Poetry! Many teachers avoid including poetry in a reading curriculum. Some teachers don’t use poetry because it’s unfamiliar and wasn’t part of their reading background. Others claim they don’t have time to expose students to poetry. However, I believe poetry is a powerful and important genre that should be integrated into the curriculum in all subjects throughout the school year.
Why poetry? Poems tickle the imagination and cause laughter! They tell stories like “Casey at the Bat” a narrative poem by Ernest Thayer, and “Lord Randall,” a medieval ballad. Poems capture feelings, a moment in time, and the variety is boundless: short lyrics, conversation poems, Japanese haiku, list poems, sonnets, small poems, and villanelles. They all have rhythm. Some poems rhyme; free verse poems don’t rhyme. Contemporary authors write novels in free verse. Check out Crossover by Kwame Alexander (HMH Books for Children 2014), Witness by Karen Hesse (Scholastic 2003), and Brown Girl Dreaming by Jacqueline Woodson (Puffin Books 2016).
What’s magical about poems is they beg to be heard! Read poems to students and invite them to read poems to each other. The photographer uses a camera and film to capture a moment or tell a story. The poet uses words and figurative language to help readers “see” through the poet’s eyes, mind, and heart!
Be a Risk-Taker
You don’t have to know a lot about poetry to bring this genre to your students. Explore together. Start by checking out dozens of poetry books from your school library. Spread the books out around the classroom and invite students to choose two they want to read. Then, set aside two to three classes for students to read and reread poems and choose a few to read aloud to a partner. Powerful poetic language and imagery can become part of children’s memories when you try some of the ten ways to bring poetry into students’ lives.
Start the day in self-contained classes by reading a poem. Offer one for dessert after lunch, and close the day by reading a class favorite.
Open and close middle and high school classes by reading a poem.
Ask your school librarian to find collections of poems relating to a subject: sports, science, history, math, music, art. Have partners read their poems to each other and discuss what they’ve learned about a specific subject.
Invite students to read a favorite poem to their group or the entire class.
Start a “poetry talk” project for an entire semester. Have students choose a poem to memorize, say it to you and reply back by sharing a poem you memorized.
Have students choose a favorite poem, illustrate it, and create a display in your classroom and/or the school library.
Share poems for two voices by Paul Fleishman with students and ask partners to select one they’d like to perform. After practicing, have pairs perform for the class.
Invite students to silently “do” or act out poems they select or you choose. A great resource is Let’s Do A Poem edited by Nancy Larrick (Delacorte 1991).
Choral read poems students and/or you select. Divide students into two to three groups that read a section of a poem together.
Read poems to generate ideas for students’ writers’ notebooks.
Reading Poetry Matters
Poetry tunes students’ ears to figurative language and imagery, all the time showing them how much words matter! For striving readers, it offers an open door into the reading life. Surrounded by lots of white space, the poet’s words invite instead of intimidate. Moreover, reading poetry builds students’ experiences with literary language, enlarges their background knowledge and vocabulary, and develops the self-confidence needed to tackle longer poetic and prose texts.
By reading, rereading, and listening to poems, students absorb and memorize the poet’s words and images, and the poems become part of their memory forever! Every time I see the sunrise I find myself whispering the first two stanzas of this poem by Emily Dickinson:
I’ll tell you how the sun rose, A ribbon at a time. The steeples swam in amethyst, The news like squirrels ran.
The hills untied their bonnets,
The bobolinks begun.
Then I said softly to myself,
That must have been the sun!
I want students to know, love, and be acquainted with so many poems that the words will be imprinted in their memory, ready to surface when an experience calls the poem to the forefront of their minds. When poems become part of students’ DNA, critical thinking develops as they associate a poem’s meaning with a personal experience. I recall Joshua scratching his head in class and shouting, “Fleas./Adam had ‘em,” and students’ reserved giggles transforming into ripples of laughter! Yes! Words embedded in memory link our experiences to the poet’s and our lives are richer for it!
I am always entranced by the sounds of reading—the turning pages, the rhythmic breathing, the steady movements. These sounds, intoxicating and inviting, are part of the language of book love. There is no tension, no aggravation. Just kids engaged with books. My teaching philosophy rests on the belief that all students want to read and have the capacity to develop an authentic reading life. Not all students enter my classroom prepared to live and to think beside books, though. The act of joyful reading, where they have time to self-select books, talk with friends about their reading lives, exchange books recommendations, and write about their reading, has too often been absent from their experiences. Opportunities to fall in love with books, in many cases, have been scarce. But I believe a classroom rich with literacy can change that. When kids have access to books, and that access is founded on choice, they migrate from the arid land of non-reading and wade into an oasis of story.
Authentic reading instruction, the work of real readers, is powerful. Beyond the walls of my classroom, books speak to people, and those people, moved by story and language, share their reading lives with those around them. There are no cumbersome projects or dense worksheets that accompany that type of reading experience. Instead, people read and fall in love with books and invite others to engage in joyful reading. That’s the type of environment I work hard to create for my students. Readers are complex thinkers—they analyze, synthesize, evaluate, and critique. Although I want students to think critically and to use their awareness of structure and craft moves to interpret text, I want more than that for them. I want them to read because they love books.
In thinking about my own classroom and the practices that have helped students develop a love of reading, I notice that conversations, writing, and reading are the most effective methods. There are choices I make as an educator, both pedagogically and philosophically, that give kids a stronger foundation in adopting healthy reading habits. The following ideas and routines are several of many that have helped my kids fall in love with reading. I hope you find them useful.
Provide daily time for free choice independent reading.
Students need and deserve time to read every day. In my classroom, we begin each language arts period with 15-20 minutes of reading time. There are times when students are asked to pay attention to certain details in their reading, such as unfamiliar vocabulary or characterization, but mostly, I want them to read and to fall in love with their books. Providing a consistent time for reading establishes routine. With this time, I am telling students that reading matters, and I am willing to set time aside for this purpose. And there are no strings attached to the reading. Just enjoy.
Surround kids with lots of books.
We adopt the habits and qualities of the people and things around us. I want kids to become readers, so I surround them with books. The bookshelves, ledges, and countertops have books on them. A diverse classroom library, full of books that represent a wide range of interests, cultures, and genres, is essential. Students need to see themselves represented in books and they need to be exposed to books with characters who do not look and sound like them. Diversity matters. At the beginning of the year, students complete an interest inventory and from these, I learn a great deal about their lives, their hopes, and the things they love. The inventories, as well as conversations with students, help me stock the classroom library. Additionally, there is a poster at the front of my room where students write the titles of books they have finished as a visual display of our class reading life. I want books to be visible in my classroom, and when a child finishes a book, I want them to be surrounded with options to continue their reading habits.
A quick note on book talks: To engage kids with reading is to talk about books–a lot. Providing time to read is an essential part of a classroom, but moving kids to adopt authentic reading lives means finding books that will speak to them and sharing them. Give a brief summary, read a high-interest part, and pass it off to students. Let them hear the language of the story. This gifts them with a beautiful reason to read.
Allow time for writing about books.
Students need opportunities to write about their reading. Students keep reader’s notebook in my class, and often, we go into our notebooks (I write with them) and record our thoughts, feelings, and reactions. Readers will have visceral reactions to characters, and they will worry, hurt, and love alongside them. A notebook is a perfect place for those feelings to land. I have found that freewrites are powerful tools for students to examine their feelings and reactions to books. I also give students time to recommend through writing, either through adding an image and quick review on a Padlet or writing a note on a sticky and placing it in the front of a fascinating book. They solidify their reading and recommend a book to someone else. Simplicity is remarkable.
Encourage talk among students.
Reading is a social act. I ask students to write about their reading often; however, I want them to talk about their reading, too. After independent reading, I may ask kids to turn and talk to a neighbor about the section they just read, a character they are connecting with, or a word that stood out to them. Talk encourages rich thinking and deep comprehension, and it nudges us forward in our reading lives.
Discuss and share your personal reading life.
Reading and our reading lives are not static. Readers do not read with consistent vigor or engage in an academic close reading of every text they encounter. Students often assumed that was my reading life, and even when I confronted their bias with the truth (I read widely and intrepidly), they assumed that their judgment was the same. So I came up with a helpful solution—I decided to invite students into my personal reading life. And I was honest. I shared that there were books I did not like and books I abandoned because they did not speak to me. When I finished a book, I shared it with kids, even if it wasn’t one I felt they would pick up and read. I began listing my reading life on the door of my classroom so students could see that I participated in the process of reading alongside them. Sharing our reading lives with students humanizes the experience. It shows them that we do not read for school. We read read for life.
Encourage reflection.
All readers need time to think about their reading lives. Each week, I invite students to consider their reading lives and write their thinking inside their notebooks. Students are allowed to write about characters, big ideas, lessons they’ve learned, goals, and how they have grown and changed as readers. I also invite students to consider the ways that they have challenged themselves and to write about the types of books they may want to explore. Reflection provides clarity and direction for all readers, but developing readers grow beside this practice. Through writing or conversation, kids verbalize where they’ve been, and when they do, they have a better idea of where they need to go.
Sit beside kids and talk with them about their reading.
Helping kids grow as readers and thinkers means sitting beside them and talking with them about books. I have conversations with students constantly about their reading lives, asking them to describe how books make them feel, how they connect to characters, and what book(s) they want to read once they finish with their current read. Conversations foster deeper thinking.
I think about talking with students as ways to nudge them further. By sitting beside them and talking about books, I am validating their humanity. I am saying, “You matter and I want to talk to you about your reading.”
Promote reading, not books.
Esteemed librarian, author, and educator Jennifer LaGarde first brought this phrase to my attention. Since then, I have marinated in the idea that as a teacher, I am not a teacher of literature. I am a teacher of students. There are books that I have read and loved, and each year, I talk about those books with students. I read and share, brining in books that I am certain will speak to my kids’ interests. I am careful when I talk about books in my classroom because I want students to know that in my room, their reading choices are valued. I may not enjoy a genre or format that they love, but that doesn’t mean their choices are wrong or irrelevant. It just means that we are different people. We come together to read common texts often, but I try to bring it back to their independent reading lives. I am responsible for readers, not books.
Although we are in the middle of a school year, the beginning of 2019 is alive with possibility. This is a beautiful year to fall in love with reading. I ask you to join me in guiding students to a sense of book love, of self-awareness, of joy. Join me in believing that kids want to read, and through their interests and hearts, we can open a world of language and story that will captivate them for years to come. Moving kids to adopt reading habits is not always easy, but nudging them a little each day has great power. During a mini-lesson earlier today, I noticed Mark was still lost inside his book. Part of me wanted him to pay attention, to be polite, during instruction about delivering information through the use of second person narration. But I let him read. I have watched him strive this year to find a book that will speak to him and today, he did. Those nudges–sitting beside him, talking about books, and time to read–moved him to engage with a text, and I am confident that he will find more books that will enhance his growing reading life.
I hope my suggestions give your classroom life and possibility. This work we do is important. To learn beside students is a precious thing. There are many times when kids are not willing to read or are more engaged with something else. I keep trying, though. I refuse to give up. I continue to believe that there is a book that will move them into a love of reading. I invite you to believe alongside me.
Recently, I was interviewing candidates for a language arts position. Several candidates just finished college and were eager to start a teaching career. Included was one question all candidates had to respond to: How would you teach a particular short story to a group of students? A frequent answer I received was, “Read it to the students or let the students read it out loud.” Letting students read out loud in front of the class is commonly referred to as popcorn or round-robin reading. One candidate proudly explained a reading game called “bump,” where students would read out loud and could intermittently call on another student to continue the reading. Bump permits students to embarrass one another or to catch another student not paying attention. No student should graduate from any college or university and bring such archaic and at times hurtful methods into a classroom. Popcorn, round robin, and bump reading should never be part of an elementary, middle, or high school classroom!
As a middle school principal, I am often asked what types of reading should occur in a middle school English classroom? What is a balanced literacy program? My answer is not that complex: “Reading can and should be taught.” In addition to the teacher reading aloud for students’ enjoyment, every middle school classroom should have three types of reading:
Instructional Interactive Read Aloud
Instructional Reading
Independent Reading
Instructional Interactive Read Aloud
An interactive read aloud allows the teacher to model in a think aloud how to apply a reading strategy. This modeling during a read aloud builds and/or enlarges students’ mental model of how a strategy works. For this aspect of instruction, I suggest that the teacher models with a short text that matches the genre and/or theme that ties a reading unit together. Short texts can include a picture book, an excerpt from a longer text, a folk or fairy tale, myth or legend, a short, short story, or an article from a magazine or newsletter.
Here are six of many skills and strategies that you can model in interactive read-aloud lessons:
Making inferences
Linking literary elements to a text
Identifying big ideas and themes
Locating important details
Skimming to find details
Emotional responses
The interactive read aloud is teachers’ common text. Once teachers complete the modeling over five to eight classes, they have a reference text to support students by reviewing a lesson. Then, they move to reading aloud from texts that resonate with students.
Instructional Reading
Instructional reading occurs during class. Students need to read materials at their instructional reading level, which is about 90 % to 95% reading accuracy and about 90% comprehension. Organizing instructional reading around a genre and theme—for example biography with a theme of obstacles—permits students to read different texts and discuss their reading around the genre and theme. One book for all does not work. Based on a false assumption, one-book-for-all assumes that no one has already read the book and everyone is on the same reading level.
As an example, the class opens with an interactive read-aloud lesson that lasts about ten minutes. Next, a transition to instructional reading. Find books for students in your school library, your community public library, in your class library, and the school’s book room (if you have one). Instructional reading books stay in the classroom, as students from different sections may be using the same materials each day.
Instructional reading asks students to apply specific skills and strategies to texts that can improve students’ comprehension, vocabulary, and skill because these texts stretch students’ thinking with the teacher, the expert, as a supportive guide.
Independent Reading
Students should always have a book they are reading independently. By encouraging them to read accessible books on topics they love and want to know more about, you develop their motivation to read!
Have students keep a Book Log of the titles they’ve read and reread. Do not ask students to do a project for each completed book; that will turn them away from reading. Reflecting on the value of independent reading is important. Getting hung up on how you will hold students accountable is not valuable. Remember, enthusiastic readers of any age do not summarize every chapter they read in a journal. Neither do you!
Students should complete twenty to thirty minutes of independent reading a night, and that should be their main homework assignment. If you’re on a block schedule, set aside two days a week for students to complete independent reading at school. If you have 90 to 120 minutes for reading and writing daily, then independent reading should occur every day. This is not wasted time. When students read the teacher can read part of the time which communicates a great message to students: adults read independently, too! Equally important during this time, teachers also confer with a few students about their reading.
Including the three types of reading in a middle school curriculum brings balance, engagement, and motivation to the curriculum and holds the potential of improving reading for all students. We must be better than popcorn reading as a go-to-method for a teacher to use with students. We must be better than reading out loud for an entire class. We need a balanced framework, a balanced literacy program. Encourage your teachers to give the three types of reading a try. The goal is to increase students’ reading skill and help students become lifelong readers. But the goal is also to reclaim the professionalism language arts teachers and students deserve.
I will never forget the moment I heard the words that felt like a cruel stab to my heart. As soon as I finished my session, a woman scurried toward me with a scowl plastered on her face. She identified herself as a special education director, stating in an angry tone:
“Research shows that special education students don’t benefit from independent reading so our teachers are forbidden to do it when they’re in the room.”
She walked away as abruptly as she came, leaving me to catch my breath as the full implications of an irresponsible justification of misinformed “research” washed over me. I began my career as a special education teacher in 1972, so a sense of deep sadness intermingled with conflicting emotions ranging from confused to frustrated to angry.
I wish I could say this display of ignorance is rare, but I’ve heard many variations of this tragic stance. Even worse, I see it play out in too many schools as our striving readers are removed from the very experiences that we should be celebrating. And for too many unsuspecting learners, this tradeoff is an intervention where volume is last on the instructional agenda. Considering our least proficient learners as undeserving of the research-based opportunities we so willingly offer our most proficient students is nothing short of educational malpractice.
“In far too many schools, we accept stagnant or low achievement and play the blame game. We use poverty and other outside factors to shirk our responsibility and maintain our low expectations, and we fail to acknowledge that we can do better. …We need to raise our expectations for what’s possible and see our students as capable and resilient, and assume responsibility for the achievement of all students.”
This illogical view merely blinds us to what’s possible and further widens the volume equity gap. While this is not a new problem, the issue is exacerbated by the intentional act of removing children from our responsibility to them. There are decades of research support for the dramatic role volume plays in student achievement but for the sake of this post, I’ll share just a few of the efforts to close the volume equity gap:
Instead, despite good intentions, educators often make decisions about instruction that compromise or supplant the kind of experiences all children need to become engaged, successful readers. This is especially true for struggling readers, who are much less likely than their peers to participate in the kinds of high-quality instructional activities that would ensure that they learn to read.
The Early Literacy Task Force led by Nell Duke clearly addresses volume in Essential Instructional Practices #8: Abundant reading material and reading opportunities in the classroom with this key bullet point:
opportunities for children to engage in independent reading of materials of their choice every day, with the teacher providing instruction and coaching in how to select texts and employ productive strategies during reading, feedback on children’s reading, and post-reading response activities including text discussion
Choice reading and volume is also highlighted in the newly released Children’s Rights to Read from the International Literacy Association while Stephanie Harvey and Annie Ward remind us in From Striving to Thriving (2017) that “… the best intervention is a good book–one a child can and wants to read.” These are only a few of the brilliant champions of choice and volume including Donalyn Miller, Colby Sharp, Penny Kittle, Kelly Gallagher, Laura Robb, and too many others to mention.
Notice that none of these references exclude any child or group from experiences that increase the volume of reading, and yet we continue to allow the ignorance-fueled idea that some children don’t benefit from choice reading to spread. Misguided educators allow school-based labels to rob some of our children of the voluminous joyful literacy opportunities they need and deserve. In the process, they cheat them of experiences that could maximize their growth as the volume equity divide widens.
So, what can we do? We could begin by ensuring that these priorities are in place:
Put non-negotiables practices such as read-aloud and independent reading in the daily schedule first and hold onto them for dear life for all children
Establish protected times in the day where no child can be removed during these essential events to receive outside support services
Put your money where your mouth is by purchasing the best children’s texts that you can find and fill schoolwide classroom libraries to brimming
Ensure classroom libraries reflect varied interest and need including picture books, chapter books, news magazines, comics, graphic novels and more
Remove all leveling references that tether children to a leveled bin and rob them of choice reading opportunities (this includes Accelerated Reading levels)
Explicitly teach children how to choose good fit books and honor their choices as you celebrate their personal interests in the selection process
Rethink programs like Accelerated Reader that turn reading into a test-fueled agenda and actually decreases the choice that fuels voluminous joyful literacy
Stop purchasing one-size-fits-all programs that wrongly assume that we have one-size-fits-all children and minimize time for meaningful voluminous reading
Alleviate computerized interventions that ignore the power potential of a highly knowledgeable teacher with massive doses of books in hand
Create a professional library that includes articles and books that address the role of volume so that teachers will have easy access to these references
Put volume at the very center of professional learning conversations and explore ways for teachers to embed reading opportunities into every learning day
Offer extensive professional support for elevating the benefits of independent reading through thoughtfully responsive and flexible instructional support
Make tiered pull-out interventions the last resort and prioritize your first line of defense so that classroom teachers will maintain a lead support role
Support teachers in designing more intentional intervention experiences that are carefully embedded into each learning day across all content areas
Model daily that you live and breathe voluminous joyful literacy in your own life as you share and display what you are reading
Provide daily opportunities for children to engage in rich reading collaborations and conversations including advertising reading with peers.
Ensure that interventions prioritize authentic and engaging reading, writing, and talking as you bring voluminous joyful literacy to life instructionally
Make voluminous joyful literacy the heart and soul of your school so active and enthusiastic engagement in choice reading is at the center of your efforts
John Guthrie provides research-based direction for making this important volume shift. His study of fourth graders should inspire our next step efforts as we acknowledge that our most proficient readers read 500% more than our least proficient readers. He adds:
Because engaged readers spend 500% more time reading than disengaged students, educators should attempt to increase engaged reading time by 200%-500%. This may require substantial reconfigurations of curriculum.
This means that we cannot use lack of time or conflicting schedules as an excuse, rather opting to expend our energy reconfiguring the learning day in the name of our readers. Removing children from these experiences adds to the volume equity issue and further removes us from the 500% increase our striving learners need. It’s worth emphasizing that Guthrie’s volume increase includes reading at home and at school. The questionable argument that volume should be considered a home issue ignores that this 500% increase requires both sources and that access widely varies from home to home, again minimizing volume. Our obsession with one-size-fits-all programs has also dramatically decreased volume while turning reading into a marketing frenzy.
For too long we have allowed irresponsible educators to make ill-informed decisions that fail to consider the implications of those decisions on children. Our silence has turned voluminous joyful literacy experiences for all children upside down. It’s time for us to recognize that shallow thoughtless choices that are devoid of logic or research are an insult to this profession and harm the helpless recipients of those choices – children.
Make no mistake about it – there is a serious volume equity issue in our schools and it is our responsibility to lift our collective voices into the professional air and speak out against this travesty of judgment. While I wish that I could have found the words at the fateful moment that inspired this post, I have since found my voice and intend to use it from this day forward. Children should not have to suffer from ignorance, regardless of whatever title of power they may wield. I intend to speak out against this distorted view and I ask that each of you do the same in whatever way you can. Because if we sit idly by in silence, then we become complicit co-conspirators of an irresponsible lie.
I choose voluminous joyful literacy opportunities and I will fight for the children who are depending on us…
