This week's edition of Dr. Bickmore's YA Wednesday is a contribution from Gretchen Rumohr-Voskuil. Gretchen is another example of the kind of great people you meet if you attend conferences. A knew about Gretchen for a couple of years before we had some serious conversations about the teaching of YA literature. Gretchen was lucky enough to have my former colleague, Jackie Bach as mentor through the Conference on English Education (CEE) mentoring program (I am sure Tom McCann would love to hear from you if you would like to serve as a mentor in this fantastic program.). As a result, I was slightly aware of what she as doing, now she is one of the people I make sure to connect with at these conferences. Talking with Gretchen during NCTE conferences and the summer CEE conference has added depth to my understanding of teaching YA literature. It is wonderful to have Gretchen as a guest contributor. She provides thoughtful advice as many of thinking about teaching YA literature next semester.
Gretchen Rumohr-Voskuil
In his keynote address at the 2015 CEE/IFTE conference, Ernest Morrell asked, “What are we doing to help teachers read differently than they were taught to read?” When I heard this question, I reflected on my own high school reading experience which included plenty of dull, round-robin reading from the traditional canon, packets with comprehension questions, and a scarcity of reading for pleasure. It was no wonder that I read very little of what I was assigned.
My experiences align with those of the students in my YA methods course. Upon entering, students confess that they’ve finished very few books since high school. I observe that they lack the stamina required for reading longer texts, “skimming the surface” instead of reading in invested ways. In their journals, few describe an active reading life that includes liking what they read. They describe a love of reading that has long gone dormant. They rarely reference YA literature as part of their reading life. These students--whether they love reading or not--will soon be (or already are) teachers of English.
In his keynote address at the 2015 CEE/IFTE conference, Ernest Morrell asked, “What are we doing to help teachers read differently than they were taught to read?” When I heard this question, I reflected on my own high school reading experience which included plenty of dull, round-robin reading from the traditional canon, packets with comprehension questions, and a scarcity of reading for pleasure. It was no wonder that I read very little of what I was assigned.
My experiences align with those of the students in my YA methods course. Upon entering, students confess that they’ve finished very few books since high school. I observe that they lack the stamina required for reading longer texts, “skimming the surface” instead of reading in invested ways. In their journals, few describe an active reading life that includes liking what they read. They describe a love of reading that has long gone dormant. They rarely reference YA literature as part of their reading life. These students--whether they love reading or not--will soon be (or already are) teachers of English.
We know that effective English teachers have strong reader and writer identities. How, then, can I encourage my methods students toward a legacy of loving books? My solution is to use YA literature and a book workshop approach to initiate or re-kindle a love for reading--and thus make it more likely that my students adopt and retain similar, worthwhile methods in present and future English classrooms.
With the goal of developing a reader identity, our class reads and discusses the rationale and methods for book workshop approaches in Penny Kittle’s Book Love. We think through applications to future classrooms. Then, with the goal of demonstrating that these workshop methods are not only possible, but valuable, in any classroom, we employ a teacher-as-reader model similar to the teacher-as-reader from the National Writing Project, using ideas from Kittle’s book. Staying true to Kittle’s methods, my students let their interests guide their book choices, yet most focus solely on YA literature as they read.
With the goal of developing a reader identity, our class reads and discusses the rationale and methods for book workshop approaches in Penny Kittle’s Book Love. We think through applications to future classrooms. Then, with the goal of demonstrating that these workshop methods are not only possible, but valuable, in any classroom, we employ a teacher-as-reader model similar to the teacher-as-reader from the National Writing Project, using ideas from Kittle’s book. Staying true to Kittle’s methods, my students let their interests guide their book choices, yet most focus solely on YA literature as they read.
Using workshop includes daily routines such as the “book talk.” At the beginning of each class, I share a YA book, giving a quick introduction--why I started reading it, what interested me, how many pages it is--and then reading aloud a short passage that will hook an interested reader. YA titles that I regularly share include 13 Reasons Why (Asher), The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-time Indian (Alexie), Wintergirls (Anderson), Blankets (Thompson), Brown Girl Dreaming (Woodson), This One Summer (Tamaki) and Out of My Mind (Draper). Students use these talks to generate ideas for their own book lists, which they develop and maintain throughout the semester.
Another well-received routine is our use of Kittle’s “big idea books,” which are basic notebooks individually labeled with a theme such as courage, religion, family, commitment, discovery, etc. Students anonymously freewrite about their chosen theme in relation to what they’ve read recently, adding to voices who have also written about that theme in the same notebook. I save these notebooks from semester to semester as they serve as a testament to the breadth and depth of what my students have read. Big idea books also serve as written book talks for my students, who read their peers’ thematic reflections and often add book titles to their future reading lists.
In the midst of these methods, my students monitor their reading ability and track their page counts. I serve as a partner in these efforts, checking their page tallies, conferencing with them regularly, and recommending YA books that I think will interest them. Underlying this approach is a personal investment in workshop: I do everything the students do, writing with them, reading YA literature with them, responding to texts with them. And together, we experience other workshop methods such as close-reading exercises, quotation analyses, literary letters, and speed-dating with books.
Another well-received routine is our use of Kittle’s “big idea books,” which are basic notebooks individually labeled with a theme such as courage, religion, family, commitment, discovery, etc. Students anonymously freewrite about their chosen theme in relation to what they’ve read recently, adding to voices who have also written about that theme in the same notebook. I save these notebooks from semester to semester as they serve as a testament to the breadth and depth of what my students have read. Big idea books also serve as written book talks for my students, who read their peers’ thematic reflections and often add book titles to their future reading lists.
In the midst of these methods, my students monitor their reading ability and track their page counts. I serve as a partner in these efforts, checking their page tallies, conferencing with them regularly, and recommending YA books that I think will interest them. Underlying this approach is a personal investment in workshop: I do everything the students do, writing with them, reading YA literature with them, responding to texts with them. And together, we experience other workshop methods such as close-reading exercises, quotation analyses, literary letters, and speed-dating with books.
So far, this workshop approach has been successful. Students have surpassed their semester reading goals, amazed at how much they can read when they are allowed to choose their texts. Their “future reading” lists are long, and they contact me regularly to discuss book recommendations. Walking across campus often means that I encounter a student who wants to discuss what s/he is currently reading. My students’ love for reading has been planted or renewed, and their reader identities have been adopted and strengthened. In fact, upon finishing this workshop, one student said, “I have definitely seen a shift in my attitude towards believing I have time or not to read. I am more likely to bring a book along places in my backpack, because I have remembered that reading for a few minutes before class is something I can do.” Another student commented, “I want to continue to be intentional about setting reading goals, creating book lists, making time to read, and increasing my reading stamina.” And while we already know that encouraging students to read YA literature doesn’t necessarily mean that they’ll only read YA, I was reassured when one student shared, “Now that I consider myself a more voracious reader I intend to make [the] classics a part of my ‘to read’ list as well.”
Beyond developing a reader identity, students have indicated that they plan to adopt workshop-based mindsets and methods in their future classrooms. One student commented on the role of book recommendations and the community of readers, saying, “...I knew that you were the type of reading teacher that I want to strive to emulate. I want to be able to be at a book store or thrift shop and pick up a book and instantly think of different students’ names who would love to read that particular book.” For another student, who is currently a fifth grade teacher, this workshop approach helped her to understand the value of choice in a reading life. After adopting a workshop in her own classroom, she commented, “When I say that it is time to take out our books for some free choice reading, I hear muffled cheers and see ear to ear smiles….now I have students telling me about their books and dying to get their hands on the books I am reading. I can’t finish books fast enough for them and they can’t wait to shove to the books they are reading into my hands.”
I know that I need to do a longer term qualitative study to lend more credibility to this workshop method. I also know that there are implications for this kind of work in methods courses, like helping preservice and practicing teachers build their libraries (as opposed to solely relying on a few classroom sets) and advocate for themselves when facing administrators and colleagues who insist on less meaningful methods. Aside from future directions, though, I think about how I used to teach YA methods. In the past, I chose all of the texts for my YA methods course and we would read and respond to them together. In many ways, I was doing what Morrell cautioned against, teaching as I had been taught. While I still use some whole-class novels, I now see the value in a workshop model. Having experienced the ways my students’ reading identities, choices and future methods have been impacted, the past is behind me. There is no turning back.
Beyond developing a reader identity, students have indicated that they plan to adopt workshop-based mindsets and methods in their future classrooms. One student commented on the role of book recommendations and the community of readers, saying, “...I knew that you were the type of reading teacher that I want to strive to emulate. I want to be able to be at a book store or thrift shop and pick up a book and instantly think of different students’ names who would love to read that particular book.” For another student, who is currently a fifth grade teacher, this workshop approach helped her to understand the value of choice in a reading life. After adopting a workshop in her own classroom, she commented, “When I say that it is time to take out our books for some free choice reading, I hear muffled cheers and see ear to ear smiles….now I have students telling me about their books and dying to get their hands on the books I am reading. I can’t finish books fast enough for them and they can’t wait to shove to the books they are reading into my hands.”
I know that I need to do a longer term qualitative study to lend more credibility to this workshop method. I also know that there are implications for this kind of work in methods courses, like helping preservice and practicing teachers build their libraries (as opposed to solely relying on a few classroom sets) and advocate for themselves when facing administrators and colleagues who insist on less meaningful methods. Aside from future directions, though, I think about how I used to teach YA methods. In the past, I chose all of the texts for my YA methods course and we would read and respond to them together. In many ways, I was doing what Morrell cautioned against, teaching as I had been taught. While I still use some whole-class novels, I now see the value in a workshop model. Having experienced the ways my students’ reading identities, choices and future methods have been impacted, the past is behind me. There is no turning back.
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