The Power of Subtitles for Readers and Writers

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I must be in my usual school year cycle as I can't seem to get through January/February without thinking about informational readers and writers--a perfect winter genre study. This week's Text Set focuses on the Power of Subtitles for Readers and Writers! Subtitles can help readers in so many ways. And when writers create thoughtful titles and subtitles, they have to think deeply about their text's message.  Let's look at different ways authors use subtitles, how those can help readers understand big ideas and how writers can use subtitles to think more deeply about they big idea. 

Bionic Beasts: Saving Animal Lives with Artificial Flippers, Legs and Beaks and The Oldest Student: How Mary Walker Learned to Read are great to introduce the idea of subtitles to reader and writers. If I were to name what these writers do, they use their subtitle to further explain the main title of the book. The title gives a HINT about the book and the subtitle goes on to give you more detailed information.  Young writers can try this with titles for their own writing.

Some titles don't really tell the reader wha the topic of the book is. Instead, they set the stage for letting the reader know of some important idea in the book without revealing the topic. (This subtitle is so small on the cover, that you don't even notice it at first, so that you focus on the main title.) That's what Not My Idea:A Book About Whiteness does. Then the title goes on to reveal the topic in very straightforward language. Readers have a topic and and an important idea to think about before they begin to read. Writers might try this by writing the subtitle first and then thinking about an actual title that captures a message without giving away the text's topic.

This text is actually the home page of a favorite website. The Kids Should See This is a site with incredible videos, as you can tell by the subtitle.  In this example, the title gives a hint into the topic but the subtitle gives more specifics. Including texts other than books is critical in text sets so that young readers and writers see how these same craft moves are used in multimedia texts.

Hello, Crochet Friends!: Making Art, Being Mindful, Giving Back: Do What Makes You Happy is a book with a VERY long subtitle but every word is important. Jonah Larson is a world-famous crochet expert and the topic of the book is crocheting.  But the book is more than that as the subtitle(s) explains. Crocheting is about so much more for Jonah. This book's  subtitle sets the stage for readers and the double colon can give writers something to play with. As writers, giving a title like this a try could help writers expand their thinking around their topic.

These two books (Kamala Harris: Rooted in Justice and Exquisite: The Poetry and Life of Gwendolyn Brooks) pair well when talking about titles and subtitles. Because they are both biographies and they both use a strong word/phrase to capture what is important about the person in the book. One uses the word/phrase as a title. The other uses it as a subtitle.  Playing with a single word or phrase that sums up a big topic is a great way to push thinking as writers. As readers, finding evidence of this characteristic through the book will help them read more deeply. And as an author, the decision about which to make the title and which to make the subtitle would also make for interesting conversation!

Remote Learning with Spencer's New Pet: The Power of Wordless Books

As I work with teachers across grade levels, many are thinking about how to build community and create a space that is safe and inviting for important thinking and conversation. Whether they are in person and social distanced, whether they are hybrid and have their kids both live and in remote spaces or whether they are fully remote, this is something on every teachers' mind, as it is every fall. So much of the fall is often spent building community, learning how to have thoughtful conversations, building on one another's thinking, learning to disagree and learning to support claims and ideas with evidence.  This year is no different in that regard.

Spencer's New Pet by Jessie Sima has been a great wordless book to share early in the year. Mary Lee reviewed the book a while ago and I fell in love with it this spring when I shared it with my 5th graders. 

As a reader myself, I am not so great at reading images. I prefer words.  But I have come to fall in love with wordless picture books over the past several years. I have learned the power of wordless picture books, especially during the first several weeks of the school year.

If we want our students to talk about books in critical ways, if we want them to be able to talk about issues in our world, if we want students to learn to grapple with ideas, agree, disagree and grow their thinking, I find that wordless picture books are perfect tools for inviting students into this work early in the year.

This fall, I've been fortunate to work in a few Zoom classrooms, supporting teachers in their work with students.  Spencer's New Pet has worked so well with several groups of students. I find that it is a book children (and adults) of all ages engage in joyfully. And it provides so many natural stopping places to notice and celebrate thinking and talk. Because there are very few words, the book is accessible to everyone and children are anxious to share thinking as there is so much to notice in each illustration.

This book was good for several reasons. It helped start discussions around these important behaviors and strategies:

• changing thinking is something readers do
• readers support thinking with evidence
• building on ideas of others is valued here
• we think before, during and after we read
• reading is about more than words; it is about thinking and understanding
• we think in so many different ways as we read
• there is power in rereading 
• creators make so many decisions that help us understand

Spencer's New Pet is my most recent favorite wordless book, but I have several and I am always on the lookout for a new favorite to share with students.  Sharing a few wordless picture books over the first several weeks of school helps build an intellectual community of talk and collaborative thinking.   Here is a link to some other wordless books that are perfect for remote learning. 

Setting Writing Goals

The first few weeks of writing workshop has gone well. We are keeping writers' notebooks and beginning to learn from other writers.  I feel like our workshop runs well when kids have as much choice as possible. As a community, when kids are doing different things in their notebooks, we learn from everyone and I find it easier to teach into that than a workshop with no choice. The challenge is always giving choice while also making sure kids are growing and learning the things they are supposed to learn in 5th grade.  So early in the year, there are a few things that I want my 5th graders to know.  I want them to see writing workshop as a time for them to learn new things/try new things/grow as a writer. I want them to see the things they learn in mini lessons as a kind of menu--as options to help them grow as writers. And I want them to have a voice in how they grow as writers--which things that we are learning are things that they need as writers?

Lots of the mini lesson work we've done is about what is possible in a writer's notebook. So we've read various pieces and learned from each. I didn't go in knowing what kids would notice from each piece--I just trusted that if I pulled a variety of pieces, kids would notice things that we could then build on. I wanted to give them lots of opportunities to think about what writers do and how they might use that in their own writing. So I chose lots of different pieces and after each one, we talked about what they noticed about the writing--what did the writers do that they liked?  I used many pieces from these books.  I imagine these beginning-of-the-year conversations will be anchors throughout the entire year.

So after a few mini lessons I started a board in the room to scaffold kids' learning a bit. The board had covers of the books we'd read and a reminder of the ideas we talked about in each--what we noticed the writer had done. As we added more mini lessons, the board grew. Then I added a few copies of student work--samples of things they'd tried using something from a mini lesson--and those went in the appropriate spots on the board.  The board continues to grow and it is a great way for kids to remember what we've learned, the books we learned from, and the idea that they may want to use these ideas to grow as writers.

This week we used the board to start conversations around goal setting. Our minilesson focused on really looking at the list of the things we'd learned (adding dialogue, stretching out a moment, similes to describe something, describing someone you know in a unique way, setting the scene with a strong paragraph, etc.).  We quickly went over the list and thought about what one thing we might focus on-one thing we wanted to try out in our writing over the next few days, one thing that might take us out of our comfort zone. Kids took a sticky note, added their name and a specific idea and then placed it where it belonged on the board--making public their goal for the next few days. This allowed me to have quick conversations with kids as I bopped around the room. It also allowed me to see across the class and to see where kids were focusing their work.  Most importantly, this gave kids a low-stress way to look at the list of mini lessons as a menu that will grow with the year. A way to think about the ways they can use what we learned to make their writing better while still having control over their own writing.

We'll continue to think in this way for a few weeks--thinking in short bursts of goals and practicing using the minilesson work that will most help our writing. Then we'll move on to goal setting within a unit of study and beyond. I am excited to see how this group of writers grows!

In the Classroom: Responding to Writing

Last week, in writing workshop, we started a short cycle on response groups in writing.  This is the beginning of our work with responding in peer groups so a few lessons are helping us get started.

I began the lessons by sharing my own experiences as a writer.  I shared this photo with my students. It was taken at the Choice Literacy Writing Retreat this summer. It is a photo of the group of us who got together to write and share and respond. I talked to them about the experience and about how twice a day we would share our writing and get feedback on it to help us make our writing better. I explained that sometimes I was the writer and sometimes I was the responder and I shared a few specific examples of pieces I worked on while I was there and the ways in which the other helped me to make my writing better.

Then we revisited a video we watched earlier in the year as part of a minilesson cycle on community.  The video shows the power of peer response and we talked about how the responses from Austin's classmates were what helped him create a better drawing. The same was true for writing.  Response matters.

We started a chart early in the week that we will build together over the course of the minilessons.  Then we'll clean it up a bit to synthesize our learning about response groups.

The first experience with response was whole group and it was a piece of writing that I shared with the students. I wrote a piece that I was hoping to put on Kidblogs about my younger brother. Sibling stories are popular in the classroom right now, and I wanted my kids to see that I got ideas from their writing.  I also wanted to practice together. So I told my students that as a writer, I had to prepare for the response group.  I had chosen a piece of writing that I wanted help with, made copies for everyone, and thought of a few specific things I wanted help with.  I read the piece aloud.  Their job was to read the piece and write thoughts that came to them as they read--things that might help make my writing better. They each marked a piece up.

The next day I fishbowled with 3 students about my writing.  I asked them specifics ( a few questions about word choice and some advice on the lead.).  They shared confidently and kindly and I got some great advice. We processed the things that made the response group positive.

Then kids went off and chose a piece of writing from their writers' notebooks that they wanted feedback on.  They were very excited about doing this once we got to this point in the cycle. Getting feedback on their writing was something they were excited about!  They marked the piece, jotted down specific feedback they were looking for and we copied those pieces so that everyone in the response group would have his/her own copy.

Then we started to get ready. Students were put in groups of 4 with one writer and 3 responders each day.  The WRITER of the day met with me about things they were hoping to learn from the responders while responders read and marked up the writers' texts.

Then response groups met, focusing on one writer each day.

Writers took notes on the things they needed to remember when they went back to revise.

By the end of the cycle, we will have a chart that reminds us how we get ready for a response group (writers and responders) and the kinds of things we might say/hear in a response group (as a writer or responder).

As we continue to build, our feedback will get more detailed and specific but my goal with this first cycle was for kids to see the power of response groups--for both the writer and the responder. 

My Dad Thinks He's Funny by Katrina Germein

I happened to see My Dad Thinks He's Funny  by Katrina Germein while visiting Cover to Cover around Father's Day. It isn't a new book but it looked fun.  I'm so glad I picked it up because it will be perfect for minilesson work in Writing Workshop. I love the format of this book to show young writers how authors let us get to know a character by telling details--not with adjectives necessarily but by telling stories. In this very predictable book, a child is talking about how his dad THINKS he is funny (with the implication that he really isn't:-). On each two page spread, there is a little example of this.  One such example is..."Whenever I say, 'I'm hungry,' Dad says, 'Hello, Hungry. Pleased to meet you.'" Kids will love the humor and the illustrations add to the fun. This is a perfect example to kids about including examples that let their reader really know their characters when writing. I can see using it early in the year for some notebook play.  This is a fun book that kids will remember.

20 Ways to Draw a Tree by Eloise Renouf

It is that time of summer when I am thinking hard about those first messages I want to give my new students about the classroom they'll be entering.  Peter Johnston's words have lived with me for years and as I think about routines and classroom organization, I am always thinking about the subtle messages these things in schools give to our young children. So, I was thrilled to discover a new book called 20 Ways to Draw a Tree and 44 Other Nifty Things from Nature: A Sketchbook for Artists, Designers, and Doodlers. I was immediately drawn to the title and checked it out.  I love so much about this book and am thrilled that there are others in the series.

I am not an artist and I don't actually pay much attention to visuals. I've only started to a little bit recently as the world is made up of more visuals.  So this book is all the more fascinating to me. I guess I never realized how many different ways there are to draw a tree or a leaf or a bird or a flower.

So, back to why I bought this book. I want my students to get the message right away that there are lots of ways to do things. That there are not "right' and "wrong" answers and that there are so many ways to problem solve and to think about things. So many ways to approach things. So many amazing ways to see something and so many ways to think about something. And I think this book gives that message.   Although this book is designed to help you experiment with drawing (and I imagine it will invite lots of kids to do just that), it will also give the messages I want them to get when they walk into our classroom.

I'm not quite sure how I'll use the book--whether I'll figure out a way to make it some sort of invitational wall display or whether we'll do some playing with it the first few days of school or what. But I know it will serve some purpose during those first few important weeks of school. And I can see kids going back to it throughout the year and just looking at it. There is so much to see. Such an amazing book!

Mini lessons from my summer reading

The Thousand Autumns of Jacob De Zoet
by David Mitchell
Random House, 2010
I own it. The audio version, too.

We'll spend the first days of the new school year talking about reading preferences: favorite books and authors, book choice, just right books, etc. This year, my mentor text for all my beginning-of-the-year mini lessons will be the best adult book I've read since last December: THE THOUSAND AUTUMNS OF JACOB DE ZOET. (For the record, the previous best book: THE LACUNA by Barbara Kingsolver.)

Here are some mini lessons I'll be able to teach while holding up this book:

BOOK CHOICE: This is the newest book by one of my favorite authors. When I heard David Mitchell had a new book out, I didn't wait to hear what anyone else thought about it. I trust this author. I knew it would be good. I read it as soon as I could get my hands on it. {Who are your favorite authors? What are your favorite books?}

PACING: I read this book through my ears by listening to this book, rather than through my eyes by seeing the print. I noticed many times when I wished I could slow down to figure something out or savor the language, or speed up so that I could see how an exciting part turned out. {Do you read faster or slower sometimes? When? Why?}

CHARACTERS: There are lots of characters with foreign names in this book. I had to pay close attention while I listened so I could keep them straight. It might have been easier if I could have seen the names. The reader of the audio book did a good job giving each character an accent. Sometimes that's how I remembered who was who. {How do you keep the characters straight as you read? What does the author do to help you?}

PLOT/SUBPLOT: There are lots of story lines in this book. It was important to remember what happened to Jacob, the Dutch clerk; Orito, the Japanese woman doctor (pretty amazing for 1799); the many Japanese translators (Japanese/Dutch); Marinus, the scientist/doctor/harpsichord player; Lord Abbot Enomoto, evil incarnate. {What is the main story in your book (plot)? What is one smaller story in your book (subplot)?}

Besides all the main plots and subplots, there were the times when the author would go off on a tangent that didn't really take the plot anywhere -- a character would tell a story or there would be an extended description of a place -- but I trusted the author and went along for the ride. {Tell about a time when you had no idea why the author seemed to go off-topic, but you trusted the author and it turned out to be really important.}

There's a whole lot of plot/subplot in this book, but in the end, I think it was a book about character. (I should have guessed that from the title, right?) {Is your book more strong in plot or character?}

STAMINA: This is a really long book. I stayed with it until the end. {How do you keep going in longer and longer books?}

AUTHOR'S STYLE: I love the way Mitchell writes. At one point, I had to turn off the recording and write down a line as soon as I could get my hands on paper and pencil. By way of telling another character that his story was exaggerated, Marinus tells him that he "...rather over-egged the brûlée." {Let's start a bulletin board of lines we love in the books we're reading. Be sure you write the title and the author of your book, the page number you found it on, and copy the quote exactly as the author wrote it. Use quotation marks. Here, I'll get us started with my quote. You can use it as an example.}

Towards the end, I suddenly realized that a descriptive passage about gulls flying over Dejima and Nagasaki was a poem -- I could hear rhythms and rhymes. I rewound the recording so I could listen to it again. (Imagine my astonishment when I looked at the book and that section was NOT written with the line-breaks of a typical poem. Even the READER would have to discover by listening that there was rhythm and rhyme and poetry there! {Have you ever heard poetry in a chapter book? Or a magazine, or newspaper, or nonfiction? Listen closely. See if you can find an example to bring in.}

THE POWER OF DISCUSSION: When I was about two-thirds of the way through listening to this book, AJ started reading it. (When he got to the "over-egged brûlée," I had him turn down the corner of the page -- that phrase has become one of our favorites.) We have had quick discussions about the book over the last week or so. ("Where are you in the book -- what's happening now -- what did you think of this or that?") {Talking about books will be an important part of our reading workshop this year...}

I found JACOB DE ZOET at my place at the table this morning so I know we'll be able to talk about the ending now. I can't wait. As much as I've enjoyed reading this book, I'll enjoy it even more because I can TALK about this book with someone else who has read it. I'm still not sure what the title means. Maybe AJ will be able to help me think that through. {Who do you think would enjoy the book you just read? What topics do you hope you will you talk about?}

One of the things AJ and I have been talking about while I've been waiting for him to finish the book, is the difference between novels and mysteries. I think I finally understand why I don't like reading mysteries. But this is getting long, so I'll make that another post for another day!