As educators, we all endeavor to inspire. We want to inspire our students, fellow teachers and if in a leadership position, those that follow us. But have you ever considered the definition of the word inspire, particularly the Latin translation of insperitae, “to breathe”? If we as educators are to inspire and encourage creativity in others, then it’s imperative we prioritize our white space to recharge.
So how do
you carve out time for whitespace as an educator?
5 Ways to
Take a Breath…
Reflection
Consider your daily routines so far this school year. When are you able to have a moment to
yourself without any obligations? Maybe
that’s the car ride to and from school or even those few moments before you start
your day. Choose a time that’s best for
you and commit to reflecting on the present.
This is not a time to mentally run through your ever-growing to-do list,
but rather reflect on what you’re grateful for or what inspires you each
day?
Planning
Just as we have to be intentional with embedding our standards in our lesson plans, we must be just as vigilant in planning white space. A full calendar doesn’t necessarily reflect productivity. Set aside time on your calendar to relax, daydream, and grab a cup of coffee with friends. If you’re worried about those menial tasks that consume precious chunks of your time, like cleaning your house or bathing the dog, consider outsourcing those tasks in order to free up time for yourself.
Family
As educators, many times our families take the back seat to
our students, school and community.
Early in my career, I had to live with the guilt of missing a few of my
boys’ milestones because I was teaching and/or leading. Set clear boundaries
between work and family and plan around those milestones even if it meant
taking time off to attend a field trip or sporting event.
Passions
I absolutely LOVE being an educator and accept the full responsibility of impacting children’s’ lives; however, teaching is not my only passion. I literally turn into Betty White in the Snickers commercial if I go too long without curling in my favorite chair to read or tucked away in my office to write. What is your passion? Better yet, how do you make time to engage in your passion? Through our passions, we can deepen our connection with students.
White Space
provides clarity allowing us to refocus on our purpose: to inspire and ignite
the fire of the next generation and hopefully modeling the importance of taking
a breath.
Marlena Gross-Taylor
is Chief Academic Officer for Douglas County School District in Castle Rock,
CO. She is also a consultant, founder of EduGladiators, and a blogger.
Recently, my fourth-grade daughter and I were at our local recycling center, dropping off aluminum cans and plastic milk gallons. As we broke down our cardboard, we noticed an enormous stack of virtually brand-new children’s books. As I shook my head in frustration, my daughter asked me what was wrong.
“These
books belong in the hands of young readers, or in a classroom library – not on
the top of a recycling pile,” I explained. “Did you know that some children
don’t have books in their homes or schools?”, I continued. Fortunate to grow up
in a home and area rich with books and in a family of lifelong readers, this
concept was incomprehensible to her. She furrowed her brow, “I don’t get it.
How can kids not have books? How are they gonna read?”
Her
simple question was our impetus to launch a community book drive. With a few
social media posts, some flip-lid trash cans, and many cardboard boxes, my
daughter and I have collected nearly 4,000 books for Title I schools in our
area. My daughter has become a young literacy activist, high schoolers (in need
of fulfilling their required community service hours) box and distribute books,
and we’ve made our community aware about our collective responsibility to take
action in addressing book deserts.
The Devastating Impact of Book Deserts
Today,
over 32 million children lack book access in their homes, schools, and
communities. These students live in book
deserts – high-poverty geographic areas that lack reading material. Recent
research shows significant disparities in the availability of books between
high-income and low-income neighborhoods, even within the same city; in a
high-poverty area of Washington, DC (with poverty levels above 60%) there is
one book per 833 children (Neuman & Moland, 2019).
When
books are not readily available, children suffer. As Neuman and colleagues
(2019) explain, book deserts constrain young children’s opportunities to start
school ready to learn. Without books, children miss out on chances to acquire
vocabulary, content knowledge, and a myriad of literacy skills. Furthermore, without books children miss out
on the vast socioemotional benefits that comes from adult-child reading
interaction.
How You Can Help #endbookdeserts
Whether
you are a teacher living in an area flooded with books or you teach in a
community that qualifies as a book desert, you can join forces with literacy
warriors who aim to provide book access and equity. Here are just a few ideas
on how to flood students with books:
Seek Out & Visit Literacy-Rich Areas in Your Communities: Innovative people and programs – beyond our public libraries – are transforming community spaces into literacy hot spots. For example, laundromats are quickly becoming makeshift literacy spaces – as patrons tend to frequent the same laundromats, bring their young children, and spend an extended amount of time there. Embracing literacy as a keystone to healthy child development, Reach Out and Read provides families with books as a part of pediatric checkups. Book banks are gaining momentum, as epitomized by Bernie’s Book Bank in Chicago, and San Francisco’s Children’s Book Project, and Baltimore-based Maryland Book Bank.
Get Creative Passionate literacy warriors who get books into the hands of their students don’t rest on school vacations or summer breaks and prove that where there’s a will, there’s a way. Teachers in Virginia ride bikes into students’ neighborhoods over the summer, armed with popsicles and books. In Michigan, teachers repurposed a dilapidated school bus into the Big Rockin’ Book Bus; throughout the summer, they deliver meals and books directly to students.
Send Home Books From Your Classroom and / or School Libraries: Knowing that students might not have books at home, we need to be generous with the resources that we do have. Don’t lock away books in classroom and school libraries during school breaks and summer holidays. Don’t be afraid that some books might not make their way back to classroom shelves. Literacy guru Donalyn Miller says, “I’d rather lose a book than lose a reader.”
Spread Book Culture: Overcoming book deserts takes more than just placing books in low-income areas. Create book culture by inviting authors to discuss their craft, develop welcoming spaces to discuss books, and constantly talk to and with students about what you are reading to showcase your reading identity. You might foster the reading habits of readers of all ages with cross-community virtual book clubs. In effort to promote a love of reading, ProjectLit provides high-quality, student-selected books worthy of discussion.
Raise awareness to #EndBookDeserts: Many people outside of the field of education are simply unaware of the presence and impact of book deserts. You might work with local businesses, churches, and organizations to understand the challenge and inspire them to take action and begin a book collection, to help a teacher fulfill her Amazon wish list for classroom books, or donate their time to the many organizations that exist to distribute books.
Ultimately, all of us must champion children’s literacy rights, and be vocal advocates for the importance of book access. As we shine the light on the accessibility of books in our low-income urban and rural areas, we increase our ability to transform book deserts into book oases. When teachers come together – across both book deserts and book floods – all children increase the likelihood of becoming lifelong readers. For more information on the people and programs who work to end book deserts, visit www.endbookdeserts.com.
References:
Neuman, S. & Moland, N. (2019). Book deserts: The consequences of income segregation on children’s access to print. Urban Education, 54(1), 126-147.
It’s a bright autumn morning in your elementary or middle school classroom, early in the year, so much ahead—nothing quite like those early days of promise. Literacy is first up for the day. You present a short mini-lesson (keep it snappy!) in reading and hustle the children off to read independently. You feel that it has taken too long this fall to get them all into the “right” books, but finally, you are ready to dig into real conferences.
You rush to confer with as many
students as possible. Just two today. You’re wondering about those three
“reading” in the corner. What were they really up to over there? And what about
your friend who has abandoned four books in two weeks? You meant to confer with
her today to figure out what is going on there. You ask the students to share
quickly with a partner as a sort of reflection. Pretty lame, you think. The
kids didn’t take it seriously.
Time for writing. You are determined not to forget writer’s workshop this year! Last year it seems that writing always took a back seat to reading or, when kids did write, it was all response to text. So, you roll out a carefully planned writing mini-lesson which, incidentally, is unrelated to the reading lesson. You tell the students that it’s time to apply what you’ve taught in their own writing. You try to make it sound like they’re standing on the precipice of greatness as writers. They look skeptical. Most stare at their writer’s notebooks. You dig in to confer with a student and there is so much work to be done in her writing. You’re overwhelmed. 15 minutes later, you look up and realize that the literacy block is nearly over. No time to reflect on writing today. Determined, you think, “Okay, I really will get that in tomorrow!”
You walk the students to lunch feeling
that the class didn’t accomplish nearly as much as they would have liked and
that time is too short to address standards requirements, much less lead
students to a sense of spirited inquiry. The next day, the process plays out
again in exactly the same way. Sound at all familiar? There has to be a better
way.
Rethinking Readers’/Writers’ Workshop
The Readers’/Writers’ Workshop
structure described above has been used for nearly four decades, yet as early
as 1983, Rob Tierney & David Pearson suggested another approach. In
“Toward a Composing Model of Reading” (1983), they argue that
“one must begin to view reading and writing as essentially similar processes
of meaning construction.” They question the wisdom of teaching reading and
writing as separate processes and suggest that we view reading as a process of
composing, much as we think of writing, and that whenever possible we integrate
reading and writing instruction. In most classrooms, their call has gone
unheeded.
In today’s literacy world, packaged
programs proliferate and nearly always lead teachers down paths to separate instruction
in reading and writing. Isolated reading and writing and teacher- or
program-driven learning targets are the norm; students rarely set their own
goals and are lucky if they have choice in what to read and write, let alone when to read and write. Too often,
students experience diminished engagement and teachers know that this is hardly
the way to provoke inquiry, engagement, or agency.
I’d like to offer a proposal (get it?)
in which reading and writing get married. (And live happily ever after.) Following a lovely ceremony, they adopt the
name Literacy Studio!
In a Literacy Studio:
Most reading and writing instruction is integrated.
If a reading learning target relates to, say, character traits and how they affect the plot, there is one whole group lesson (called a Crafting session) that incorporates reading and writing each day that the class is focused on that objective. The teacher models in mentor texts and writing, cutting in half the instruction time and offering it in a more efficient and integrated way.
Students choose whether they will read or write following the Crafting Session.
During independent work time (called composing) students may choose to apply their understanding of character traits in reading and/or writing.
Some may write during the first half of composing time and switch to reading for the second half or vice versa.
Some may choose to read (or write) for the entire composing time but will choose the other for the next day’s work.
Students keep simple records to show whether they chose to read and/or write during a particular composing time ensuring that all spend a roughly equal independent work time on each during a given week.
Whether they are reading or writing, they are focused on the class learning goal, in this example, character traits.
Teachers confer and convene small groups.
During composing time, teachers have an extended opportunity to confer and meet with small groups. They have planned one lesson, there is one independent work time and one reflection. There is time to get to those kids in the corner, figure out why our friend isn’t sticking with a book and meet with a small group of students who aren’t yet applying, for example, what they know about character traits in their writing.
Small groups (called invitational groups) are needs-based and may include children reading and writing at a wide range of present performance level as long as they have a need in common.
At the end of composing, students reflect.
In small groups, pairs or with the whole class, the students discuss how they focused on the learning target as readers and writers, sharing their insights with each other so that when, for example, a reader switches to writing the next day, he will have his classmates’ stories of writing to develop characters to propel him forward.
Let’s marry reading and writing this
year!
When reading and writing get married,
there is:
One Crafting Session a day
focused on reading and writing!
One longer Composing Time for
independent work and time to confer each day with readers and writers! An
Invitational Group as needed!
One Reflection Session a day
that focuses on reading and writing!
Learning reading and writing together
makes sense to kids. Students develop perspectives as readers and writers
simultaneously leading to a dramatic increase in the quality of their thinking
and work in both.
And, teaching reading and writing together makes sense for us. We gain enormous efficiency and time to focus on individual students, but most importantly, we can help kids understand the critical synergy between reading and writing—that’s a gift that will serve them for years.
Ellin Oliver Keene
September 2019
Ellin Oliver Keene has been a classroom teacher, staff
developer, non-profit director and adjunct professor of reading and
writing. She directed staff development initiatives at the Denver-based
Public Education & Business Coalition and served as Deputy Director and
Director of Literacy and Staff Development for the Cornerstone Project at the
University of Pennsylvania. She serves as senior advisor at Heinemann,
overseeing the Heinemann Fellows initiative and is the editor of the Heinemann
Catalogue/Journal.
Ellin consults with schools and districts throughout the country
and abroad. Her emphasis is long-term,
school-based professional development and strategic planning for literacy
learning.
Ellin is author of Engaging
Children: Igniting the Drive for Deeper Learning (2018), is co-editor and
co-author of The Teacher You Want to Be:
Essays about Children, Learning, and Teaching (Heinemann, 2015); co-editor of the Not This, but That series (Heinemann, 2013 – 2017); author of Talk About Understanding: Rethinking
Classroom Talk to Enhance Understanding (Heinemann, 2012), To Understand: New Horizons in Reading
Comprehension (Heinemann, 2008), co-author of Comprehension Going Forward (Heinemann, 2011), Mosaic of Thought: The Power of Comprehension Strategy Instruction, 2nd
edition (Heinemann, 2007, 1st edition, 1997), and author of Assessing Comprehension Thinking Strategies (Shell
Educational Books, 2006).
Last fall, about a month into the school year, a reading specialist emailed me for help with a very common problem. I wrote back to her directly but realized that because what she asks about is so common, perhaps more would like to spy on our exchange and think about their own classrooms. I wish you a wonderful start to the school year and lots of joyful hours spent reading in this year ahead.
Hello!
I was wondering if
you could help me with something we’re encountering with our 5th and
6th graders. They are abandoning books and not finishing
them. Students say they are bored and give up on texts. Beyond the
obvious reasons and solutions, what can we try to get them to stick with a
book, work through the boring parts, and finish them?
Thank you!
Anna
Reading Specialist
Hi
Anna,
It’s hard to know exactly what will work without meeting or talking to your kids, but I do have a few ideas. But before I share them, I want to confess that I actually abandon books sometimes. Do you? Sometimes a book I thought I’d love really is boring – why struggle through a boring book when there are so many great ones? Sometimes a different book grabs my attention and I end up hopping over to that one. I do finish books that are good, so I’m not worried about my reading life. So I would encourage you to allow for some abandoning of books – I think it’s a normal part of being a reader for many people. That said, here are a bunch of things you might consider to try to get kids into books they will love from the start:
Do a really
critical examination of the books you’re offering kids, and ask the kids for
feedback on what you’re offering. Which books reflect their identities,
cultures, interests, experiences, language, family structures? Along those same
lines, ask kids to tell you what they want — maybe give them an book catalogue
order form, some time on the web to browse, and/or take them on a trip to a
bookstore. Have them make a wish list. What do you notice about the books they
want to read? How do they compare to what you already have?
Do an interest
survey that asks about their favorite movies, TV shows and involve them in
coming up with names for bins in your library based on their interests (i.e.
“Books That Will Make you Cry” or “Sports Stars” or “Powerful Female
Protagonists”). Include them in resorting what you do have so they can think of
their identities first when they go looking for new books.
As they are choosing their books, you could try to encourage them toward books that you (and they) might consider on the “easy” side. My guess is that reading whatever they are currently reading may be presenting them with some struggle and their comprehension is possibly shaky. It’s no fun to read books you aren’t understanding!
Give them lots of
access to graphic novels. The books are deceptively sophisticated and the
visuals can provide support for comprehension overall, and visualizing
specifically.
Do book talks, and maybe read the first chapter of a book they might love, and leave the books on ledges around the room. Highlight something about the book that you know will be a draw – the suspense, the hilarious main character, the real-life issues.
Show book
trailers/commercials from publishers that will help do the “selling”
for you and get them excited to check the books out.
Give kids time to
talk books to each other. Set them up in partnerships or book clubs and
let them choose books together, then set aside time a couple of times a week
for them to talk. Knowing they will talk with a friend about their book might
encourage them to stick with it and get ideas to talk about.
Confer with kids regularly. Talk to them about their book choices, how engaged they are with the book, how it compares to past choices. Check-in on their comprehension, and offer strategies to support them with things they need. Offer them positive feedback with ways they might be engaging with the text – using prior knowledge, slowing down to visualize what they are reading, finding more time each day to read to get into their book, and so on.
Ask your school
librarian for help. Librarians know what’s just been released, what’s on the
horizon, and what the hottest books are for the grade level this year.
I hope
those help!
Jen
Jennifer Serravallo is a literacy consultant, speaker, and the author of several popular titles including the NY Times Bestselling The Reading Strategies Book, The Writing Strategies Book, and Understanding Texts & Readers. A Teacher’s Guide to Reading Conferences takes a closer look at the purposeful, responsive instruction that takes place while conferring. Her latest publication, Complete Comprehension, is a revised and reimagined whole book assessment and teaching resource based on the award-winning Independent Reading Assessment. She was a Senior Staff Developer at the Teachers College Reading and Writing Project and taught in NYC public schools. Twitter: @jserravallo | Instagram: @jenniferserravallo | Website for Jen Seravallo, Click Here
