Text Sets: Professional Books for Summer Learning

Texts for this Text Set have been posted daily on Instagram. 

Follow @TextSets there to get daily updates!  

 This week, I'll be sharing some professional books I am excited to dig into this summer. It's been such a great year for professional books and I am looking forward to time in the summer to really spend time with some of the newest professional books I've discovered. Summer is such a great time to relax, refresh and renew our teaching energy.  Professional books always help me with that and summer is my favorite time to dig into these. 

I read En Comuninidad this year and was able to hear the authors speak.  This is an area that I haven't learned enough about and these brilliant authors invited me into this learning.  My next read in Translanguaging will be Rooted in Strength which is brand new.  Such an important topic for all of us to learn about. Thanks to these authors for putting these incredible books out in the world.  

I was able to hear Dr. Detra Price-Dennis and Dr. Yolanda Sealy-Ruiz talk about their new book, Advancing Racial Literacies in Teacher Education last month. It is definitely an area that I need to learn more about. And I've learned so much from Dr. Detra Price-Dennis about Black Girls' Literacies that I am looking to the upcoming book on the topic by Dr. Price-Dennis and Dr. Muhammad. (Black Girls' Literacies is due out in early to mid June). 

I loved Steph Harvey and Annie Ward's book From Striving to Thriving and am glad to see these two have written another book on a similar topic (with two other coauthors). Intervention Reinvention comes out in June and I know I'll learn so much about supporting all readers. And I just received my copy of Trusting Readers this morning.  I worry we have come so far away from trusting our learners and the focus on independent reading and trust got me excited about this book right away. I think we all need this one in order to talk against deficit language narratives in literacy teaching. 

I preordered Start Here Start Now: A Guide to Antibias and Antiracist Work in Your School Community long ago and can't wait to dig in. I have learned so much from Liz Kleinrock on social media that I am so glad to see a book by this author!  

And one I am very excited that we are now able to preorder Reading and Teaching with Diverse Nonfiction Children's Books (The preorder link just went live this week--woohooo!)  I have been hearing about it on social media for months and it is a topic I need. These editors are incredible experts and the list of authors (listed on the preorder page) is just WOW! This book is a summer must-read for sure! 

Happy Reading!

Follow @TextSets on Instagram for next week's Text Set!

Everyday Advocacy: Teachers Who Change the Literacy Narrative

Today, the book Everyday Advocacy: Teachers Who Change the Literacy Narrative by Cathy Fleischer and Antero Garcia is available! This is an important book for all educators who want to work to change the narrative about literacy and education. This is a must-read for educators. It would be a great book to read with a group of colleagues--local or beyond--to think about how you can make a difference as part of your everyday work.

We had the chance to ask Cathy and Antero some questions about their book and the ideas behind it. We hope you learn from all they have to say and the resources they share. 

Franki: Why do you think it is important for teachers to have advocacy skills?

Cathy and Antero: The public narrative surrounding teachers is too often dismissive, demeaning, and just plain wrong--based on “what it was like when I went to school” or on years of one-dimensional media depictions of either the hero teacher (who works 80 hours a week to save kids) or the uncaring teacher who doesn’t take the work seriously. Neither of these depictions fit the teachers we know, the teachers who are committed to professional learning and thoughtful curriculum development, who care deeply about students, who continually work to improve their own teaching, and who make meaningful decisions about what to teach and what not to teach.

But sadly, so many decisions about how and what we teach have been taken away from teachers and placed in the hands of people who are not regularly in schools and who quite simply don’t have the knowledge or expertise to decide how and what we should teach.

This is why teachers need advocacy skills--to share their voices, their stories, their expertise in order to shift the public narrative around teaching in order to help others (colleagues, administrators, legislators and community members) see teachers and teaching differently.

Franki: You’ve really worked to redefine advocacy for educators and to broaden the ways in which we, as teachers can see ourselves doing this work. I imagine that has been very intentional. Can you talk about that journey?

Cathy: For me it began twenty years ago when my husband (an environmental advocate) and I would talk over the dinner table about our work, and I learned how he uses advocacy measures to create campaigns on specific environmental issues. His super-smart thinking on things like cutting an issue, identifying decision-makers, and finding allies led me to start studying community organizing and advocacy, interviewing organizers in multiple fields, and thinking hard about how what they do could be adapted for teachers. I began writing about what I was learning and then offering workshops for teachers so I see how they thought advocacy might work for them, how it could be a part of their already overly busy lives rather than an add-on. This led to co-creating the Everyday Advocacy website with former NCTE Communications Director Jenna Fournel, which features hands-on approaches to advocacy and teacher stories from these workshops. Truly, every single day I learn more and more from the amazing teachers who do this work: how they continue to advocate for ways of teaching and learning they know are important in their specific contexts.

Antero: Before learning about Everyday Advocacy from Cathy and her work with Jenna, my work with teachers tended to focus on what we refer to in the book as “big A” Advocacy. My scholarship and my experiences in classrooms often emphasized activist stances toward justice that, admittedly, can get in the way of some teachers seeing themselves as advocates. Part of what’s appealed to me about the work that Cathy leads is that every teacher can see themselves in this work, it builds on what they know, it encourages them to center student learning needs, and it is focused on results for the here and now. I think getting every teacher to see themselves as an advocate and building capacity with this skill set is an imperative for classroom teachers right now; that it still connects to bigger issues around democracy, labor, and freedom is an added bonus.

Franki: Can you talk about the importance of the word “everyday” in your title and idea about advocacy?

Cathy and Antero: Advocacy seems like a big scary word—it’s what those paid community organizers or lobbyists do to get bills passed or to organize marches with thousands of people in the street. But there are a ton of examples in the world of folks who use their voices and tell their stories as part of their day to day lives—and that’s what we mean when we use the term everyday advocacy--part-of rather than add-on.

The word also reminds us that the regularity of advocacy in the lives of teachers makes it feel less scary. Like going to the gym (in the times when it was safe to do so!), advocacy is a muscle that develops or atrophies through everyday use.

Franki: Everyone has ideas about education and it seems that teachers are no longer the people trusted when it comes to decision-making. But you have a strong belief in teachers and you have ideas about how we can change the narrative. What can teachers do locally and beyond to change that?

Cathy and Antero: It’s true--we do believe in teachers! As we say in the introduction to the book, “We believe in their power to inspire, challenge, support, and care for the students with whom they work--day-in and day-out, in often challenging circumstances, and with intelligence and grace. Teachers, we know, are contemporary superheroes, and we believe they should be honored as such, each and every day.”

But teachers are not always trusted to make decisions about curriculum and pedagogy and assessment and a host of other issues. And the narrative that we mentioned above--one that is too often dismissive and demeaning--has become even stronger during this pandemic. We’ve been amazed at the ways some people are dismissing the herculean effort that teachers are putting forth and disheartened that teacher voices were too often absent from discussions of how to do school this year.

We believe that teachers can change that narrative and bring their voices into the discussion--and the book is filled with ideas about how to do that. Specifically, teachers can focus on a particular issue that impacts them in their local setting, learn as much as they can about that issue (by carefully observing students in their own classrooms, working to understand the context of their own communities, and immersing themselves in what others have written and said about the issue); seek like-minded colleagues and community members to become allies; and set out a plan to help others understand the issue differently. It’s not always easy, but as the examples in the book show, teachers are doing this work in all kinds of ways.

Franki: With limited time, what are some quick tips for how teachers might do move advocacy work?

Cathy and Antero: We think working proactively is the first big step. What can you do as a teacher to help other teachers, administrators, parents, and community members understand why you teach in the ways you do? You can host a parent night in which you ask these adults to share memories of reading and writing in their lives and then connect their memories to why you use choice reading and writing workshops. Or you might begin a children’s or young adult book club for students and parents that focuses on diverse books so parents can both up their own knowledge and watch how their students respond. Or you might share student work regularly with your families and administrators so they can see the great work that emerges when you teach in a particular way.

This proactive advocacy leads to you developing more allies as others understand your thinking and your teaching. And once they understand, we’ve found they are more willing to have your back if questions or concerns arise down the road.

Franki: Who are some people (other than the authors in your book) who educators can follow as models for their own advocacy work?

Cathy and Antero: We love the blog Teachers, Profs, Parents: Writers Who Care as an example of how you can write for the public. Check out their Tips for Writing for Parents as one resource.

We also love Jessyca Matthew’s articles for Teaching Tolerance and her interview for NEA’s Social Justice Advocate of the Year.

The ELATE Commission on Social Justice has a ton of useful resources on their easy to remember site: https://justice.education/

As a professional learning community, the Marginal Syllabus project has been a years-running effort to bridge the theories described in NCTE journals into dialogue and practice; the ideas and connections here are useful and rejuvenating.

Lastly, getting to read about the big and small forms of advocacy happening in the lives of teachers and teacher educators is always illuminating. Literacy scholar Betina Hsieh and math teacher Jose Vilson’s blogs are both wonderful.

Being the Change -- #cyberpd Week 3

The #cyberPD book this year is Being the Change: Lessons and Strategies to Teach Social Comprehension.

The last chunk we read was chapters 5 ("Finding Humanity in Ourselves and Others") and 6 ("Facing Crisis Together").

My response in the first week was gratitude for the opportunity to build another classroom community through the art of teaching. In the second week, books I was reading aligned with the concepts in Being the Change.

One book stands out at the connection to this last chunk:

Harbor Me
by Jacqueline Woodson
Nancy Paulsen Books (August 28, 2018)

(my review on Goodreads)
Amazing book.
So beautifully written.
So needed for this country, our classrooms, our children, all our citizens RIGHT NOW.
So powerful...the power of talk, of getting to know others ("Others").
So honest about race and privilege and ability (dis- and otherwise) and family and grief and loss and prison and immigration. It's all there, but it's not too much. Because it really is all there, all the time.

Making Time and Space for Nonfiction: Being the Change by Sara Ahmed

Now, consider what kinds of beliefs can take root if we don't provide opportunities for kids to become better informed, if we leave them to ponder these questions with only their assumptions as their guide, and offer no time to mitigate their fears with knowledge. (p. 76)

I just finished reading Sara Ahmed's new book Being the Change:  Lessons and Strategies to Teach Social Comprehension by Sara Ahmed.  This book is about far more than nonfiction but I do think Sara takes us on a journey and helps us think about ways to support our readers in making sense of their world.  Within this context, there is so much to think about when we think about the nonfiction readers in our classroom. 

Social comprehension, as Sara defines it in the introduction, is, "like academic comprehension, is how we make meaning from and mediate our relationship with the world We understand that the meaning making, or socialization, is learned, not inherited."  

Following the introduction, Sara takes us through her thinking and planning for social comprehension work in the classroom.  The first half of the book focuses on knowing ourselves, thinking about our identities and biases and the learning about others. The second half or the book focuses on being informed, understanding how our identities impact us, and  understanding others' perspectives.

There is much to learn from Sara in this new book and I am anxious to see where some of these strategies take us in our classroom next year. Sara shares her thinking as well as words she might use to model and share with her students.  She shares resources and strategies for troubleshooting.  This book has changed the way I am thinking bout the beginning of the school year.

Sara teaches us many things about social comprehension and nonfiction reading is a part of that. But the gift of this book is in the big picture of her message--the powerful ways to help our students in making sense of the world we live in.  Her message of student empowerment is a strong one and the ways that we can help our students respond to their worlds by understanding themselves and others and by understanding the power of being informed is critical for our classrooms today.

If you have not checked out the #cyberpd chat around this book, it is happening now!

Being the Change -- Cyber PD Week 2

The #cyberPD book this year is Being the Change: Lessons and Strategies to Teach Social Comprehension.

In Week 2, we read chapters 3 and 4, which brought us from a more individual exploration of identity and the listening skills we will need to instill as our norms, to the strategies for identifying and teaching about bias and microaggressions in ourselves and the news.

I found two books that I will add to my classroom library and use with my students to explore identity and bias. (Truth in advertising/#teamworkrocks -- Franki alerted me to both of these titles!)

The Cardboard Kingdom
by Chad Sell
Knopf Books for Young Readers, June 2018

This graphic novel is a collection of short stories about the imaginative summer play of a diverse group of neighborhood kids. I'm thinking it will be my first read aloud (Kindle version), in order to set the tone for what a graphic novel demands of a reader, along with conversations about identity, bias, bullying, what makes a family...and more.

How to Be a Lion
by Ed Vere
Doubleday Books for Young Readers, June 26, 2018

The world expects a lion to be fierce and violent, but that's not the only way to be a lion. While this book might be too straightforward/didactic for some, I love the friendship between Leonard the lion and Maryanne, the poetic duck. Lots of bias to unpack, and Leonard and Maryanne find a unique way to stand up to the bullies at the end. They may not change the way others think, but they have solidified their own beliefs.

Being the Change -- #cyberPD Week One

The #cyberPD book this year is Being the Change: Lessons and Strategies to Teach Social Comprehension.

I'm not going to outline the content of the introduction and the first two chapters. You need to read the book and glean your own take-aways. Here are two of mine, and a story.

#1--This is the right book at the right time for me. I wish I'd had it two years ago when racial tensions were high in my classroom. I wish I'd had it last year. I see now that those two boys aren't the ones who needed to change, it was...is...me who needs to (who can) change.

#2--This book makes me exceedingly grateful that I stood my ground and remained a self-contained classroom this year (and hopefully through to the end of my teaching career). Increasingly, it seems to me that classroom community is the key element in all that I do -- in the art that is my teaching.

Story--One morning several weeks ago, there was a knock at the door. AJ answered it, and stepped out onto the porch to talk with the person. I admire (and defer to) his patience in listening to and engaging with political, religious, and sales people who show up on our doorstep. I was glad he was out there and I could remain in here on the couch reading. The woman was selling some sort of educational materials, he said when he came back in.

She returned later that evening. AJ answered the knock again, but called me to come and talk to her. She had been out knocking on doors all day long. It was hot. She needed to log a certain number of interactions (sales?) each day. Learning from AJ, I offered her a bottle of water, but she was carrying her own. With a thick Eastern European accent, she launched into a description of the product she was selling. It was a text book covering every subject (or maybe a series of text books and I just saw sample pages from each subject). I listened. I saw how the history articles were condensed into just the main points students would need to know to answer the questions at the end of the chapter. I saw how the math pages had the teacher explanation below each example so that when students were working on their homework (and look -- LOTS of practice work for students -- many, many problems for each concept) both they and their parents would know how the problems should be solved. I saw that her product could serve as the be-all and end-all for homeschooling families.

I listened, but in the end I had to tell her that I don't teach from text books. I address the standards and meet the needs of my students with resources and materials that I gather on my own, or that are suggested by my district. I described my teaching as art, rather than as the science of opening a text book to the next page. She was in awe. She had never heard of this way of teaching and learning. She thought that perhaps she would have liked to have learned in a classroom like that.

I had to send her away without a sale (I hope she was able to log a conversation with a teacher, theoretically a potential buyer). I reaped all the benefits. I was left with an even deeper gratitude that I am blessed to teach in a district that does not have mandated textbooks in the elementary school. A district that respects me as a professional and trusts the ART of teaching.

My Stack for #cyberPD 2017

Dynamic Teaching for Deeper Reading
by Vicki Vinton

MUST read.

Disrupting Thinking
by Kylene Beers and Bob Probst

MUST read.

No More Telling as Teaching
by Cris Tovani

Probably more secondary and probably preaching to the choir, but MUST read because we get so caught up in galloping toward the test that sometimes we forget. (We...meaning I.)

The Teacher You Want to Be
edited by Matt Glover and Ellin Oliver Keene

Yes, next year I'll be entering my 32nd year of teaching and I'm down to less than one hand before retirement, but I'm STILL trying to be the teacher I want to be. Why stop now, right?

Professional Books on My Stack

As I get ready for summer reading, my stack of professional books is growing. Right now, these are the 4 I am looking most forward to reading.

I read Ralph Fletcher's Joy Write last weekend and loved it. It reground me-brought me back to the roots of writing workshop and helped me realize what we've lost with the additions of mandates and testing and units of study.  It helped me remember what it is that is important. I read it quickly and want to reread it this summer to really think about the year in writing workshop and to think about joy in the writing workshop.

The others are on my stack but I haven't had much time to dit in yet.

Another writing book that I am anxious to read is Feedback That Moves

Writers Forward by Patty McGee. I have been doing more with feedback and love the way it looks like Patty approaches it in this book.  The chapters I am most excited to read are "Integrading": How to Live in a Grading World and Still Gibe Feedback and When It Is Time to Stretch and Grow: Feedback for Goal Setting.  Really, when I look through the Table of Contents, they all look like fresh new thinking that will help me be a better teacher of writing.

And I love everything written by Vicki Vinton and am very excited to read her newest book, Dynamic Teaching for Deeper Reading.  Vicki always reminds me how to let go and let the kids do the thinking and she helps me to find ways to help them read with deeper understanding. I am so excited to read her newest thinking!





And I purchased Becoming the Math Teacher You Wish You'd Had by Tracy Zager in February but knew I needed to wait until summer to really dig in and start to think about next year. This book is packed with so

much that I want to give it the time and energy it deserves. I think it will be a critical book for me.



Which professional books are on your summer reading list?

Professional Reading: Note and Notice

I have been trying to fit more professional reading into my life lately. There are so many great professional books that have been piling up. I have found that if I focus on one book at a time and try to read 20ish pages a day, I can finish a professional book in a couple of weeks. The 20 pages a day happened because I wanted to give myself a doable amount of reading to do in a day to get more professional reading in. But what I've found is that 20 pages a day gives me a good chunk of information to think about and a good amount of time to study a topic. So when I dig into a new professional book, I am thinking about the topic for two weeks, really giving myself time to digest and reflect on what I've read. In the past I have sometimes rushed through new professional books, reading them in a weekend and this seems to be a better way to read and digest the new thinking.  The 20 pages also makes sense for my reading life.  I don't have to "give up" fiction reading to read professional books if I am just holding myself to 20 pages a day. I can fit in both with that expectation of myself.

This week, I am reading Kylene Beers' and Bob Probst's new Nonfiction Reading: Notice and Note Stance, Signposts, and Strategies and I am so glad that I am taking my time to read it and not rushing through it. I am not far along as the book just arrived a few days ago but already I find myself rethinking much of what I thought I understood about nonfiction reading.  I am doing just what the writers hoped I would do. As they state on page 1 of the introduction, "And we do want this book to challenge you. We want you to pause to consider new ideas, mull over comments we make, mark passages you want to reread and discuss with colleagues."

I want to share with you the reason my new strategy of reading 20 pages a day of a new professional book is making good sense to me.  I started the book over the weekend.  On the first day with the book, I did a pretty heavy preview--looking through the book to see what to expect.  Then I dug into the first 20 pages.  And then I stopped for the day. On reflecting, I was amazed at how much I had to think about with just 20 pages of reading.

-I am thinking about the students we teach today and how their experiences are quite different from my own at their age. Beers and Probst state, "By 2016, every student in school will have been born in the 21st century. They will have grown up with the world at their fingertips."

-I am thinking about the idea of stance that is part of the subtitle of this book and what it means as a teacher of nonfiction.  Beers and Probst state, "This book had to discuss a stance that's required for the attentive, productive reading of nonfiction. It's a mindset that is open and receptive, but not gullible."  I have read and reread this line several times and love the idea of what it means.  One sentence that says so much about something far more important than the traditional ways I've been thinking about teaching nonfiction.

-I am processing the 5 day cycle of lessons that the authors share and how to build Big Questions along with understanding of signposts to build more time and engagement with nonfiction text.

-I am excited to look at the videos that show these things in action. Throughout the book are QR codes that lead readers to videos that go along with the thinking in the book.

-And I am fascinated by the authors' explanation of the way in which nonfiction has been defined over the years. "It's really not surprising that the meaning of nonfiction has shifted as well.  What was once a term used by librarians to signify that the text simply wasn't a novel morphed into meaning "not false" and even "informational". While note surprising, we do wonder if this shift has served us well."  This section of the first 20 pages fascinated me and made me think about the way in which I have defined nonfiction for myself and for my students and how that might evolve.

As you can see, my 20 page strategy is working for me. Giving myself time to read and think about the professional books that have been on my stack seems important. Even though I am dying to keep reading, I know that this is a better way for me to take in most professional books. This particular one is so packed with great thinking that I'd hate to rush past some of it.

I am excited to continue this first read of this book as I know my teaching will change for the better because of it.

If you don't have this book yet, I already highly recommend it. The first 20 pages are worth the price you'll pay--trust me.  Heinemann has some great videos of Kylene and Bob talking a bit about the book as well as some great Sneak Previews to give you a sense of what to expect.

Making Nonfiction From Scratch by Ralph Fletcher

Making Nonfiction From Scratch
by Ralph Fletcher
Stenhouse, available late November 2015

When I got the Stenhouse Publishers Newslink email last week (sign up now if you don't get them -- they always contain juicy tidbits) and saw that Ralph Fletcher has a new book coming out soon...AND Stenhouse is offering a free online preview of the entire text...AND we are just starting our unit of study on nonfiction writing...well, it felt like the universe was aligning.

There's so much to love about this new book. Of particular note:

Chapter One -- fun parable, then check out those headings -- minilessons, here we come!
Chapter Three -- interview with Louise Borden
Chapter Six -- NF read aloud
Chapter Eleven, page 94 -- what a final draft could look like

If you preorder this book by Wednesday of this week with the code NLDH, you'll get $10 off. What are you waiting for? I know you'll want your own copy to mark up and flag with stickies!

In honor of this book and our unit of study on nonfiction writing, tomorrow and Wednesday I'll have two more nonfiction posts.

3 Professional Books I am Reading

I have been doing a lot of professional reading lately.  I am reading three professional books that are really helping me think about how best to teach reading to my students.  No matter how much I know and understand about teaching reading, there is always more to learn.  I am excited about these three books because they are really helping me tighten up my instruction by helping me understand some subtle things about comprehension.  I think these books are all amazing no matter what level you teach.  The ideas in these books cross levels and ages of our readers.

I am revisiting Debbie Miller's amazing book Reading with Meaning.  Debbie Miller's work is brilliant  She is one of the people whose work has been most influential in my teaching over the years. Her work with first graders, her books, and her videos have all helped me to see what is possible in a joyful classroom where children's talk and thinking are valued and built upon.  It is clear that Debbie Miller is intentional about all that she does and that is the reason her students are so sophisticated in their understandings. I read her first edition of Reading with Meaning several times but have not dug into the new edition until recently. WOW! What an amazing read. Whether you read Debbie's first edition or not, this book is a must read.  Even though I teach 3rd grade, I learn so much from Debbie about how to scaffold comprehension work with my 8 and 9 year olds.  I remember watching one of her videos when I was teaching 5th grade and how I wished that my 12 year olds could talk and think in the sophisticated ways her 6 year olds did. Miller teaches me over and over that children at all ages can understand with depth but it is our job to provide the right experiences.  Her generous sharing of the way she thinks and plans helps me to revise my teaching.

A book that is new to me is The Comprehension Experience:  Engaging Readers Through Effective

 Inquiry and Discussion.  This book was recommended by Sharon Taberski at last year's Reading Recovery Conference. Since that time, it has been recommended by our director of literacy and some reading teachers in our district.  It is a dense book--not an easy read.  So I bought it and ending up setting it aside. I picked it back up over winter break and dug in.  WOW! This book is incredible. The book looks at comprehension research over the years and reminds us of the things that we know about teaching comprehension (instead of assigning comprehension). The thing I love most about this book is that it shows the subtle changes that a routine can have that really impact a child's understand of what it means to be a reader. Are we predicting to be "right" or are we predicting as a way to dig deeper into the story, knowing that our predictions will change?  Are we connecting to share or to help understand a character?  The subtle differences in the ways we decide to introduce a book are made visible in this book. I am about half way through and it is definitely a MUST READ if you are a teacher of reading.

Finally, I just bought a copy of Reading Projects Reimagined by Dan Feigelson.  I have been hearing about this book but wasn't sure about the idea of projects in the reading workshop. But the "reimagining" in the title is what this book is all about.  This book is really about conferring with readers in ways that deepen their understanding, about listening to readers so that we can build on the things they are thinking about. The projects that Feigelson describes are ways that students make their thinking and discoveries visible--not the projects I think about when I hear the word project. Another MUST READ for sure as it is a book that is already impacting the ways in which I approach a reading conference with a student.

3 MUST READS for sure!  I have to say that I tend to read professional books in the summer, but there is something about reading them with real students in mind that often makes them more powerful. Had I read these over the summer, I may not be returning to them now. I think when I read them with an eye on the challenges I am currently facing as a teacher, they are more powerful reading experiences. 

Readers Front and Center by Dorothy Barnhouse

Readers Front & Center: Helping All Students Engage with Complex Text by Dorothy Barnhouse
     Stenhouse, 2014

This is a book about LISTENING.

"We can't teach people if we don't know them and we can't know them if we don't listen to them." p.4

Dorothy Barnhouse takes Lucy Calkins' three components of a writing conference -- "research, decide, teach" -- applies them to reading conferences, and puts each phase under the microscope.

RESEARCH (chapter 1)
In the research phase, Barnhouse describes how we listen to a child read a small bit of text. Rather than focusing on issues of fluency, we focus on each student as a reader, listening to what they have to say and asking questions to understand what's behind their thinking. In this phase, we also refrain from probing to see if they "got it" or can retell the plot. We are listening to what students say about their thinking with an eye toward what we will teach about the way texts work, not just fixing some small misunderstanding in that particular text. "...correcting is not teaching. Correcting is small. It's about one word, one sentence, one text. Teaching is bigger. It attempts to take that moment and contextualize it." p.22

Questions we might ask (with a "tone of curiosity rather than interrogation") in this phase of a conference (p.24-25):

What's going on here?
What made you think that?
Where did you get that information?
How do you know?

DECIDE (chapter 2)
In the introduction to this chapter (p.28), Barnhouse writes, "...how does one decide what to teach?" and my marginal note reads, "Indeed!" The sections of this chapter are "Reading with Vision," "Reading with Agency" (I love how Peter Johnston's work informs Barnhouse's thinking!), "Reading with a Flexible Mindset," "Teaching with Vision: Noticing the How Not Just the What," "Teaching Readers to be Problem Solvers," "Setting Texts Up as Problems to be Solved," "Learning from Errors," and "Building Identities as Thinkers and Learners." This is the chapter that will change the way I conference with students. This is the chapter that lifts my eyes up from the text the student is reading and helps me to remember to keep my eyes (and my teaching decisions) on the way ALL texts work. This is the chapter will help me frame all conversations about texts around the way readers solve different aspects of the puzzle that texts provide. This is the chapter that will keep me grounded in Carol Dweck's "growth mindset."

TEACH (chapters 3-6)
These will be chapters to which I will return often for ideas about how to move students as individuals and in groups to texts of greater and greater complexity. The ways Barnhouse diagrams student thinking will give me new ways to capture the essence of a conference. And even though she gives a shout-out to Cathy Mere on the topic of using Evernote to track conferences, I'm going to try Google Docs this year. Or just stick with my tried-and-true clipboard and not obsess about record-keeping. (I'll update you about my record-keeping again once the school year is underway.)

The most important take-away from these chapters on teaching (for me) would be a deconstruction of the title of the book:

READERS Front and Center (it's about the reader, not the text):
Helping ALL Students (because it's about students, there will always be a text a little more complex than the one they are reading into which we can help them to grow)
ENGAGE (such a smart verb choice, because we want active involvement with authentic purpose)
with COMPLEX TEXT (which is a student-driven moving target, not a list in a program or even the exemplar texts in the CCSS).

Catching up On Professional Journals

March 2014 Teaching Children Mathematics (NCTM)
"Digital Date Equations"

Although this is not a particularly new activity -- use the digits of the date to create an equation -- I have a couple of big take-aways:

• I rant that teachers of reading and writing need to be readers and writers themselves. If I follow the same logic, then I need to create equations, too.
• By making some equations of my own, I know how hard it is to keep the digits in order.
• If we begin the school year making these equations, we will be able to have conversations about order of operations, estimating, mental math, inequalities (and more) all year long instead of during a particular unit of study. Like read aloud, Poetry Friday, and 15 Minutes on Friday blog writing, this seems to be a small but mighty practice.

My equations for 6/24/2014:

(6 ÷ 2) x 4 = (2 + 0 + 1) x 4
(6 + 2 + 4 + 2 +0) = 14
(6 ÷ 24) + (2 x 0) = 1 ÷ 4
6² ÷ 4 = (2 x 4) + 1 + 0
62 x 4 > 20 x 14

 March 2014 Language Arts (NCTE)
"Addressing CCSS Anchor Standard 10: Text Complexity"

This article includes a really nice chart that summarizes all the ways a text can be complex:

Level of Meaning and Purpose
     Density and Complexity
     Figurative Language
     Purpose

Structure

     Genre

     Organization

     Narration

     Text Features and Graphics

Language Conventionality and Clarity

     Standard English and Variations

     Register (Archaic, formal, domain-specific, scholarly)

Knowledge Demands

     Background Knowledge (experiences)

     Prior Knowledge (specialized or technical content knowledge)

     Cultural Knowledge

     Vocabulary Knowledge

ReadWriteThink Text Complexity strategy for primary readers (following this link will take you down a really nice rabbit hole of ReadWriteThink resources for all levels)

Connecting Comprehension and Technology

I've been very behind on my professional reading and am so glad I have summer to catch up. I picked up a copy of Connecting Comprehension and Technology: Adapt and Extend Toolkit Practices right when it came out. But with my concussion last summer and my ban on reading, I never had a chance to read the book. I love the authors of this book and I love the ideas around it. I have been fans of Stephanie Harvey and Anne Goudvis for a very long time and loved the idea that they partnered with classroom teachers for this new book/toolkit supplement.  I love that this was a book about technology by people who are so committed to literacy learning.

I was bummed that I missed the session focused on these ideas at NCTE this fall but I had a conflict so I couldn't attend. But, in March, I went to MRA and had the opportunity to hear Kristin Ziemke. I was also able to participate in her online workshop through Heinemann this spring.  And in late May, Kristin did a Skype PD with teachers from our building. I loved the thinking and it was so in line with my own thinking--the natural use of technology as a tool and the way that she talked about focusing on the thinking, not the technology. (Maria was part of the Skype visit and shared some of her learning on her blog.)  Kristin and Stephanie are both speaking at All Write so I am hoping to learn more from them there!

So, a few weeks ago, with end of the year things slowing down, I had time to really dig into  Connecting Comprehension and Technology. I  read bits and pieces last year when I got the book but couldn't dig in, mark it up, read it cover to cover. With the added bonus of having heard Kristin speak and seeing photos and conversations from her classroom, I knew I  wanted to spend lots of time with the book. I'm so glad I did. My copy is now sticky noted and marked up and I know I will continue to dig into it over and over again all summer as I think ahead to next fall.

Here are some things I love about the book:

*Even though the book is filled with lessons, it is also about possibilities. The authors share lessons that go along with the Comprehension Toolkit and they can be used as is. They are great lessons and there are many I will try in the fall. But it is the combination of lessons and the stance the teachers in the book share that really set the stage for technology as a tool for thinking.

*There are QR codes that lead to video clips of both Kristin and Katie's classrooms in action. I love that there are examples from a first grade and a fifth grade classroom. The threads of learning are the same and it is so helpful to see what kids are doing at different stages.  The video clips are great and I used a few with my students during the last few weeks of school as we played with back channeling during read aloud, etc. It was a great way to introduce something and let them see how other kids were using it to learn.

*I love the classrooms in the book. The is not a book that focuses on technology. It is a book that focuses on thinking. It is clear from the pictures, lessons, videos, etc. that the classrooms are filled with books and paper and notebooks and conversations...and iPads.

*A few of the lessons really helped me think through ways to support some struggles my kids have had. A favorite is one on distractions on a website--how to navigate a website when there are so many distractions. I had talked to my kids about this but the way these lessons are set up really helped me see that I was talking more about the website than the thinking.  The layout of the lessons helped me think about how to add depth to the learning.

*The book is full of classroom charts, screenshots of webpages, screenshots of student work. It really gives you a vision for what a classroom could be that focuses on thinking, not technology.

This book is a great add on to the Comprehension Toolkit if you have it.  But the book definitely stands alone if you do not own the toolkit.  It's the brilliant thinking about reading and comprehension that Harvey and Goudvis have taught us, with the addition of technology.  This book shows readers what is possible when technology is used as a tool and what can happen if we hold onto best practice and naturally embed digital tools. If you are thinking about technology and literacy, it is definitely one I'd recommend. I have seen lots of books that focus on ways to use technology to support reading but this book really talks about thinking and how to use technology to support that.  That might seem like a minor detail, but for teachers who understand literacy learning it is not minor at all!

Professional Reading: Math Workshop

I returned to the classroom last year after 4 years as an elementary librarian. The two years before I became a librarian, I taught only Language Arts and Social Studies and shared my classroom with a colleague who taught the Math and Science. So it had been six years since I'd paid much attention to math.

I've always loved teaching math (which surprises lots of people) and I am actually a better mathematician than I am a reader and writer.  I've always loved math and love to watch the discovery on kids' faces as they explore numbers and problem solving and critical thinking.

So I wanted to jump back in and was happy to see that there were lots of amazing resources out there.   I picked up several professional books on math teaching that I planned to read last summer. Then I got a concussion and my reading life was put on hold.  Over the year, I continued to pick up great books and took recommendations from smart friends and colleagues.  So, my stack has grown and grown.  There are books on my stack that I've already read, books I want to read cover to cover and books that I want to dabble in to get the info I'm looking for.

I moved from teaching 4th grade to teaching 3rd grade this year and the math teaching is a little bit different. I find myself looking more in the K-3 resources these days.

Our district is moving to a Math Workshop and as much as I overall like the way math went this year, there are lots of things I need to change.  I am really thinking hard about better routines, more intentional conversations and the role of student choice in Math Workshop.

Books I've read and loved in the last year or two:

One of my favorite reads over the last few years was  Math Exchanges: Guiding Young Mathematicians in Small Group Meetings by Kassia Omohundro Wedikind. I think I read this one once I learned I was going to be teaching 4th grade. (I blogged about it when I first read it.) It was an amazing read and not only changed my ideas about small group instruction in math, but also my thinking about talk and story in the math classroom.  I'm hoping to revisit the book--I recently got a copy of Kassia's DVD How Did You Solve That?: Small-Group Math Exchanges with Young Students and am excited to watch that this summer.

I spent a great deal of time with Number Talks, Grades K-5: Helping Children Build Mental Math and Computation Strategies two years ago and really learned lots about routines and the importance of these number routines. I feel like I need to revisit pieces of this book now that I've taught a year in 3rd grade. I think revisiting the specific 3rd grade sections will help me be more effective with this routine.

I also spent time with What's Your Math Problem? Getting to the Heart of Teaching Problem Solving which helped me think about not only good problems but how to assess problem solving and how to help my students reflect on their own work.

I spent some time with Number Sense Routines: Building Numerical Literacy Every Day in Grades K-3 before I went back into the classroom but it seemed a little primary for 4th grade. Honestly, I forgot about it until I saw the ad from Stenhouse on the accompanying video (Go Figure!) from these authors and I am VERY excited to reread this one from a 3rd grade perspective.  Thinking about routines is definitely one of my biggest goals for next year and this book and video seem perfect to add to my thinking.

Books I'm Most Excited to Read

At MRA this year, we somehow started talking Math and Brian Wyzlic  invented #nerdymathclub.  He recommended 5 Practices for Orchestrating Productive Mathematics Discussions [NCTM] and I ordered it right there and then.  I am excited to read this one and learn more about good math discussions.

Another book that lots of people I trust are talking about is Putting the

Practices Into Action: Implementing the Common Core Standards for Mathematical Practice, K-8.  The focus on The Common Core is an important one for me right now as I want to see what others are thinking about the standards and how best to teach in our current era.  I love that this one focuses on Standards for Mathematical Practice rather than content standards.  I am sure it will give me lots to think about and revise.

A brand new book that I am VERY excited about is Intentional Talk: How to Structure and Lead Productive Mathematical Discussions. Stenhouse has been putting out amazing math professional books so I pretty much trust anything they have on their list. Plus, this book is about talk and I know how important that is. I have read so much about intentional talk in the literacy classroom.
Guided Math in Action

Minds on Mathematics: Using Math Workshop to Develop Deep Understanding in Grades 4-8 looks like one that will help me tweak workshop structure a bit. Even though it is written for grades 4-8, I think the chapters on work time and conferring will help me a lot. I am not sure who recommended this one to me but it is close to the top of my summer stack.

Finally, I picked up Guided Math in Action: Building Each Student's Mathematical Proficiency with Small-Group Instruction because of the focus on small group instruction but looking through it, it will also help me think through workshop in general, observation of students and quality learning opportunities.

There are more on my stack but these are the few I really want to dig into this summer.  I'm open to any other suggestions that will help with Math Workshop in Grade 3!  What are you reading?

Also, we are hoping to have some Twitter Chats around math over the summer. Keep an eye out or the hashtag #nerdymathclub (thanks, @brianwyzlic) if you'd like to join us!