
• Inanimate Alice is a terrific graphic puzzle story - a good problem-solving challenge for a visual reader. There will surely be more of these fully digital visual stories in the months to come.
• It would be interesting to have students do some deep thinking about the mood, tone, and content of graphic novels - so little humor, so much violence and darkness (just a study of color across several titles would be fun).

On the "create" end of learning, you might want to have groups collaborate on a graphic story - apps like Comic Life and online tools like Make Beliefs Comix can support the non-artistic.  With middle schoolers, we did work on large pages as well as digital ones.   Have fun!

Random thought on the implementation of the Common Core

Today I learned of a 2nd packaged, technology-enhanced curriculum designed to fully implement the Common Core in ELA/Literacy.  I anticipate a spate of these packages, all competing for district, regional, and state dollars.  I find it ironic that influential responses (Pearson and Scholastic) to standards that highlight creativity, critical thinking, and collaboration are rooted in structure, in hierarchy, and in making the teacher's job less creative, critical, and collaborative.  The greatest flaw in 6-8 education today is that "the easy way out" is a strategy enabled by canned, purchased and downloaded programs and lessons. This is a scary time for education.