Book Love: Developing Depth, Stamina, and Passion in Adolescent Readers by Penny Kittle

"What our students read in school is important; what they read the rest of their lives is more important."

High school teacher and literacy coach Penny Kittle knows something that many English teachers don't: kids don't actually read the books they're assigned in class. And far too many kids are graduating from high school not having experienced the joy and pleasure of living inside the pages of a book, let alone many books. And that's just the problem. Administrators, curriculum writers,  and law makers assume that in order for students to become better readers they must only read intensively and not extensively. They forget that in order to become expert readers, students must build stamina. They can only do that by reading. A lot. Sometimes even books that are too easy for their reading level. And that's where the expertise of the teacher comes in: when do you pull back and let students experience the joy of some "brain candy" and when do you decide the right moment to challenge their thinking and give them a "reach book" as Penny likes to call it.

You see, Book Love my friends, is a revelation. It belongs up on the pedestal where I hold The Book Whisperer. While reading it can benefit teachers of any grade, and I highly encourage every teacher to pick it up no matter what grade you teach, Penny addresses the contention most high school teachers seem to have that reading and writing workshop is just a "middle school thing." Not only does Penny show that workshop absolutely belongs in the high school classroom, but she allows us to see that it's a necessary part of the high school English and literature experience if we are to prepare our students for college and careers beyond the classroom.

Filled with concise, logical arguments as well as emotional stories of Penny's own students to drive her points home, Book Love should be required reading in every high school English department across America. I finished reading the last half of this book on the plane home from NCTE thinking that it would be safe plane reading. Oh how wrong I was. I shed many tears for Penny's students in the last few pages of this book. Her love and commitment to them made me wish to be the teacher to my students that she is to hers. This is a book that is impossible not to think of the Maya Angelou quote (and I'm paraphrasing here): when you know better, you do better. Teachers, read Book Love. And then when you know better, do better for your students. They deserve so much more than the fake, passionless reading they are currently experiencing in classrooms across America. Get them out of the those SparkNotes and into the pages of a real book. LOTS of real books. Let them read widely and voluminously so that they can become lifelong readers. Fill your shelves with many different books, not just the handful of classroom sets of classics that don't even get opened when you "read" them in class. Give them a buy in. Let them drink the Kool-aid. Then and only then will those dusty classics sitting on your shelf seven months of the year actually get read.

Oh, and if you don't believe that students don't actually read the books they're assigned in class, I dare you to continue to feel that way after you watch this video.


Book Love: Developing Depth, Stamina, and Passion in Adolescent Readers by Penny Kittle
Published: October 26, 2012
Publisher: Heinemann
Pages: 173
Genre: Nonfiction
Audience: Teachers

Nudging and Nurturing: A Lesson in Patience

I don't know if anyone's noticed from the lack of activity on my blog as of late, but this has been an especially tiring year for me. I don't know if it's the seven year itch or if I'm just losing stamina, but there are many days I question how long I can do this job. Sometimes I wonder if I have it in me to make this a lifelong career. But then a moment comes along that reminds me why it is I do what I do.

Last year I had a student, we'll call her Angela, who was a reluctant yet compliant reader. She always read dutifully in class, but admitted to me in reading conferences that she didn't really read at home because she didn't like it. Throughout the year I continued to talk to her to try to nudge her along and get her to like reading more. Then during fourth quarter, I assigned her the book Princess Academy by Shannon Hale for a literature circle group. That was finally the moment when she came alive and showed a never-before-seen enthusiasm for reading. Her discussion was insightful and you could see the fire in her eyes when she talked about the story. I've never seen such a transformation in a student before. This was definitely a "home run" book for her.

But this all unfortunately happened at the end of the year. I knew I still had more work to do with Angela but I could only do so much in the time I had. In September, I made sure to continue to talk to her when I saw her in the halls and even tried putting other books in her hands, but the last book I gave her she had for a month and admitted to me she had yet to pick it up, often stating, "I haven't had time." (Student code for, "This doesn't interest me.")

Me with Shannon Hale

But then I met Shannon Hale at NCTE last week and she was signing copies of Palace of Stone, the sequel to Princess Academy. I immediately thought of Angela back home and knew what I had to do.

Upon my return to school yesterday, I summoned for Angela right before dismissal, which ironically was the moment she chose to hand me back the book she's had for the past month and said, "Yeah, I'm not going to read this." But when I handed her the brand new hardcover of Palace of Stone signed to her by the author, her eyes lit up. I said, "I remembered how much you loved Princess Academy and I want you to have this but you have to read it."

She stumbled away, speechless and I prayed that it would be enough to get her to take the leap and read it on her own.

This morning she saw me in the hall on her way to class and I noticed a small, shimmery red hardcover at the top of her awkward, teetering pile of books. She picked it up, showed it to me and said, "Look Mrs. Shaum! I'm reading it."

And suddenly I've been renewed again and reminded why it is I do what I do. This is by no means, however, the end of the story. No, it's really only the beginning. We're going to continue looking for that time she can't seem to find for reading.

Getting our students to be "Readers in the Wild"

A week ago today I was sitting in the Devos Center Ballroom listening to Donalyn Miller's keynote address at the Michigan Reading Association conference. Her speech gave me lots to think about in regards to my attitude about why kids don't read anymore once they leave my class.

I mentioned in my Nerdy Book Club guest post that it broke my heart to discover that once kids leave my class, they don't read for pleasure anymore. This is very similar to the thoughts Donalyn shares in The Book Whisperer when she talks about students coming back to visit her once they've left her class and admit they don't read anymore.

In her keynote last weekend she talked about how her attitude about this observation has changed over the years. Rather than getting angry at other teachers not allowing kids to read for pleasure, which she has no control over, she eventually started to ask herself, "What conditions am I creating in my classroom that make students stop reading once they leave my class?"

So she asked us to ask ourselves "Am I creating independent or dependent readers?"

Meaning, once you take away all those conditions in the classroom that allow kids to explore their reading preferences, are they still going to be reliant on the teacher to motivate them to read?

So how do you bridge the gap between a school reader and a "reader in the wild"? These were some of the things she discussed in trying to help create independent readers rather than dependent readers:

• During reading conferences and class discussions, talk to your students about WHERE they read, not just how much they read.  If you can talk to them about the habits of readers and allow them to see that you really DO have time to read for pleasure, then maybe they will start to develop some of those habits on their own.
• Readers are always making plans. Lifelong readers are always thinking about their next book. We all know the students in our classes who don't like to read. We get nervous when we notice they're close to finishing a book because we know it will take them many days to find that next book. We should be discussing with our students in reading conferences about what they plan to read once they finish the current book they're reading.
• Give kids time to discuss and recommend books to each other. As Donalyn said in her keynote, "If I'm the sole source of book recommendations for my kids all year, what happens in May?"

I was so inspired by Donalyn's words that I came back to school on Monday and hit the ground running. I immediately started conferring with kids and discussing with them about the very things Donalyn discussed in her keynote. I made a list for them of all the places I read:

• As a passenger in the car (even short distances - I always carry a book with me!)
• In bed before I go to sleep
• In bed when I wake up (weekends only)
• In the bathtub (I told them I recognize this is weird, but not that much different than men who treat the bathroom as their personal library! Plus, no one bothers me when I read in the tub!)
• In waiting rooms

I also shared with them the places where/when I listen to audibooks:

• In the car
• Doing/putting away laundry
• Cooking dinner
• Getting ready for work in the morning
• Walking to my class on campus

Then I showed them what I'm currently reading and did a quick book talk on both books (which I was happy to discover many were interested and intrigued by both books) and then I showed them the books I plan to read next. By modeling this process for them, I wanted to show them that as their teacher, I would never ask something of them that I myself wouldn't do.

Because of this modeling and discussion, conferences lasted much longer this week than they have in the past and I was happy to see that most students had at least two books to share with me that they plan to read next. My one concern was that most kids said the same places where they read: "In the car" "Before I go to bed" so I wonder if they REALLY read in those places or if they're just telling me what they think I want to hear. I'm hoping that by continuing this conversation throughout the rest of the school year and not ending it with this one conference session that I can reinforce those "reading in the wild" habits.

As the School Year Comes to a Close...

The school year ends for me on Friday and believe it or not, I'm actually sad that the year is ending. I had such a wonderful class this year that I don't want to lose them! I wish they could stay with me forever.

As the year draws to a close, I have asked my class to do quite a bit of reflecting on the amount of reading they've done this year. Most of them completed their twenty book goal, and many of them surpassed it. I had them complete an end of year reading survey where I gleaned most of the questions from Donalyn Miller's The Book Whisperer (my literature teacher bible).

Out of 43 students, these were some of the statistics I gleaned from them with regard to their reading success:

• 16 students found the classroom library most important and 24 found it important
• 11 students found independent reading time in class most important and 27 found it important
• 6 students found nightly reading at home most important and 20 found it important

Other statistics students found important:

• Book talks = 18 students
• School library = 19 students
• Conferences = 21 students
• Teacher who reads = 19 students
• Reading response letters = 19 students
• Conversations with classmates = 26 students

What these statistics tell me is that you NEED to give students ample time to read in class and let them choose their own books. Does that mean your whole class gets to be a free-for-all? Not at all. There was tons of structure in my class. Students knew what was expected of them and they worked and read at their own pace. I was more a facilitator than a direct instructor. Yes, I still created "required reading" experiences for them with literature circles and whole class readings out of their literature textbooks, but the primary focus was making sure they met their 20 book requirement and that they followed the genres I mandated. It was so rewarding to watch so many of these kids go from non-readers to voracious readers or at the very least, appreciators of books rather than haters of books.

A few days ago, I had students write the number of books they read on a piece of construction paper (I totally stole this idea from Donalyn Miller who stole it from Penny Kittle) and then I took their picture. We added up the number of books in the entire 6th grade, and out of 43 students + their teacher, this was their total:


This was my contribution:
 
What can I tell you? I just can't stop reading! :) Hopefully my students feel the same way even now that I'm not their teacher anymore.

But books are so... enjoyable. Certainly students can't be learning anything from sitting around reading them all day.

I've recently had a few people ask me, in rather accusing tones, something along the lines of, "How do you know that your kids are learning anything in reading workshop? I mean, all they're doing is reading books.  How are you teaching them any skills?"

Oh ye of little faith.  How you doubt the power of giving kids permission to choose their own reading material rather than having the teacher mandate and suck any sort of pleasure or life out of the act of reading.

So let me enlighten you doubting Thomases.

A few days ago,  I was reading one my 5th grader's literature journals.  She wrote me a letter (a frequent required assignment in my class) about a book I had just finished reading aloud and to my shock and awe, I noticed that this quiet, shy, diminutive 5th grader used the word anti-climactic to describe the ending of said book.  Since when do 5th graders go around using the word anti-climactic? I think I had a difficult time with the concept of climax until I was in college! (I was slow to grasp abstract thought, what can I say?)

Then, I also had a group of 6th graders who were meeting in a literature circle (which was one of the few teacher-mandated reading experiences they've had this year) and one of them asked what genre the book was.  They discussed and debated whether it was a mystery or a science fiction because yes, there was something that needed to be solved, but it also had "elements of dystopia." (The book they were referring to was The Mysterious Benedict Society by Trenton Lee Stewart).

I was both blown away and swelling with pride over these observations because these were not terms they learned in a textbook. This is just the way well-read students speak.  And when you give them the opportunity to read voluminously, they pick up the vernacular of an educated reader.

So you want to know how I know my kids are learning? I listen to them.

Want to make kids readers? It's simple. Ditch the textbooks and give them REAL books!

I love reading workshop.  I will never teach reading another way ever again.  For those of you who don't know what reading workshop is, rather than teaching entire books to a whole class, students get to pick and monitor their own books.  I follow Donalyn Miller's format of requiring them to complete certain genres, but then they can choose whatever books they want within that genre.

The past couple of weeks I have really started to see the growth in my students as readers, but today was the culmination of realizing how far they have come.  I did a midyear reading reflection, and these were some of the responses I got:

My reading habits have changed because in the beginning of the year I was struggling to finish five books.  Now I'm finishing a book in three days.  I'm getting faster.

I now have explored different genres.  Also, now I know where to look for books and to get a new one right after I finish one.

I have gotten faster and I take a book everywhere.

My reading habits have changed by me bringing my books to more classes now and I am reading during most of my free time.  I like how we have so much time to read in reading workshop.  It is amazing how many pages you can get done.  I also like how it takes your mind off things.  If I have a science or math test, I don't worry about it and just read.

My reading habits have changed by me having more excitement to read books, making me want to read faster.

My reading habits have changed since September because now I can really focus on one book and not hop around from book to book.

I like reading a lot instead of doing millions of worksheets because I've always liked to read.

I really like the reading workshop because I'm trying out different genres and it helps me find a book to read.  Also, it feels as if reading counts more.

Reading workshop is the highlight of my day.  I don't dislike any of it.

I like how you just read instead of worksheets

I like that we get to chose what we read.  Being told what to read is annoying.

I dislike nothing [about reading workshop].  It is my perfect idea of reading class.

I do consider myself a reader and no not just because I have to read for school.  I feel I didn't like reading so much at the beginning of the year as I do now.  I love reading now. 

Some of these responses brought tears to my eyes.  These are not just from the star students.  These are from all types of students.

And the ultimate response from a student was not on a piece of paper.  A student who fought me tooth and nail at the beginning of the year and refused to read has FINALLY been quite occupied in a book lately, came up to me yesterday and said, "Thank you for helping me get more interested in reading.  I haven't felt this way in a long time."  It just goes to show that you can have all the money, technology, and updated textbooks in the world, but when it really comes down to it, if you want to make kids readers and improve their reading, all you have to do is just sit them down with a plain, old-fashioned book.


 

Get in the Zone: The Reading Zone

Nancie Atwell, one of my pedagogical heroes, talks about getting in "the zone" while reading books. Being so involved with the story on the pages in front of you that the classroom surroundings just fade away and you become part of the story.

I frequently see this with my new class of students. I often find the bell ringing and having to shoo the kids out of my room because they just won't put their books down. I guess there are worse problems to have as a teacher.

Nowhere was this reading zone made more clear to me than the other day when I came across one of my 5th grade students (I teach mainly 6th grade, but I have one class of 5th grade reading) sitting at the round table with my stuffed frog on his head. He was not doing this to be funny or draw attention to himself. In fact, he was sitting this way for quite a while before I even noticed. That's what I call being in the reading zone: being so engaged in a book that you don't even notice that you've got a frog on your head.

Giving students choice is not a free for all

A recent New York Times Article titled "A New Assignment: Pick the Books You Like" created such a stir that famed English teacher Nancie Atwell responded to snarky comments in an eloquent video response. Atwell has been such a great mentor from afar that I was pleased to hear her put all the naysayers in their place.

One commenter who said "The student who loves reading 'Captain Underpants' but who is never forced to move beyond that material has done nothing to prepare for a life of active, intelligent, inquisitive citizenship" obviously didn't read the whole article. If he did, he would have clearly read that students are asked to move beyond what is beneath their ability. Giving them the option for something easy in the beginning is just to get them interested in the process. And what kills me about the responses of people complaining about Captain Underpants is that they overlooked the fact that these teachers were also nudging students to read I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, The Story of Edgar Sawtelle, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, The Kite Runner... I could go on and on. Reading workshop is NOT a free for all. The teacher is guiding the students rather than dictating. There is class discussion and common texts are discussed. It creates not just a love of reading, but the habit of reading, which can then help students to better understand those difficult novels discussed in high school that most of us never understood anyway.

I interpret reading workshop as creating lifelong readers which then moves them to become lifelong learners and thinkers. When a student develops a love of reading and learning, then they have the drive and the fire to learn on their own what they might have missed in school. School can only take you so far. It's like Ivern Ball said, "Knowledge is power, but enthusiasm pulls the switch." Reading workshop is designed to help pull that switch.