Compare & Contrast

I did a workshop yesterday at the Rockland County BOCES for K-6 librarians and other literacy types on pairing books for the Common Core.  The ELA Anchor Standard 9 is "Analyze how two or more texts address similar themes or topics in order to build knowledge or to compare the approaches the authors take."  The specific standard varies by grade, of course, and is different for fiction and nonfiction.  But the basic idea is one of the best ways to start analyzing books.  Participants in the workshop paired up, with each pair reading two short biographies of the same person.  

First as a group, we looked at Jane O'Connor's Drawing with Scissors, illustrated by Jessie Hartland, and Jeanette Winter's Henri's Scissors, both about Matisse.  We'd talked about aspects of picture book biographies that kids might compare: illustrations, structure, tone, content, scope, point of view, vocabulary, uses, etc.  I provided everyone with a simple compare/contrast graphic organizer in which books could be contrasted by a few categories like those.  The O'Connor biography uses a frame of a student writing a paper on Matisse, and includes photographs, reproductions of Matisse's artwork, and some childlike drawings from the student narrator.  The artwork in Winter's book echoes Matisse's but doesn't include reproductions or photographs.  The O'Connor tone is upbeat and informative; Winter's text is shorter and more lyrical.  

 In looking at other biographies, some of the pairs of participants found one better for reading aloud, while the other worked for independent reading.  Some biographies focused on one part of the person's life while many cover the whole life in brief.  Some participanats found the two books complemented each other while others found they provided pretty much the same information.  The goal was to try an exercise to do with students, and the response was enthusiastic.  Middle school librarians felt that it would even work well with their students, short as the biographies were.  For younger students, a Venn diagram might be a better way for them to organize similarities and differences.

Sometimes it's easier to see a book's features in comparison to another book.  For example, we tend to assume biographies will be chronological, as most are.  So when a student reads What's the Big Idea, Ben Franklin? by Jean Fritz, the structure may seem insignificant.  But if the student then reads, Now & Ben: The Modern Inventions of Benjamin Franklin by Gene Barretta, the differences in the structures jump out. Both books supply a lot of information about Franklin's life but Now & Ben does it through looking at his inventions and innovations and their influences on the present. The discussion topic is then, "Why did the author do it this way?" and "How well does it work?"

 

The Compare-Contrast graphic organizer we used can be found here:

http://www.readwritethink.org/files/resources/lesson_images/lesson275/compcon_chart.pdf

 

This Friday I am speaking at the New York State School Library
Association, then, the following Thursday at the Pennsylvania School Librarians Association -- with a trip to the Washington (DC) Science & Engineering Festival, and a school visit in between (aside from the usual full time teaching load). Busy. But good busy. If you were to read the headlines, you would see how Common Core is a "wedge issue" that some hope will give a grass roots boost to conservatives. Or, about parents holding their children back from being tested. Or teachers and librarians angry about assessments. All of these are true. But the reality I see on the ground, in the many talks I give, is engagement, work: rolled up sleeves. Almost universally I find professionals who understand the need for the Common Core standards (or whatever the slightly modified standards are called in their state) and want to find ways to help implement them.

Here is yet one more headline -- to add to the links Mary Ann offered, and the CC-grumbling I just mentioned: Upshot As many of you must have seen, the Times is launching its new "upshot" feature with an analysis that shows how the middle and lower classes in the US are falling behind peers in other parts of the world. We can -- we should -- debate why this is so (an apt CC exercise). But it is a perfect response to the CC-resistance. It is one thing to say the standards are imperfect, the roll out uneven or botched, the assessments poorly designed, the overlap between student assessment and the judging of professionals an ill-considered mixing of apples and oranges. It is another to say that we need to prepare our students so that 1) they can fight for a society in which they have their best chance of success 2) they are best prepared to flourish in a global environment. Going back to what we had before CCSS makes no sense. Hoping that some non-existent structure of new standards would magically make everyone happy is, just that: magical thinking. So we are left with the standards we have, improving them, implementing them, working together.

And that is the other note I am seeing: teachers more willing, even eager, to hear from librarians. Librarians who recognize the need to show what they can do. A busy time -- but good. 

Lean In? Recline? The Classroom Materials Are All Around Us

As a woman, a working mother, an educator working in a historically female profession, and as the mother of one daughter and the aunt to four girls, I have had a range of personal responses to the different discussions about the status of women in the workforce in America that have surfaced over the past few months. Should we Lean In and Ban Bossy? Should we "Recline" instead? Do we have a "Confidence Gap," as Katty Kay and Claire Shipman suggest in the latest issue of The Atlantic? What are the ways in which women in particular, and families in general, are impacted by growing income inequality and the shrinking middle class? How has the opportunity to telecommute changed family and workplace dynamics? The threaded discussions in the Facebook feed, around the dining room table, and at work have been fascinating.

But what I think about these issues is not really important. I want to know what teenagers, male and female, think of these conversations. This constellation of articles and news stories is ideal for creating classroom conversations that matter to young people. As educators, our job is not to tell young people what to think. Our job to teach them how to think. To expect them to think. To give them the opportunity to think.

Back in January, Myra and I wrote about ways of exploring work and identity in high school social studies. The conversation about women and work, about how women work, and the intersection of social, cultural, and political forces that occurs in each of our lives is an important one. I would love to know how high school teachers are harnessing this national dialogue, which seems to represent much of the spirit behind the Common Core State Standards regarding perspective, point-of-view, evidence and information, and argumentation.  Just consider these questions alone:

• What is happening to women in the white collar workforce? Blue collar? What's the evidence? 
• Who is writing about women in the workforce, and why? 
• What is the cause of income stagnation in the United States? Are women and men impacted equally by this?
• What causes income inequality? Why is the gap between the top income earners and everyone else growing wider and wider?

Meeting the Common Core State Standards does not require spending lots of money. Sometimes, the  materials we need are all around us. 

Clearing Our Heads and Finding a Focus: Putting Thoughtful Engagement with Content in the Forefront

Have we forgotten the depth vs. coverage arguments? I thought this was settled: Depth of understanding is better for students than racing across the curriculum. That is, teachers need to allow students the opportunity to build in-depth knowledge, not settle for bits and pieces of unconnected facts. And yet, once again, this issue is upon us.

Here is what is becoming ever more apparent to me. When covering standards is our focus, it becomes a race to the finish line. Content flies out the window. It becomes secondary to process. Our students become secondary, too. And that is what is being reflected in educational journals. Here’s an example. In the March 2014 issue of Language Arts, the editors wrote about first grade teachers who were teaching folktales and tall tales about Paul Bunyan, John Henry, Johnny Appleseed, Annie Oakley, and Davy Crockett. This is part of the first grade social studies curriculum, and the teachers were also connecting this curriculum to the ELA standards for reading and writing. However, they also wanted to include tales that represented the students’ cultural and ethnic backgrounds, but there wasn’t enough time to build this more relevant curriculum.

Think about this. Think deeply. There wasn’t enough time in first grade to stop and make the curriculum relevant to the students. There was, instead, a pacing calendar that provided the teachers with their marching orders—“Move on!” As I continued to read articles in Language Arts, I continued to see authors voicing this same concern again and again. When covering standards is our goal, we neglect the reason we are in school in the first place—to teach our students, to nurture their curiosity, to help them appreciate, question, and investigate the world.

Trust me, this is leading someplace. When thoughtful engagement with content is our focus, we can embed the standards in our teaching. We can have it all—content and process. One place to begin thoughtful engagement with curriculum is with nonfiction literature that itself reflects meaningful learning. So today, I want to focus on one book that does this as an example. That book is The Griffin and the Dinosaur: How Adrienne Mayor Discovered a Fascinating Link Between Myth and Science by Marc Aronson. (Yes, Marc is one of the bloggers on this website, but that’s not the point. The point is that this is the type of book we need.)

Why do we need this type of book? We need this type of book because it shows someone engaged in thinking. In this case, Adrienne Mayor was thinking about the links between myths and fossils. She was thinking that our ancestors’ stories were based on observations in the natural world. And, over the course of years, she showed that this was so. This was not simply an overnight “aha!” moment. Adrienne Mayor’s discoveries involved years of reading, speaking to scientists, traveling to archaeological sites, and sometimes making mistakes. And, importantly, this work continues. As our students read about Adrienne Mayor and discuss her work, it’s easy to embed CCSS standards into what we are doing. This is important too. But let’s think about why we are doing what we are doing. Are we sharing exciting stories about thinking? Are we inviting students to think too? In my opinion, this comes first. 

Spring Renewal

Re-visiting Our New Year’s Resolutions

May is right around the corner and I think it is a great time to take out your list of New Year’s resolutions and see how you are doing.  Now if I were in charge of these resolutions, I would have made it very easy for you.  One simple resolution: read more nonfiction.  You can start today!  It is never too late to update a resolution list.  Spring is a great time for action – tax season is over for most of us so why not celebrate with some great nonfiction? 

Set aside your favorite fiction and just pick up some great nonfiction.  Don’t worry; your fiction will still be there.  I know – I do this all the time.  Why do this?  Reading nonfiction adds a balance and experience to your life that you will appreciate.  I hear some exasperation right now, but seriously – don’t you want to know what really happened? Or learn how to follow directions? Or what foods can provide better nutrition? (Blueberries of course!) One mystery solved and millions more to go.

Guess What? Reading nonfiction doesn’t always need to be a book.  The Internet is full of ripe and ready articles to satisfy any reading taste you might have. 

My recommendation today is about a medical mystery that caused many deaths until a group of dedicated professionals solved it. 

 Red Madness:                                                         

How a Medical Mystery Changed What We Eat

By Gail Jarrow Calkins Creek/Boyds Mill Press, April 1, 2014

It just hit the book stores this month.  I picked up the ARC of this book at ALA Mid-Winter in Philly and fell asleep reading it every night during the conference trying to read as fast as I could.  The pacing, the intrigue, the idea that we had this mystery illness killing children and adults in the early part of the 20^th Century.  Why?  I won’t give away what the cause of this illness was.  What I will say is the use of photos to convey the gruesome symptoms and death of so many was just heartbreaking, but it was very compelling to read on to find out why it happened and then how it was solved. A perfect example of cause and effect reading experience. 

The narrative text layout with font changes to cue the reader to the local vignettes describing the many tragedies is riveting.  Source notes, author comments and all the text features put together a compiling story.   Recommended Ages 10 and up.  Starred Review from Kirkus – well deserved.

Glad to be back here with the team. I am blogging about our starting this up again in my SLJ blog. One thing that I am seeing -- and would love to hear about from all of you -- is the many, many different CCres. That is, the implementation, who is doing the work (school and/or public librarians; teachers; literacy coaches; admins; parents), the nature of the challenge, the assessments, vary from state to state. So while the standards are the same and many aspects of the CC are the same, the experience on the ground varies widely. While I hear about states bowing out, resistance, parents opting out of tests, I am seeing a lot "can do," "give me suggestions," "how can I help" spirit.

So might be nice to build a kind of state by state grid -- what is going on in each state. What information sources are librarians using -- their own? Ideas from other states? Which? That way we can start to see who can help whom, and how. 

Extras: Do They Add? or Are They Bad?

Recently I was copied on an email sent from a well-known nonfiction author to other nonfiction writers.  The author was wondering about how to deal with an editor who was suggesting the addition of lots of "extras" to the book she was writing. These extras could be videos linked to an e-book, sidebars or "fun facts," photographs and illustrations, graphs, charts, tables, and more.

Now those of us who teach may already be aware of the research that says that "extras" that distract readers attention from the main idea of a text do affect comprehension...and not in a good way. Kids may begin to believe that the interesting facts offered are, in fact, the main idea. After all, look how interesting they are! They must be important.

Here's what I think. When all the nonfiction features are working together in a supportive way, then that constitutes excellent nonfiction. Check out Locomotive, the best example I know of how nonfiction features support each other. That is, the main idea, structure, style, integration of visual information, and disciplinary thinking are mutually supportive. An excellent text doesn't need extraneous extras to amuse and excite readers. It's already engaging enough. 
 

Don't get me wrong. I am not against extras. I am only against extras that distract readers and don't help them build understanding of the main idea of a book.  And, I am finding it very encouraging that writers and teachers are coming to the same conclusion. That's probably because good writers don't need distracting extras because they write so well that their writing both informs and holds our interest.

So, I am thinking that when we look as "extras," we ought to ask: Does that feature support the main idea of the book or does it distract from its message? Such a simple question just might yield surprising answers.