How to Create Interactivity, Even Remotely

Q: My students are reluctant to speak in some classes. What's worse is that in other classes, two or three students monopolize the entire conversation. How can I increase interaction in class while making the best use of class time?

Asking students to complete reading assignments outside of class or to watch videos on their own time can immediately net you precious minutes in the classroom. But how can we increase the likelihood that this outside work gets done?

One possible solution is Verso. Verso allows you to create a collaborative yet closed social media space in which students anonymously respond to a video, site, or reading. Students then craft a response, comment upon the responses of others, and upvote the responses they found to be most helpful. The video below illustrates this process.

 In the classroom, Verso can be used to

• build understanding of historical context of a novel. In connection with a novel set in the 1960s, for example, students might view videos of the Vietnam anti-war movement, the Civil Rights movement, or the Space Race.
• review a concept or skill covered in class. This video on dramatic irony, for example, could either precede or follow a lesson on the same topic, while Simile School pokes fun at a concept in a way students will enjoy (after watching, students could write creative similes for those comparisons mentioned in the video).
• generate background information for a current events debate or writing. Above the Noise is a public television series that will appeal to middle and high schoolers. See this recent post on Universal Healthcare.
• review the steps of a process. After a lesson on writing hooks, for example, a student might need a refresher.
• integrate SEL and discuss sensitive topics such as bullying. These videos from Pass It One can serve as excellent conversation starters for any age level, whereas this video titled Talent Show is intended for more mature audiences.
• provide alternate interpretations of classic literature. From staged versions of Shakespeare to the Simpsons' take on The Raven to animated texts of classic speeches such as The Gettysburg Address, YouTube is full of possibilities.
• practice inferring skills. This commercial titled The Perfect Daughter requires the viewer to put together the limited information available in order to make sense of the narrative.
• to create an online crowd sourcing site. In response to any one of dozens of issues, students could share and debate opinions. These ideas can later help students who struggle for ideas in their essay writing.

Choosing the correct video is half the battle; crafting a student response prompt that fires a conversation is even more crucial. The more open-ended, the better! Verso provides several videos of High Impact Teaching Strategies to get you started.

In addition to creating a common experience for students, Verso provides younger students with a closed environment of social media. Verso provides an excellent venue to teach students that they need to own their social interactions online. Once students learn that they are accountable for what they say, they tend to make comments that are more helpful and incisive. And when they choose to do the opposite? They'll receive instant feedback from classmates and teacher alike.

If you're looking for ways to embed questions, videos, and text within existing webpages, I highly recommend Insert Learning. Perfect for formative assessment!

How to Give an IGNITE Talk

Most of us have heard of the inspirational TED Talks.

Slightly less well-known are the Ignite Talks, which allow speakers only five minutes, with accompanying slides that automatically advance every fifteen seconds.

One of my favorite speakers is Matthew Inman, creator of The Oatmeal, speaking about How to Get 5 Million People to View Your Website:



Another favorite comes from Scott Berkun, author of Confessions of a Public Speaker. Why and How to Give an Ignite Talk not only gives a cool insight into the Ignite format, but also provides a pretty compact lesson of effective storytelling:



For your next staff meeting or student presentation, give this format a shot. Perhaps just three minutes instead of five. Sometimes less is more.

(This was originally posted at Teaching that Sticks).

How to Instantly Increase Interaction Using Insert Learning

Q: How can I get my students to interact with their text? So many students seem to read without stopping to reflect or make meaning of the content. 

Many of us are enthusiastic to explore opportunities in flipping, differentiating, and screen casting in an attempt to increase reader interaction with texts.

One simple Chrome extension called Insert Learning allows you (and your students!) to do all three, on nearly any page of the Internet.

Insert Learning creates instant interactivity on nearly any web page by allowing you to add

• highlights,
• annotations and definitions (to accompany those highlights),
• sticky notes (which can contain links, YouTube videos, or screen casts),
• open ended questions,
• multiple choice questions (instantaneously graded), and 
• discussion questions (the responses to which are visible to all students).

The following video demonstrates the ease with which this extension is used.

What's awesome is that when students load the extension onto any page, even those that you haven't assigned with tasks, they can then highlight, annotate, and create sticky notes with screen cast videos. One student, for example, may visit three different sites to research the traits and habits that make the cheetah such an effective predator. Even after the student closes those sites, she can reactivate all notes, highlights, etc. on that same site, even weeks later, by simply launching the Insert Learning extension again while on that page. This is an incredibly simple way to create a close reading experience with online content.

The video below shows you how you, as the teacher, will be able to view student-created annotations from the main teacher document which you've assigned. What the video doesn't show is that students can paste a sticky note into the document and access their device's built-in camera and microphone to record themselves. A student-generated video would be a great way for a teacher to hear a student's fluency in reading a passage from the given text, or to simply have the student share an oral versus written response.

The free version allows you to create and store five lessons, which provides ample opportunity to see the power of this extension. Go to Insert Learning and give it a go!

If you're looking a site that offers free nonfiction sources that work perfectly with Insert Learning, check out Wonderopolis.

Figurative Language Posters

Some time ago I shared some Mentor Text Display Cards for both picture books and novels featuring exemplar texts with annotations defining figurative language and literary devices.

While these met with much enthusiasm, several teachers asked if I would consider creating similar cards, but from the opposite perspective. In other words, these teachers wanted the focus on the figurative language itself.

Not a bad idea.

So here you go: a set of Figurative Language Posters (you can also preview them below).

I've provided text examples from poetry, drama, fiction, and nonfiction.

What's wonderful about these posters is that, like the Mentor Text Cards, they can be adapted to your own needs.

Don't care for a text I've chosen? Replace it with your own! Simply make a copy of the Slides provided, and you can edit to your heart's content. Your students might better respond to examples from songs or picture books or familiar class texts, so why not create your own?

Let me know how you'll be using these in your own classroom.


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Building Interactive Engagement with Text

In a recent workshop titled "Building Interactive Engagement with Text," I argued that opportunity
and motive are two variables needed for students to truly read and comprehend and (hopefully!) enjoy complex texts.

The week prior to the conference, my students were discussing Rick Reilly’s rant on cheerleading titled “Sis! Boom! Bah! Humbug!” For homework the previous evening, students had annotated the article, making note of figurative language and argumentative techniques, and they were now sharing their findings with classmates.

Mary raised her hand and said, “I found something.”

“What is it?”

“Well,” she answered, “I know it’s something, but I don’t know what it’s called.”

She directed everyone to paragraph twelve where Reilly wrote, “If cheerleading is a sport, Richard Simmons is a ballerina.”

“So what’s that called?” I persisted.

“It’s a… It’s a… It’s a literary ratio!” she announced triumphantly, and I immediately burst into laughter. She did as well, because she knew that was wrong. But then I thought about it, and you know what? Her answer was technically right.

“Do you want to know what your ‘literary ratio’ is really called?” I asked. And now the whole class was totally quiet, because everyone wanted to know the real term. Several kids were poised with fingers on their keyboards to add it to their annotations. “It’s called an analogy. But what’s really cool, Mary, is that an analogy is, in fact, a literary ratio. Your answer was genius!”

“I know!” she replied. And it was. But it was also an example of how a shared moment with a text can prime the whole class to receive new learning.

What’s also important to note here is the fact that only this type of wide-open, inquiry-based approach to the text would allow such a discovery. I could have instead asked the class to answer ten very pointed, close-ended questions about the text, and they would have all dutifully, if not enthusiastically, answered them. But the more open-ended approach to the reading and annotation process allowed learners to find things for themselves, even beyond those which I had intended.

In a pivotal scene from Jurassic Park, the terrorized humans are dismayed to discover that more of the prehistoric creatures inhabit the island than they could have ever guessed. This comes as a shock, of course, because earlier in the book we had been assured that an elaborate computerized tally system was tracking the creatures and recording their populations. But Dr. Ian Malcolm (played by Jeff Goldblum in the motion picture) suspected this all along:

"Now you see the flaw in your procedures," Malcolm said. "You only tracked the expected number of dinosaurs. You were worried about losing animals, and your procedures were designed to advise you instantly if you had less than the expected number. But that wasn't the problem. The problem was, you had more than the expected number" (p. 184). 

In other words, the computer program was getting the right answers, but asking the wrong questions. It was limiting the realm of possibilities. Sometimes that happens to us as teachers. We get all the correct answers to the simple questions we ask, but they’re questions that limit student thinking. They aren’t those questions which demand real thought, and our tasks aren’t those that produce authentic learning. Sometimes we simply need to "open the field" to our students and say, "What do you see? What can you make of it?"

In your own teaching, where can you create such opportunities?

Common Texts

Whenever I'm asked, "What’s the number one suggestion you have for teachers who want to engage students in reading?" I respond with "Common texts."

Many teachers passionately advocate for students reading independent texts at their own levels. I’m one of those teachers. But I also believe in the power of shared, common texts as a jumping-off point for engagement. Novels, short stories, nonfiction articles, op-ed pieces, drama, and poetry are a few such sources.

Why common texts? 

• Texts read as a whole class provide a common culture, or canon, of literature that teachers and students can draw upon throughout the year as exemplars for reading and writing. 
• Common texts create a community of readers that can “speak the same language.” 
• Common texts provide a source of cohesion between diverse students who might otherwise feel little connection with one another. 
• Texts which are read, dissected, and discussed, and then used as writing subject matter, increase the probability of all students experiencing an equally deep and rich exposure to language and literary ideas. This, in turn, creates a firm footing for future building of knowledge and skills. 
• Using common texts develops a shared foundation of literary terms and academic vocabulary.

Ironically, the two biggest arguments against using common texts in truth reveal additional strengths of the approach.

Some opponents, for example, will argue that common texts don’t differentiate. But by their very complexity, judiciously selected common texts naturally differentiate through each individual learner's experience with them. When you visit Disney World, you see the Magic Kingdom being enjoyed by everyone, from three to ninety-three. Likewise, a well-selected text has something for everyone. Students learn to read in more circumspect and exacting ways by hearing their peers discuss elements of the text which they may have never noticed.

When I assigned another text for independent annotating, most students came in with over a dozen observations, and some with two and three times that amount. One student, who had learned English the year before, came in with just eight. 

But one of her annotations was a truly insightful and original thought, one that no one else had seen in the text. That day was as successful for the student with eight annotations as it was for the student with twenty-eight.

A second argument is that "what we choose may not appeal to all students." Quite frankly, we often we don’t know what is best for us, or what we’ll enjoy, until we are immersed in it. For example, I have never willingly attended a party or backyard barbecue in my life! My wife drags me there, kicking and screaming. But without fail on the ride home, I will sheepishly admit, “That was fun.” 

It’s one of our many responsibilities to expose students to new genres, new forms, new authors, new challenges. Trust me, none of us wanted to be potty trained, but few of us regret it.

Space and Time

As mentioned above, students need motive and opportunity to engage with texts. In Crunch Time: How to Be Your Best When It Matters Most, author Rick Peterson shares this analogy from ice hockey:

When you're carrying the puck and a defender pressures you by taking away your space and time, you're likely to make a poor decision. In contrast, when you can curl away from a defender and get to open space on the ice, you have time to survey the play and make a good decision. The time and space give you time for quick reflection, allowing you to see things you wouldn't otherwise see… If we can just create space and time, we can survey the situation and make a better choice. We can see things we would otherwise miss. (p. 28)

Although he discusses the variables of space and time (rather than motive and opportunity), Peterson would likely agree that students need a release from the pressure to always be right, to always have the correct answer on demand.

He later says:

By creating a series of simple, short-term, bite-sized process goals linked to a larger outcome goal, you get to recognize success more frequently. Every time a goal is achieved, your body releases dopamine, the feel-good neurotransmitter. The resulting dopamine makes you feel confident and productive. We all know focus is required to perform at a high level. Yet, when we cannot keep our focus for an extended period of time, it's easy to get anxious and feel like you're not up to the challenge. Clutch performers don't focus for longer periods of time. Rather, they focus at the right times. They have specific entry and exit points that allow them to focus intensely when needed. (p. 72)

Every time a student shares her own thought, or finds confirmation in one of her own responses in discussion with another student, she feels that same small victory. Any perceived progress, no matter how small, motivates students (and their teacher) to happily work even harder.

If you care to read about more specific way to get students motivated to read, be sure to check out the session notes from my Building Interactive Engagement with Text workshop.

Mentoring, Motivating, and Making It Work!

You may know Tim Gunn as cohost and mentor of the Emmy Award-winning reality show Project Runway. What you may not know, however, is that Tim is also a best-selling author and a former professor of Parsons School of Design in New York City.

On television, we see a snazzy, self-confident professional, but Tim Gunn, like the rest of us, went through many trials to become who he is today. In a recent NPR article and podcast, Tim relates how he had to overcome a debilitating stutter and a paralyzing fear of the classroom before ever realizing his identity as a teacher.

If you haven't seen an episode of Project Runway, you’re missing out on not only great entertainment, but also some moments of master mentoring in action! You can still catch episodes of the latest competition (Season 15) on-demand. Even better, you can discover Tim’s take on teaching and mentoring for yourself in Tim Gunn: The Natty Professor; A Master Class on Mentoring, Motivating, and Making It Work.

According to Tim, good teaching can be determined by five qualities, which he has taken to calling his T.E.A.C.H. philosophy. In brief:

• T is for Truth Telling. According to Tim, “a key role of the teacher is to inject reality into situations.”
• E is for Empathy. Along with helping students see reality, we need to discover their individual strengths and limits. “Not everyone has the same toolkit, and so not everyone is going to make the same kind of work. It's only by paying close attention to whom the students are and putting yourself in their shoes that you can truly help them.”
• A is for Asking. Tim admits, “The single best teaching trick I ever learned was to turn every question back on the student.”
• C is for Cheerleading. “In the Project Runway workroom, I tell designers to “Make it work…” and I point out areas in which they are strong.”
• H is for Hoping for the Best. “One of the hardest things for a teacher is to know when to keep quiet and when to let go... We need to have faith that we have done all we can, and then we need to kick our birds out of the nest.”

As a teacher of 25+ years, I continue to seek out methods and motivation to improve my craft, and this book is a satisfying hybrid of both conventional and unconventional schools of thought on the art and science of teaching. Until you get your own copy, here are some of Tim’s thoughts on topics that continue to challenge us all.

Tim Gunn On Good Teaching:

My goal for this book is to start a national conversation about teaching. We talk all the time about the administration of education - test scores and Common Core, classroom size and teachers’ unions - but what we don't talk about nearly enough is the single most important aspect of teaching, the key to determining whether knowledge is actually transmitted: the relationship between teacher and student. There's content and then there's methodology. The content will change, but good teaching is eternal.  (p. xi)

On the Importance of Knowing Your Students:

My view is that good teaching is all about asking questions driven by curiosity. It's about connecting with your students, not only as student but as fellow human beings. In order to give helpful and responsible instruction, you need context - as much information as you can elicit. If you don't know your students, how can you be sure that what you say will be meaningful for them?

On Having All the Answers:

I will add that asking questions of my class removed the sense of obligation I felt early in my teaching career to have all the answers on the first day. I realized over time that it was a journey we were on together. It wasn't up to me to do all the work. I came to realize that a class is a collaboration, as is life!  (p. xii)

On “Teaching Malpractice:”

Shouldn't there be an educational equivalent of the Hippocratic oath? Breaching the oath would hold you accountable for your behavior, as it would with an M.D. Teachers who save us from ignorance should be given the glory (and income!) of open heart surgeons. And yet, being such an unhappy student made me that much more grateful for those teachers who treated me with kindness and respect, or who showed me that I had value. (p. xiv)

On First Impressions:

One thing I learned in the course of my teaching career was to never judge anyone on that first day. When I started out, I was smug about having the students’ characters all figured out at first glance… But students often - I would say, usually - surprise you. As a young teacher, I misjudged so often that ultimately I stop judging all together.  (p. 7)

On the Value of Experience:

There's no substitute for experience. I have the greatest respect for new teachers - their enthusiasm, their eagerness to have a great relationship with their students and to help them learn. At the same time, veteran teachers are great beneficiaries of trial-and-error. Mistakes are so valuable, providing you learn from them. One of the worst things for a teacher is to be stubborn and rigid. (p. 8)

On High Expectations for Students:

When I began teaching, I erred on being overly kind and generous in my assessment of the students’ work. I realized by midterm that it wasn't doing them any favors. What I was really doing was lowering the bar of my expectation to where the students actually were. The trouble with that is, they'll stay there. If the teacher’s expectations are higher than what the students can achieve, they'll keep pushing themselves. It's like running a marathon alone: You can't gauge where you are and so, as I became a more seasoned teacher, I resolved to keep the bar higher. (p. 8)

On Teaching Versus Mentoring:

Teachers and mentors have a common goal: they help students grow into the people they are meant to be. And yet there is a significant difference between being a mentor and being a teacher. As a teacher, I could tell my students what I wanted them to do. As a mentor, that's inappropriate. That's the divide for me. Mentors help their mentees achieve a vision, whatever that vision is. Teachers guide their students toward certain things. Learning to be a mentor after twenty-nine years of being a teacher wasn't a snap for me the way some people assumed it would be. There was a learning curve. (p. 13)

On the Role of the Mentor:

The problem with doing the work for your mentees, or your students, is that they don't learn, yes, but also that you steamroll over their eccentricities when you should be helping them be seen. It's your job to encourage each person's uniqueness, not stamp it out. No two people need the exact same thing from you as a mentor. (p. 15) 

I never tell the Project Runway designers what fabric that should have chosen, or what they should have done with the past three hours, any more than I would tell them that they should be taller. You have to meet people where they are. The questions to keep in the forefront are: What skills do you have? What materials do you have on hand? What's the best thing you can do with them? It's my job to help the designers ask themselves those questions and come up with answers that help them along. (p. 26)

On Creating a Healthy Classroom Environment:

A warning sign to me was when I could hear teachers shouting. If you're shouting, you're in trouble. You hold the power in your two hands. If you have any moment of disbelief about that, who is giving them a grade? You are. You're in charge. You have all the power. There is no reason to raise your voice. You can be angry. You can express disappointment. But never yell. (p. 45)

On Grading and Ranking:

Grading is an important aspect of our job as truth tellers. At colleges, there are often attempts at extortion around grading, such as: “We don't want him to lose his financial aid!” I have no patience for that stuff, at all. I believe testing is democratizing… It’s not a matter of the federal government handing down a syllabus and curriculum. Does anyone feel that education in this nation is adequate? I certainly don't. If we don't have some benchmarks for proficiency, how do we know how well we are really educating people? We've been operating with a blind trust that this is as good as it gets. Well, it's not good enough. 

There's something to be said for rankings. As a competitive swimmer, the first time I came in third instead of fourth, fifth, or last was very motivating to me. Later, I came in second, and eventually one day I came in first. If you work hard, you can achieve practically anything.   (p. 66)

On Empathy:

Empathy is the capacity to understand what other people are experiencing. It's essentially the golden rule: showing others respect and trying to put yourself in their shoes. In our interactions with others, we should always be asking ourselves: "How would I react if someone said or did this to me?" Most teachers of small children are excellent at empathy, and are constantly signaling their role as safe haven, like human lighthouses. (p. 75)

On Giving In to Harassment:

In all areas of life, high maintenance people make me crazy, and I avoid them whenever I can. In my world, the squeaky wheel does not get the grease. People who give into that harassment have only themselves to blame. It's harder in the short-term, but so much easier in the long term. 

Sensitive people often talk about how other people are "triggering" them. Well, someone told me recently that my hairline is receding and I'm getting a bald spot. I didn't mind. It's true! It's a matter of fact rather than their being mean. Being mean, in my view, is teasing someone in a manner calculated to call a shame, or acting hateful because of something they can't change. But stating a fact like “Natalia, your inability to make decisions is causing a problem for us,” is not mean. That's just truth telling. (p. 94)

On Asking Questions:

Socrates figured it out thousands of years ago. Generally speaking, the best teachers are the one to ask their students the most questions. We need to make our students think. We are not mother bird dropping worms into their mouths. We are there to prod them into realizing things on their own.  

There is such thing as being overprepared for a class. You don't want to come in with all the answers. You want to make your students work. You're a guide. You're a mentor and a leader. You're not Google. I confessed to young people when I don't know the answer to something, and sometimes even when I do but want them to find out for themselves: “That’s a good question. Go find out.” (p. 131)

On Being Fully Present:

A chemistry professor wrote to me online and said that he's always believed teaching requires one thing above all others: full human presence. “One cannot pretend that the only thing that matters is the content,” he said. “If you do that you look like an idiot. Instead, one must acknowledge that teaching and learning are both deeply human endeavors that require a lot of mistakes to get right. You have to acknowledge that your students may not want to grow up to be you, and you need to support them in that.” Hear, hear. (p. 138)

On Bad Teachers:

Sometimes... bad experiences can be catalysts. You fight against it. "I won't let that be true!" I have friends who say that teachers - or bosses or in particularly tragic examples, parents, - telling them they were no good was what propelled them on to greatness. I appreciate the value of a good revenge fantasy. I had plenty of naysayers in my academic career. … They did motivate me to prove them wrong… And yet, I don't recommend trying to crush someone's dream as a good teaching strategy. For every student you push forward, how many would you scare away from the field forever?

It's funny, though: I remember teachers were nurturing and inviting and engaging. And then I remember teachers who were hugely off-putting and insulting, and then there are all those ones in between my don't remember at all. And I wonder, is it possible those nameless, faceless teachers who never made any impression at all despite our many months together are in fact the worst ones? (154)

On Differentiated Learning:

I look to students to determine what each needs in order to feel inspiration. As a teacher, I found that the best and worst student in the class were always the two most difficult groups to teach. The middle was easy. The toughest students for me were the ones who were either way ahead of the pack or who were trailing behind. But that's the challenge: to spend each day modulating lessons so that each group moves forward - helping those who are a bit behind catch up, and those who are ahead get even more ahead. (p. 166)

When I studied classical piano, which I did for twelve years, my heroes were Arthur Rubinstein, Vladimir Horowitz, and Van Cliburn. They could play the same piece so differently, even with sheet music. That's one of the most amazing things about teaching: when you see each student bring their own soul to an assignment, you see twenty different right answers. (p. 168)

On Self-Fulfilling Prophecies

One of our most important jobs as teachers is to support our students in whatever it is they want to do, even if it's not what we would do ourselves. As soon as a student enters our class, we must do everything we can to support that student and to make him or her feel believed in and appreciated. It is so depressing when teachers badmouth their students. I always hated to hear complaints in the faculty lounge about how lazy or useless a group of students was.

I work with people who would say after the first day of class, "These students are really going to be great. These other ones are going to flop." I'd say, "Really? That could be a self-fulfilling prophecy." At some point, the burden is on you as a teacher. I similarly cringe when a person complains about how all the people he or she is dating are "terrible in bed." Really? What's the common denominator among all the students and all those dates? You. Maybe you need to take some responsibility for your own experience of those other people. (p. 189)

On Letting Go:

I'd like to talk about how to let go. It can be the hardest thing in the world. Designers don't want to declare a garment done. Parents don't want their kids to leave home. mentors don't want to admit that the ultimate outcome is out of their hands, that they've done all they can and have to cross their fingers and hope it will all work out well for this person and home they've invested so much time and energy. The people we teach become repositories for our fondest hopes. And it can be hard to watch them stroll off into an uncertain future. The last thing I do in a critique is to tell the designer or student, "You're free now! Good luck!" (p. 223)

On Consistency:

One thing I find extremely important in teaching is consistency. If the paper is due on Friday, the paper is due on Friday. We need to be very explicit about what is and isn't grounds for postponing a deadline… . Any solution is fine so long as it's been arranged in advance and does not change randomly.

One easy way to infuriate a student who's worked hard to get something in on time is to then say to other students that it doesn't matter and turning it in the following week is fine. You can have almost any rules you want, but leaving deadlines and boundaries fuzzy is a recipe for disaster. Not to mention, that's not how the real world works, so what fantasy world are you preparing your students for if you don't enforce limits? (p. 226)

Hear, hear.

Thanks, Tim, for your inspiration to so many.

The Best Way to Motivate Students to Complete Complex Tasks

Some time ago I sat down to discuss a classroom observation with an administrator. During our discussion he remarked, “When you asked your students to take out their writing homework, I was curious to see how you'd deal with the kids who didn’t have it. I was actually shocked to see that everyone had it. That's usually not the case.”

Getting students to complete assignments is a nonnegotiable prerequisite to them being able to share their work with classmates. Assigning meaningful and motivating work is certainly half the battle, but getting students successfully started on assignments is also a key way to ensure that the work gets completed in full.

Chip Heath and Dan Heath, bestselling authors of Made to Stick, relate the following anecdote in the #1 New York Times Bestseller Switch: How to Change Things When Change is Hard:

A local car wash ran a promotion featuring loyalty cards. Every time customers bought a car wash, they got a stamp on their cards, and when they filled up their cards with eight stamps they got a free wash.

Another set of customers at the same car wash got a slightly different loyalty card. They needed to collect ten stamps (rather than eight) to get a free car wash but they were given a head start. When they received their cards, two stamps had already been added.

The “goal” was the same for both sets of customers: buy eight additional car washes, get a reward. But the psychology was different: In one case, you were 20 percent of the way toward a goal, and in the other case, you're starting from scratch. A few months later, only 19 percent of the eight stamp customers had earned a free wash, versus 34 percent of the head start group. And the head start group earned a free wash faster.

People find it more motivating to be partly finished with a longer journey than to be at the starting point of a shorter one… One way to motivate action, then, is to make people feel as though they're already closer to the finish line then they might have thought.

This phenomenon, in my opinion, is gold. Simply stated, the best way to get students finished is to get them well started. A key to this might be what psychologists call the Zeigarnik Effect. Have you ever done a puzzle with your kids, only to discover a missing piece? We don't shrug and walk away. Instead, we tear the house apart to find that missing piece! We seek closure now that the task is so close to completion.

Jeremy Dean of PsyBlog explains:

It’s called the Zeigarnik effect after a Russian psychologist, Bluma Zeigarnik, who noticed an odd thing while sitting in a restaurant in Vienna. The waiters seemed only to remember orders which were in the process of being served. When completed, the orders evaporated from their memory.

Zeigarnik went back to the lab to test out a theory about what was going on. She asked participants to do twenty or so simple little tasks in the lab, like solving puzzles and stringing beads (Zeigarnik, 1927). Except some of the time they were interrupted halfway through the task. Afterwards she asked them which activities they remembered doing. People were about twice as likely to remember the tasks during which they’d been interrupted than those they completed…

Procrastination bites worst when we’re faced with a large task that we’re trying to avoid starting. It might be because we don’t know how to start or even where to start.

What the Zeigarnik effect teaches is that one weapon for beating procrastination is starting somewhere…anywhere.

Don’t start with the hardest bit, try something easy first. If you can just get under way with any part of a project, then the rest will tend to follow. Once you’ve made a start, however trivial, there’s something drawing you on to the end.

In “What Is The “Zeigarnik Effect” and How Did I Apply It In The Classroom Today?” educator Larry Ferlazzo relates the following classroom experience:

One of my students does have a strong tendency toward procrastination. Today, we were completing a short “book talk” form..., and everybody was working away on it except for “John” (not his real name). He said he didn’t know what to write. The article I read about the Zeigarnik Effect immediately came to mind, and I asked him to complete the first question, which just asked for the title of the book and the author’s name. I pointed out that all he had to do was copy it from the cover of his book.

He immediately did so, and then went on to complete the entire form. Would I have made that same suggestion if I hadn’t read about Zeigarnik yesterday? Maybe, maybe not. But it has now made me more conscious of thinking about what might be easy tasks or questions that would be good ways to start challenging assignments (or to use to get students who face a variety of challenges starting on doing any assignments)….

In her Scientific American article “On writing, memory, and forgetting: Socrates and Hemingway take on Zeigarnik,” Maria Konnikova, author of Mastermind: How to Think Like Sherlock Holmes, states:

The Zeigarnik Effect is a powerful motivating force. And a motivated mind is a mind that is much more capable of thought and accomplishment - even if it does sometimes need to use a cheat sheet to remember just what it wanted to include, be it in a story or an order. I, for one, know that I will always prefer a waiter who writes my order down to one that remembers it—however urgently—all in his head.

So how can we use the “head start,” or Zeigarnik Effect, in our classroom to motivate students to complete even the most challenging tasks?

• Minimally, for assignments requiring lined paper or an online doc, prompt students to set the paper up before leaving the classroom. In my own class, every paper requires a four line heading, with a precise assignment name on the fourth line. The very act of getting the paper formatted seems to guarantee that more students will have the assignment finished.
• Purposely include more questions/problems on the assignment than you intend for students to complete. Then complete one or two together as a group to get students well started. (Bonus: this will help clear up misunderstandings about appropriate and complete responses).
• In the case of short response formats, provide the answers to the first couple of questions. These can be printed upside down or on the side of the page. Letting students see early successes will motivate them to move on.
• After distributing activity sheets, allow students to complete at least one example with a partner or group. (Bonus: parents appreciate when work comes home partially done, as it typically eliminates complaints of "I don't get it").
• Allow partners to discuss answers, but not write anything, for two minutes. Then, allow students two minutes of uninterrupted writing time on their own. My students have learned to skip easier questions and instead wrestle with the more difficult questions.
• When students are completing open-ended, longer format work, I'll use the above procedure (talk, then write) and then ask student volunteers to share just one sentence of what they've written. This reinforces for them that they're on the right course, helps other students hear what good work sounds like, and allows me, the teacher, to quickly redirect the class as a whole if responses are falling short of what we're trying to achieve.
• Provide exemplars that clearly illustrate model approaches. These exemplars need to be readily accessible to students. Whenever possible, I archive these online so that students can access them remotely, 24/7.
• Provide sentence stems that students can use or adapt to begin their own responses. When my students were struggling with closing sentences, for example, I equipped them with this page of Closing Sentences that used previously-studied topics from their content areas. Not only did students use these to write better sentences, but they began to pay more attention to how other texts brought closure to paragraphs.

What are your ideas for getting students off to a good start?

Three Holocaust Resources You Can Use Tomorrow

Teaching and learning about the Holocaust, and about the society that allowed these crimes to occur, is crucial to build awareness about current episodes of hatred in our own communities. We must learn to stand up for human rights for all people. We need to act against hatred in our society before intolerance approaches the level evident during the Holocaust. As the philosopher George Santayana said, “Those who ignore history are doomed to repeat it.” 

~ Educator’s Resource Toolkit on Lessons from the Holocaust

A week rarely passes that a teacher doesn't reach out to me requesting more resources for teaching about the Holocaust, especially in connection with powerful novels such as Prisoner B-3087 or Night. With that in mind, I recommend three extremely thought-provoking yet accessible resources which you can use in your classroom tomorrow.

The first is an Educator’s Resource Toolkit on Lessons from the Holocaust created by the Center For Literacy Studies at The University of Tennessee, Knoxville. Although the entire resource weighs in at a daunting 127 pages, you'll quickly see that individual pieces of this packet can be utilized effectively in the classroom. My sixth graders were able to read and understand the text with little difficulty, needing prompting and additional help with only those terms you might expect (scapegoat, collaborator, propaganda, inevitable, etc.).

The first selection of the packet titled “Over Twelve Years of Fear” provides students with a well-organized historical context of the period from 1933 to 1945. My class uses this reading as a paired activity following a more general introduction. Students read each page together and then take notes using the Keywords Strategy. Simply explained, the Keywords Strategy requires that students select three to seven terms from the page that they feel are crucial to the reader’s understanding of that page. These three to seven terms are then used to compose a summary sentence for that page. Since the entire reading is roughly twelve pages long, you could stop frequently to either review a page as a group, or do a pairs squared check-in. I prefer individual monitoring and checking (over students’ shoulders), however, as students “in the flow” of the activity seem to prefer this to being interrupted. 

Another portion of this packet which emphasizes interaction with text is the "Sentence Structure Exercise" which begins on page B23. Students read a paragraph (which is already familiar to them in terms of content) and then dissect that paragraph, placing facts in a chart according to who, what, why, when, and where. The resulting notes in that table can then be read across horizontally to give a single-sentence summary of that passage. This activity emphasizes the note-taking strategy previously used in “Over Twelve Years of Fear,” while additionally emphasizing the need to be factually complete when writing summaries.

Are these activities time-consuming? Yes. But in my opinion, students need a strong background in this period in order to better understand any novel which they read. Teachers who need to continually stop mid-reading to provide context are doing their students, and themselves, a disservice.

Take time to look through the entire toolkit as it contains many wonderful resources for student learning across all disciplines. You will find, for example, several activities which could be incorporated into Math class. For all teachers involved, I suggest reading the Methodological Considerations from the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, thoughtfully included in the packet as Appendix A.

I would additionally recommend that teachers seek out first-hand accounts of survivors and other Witnesses. One such piece is “A Factory of Death” by Jeff Jacoby, originally published at Aish.com. I copied and reformatted that particular piece to allow students to take notes more easily and engage with those notes via a subsequent class discussion. In a previous post I discussed the ways in which you can add line numbering to a Google doc; this is key to keeping everyone on the same line as classroom discussions develop.

Students were directed to read “A Factory of Death” from beginning to end, without pause. At the end of the article, students are then instructed to “Read through the article again, and annotate (comment on) the specific tools, techniques, or text features the author uses to build his argument.” For some students, this was a reflection on the corroborating facts of the article; for other students, their notes reflected an appreciation for the language which the author used, including word choice and metaphor.

When students arrived with the completed annotation in hand for our class discussion, I gave them the new instruction to underline every fact or line in the account which confirmed a fact we previously read elsewhere. This helped them see that a personal account can confirm historical records while at the same time elaborating upon them. During this short time underlining, several students added additional notes of discovery from their third reading.

As a follow-up, students read the New York Times piece “Out of Auschwitz” in order to discuss the legacy of this tragedy. If students aren’t asking, “What can we learn from this?” then we’ve likely failed them as teachers and as human beings.

Seeking additional Holocaust resources? See my post on Jewish Resistance in the Holocaust.

Helping Students Track Complex Texts

Q: How do you keep students on track while reading long, complex texts? My students often can't recall previous events, and they're reluctant to search through dozens if not hundreds of pages to find proof for the claims they're making.

With shorter texts, readers typically rely on their memories to recall "what happened" in the text, with a fair degree of accuracy. But what happens when a text is particularly long, involved, and read over an extended period of time? How can we help students better recall and access earlier events?

I rely upon annotating the text directly, and I recommend that method for online passages and shorter texts which might be legally copied. But unless your students own the books they're reading, this isn't a practical technique.

For books, I would recommend Page Titles.

The Immediate Payoff, or "The Short Game"

Upon our return from winter break, we resumed reading Newbery Honor author Gary D. Schmidt's Okay for Now. I realized that students wouldn't recall details of what they had read two weeks ago, so I asked them to number a page in their notebook from 1 to 100 (or, three pages, as it turned it). Students were then directed to skim each page we had previously read and to devise a title which would 1) help to summarize that page, and 2) identify what was most memorable on that page. I modeled the first two pages, and we then completed two more as a group. After that, students were off to the races.

At first some students struggled to choose short titles which yielded a uniquely identifiable summary of the page, but I allowed quiet discussions between partners; these conversations helped students to persevere with the task and be successful.

Once I observed some signs of fatigue, I stopped students and announced that we were going to play a game. I asked each student to mark three favorite titles. "Choose titles you feel are especially descriptive or summative of that page. The titles should be so accurate that anyone in the class will be able to identify the exact page you're describing."

I called on the first student who announced, "My Mother's Smile." Immediately hands shot up all over the classroom, and when I asked for the choral answer, nearly every students replied, "23!" Each student who was correct tallied a point in the margin of their page, including the student who shared the title, since they were successful in guiding everyone to the right page. Note that only a few students had the same exact title, but nearly every student had a similar idea which allowed them to determine the page. By calling out the same page number, they were successful.

Okay, Keith, cool game. But what's the point?

The Lasting Payoff, or "The Long Game"

This turned into an excellent lesson on skimming and getting the gist of a text. Skimming and scanning are two tools that are indispensable for readers, especially in the context of nonfiction texts. In fact, skimming and scanning are likely used more often in everyday reading scenarios for adults than reading of complete texts.

After a long day sightseeing in the city, for example, we might stop at a restaurant and skim the menu posted in their window. What type of fare does this restaurant offer and what prices are we expected to pay? That's skimming. Once we choose our restaurant and are seated, each of us might look quickly over the menu, me for cheapest option, my friend for a vegan option. That's scanning. Once I locate the burger of my choice, I would then read closely to see that all of its ingredients were to my liking. That's my complete reading.

Nearly every day, we as teachers demand that students "read carefully and closely," but with skimming we demand that students do the exact opposite. And not surprisingly, it doesn't come naturally to students. In my classroom, we needed to discuss several times what we as readers could do to avoid the temptation to reread every page.

Students also learned not to be too "creative." Some students who devised an overly creative or funny title for a page soon discovered that no one else had any clue what page they were referring to. Classmates also argued that certain titles, one hundred pages from now, wouldn't make sense once the reader had forgotten the clever connection. Therefore, during the game, students were permitted to change their page titles if they heard another that they preferred.

When we played the game a second day (focusing on pages 30-75), I took the time to suggest alternate "poor" titles for each page, challenging students to explain why these titles weren't as effective as those they had created (some were redundant, others too general, etc). I also began setting them up for the final day's prompt, when I would ask them to describe the benefits of the the Page Titles technique. I asked, "What evidence can we find in the story that our protagonist Doug Swieteck appreciates beauty?" Using their page titles, students were able to identify several examples, from an icy bottle of coke to his mother's eyes to the flowers he plants in the yard to the Audubon images he admires in the library.

The Longer Game

As with all techniques introduced to my class, I provide students with a rationale before introducing the steps. The rationale for Page Titles was "to recall earlier events and ideas in a lengthy text."

But after two days in which we had completed one hundred page titles (roughly half of them at home), I wrote the following prompt on the board (student ideas follow):

What are the benefits of writing Page Titles?

• to summarize the primary ideas or events of the page
• to review pages which were read some time ago
• to help locate pages quickly
• to find where you left off
• to easily locate text evidence
• to remember important quotes
• to identify important passages or events
• to recognize patterns or recurring events 
• to compare and contrast events
• to refer to a certain page that a classmate discusses
• to better help you understand a character's motives or actions
• to eliminate the need to reread every page, every time
• to focus your attention on what you've read

Students admitted that the last bullet (which I needed to provide myself) was particularly important, since we sometimes "read" to the bottom of the page, and "see" every word on that page, but then ask ourselves, "What did I just read?"

In the highly recommended Reading Strategies Book, Jennifer Serravallo offers several strategies for students to use in order to maintain engagement in a book. But can students always tell that they've broken engagement with a text? Struggling to create a page title is a clear indicator that you, as the reader, haven't read a page as closely as needed, or you have failed to make a connection between what you've read here and what you've read before. Creating a page title forces you to be mindful of each page.

For you, the teacher, this technique pays off big time. For reluctant readers, this strategy allows a painless way to review the text and cement understandings. For all readers, Page Titles allow students to more quickly access text evidence in order to respond thoughtfully to class discussions and writing prompts. Strategies such as Serravalo's Piling Together Traits to Get Theories (Strategy 6.21, page 186) or Notice a Pattern and Give Advice (Strategy 7.1, page 194) or Respond to Issues that Repeat (Strategy 7.20, p. 213) are made less intimidating when the scavenger-hunt aspect is removed from identifying direct evidence in a lengthy text. So the Page Titles technique isn't an end in itself, but in fact a tool that achieves loftier goals in the classroom.

Give it a go. I would love to hear about your students' experiences in the classroom!

Reading Reconsidered: A Playbook for Improved Practice

Whether you’re a new teacher of reading, a seasoned practitioner, or an old dog (like me!), Reading Reconsidered is a must read. Unlike so many other books on the subject of literacy instruction, this text provides an astounding repertoire of strategies and structures, tools and techniques, which can improve the instructional practice of educators at any level.

Where needed, the authors provide references to the studies behind their methods, but the book isn’t meant to be theoretical. It’s meant to be an action plan. The majority of practices discussed in the book are from the classrooms of effective teachers (many from Doug Lemov’s Uncommon Schools), teachers who have led ordinary students to achieve extraordinary results. The examples provided come from countless familiar texts (Grapes of Wrath, Number the Stars, The Great Gatsby, The Outsiders, Lily's Crossing, Lord of the Flies, Chains, etc.) which are taught in thousands of classrooms across the country. For seasoned teachers, many of this book’s ideas will reinforce and validate what you’re already doing in the classroom. As I read, I often found myself saying, “I’ve always done that, and I knew that it worked, but I never knew why until now.”

In other instances, I experienced small epiphanies.

Many teachers, for example, wonder why students do so well in reading comprehension when assessed informally or formatively but then perform poorly when assessed summatively or on “cold” material such as that found on standardized tests. The authors explain that a common cycle in classrooms is reading, discussion, and then writing. This typically yields good results, with all students seeming to be “on the same page.”

However, this particular cycle often yields a false positive; rather than expressing their understanding of the reading, students instead express their understanding of the discussion of that reading. The classroom discussion spackled over any misconceptions or glaring gaps in knowledge, and every student as a result now seems to possess a full comprehension of the text (including those students who may have neglected to even read the text, but paid diligent attention to the ensuing discussion!). That cycle's limitations never occurred to me, and I’ll admit I’ve been lulled by these false positives over the years, thinking that my students knew more than they truly did.

Regarding this practice, the book states, “You want engaged, enthused, deep-thinking readers driving discussion, but you also want to be sure that all students are able to generate solid meaning themselves.” The authors then show how to improve this cycle, as well as how to implement other reading-writing-discussion cycles which better encourage and assess comprehension of, and interaction with, the chosen text. In regard to TDQ (text dependent questions), the authors further explain:

TDQs are those that cannot be answered without a firm knowledge of the text itself. They cannot be faked by carefully listening to the discussion, for example, or by conducting an earnest but inexact reading of the chapter. They cannot be answered by recalling yesterday's reading or by having a strong background knowledge of the subject. To answer TDQs requires attentive reading. Nothing else will do. (p. 75)

Please realize that this book is NOT a quick read! That is meant not as a criticism but as a compliment. Nearly every single page of my copy has margins jammed with notes. Nearly every single chapter has caused me, a teacher of 25+ years, to tweak what I’m doing in my classroom. I've revisited the chapter on Close Reading, for example, more times than I can count. While I’ve plowed through dozens of other books on literacy with only the slightest impact on my teaching, I’ll humbly admit that this book has helped me fine tune my practice in nearly every aspect. Using the myriad models and exemplars provided in the text as well as the DVD and web site, I’ve improved discussion, assessments, lesson structure and pacing, often with the slightest change.

That’s what I think is most notable about this book: rather than demand that teachers change everything they’re doing, the authors provide ways for educators to reflect on their practices, ask the right questions about what they're trying to achieve, and implement those targeted changes that aggregate impressive results over time.

To whet your appetite, here are a few thoughts from Reading Reconsidered:

On the job of the reading teacher:

The reading teacher's job... is to ensure that each and every student - privileged in knowledge and skills or not, motivated (at first) or not - moves steadily and reliably toward mastery of advanced, complex skills. This requires understanding how such skills are built, not just hoping they will bloom. (p. 2)

On "whole books," or "common texts," as source texts:

One of the most important aspects of choosing texts is choosing the types of texts — most important, books, plenty of them, rather than a constant diet of excerpts, passages, and other selections. We are strong believers in “the power of the book,” of students building a sustained relationship with the text over time and coming to understand its perspective and mode(s) of narration- and how they shift. In fact, only by glimpsing these changes and variations as part of a sustained relationship between reader and text can students really learn to read… Even in an era of test-based accountability, the most successful schools and teachers consistently opt, in our observations, for books — and books of substance — as the core of their instructional choices. (p. 25)

On the limits of leveling books:

The places where books fell when we graphed them didn't seem in accord with our sense of what students really found it difficult. This is best shown in the nearly equivalent Lexile scores given to Lord of the Flies and The Outsiders. They are, according to the graph, all but interchangeable. In terms of our students’ experiences reading them, however, they couldn't be more different. One was among the most challenging books our seventh graders read, while the other was among the easiest. (p. 27)

On the importance of reading for pleasure:

A world in which students did nothing but slog through hundreds of pages of Dickens would be a pretty dark and Dickensian one. Our advice is to address the plagues with balance and judiciousness. Should you read some texts just for the sheer joy of them? Or for the power of the story a certain book tells about the world? Of course! You don't need us to tell you there are lots of other reasons to choose books than text complexity, no matter how much it helps prepare students for college. (p. 43)

On the importance of challenging texts:

Fed on a diet of only what's “accessible” to them — but which is also often insufficient to prepare them for college — they are consigned to lower standards from the outset by our very efforts to help them. So the question for a harder text should not be whether but how, in addition to what. (p. 44)

On text dependent questions:

Text-dependent questions are specific and can be answered only when students have read carefully and understood an author’s specific arguments. They do not preclude other worthy questions; in fact they often precede them. (p. 62)

On close reading:

As we noted earlier, regardless of what line(s) of questioning you choose to employ in a particular lesson, trying to Close Read with insufficiently complex text is unlikely to succeed. The rigor and value of establishing meaning correlate to the rigor and value of the text.(p. 83)

A key aspect of Close Reading, ultimately, is identifying and attending to a line of inquiry. It's what you do when you write a paper about a text. So it is often helpful to know before you start what idea you want students to read a text for. This does not have to mean there is a “right answer” so much as a consistent area of focus — a line of inquiry you will follow. Often this means modeling how to “argue a line,” tracing a theme, a motive, a conflict, or an image through the complexity of a text. Other times, it could mean asking students to identify the “line” they find the most interesting. That's great too — especially if they've seen you model how to do it right. (p. 99)

For example, it is important to use Close Reading skills in response to both challenge (“Wow, that is really hard; I'm going to go back through and tear it apart until I get what she means”) and opportunity (“Wow, that imagery is so striking; I'm going to go back through and make sense of why it seems so important”). (p. 102)

On secondary texts:

A powerful, rigorous, and engaging primary text is one of the key drivers of successful literacy instruction, but it is also useful to think about the additional shorter texts that relate to the primary text in some way. These secondary texts could give context, provide background, show a contrast, or develop a useful idea that helps students better engage the primary text. Nonfiction, we argue, is ideal as a secondary text. (p. 122)

On writing for reading:

Long ago, before credit cards and the Euro, when you traveled, you could use only money coins in the kingdom where you were at the time. Regardless of the amount of money you had, if it wasn't in the “coin of the realm,” it wouldn't help you much. To this day, ideas, interpretations, and analyses are similar. They get full faith and credit only if they are expressed in the coin of the realm, which, in college and in much of professional life, means in writing. Written responses are the way students demonstrate their depth of understanding. In almost any college classroom — certainly in the humanities — it is the format in which mastery is finally expressed and in which ideas get the fullest credit. (p. 160)

On the perils of confusing discussion with text comprehension:

Certainly at some point we want students to combine their own insights with the best of what their peers thought, but our responsibility as reading teachers is to ensure that students can create meaning directly from reading, on their own and without the support of a roomful of peers… Some of our smartest students are able to compensate for a lack of critical reading skills with good listening skills, and the two are not the same. (p. 163)

From Reading Reconsidered, pp. 164, 165

On student autonomy:

As students gain autonomy in their thinking, they’ll ideally begin initiating Stop and Jots without teacher prompting. Student-generated practices include marking up a text with notes in the margin, writing a quick self-generated summary at the end of a particularly challenging text, or posing a question regarding the author’s tone between paragraphs while reading. These are useful behaviors to look for to assess the degree to which students have internalized writing as a thinking tool: Do they grab their pencils and scribble notes of their own volition as they are reading or listening to discussions? (p. 169)

On revision in writing (using Read-Write-Discuss-Revise):

But revising is more than just a tool to bolster discussion. The act of revision forces students to refine their initial analysis. Writing to define is among the most rigorous and important tasks we can ask of our students. Consistently asking students to revise their writing supports them in effectively polishing their writing and ideas. Further, asking students to revise based on insights from the discussion causes them to listen better during discussion. It socializes students to listen differently — they must listen actively for ways to develop their initial ideas. (p. 173)

On explicit and implicit vocabulary instruction:

A primary goal of Explicit Vocabulary Instruction is to model for students the depth of knowledge that is involved in mastering words: to own a word has to know not just its definition but its different forms, its multiple meanings, its connotations, and the situations in which it is normally applied. Explicit Vocabulary Instruction models this for students by making a case study out of certain words and their application. Its goal is depth, and it requires studying fewer words better. It is a deep dive into a limited number of words — sometimes just one or two — rather than a cursory introduction or gloss-over of long lists of terms. (p. 253)

One of the best ways to ask students to use and apply new vocabulary words is to ground your questions in the text. Consider asking students to describe situations or novels that you are reading. (For example, “Which one of our vocabulary words describes how Jesse must be feeling right now? Why?”) (p. 283)

If you've ever read Teach Like a Champion, consider this a worthy companion. Reading Reconsidered describes how many techniques (such as Front the Writing, p. 165) from TLAC are put into play in the reading/writing classroom.

Reading Reconsidered is a huge book of over 400 pages, but don't let that daunt you. When we buy a recipe book we don't think, "I can never make all of this food at once!" Instead, we try one dish at a time, gaining confidence in an ever-expanding repertoire of dishes and the requisite skills needed to create them.

If your PLN is seeking a change-provoking title for a book club, this text will provide you with at least a year’s worth of study and discussion. It's especially effective in this regard due to the numerous specific teaching strategies, the DVD exemplars of these strategies in action, and the extensive print resources provided in text chapters as well as the appendix.

Highly recommended for teachers-to be, as well as practicing professionals at any level.

Reading for Real: The Benefits of Silent Reading in the Classroom

One way that motivation and engagement are instilled and maintained is to provide students with opportunities to select for themselves the materials they read and topics they research. One of the easiest ways to build some choice into the students’ school day is to incorporate independent reading time in which they can read whatever they choose. Yet this piece of the curriculum is often dropped after the primary grades. 

~Reading Next: A Vision for Action and Research in Middle and High School Literacy

Do you want your students to love reading? Allow them to read more.

We over-complicate this. We ask students to read, but then we ply them with onerous reading logs or written responses that transform reading into a detested chore.

For over twenty years, I taught my students how to read well, but I'm ashamed to admit that I only occasionally inspired a lasting love of reading. Too few students went on to become voracious readers for me to claim success in this regard.

But that changed some years ago when I began to include sustained silent reading (SSR) in my classroom. For many years I followed the edict that independent reading was meant for home, and that it should be recorded in a draconian manner in a reading log. But after experiencing the headaches of these logs with my own daughters, I vowed to find a better way.

In prior years, the irony never escaped me that many times during transitional periods, I was forced to admonish students to put away their self-selected books because we were moving on to the next part of a lesson. In other words, "How dare you read in Reading class?"

If you’re a fan of the television drama Law and Order, you know that suspects are identified by determining motive and opportunity. We can grow readers by providing these two variables! In my classroom, SSR time is called SQUIRT (Super Quiet Uninterrupted Independent Reading Time). This fifteen minutes, which occurs at the start of each 90 minute block of ELA, is held sacred by providing everyone, including the teacher, the opportunity to read quietly.

Just a few benefits of SQUIRT observed since its inception:

1. Students see their teacher, and their peers, as models for reading.
2. Students have immediate access to a wide variety of reading materials. 
3. Reading takes on a social aspect when students read together (even quietly) or when students are allowed to discuss selections or recommend books to classmates. 
4. The reading session acts as a "palate cleanser," allowing students to set aside the drama of the previous class periods and prime their minds for language instruction. 
5. Students wrestle with content taught in the classroom using books of appropriate challenge and personal interest. According to the Educational Leadership report titled Synthesis of Research/ Reading Comprehension: What Works, a prime benefit of independent reading time “is the sheer opportunity to orchestrate the skills and strategies that are important to proficient reading—including comprehension. As in sports and music, practice makes perfect in reading, too.” 
6. Students build a vast store of vocabulary and subject area knowledge. That same Synthesis states: "Reading results in the acquisition of new knowledge, which, in turn, fuels the comprehension process. Research of the late 1970s and early '80s consistently revealed a strong reciprocal relationship between prior knowledge and reading comprehension ability. The more one already knows, the more one comprehends; and the more one comprehends, the more one learns new knowledge to enable comprehension of an even greater and broader array of topics and texts."
7. The teacher can observe student reading behaviors firsthand.

That last benefit is especially powerful. Many teachers use self-assessments to gather initial impressions of students' reading habits and preferences. Steven L. Layne provides an excellent self-assessment in Igniting a Passion for Reading, an invaluable resource for those teachers seeking to grow avid readers. But ongoing observation yields equally valuable results.

On a daily basis I note what genres and topics interest individual students, and I also note who can persist with longer texts over time. I observe how students' book choices are influenced by those of their peers or by the book they’ve just completed. I can confidently recommend “next-reads” for individual students based upon what I've seen them enjoy. For example, the student who just finished the nonfiction baseball book Why is the Foul Pole Fair? might be interested in reading a DiMaggio biography or some short fiction by Kinsella.

Realize that Sustained Silent Reading is NOT a reading program. SSR is not intended to take the place of direct instruction or student-centered inquiry approaches to language arts. In an article at AdLit.org, Joan Sedita, founding partner of Keys to Literacy, additionally warns that

“Educators must be careful to not consider SSR as an intervention for struggling readers or as an activity that can take the place of direct, systematic instruction to address weaknesses in reading skills. For example, for students who need to develop fluency skills, research has not yet confirmed whether independent silent reading with minimal guidance or feedback improves reading achievement and fluency … because struggling readers are not likely to make effective use of silent independent reading.”

So how can teachers make the most productive use of SSR in the classroom? 

Below I've listed concerns which teachers often share, along with some suggested solutions.

Students will use this time for activities other than reading. 

Only if you let them. From the beginning, establish strict guidelines for SSR and enforce those guidelines with vigilance, especially when first initiating the program. Modeling cannot be overemphasized.

Some students will come to class without anything to read.

Create a “recommended reads” section of your classroom library stocked with popular titles, short stories, magazines, etc. This also serves as an excellent resource for early finishers to find a quick read.

How will I know that students are “really reading” during quiet reading time?

Institute occasional opportunities for students to share what they’re reading with others. Check out this fun assessment suggested by educator Catlin Tucker. Other check-ins are available, such as those suggested in No More Independent Reading Without Support. The authors explain that “when we set children loose day after day with no focus or support, it can lead to fake reading and disengagement… It’s our job to equip children with the tools they need when we’re not there.”

My administrator doesn’t see the value in this activity.

Share some of the quotes on this page, as well as research from the links collected on my original roundtable hand-out.

I can't see myself reading with them; it simply isn’t a good use of my time.

Students need to see their teacher enjoying literature. Plus, you need time to read widely in many genres and authors in order to confidently recommend texts to your students.

We teach according to the standards. Quiet reading doesn’t have a place in our curriculum.

Concepts discussed in class can be extended to discussions about students’ independent reading. If the class is studying similes and metaphors, for example, students can be asked to look for these in their own reading. Students can also be encouraged to bookmark examples of writing which they feel to be exemplary in any way.

We like the idea of independent reading, and we feel that time spent reading is necessary. But we need help teaching students to read mindfully.

For this, I would recommend Doug Lemov's Reading Reconsidered and a method he calls Accountable Independent Reading (AIR).

In a chapter titled Approaches to Reading; Reading More, Reading Better, Lemov writes, "Accountable Independent Reading involves students in reading texts independently... and allows teachers to assess whether effective reading is actually happening. Much of the reading students do in school fails to meet these criteria. And, unfortunately, the students reading the least are often the ones who need to read the most." Multiple experiences with AIR (in its various forms described in the book) help students to read more purposefully when reading on their own. See my complete write-up on this invaluable resource.

We can’t allow choice reading, but we want to use SSR for assigned reading. How can we ensure that students are engaging with the text?

Choice reading is really the point of SSR, but having students read an engaging assigned text is a step in the right direction. Accountability can be ensured through a guiding question, post-its, or a written reflection that allows students to focus on those aspects of the text which appeal to them or challenge them at their independent level. And again, refer to the AIR methods described in Lemov's Reading Reconsidered.

What excuse is keeping you from taking the plunge? I would love to hear your experiences in the comment section below.

Recommended Reading:

In No More Independent Reading Without Support, authors Debbie Miller and Barbara Moss ask, "What if there was a time when things slowed down? No rotations, activities, or worksheets—just you, your kids, and books. Would you take it?"

From the publisher: "We know children learn to read by reading. Is independent reading valuable enough to use precious classroom minutes on? Yes, writes Debbie Miller and Barbara Moss, but only if that time is purposeful. DEAR and SSR aren’t enough. Research shows that independent reading must be accompanied by intentional instruction and conferring. Debbie and Barbara clear a path for you to take informed action that makes a big difference,"

For additional online resources, access the original roundtable document presented at the "Hot Topics by Top Teachers" session at the 2016 New Jersey Educational Association Conference.