PoPCast Episode 04 Transcript

Travis: Hello, and welcome back to Popcast. I'm one of your hosts, Travis Leech.

Whitney: And I'm Whitney La Rocca.

Travis: And we are going to talk about today an important practice in the language arts classroom; something that we believe deeply in in our classroom practice and something that we're going to try to pitch you on today: independent choice reading. We're going to talk about what it is, talk about why you need it, and talk about how we can connect it to the Patterns of Power process.

So first of all, what is independent reading? So, our thoughts on independent reading are that it is students choosing texts to read and giving students time that is carved out during the class period to do that reading. This isn't like a skill focused specific space. This is just time to read. Whitney, do you want to add on to that at all?

Whitney: Well, it's a time to find our identities in reading. It's a time for us to learn to love reading when we're told what to read and how much to read. And it's very mandated. Then we tend to lose that love, and what we want in our classrooms is our students who love reading, and to find those authors that they end up loving too and define the types of books that they end up loving because we know that readers are writers and writers or readers, and if they see themselves as readers, they're going to discover some of those moves that the writers of those books are making. That our students as writers can turn around and do too. So it develops their literacy identities, but also ties back to the writing that our students will do.

Travis: Yeah, thank you. And I think NCTE (National Council of Teachers of English) agrees with your thoughts. There, I was just looking at their position statement on independent reading, and just pulled what I thought was a really nice little quotable from that position statement where NCTE says, “Student choice in text is essential because it motivates, engages, and reaches a wide variety of readers. The goal of independent reading,” according to NCTE, and their belief is, “It's an instructional practice to build habitual readers with conscious reading identities.” So really, just affirming our thoughts here with this.

Whitney: And I love the habitual readers. We want reading to become a habit for our students. We want them to outside of school, pick up a book and read it. It's such an opportunity for our students to enter worlds that maybe they're not a part of in their everyday life, and to learn about other people and really build empathy. There's just so much that opens when we are readers. Right? Our brain just becomes more rounded, our brain becomes rounded, we become more well rounded when we read and become and make that a habit and learn about the world and life through reading. I'd like to add on to the position statement from NCTE. That chunk, that you read one of my favorite books around the importance of self-selected reading and independent reading is Game Changer! by Donalon Miller and Colby Sharp. I don't know if you've read that one, but it is one of my favorites, and it gets me excited and motivated to continue independent reading in the classroom. But one thing that really struck me in that book was this quote: “When we diminish a child's reading choices, we diminish the child who made that choice. When we celebrate the book we celebrate the child.” 

And so that again, we're tying the child back to book choice right? And giving them that choice shows autonomy in the classroom and independence, and our readers don't have to be dependent on us as to what they're going to read, and for how long they're going to read and not be engaged in it. We want them to have that agency to pick up a book on their own and know why they picked it up and enjoy reading it.

Travis: Absolutely. And I think that is so. That's something that we can model as well as the classroom teacher, modeling, choosing our own books, and doing some of that reading as well independently while students are doing that. I know that's not the only thing that I'm doing as the teacher in the class. Oftentimes I'm spending my time during choice reading, interacting with students, having those brief conferences to check in: “Tell me something about your book? How's it going? Hmm! I've seen. I see that you're still kind of in the same page area as you were earlier in the week. Tell me more about that is, are, how are things going in the book? Do we want to find a new book?” So I think I'm I'm playing kind of that facilitator role of trying to get students into that just right book for them where they're going to be engaged.

They might be appropriately challenged, or they're just gonna have sometimes can reading just be for fun. Is that okay? Can we just find something to me? I'm thinking, in the graphic novel space, that brings me joy. Also, knowing that I'm going to get a lot out of a lot of the graphic novels that I've been reading lately. Give me a lot of great story, and teach me quite a bit especially. And the connections that are made between the text itself and the amazing illustrations. I feel like I'm doing a lot of good intellectual work while also getting entertainment out of it.

Whitney: Well, there's so much thinking that we have to do when we read graphic novels we have to infer so much more and make those connections and synthesize the information so much of what's on the page, because we don't have as many words to figure that out. We really have to make those connections between the text and the pictures. I just think graphic novels are so powerful, and we have so many students that love to read those so I certainly don't want to diminish their choices by telling them not to read those, because I know the power behind them. 

And I think that when we do confer with students, we are finding out from what we've taught them in reading, what are they applying? What have they learned as a reader, through my reading instruction, through my lessons that I've provided. What are they taking into their own reading with that as well? Because any lesson that we give our students. We want them to apply with their own reading, whether it's a writing lesson or a reading lesson. We want them to apply that with their own work as well. That's the that's the whole point of it of learning and and teaching is to teach them things that they can continue to use throughout their life, not just in that one moment of time that we give them.

So when we think about these literacy identities and what is happening during this independent reading, we can certainly argue that it is an extremely important practice in our classroom. That's why we're doing this podcast to really promote the importance of this and from Deborah Mcphee's and Patricia pause, learning to be Literate more than a single story. We love this quote, too, learners have positively literous positive.

Whitney: alright. So when we think about the importance in our classroom, one thing that we have pulled from is learning to be Literate more than a single story by Deborah Mcphee and Patrick Patricia Paw. And here, they say, learners who have positive literacy identities see literacy as an active process and themselves as agents who use the language arts to achieve goals important to them and their lives. Learners with positive literacy identities also see themselves as capable, and they go on to say, “Confidence in one's ability shapes cognitive development,” and I love that Travis. “Confidence in one's ability shapes cognitive development.”

Travis: Tell us again, tell us again!

Whitney: Say one more time, right? “Confidence in one's ability shapes cognitive development.” I just think that part is so powerful. It's necessary. They continue to say, it's necessary that we, as teachers, create learning context that are responsive to students, assets the resources they bring to the classroom. So by having independent reading, we're honoring our students and allowing them to bring their own lives into our classroom, too, as we really create this community of readers and writers.

Travis: Yeah. And I think that really speaks to some of the work that we are doing; not only in the grammar instruction piece that we talk about and are sharing within this podcast, but also all the things that we are, the, the processes that we're trying to build in our language are its classroom. The more that these processes can be confidence building for students, the more we know it leads to an effective classroom space, right students being comfortable and confident, taking on the work and doing that themselves.

Whitney: Learning zone versus that performance zone that we talk about all the time right.

The independent reading time is they are in that learning zone. So, Travis, how can we maximize our the engagement during independent reading? Because I know sometimes teachers have told me. Well, I don't like to do it because they're not engaged too many students goofing off and  like my experience. That's because the students don't have the right book, right? They don't know what to do during independent reading. They haven't had these experiences in their lives before. So what are your thoughts on that.

Travis: Yeah, so I can highlight some ideas that I've used in my classroom as well as really connect to. I know ILA (International Literacy Association), they have a great piece on creating passionate readers through independent reading, and talk about ways that we, as classroom teachers can support this process not just by giving that chunk of time, that undisturbed reading time, but also setting them up for success. 

So one thing that I'd like to do at the beginning of the year is, have a book tasting, so have the books from my classroom library pulled out on the desks or at the center of table groups and give students some time to take. Look at the cover, hop into chapter one, and read, maybe read the back cover of it. 

There's also the idea of speed dating where you take the book, and you can, if you like it, you keep it. If you don't, you pass it, and what I do as a facilitator is. If a kid keeps a book, I'll hand them another one to pass along so that we keep that going. I think that's a really nice way. If you have a library yourself, your classroom library, that's pretty diverse, and has a lot of options that you could just be pulling from there having a display organized somewhere in your room where you can display new books. To me, having a good relationship with my librarian on my campus, that's another way that you can get an idea of what's new, what are the hot new books out, as well as pulling from the library, having them in your room, and if a kid wants it, you have a easy checkout form there that on your conference period before, after school you can walk that over to the library. And as a as a checkout piece  

I think another thing that I think about doing as I'm reading. So I kind of play on both sides. Sometimes I'm reading things that I'm really interested in, that are like the adults in my independent reading. But there are other times where I'm looking at middle grade YA lit, just to see what's out there right now, what is what might be interesting to my students. So in that case, I like to pull some golden lines from books or have students do that as they're reading. And then those can go up onto a bulletin board space, or we could put it into a digital bulletin board for kids to hop into and take a look at. I think those are just a couple options that could make sense.

Whitney: That'd be cool to put those golden lines in their reading notebook, too. Cause then I think they could take those golden lines and do some writing with them right like cause. We always want to think about the writing side of this, too, and I just I love that golden linesidea of yes, putting up there to try to get others excited about books, too, but putting those into their writing note reading notebooks so they can turn around and maybe do some writing about them. 

Travis: Yes, love that. And I think also, if we want to shout out back to episode one.

Whitney: Yes.

Travis: First chapter Friday, doing a read aloud of part of, or all of the 1st chapter of a book, pulling that text, knowing what's engaging reading that saying? Hmm! If you want to read on. It's in the classroom library. You can go check it out, or we can do that as a starting point for a library visit as well. Think any of those options really make a lot of sense to me. So…

Whitney: Partner that's.

Travis: How? Yeah, we could get the engagement and excited excitement amped up for students through these processes. Let's talk about we have the classroom humming. Right now, kids are engaged in independent reading. They have their own choice books, their love and life. How do we maximize a connection point to Patterns of Power while students are, and using independent reading to support that, how do we make that connection?

Whitney: I think there's multiple ways to do this right, we can think about the imitating piece. But we could also think about the writing piece of just the application and different ways to apply what we're learning with our grammar instruction to writing, about reading, or either even imitating what they're reading on their own. One. Speaking of imitating one of my favorite new books, I know I feel like every episode. I say, oh, this is my favorite new book.

Travis: I know my! Here's my book list right here.

Whitney: Right there we go!

Travis: Wait! That's great!

Whitney: Another.

Travis: I'm in okay. Summer reading. Let's go.

Whitney: Yeah, well, this book I feel like I turned to constantly. I just am always like, Oh, what do Matt and Carl say so. Carl Anderson and Matt Glover wrote, How to become a better writing teacher. And that book is just super simple to use. It has videos. It has online resources. And it just has things very. Teacher, friendly on little tips and explanations of what we can do as teachers to be better writing teachers. And one part was I? I pulled this quote because I thought it just tied so nicely to what we're talking about today. Travis is this. It says about how conventions work make much more sense. When students see examples of how writers use them in mentor texts sounds just fine.

Travis: Are we doing?

Whitney: Power!

Travis: So good.

Whitney: This part was where I really thought, when we're thinking about independent reading. Also, when students love the writing of an author they admire, they'll be more interested in trying out the conventions they use.

Travis: I love that.

Whitney: Yes, I do, too, and that's what we want our students to eventually be able to do right. We teach them how to imitate. Well, then, they go into the books they love and learn. Other craft moves. It might be a craft move that we teach them through our grammar instruction, but it also could be additional craft moves that they just really like how the author put their words on that page right, and how they organize their thinking there, and they might want to try that out in their own writing.

Travis: Well, I think we found oftentimes, when students are comfortable with this process, they're going to be when when they have time to do some writing, some drafting, some revision time.

Students who feel comfortable and confident here are going to play around, not just in the things that we directly instruct them on.

Whitney: Right.

Travis: This is another great place to try out. The author's craft moves that they are seeing. I love that.

Whitney: So we could connect this to the imitation part, the invitation to imitate with Patterns of Power. And you know we want to invite them to imitate. Something that's that's pretty simple to imitate but also could be connected to some kind of response that they are a way to respond to reading through the imitation I'm thinking of. Like, if we're comparing characters or we're thinking about one, I'm I'm just thinking elementary level here. If we're thinking of a character in our book. And we wanna kind of think of maybe some contrasting pieces, because we know we pay attention when our characters act differently, right? Or something. When they have a response to something. And I'm I'm thinking of right, like writing a compound sentence using the conjunction. But you know of of the character does this? But this happens right, and they act a different way. So if we're we're studying compound sentences, we can certainly turn around and imitate with that pattern about the outer reading.

Travis: Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. And I think if we have the model lending itself to, or whatever pattern we're studying, lending itself to that simplicity of low, that low stake, simplicity of imitation. This makes a ton of sense.

What I like to think about is, if I can in a maybe an imitation that I would set up myself as a model before students get into partner or independent invitation. If I can set it up where I can take the the model that we're studying, and kind of massage it into being a a response. In some way I love this as a connection to the invitation to imitate.

I'm thinking about, so I'm had done some work in the book space case by Stuart Gibbs looked at. Studying up this amazing pattern which my middle school heart just was set ablaze when I saw this specific model. And it's there's an old saying in 0 G space travel, and if you ever see a piece of chocolate floating around the cabin, don't eat it. It's probably not chocolate. So this is in in conversation by the character talking about toilets in space. So this idea of a colon to introduce clarifying information, I think it makes sense.

If we give students a model that we show, or if I, even as the teacher, maybe think about what what might be some good starting points for students, so really making it scaffolded to support. They're gonna do some deep thinking here already, connecting ideas from their text to this model. So where can we support students so that it's not a high stakes suddenly activity for them.

So if I'm thinking about maybe students doing a quick summary, I might give them a starting point like this is one important thing happening in my book right now, Colon, what is it? Clarify? Tell me more or here's 1 thing I read about today, Colon. tell us more about that. So I think that could be a way getting into imitation where I might share what I did in my connected to my independent reading.

Now, students can do that in in a pretty simplistic way, but also it leads to deep thinking. So deep conversation. And let's also talk about building engagement, about independent reading, because I'm going to now, if I offer, if we offer share in celebration time.

Whitney: Kids are.

Travis: Gonna hear about each other's books or text that they're interacting with.

Whitney: I love that. And what a seamless way to connect our invitation to imitate directly to the reading piece, too, where it's really we have this literacy block of time. Things really should not be chunked completely. We wanna make those cross connections at all times. I I love that and the celebration piece like knowing they're gonna celebrate what they're reading through these invitations. Do we have to do that every time? No, but sometimes those patterns that we're studying can really make it easy to do this work and tie back to the independent reading that's happening. And great piece of just informal assessment for us, too. Right? Of how much are they getting from their reading, you know, and and kind of some accountability to that? Oh, I have to write about it. Okay? Maybe I should do some reading.

Travis: Yeah, I I think there's students that appreciate that. And it doesn't to me. I've never felt like it. It detracts from the joy of, or challenge or interest of getting into it by asking them after like.

 Hey, let's do a little bit of writing about it. Tell me where you're at, I think, especially if we don't have it as such a punitive like. Oh, you better be reading today because you're gonna do some writing about it.

Whitney: And the writing you're going to do about it's going to have this piece and this piece and this. Going to be. Paragraphs. And no, this is just a quick sentence, right? Following the pattern that we're studying. I love it. Love it.

Travis: But I think, too, if we think about also in a separate space, having this as the invitation to apply as one application, either within a lesson set or beyond. This is where you can ask students to do a little bit more writing. So give me multiple sentences to summarize what you've read so far, or predict what you think could happen next, or my favorite oftentimes is, pitch this book to a classmate based on where you're at right now. So give me a paragraph for 2. Now, I'm just gonna challenge you to apply what we know about the pattern we were studying. Put that somewhere within that writing. So that's an there's another layer of complexity. Now that we're adding, I need to navigate my thinking, organize it. And now think about. How? Where does the pattern fit in to really enhance and make my writing more effective as I'm writing the summary or pitch, or whatever I'm doing.

Whitney: Well, and if they're using that colon example that you gave, it could be their 1st sentence. It could be their last right. They get to really play around with order? Of their thinking as well. And where might it be most effective? As I'm thinking, revision right off. Here's my main thought. Now I have to support it with evidence from the text. Where? My main thought is, where is it going to be most effective in my piece? I love it, I love it. And even with younger students we could do the same thing right? We could even think about that compound sentence using. But or so, if we're thinking about our organizational patterns or text structures, often we use compound sentences to really demonstrate those, so they could easily add text evidence to support that sentence as well.

Travis: Yeah. And I think in either instance I don't know that we have said this enough in this episode or before, but you as the teacher modeling, I I feel like I get more effective products from students where they're thinking there's more clarity in their thinking that's put down on paper if I model it first.

Whitney: For sure.

Travis: I work through it. It also, if it's not perfect for me, if I'm struggling now, I open up, hey? We're a writing community together. Help me think through this what might be the right way to organize this. So I think I want to use this, but I don't know where to use the pattern. This is what I'm thinking about. If we could talk together, that would just support students in building their confidence, building, and understanding so that when they get into that space of imitating or applying, they're much more equipped  for success.

Whitney: If you have a little bit of a read aloud, going like we've talked about in our previous episodes as well, the modeling could tie back to that one. Before they turn around and do something in their own reading that way. We have a shared reading experience. We have context around something that we're modeling with as well.

Travis: Wonderful. So, to recap: independent student choice reading: It's important. It’s beneficial, and there are so many ways to connect it to Patterns of Power for a successful collaborative learning experience with all the pieces that you are putting in place within a class period. Talk about maximizing potential for success. Here it is.

Whitney: Well, just showing students how everything's connected. Everything we do is connected. In a way that's literacy, reading, writing, speaking, listening. It's all connected together to communicate and to learn. So love it.

Travis: Alright. Another episode in the books we hope you enjoy. We hope you have success in implementing this or this affirms the amazing things that you are already doing in your classroom, and we can't wait to share more insight, information, strategies, tips, ideas with you soon.

Whitney: Happy reading and writing.