Thinking Critically about Our Practice: Drawing from Book Club Research Taffy E. Raphael University of Illinois at Chicago IRA 2003

Balanced Instruction Professional development Bases for Improving Our Practice Literature- Based Curriculum

“New” Conventional Thinking Professional development = bring new ideas to the teaching population through the ‘more knowledgeable other’ (i.e, the ‘outside’ expert’) Balanced Instruction = bringing literature to skills programs or skills to literature programs Literature-based Curriculum = literature is motivating and engages young learners

Getting Beneath the Surface Collaborative Study Groups

Thinking Critically about These “New” Conventions Professional development = partnerships to solve ‘problems of practice’ (Florio-Ruane, Berne & Raphael, New Advocate, 2001) Balanced Instruction = Meeting our ‘dual obligations’ (Raphael, Florio-Ruane, Kehus, George, Hasty, & Highfield, Reading Teacher, 2001, 2003) Literature-based Curriculum = literature is the source of substantive content learning in the literacy curriculum (Raphael, Florio-Ruane, George, 2001, Language Arts)

The Book Club Plus Project Focus #1: Professional Development Working in Study Groups, Work Circles, Inquiry Groups Crossing Borders: geographic (school/district), economic, ethnic, racial)

Professional Development through Teacher Study Groups Book Club Project Team: Conceptualize Book Club Book Club Plus Study Group Literacy Circle Study Group Literacy Circle Teachers Learning Learning Collaborative Collaborative ? Supporting ELL through Book Club Plus Book Club Teacher Research Group: extend initial Book Club format to new populations (e.g., 1st/2nd grade read aloud; high school intervention; integrating with content area)

Crossing Borders in TLC: An Example = TLC Network Participant School District Location

Our Approach: Address Problems-of-Practice  Frame a “Problem of Practice”  Experience authentic learning activities in addressing it  Take from the experiences insights for teaching  Design, teach, and assess curriculum reflecting insights and needs of struggling readers  Share what was learned  Transform understandings of literacy education

Our Focus in TLC Problem of Practice: the struggling, dis-engaged reader  Why are many of our children -- especially 2nd & above able to read words but do not understand what they are reading?  Why do some of our students seem to fall further and further behind instead of catching up with their peers?  What can we do about it? Our Experiences:  Teacher book clubs - experience reading, writing, and talk about challenging text (immigrant autobiography and related text)  Teacher writing groups - experience sustained writing for an audience (memoirs)

Experience #1: Teacher Book Clubs Author Study: Julia Alvarez  Autobiographical Fiction How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accent Yo!  Historical Fiction In the Time of the Butterflies  Non fiction Something to Declare  Poetry Homecoming The Other Side Maintaining a Reading Log/Sketch Book Participating in Book Clubs

Experience #2: Literacy and Culture Memoirs Three Entries  Based on artifact  Essay for each  Reflecting who you are, major influences As a teacher As a literate person

Drawing from our Experiences Surfaced importance of substantive, age- appropriate content for all readers Surfaced potential of autobiography for increasing cultural capital, valuing diversity within the classroom Led to:  Dual obligations concept  Addressing Equity: re-engaging struggling and marginalized students by emphasizing cultural capital --> Storied Lives Curriculum  Research focused on teacher learning and curriculum impact

What are our “Dual Obligations”? Obligation #1  Insure all students have reading instruction that is at their instruction level  Texts written at students’ instructional level Obligation #2  Insure all students have reading instruction that develops critical thinking skills  Texts written for students age group [Note: Instructional level for struggling readers is often below age-level and we know that students from underrepresented cultural and linguistic groups are disproportionately large in numbers in this group -- equity issue -- how to re-engage]

How Can We Restructure the Curriculum Organization to Address Our Dual Obligations? Community Share Reading Writing Book Club/Fishbowl Writing Community Share Guided Reading Independent Work writing connected to theme skill/strategy practice in dyads paper-pencil tasks reading connected text etc.

How Can We Rethink Our Curriculum Content? The ‘content’ of literature: recorded history of humanity, told through a variety of genres Content of the curriculum to build cultural capital: Our Storied Lives  Stories of Self  Stories of Family  Stories of Culture Bringing together read, writing, talk

Stories of Culture

Reading Focus: Enhancing Comprehension Instruction Linking comprehension instruction to changing teacher roles  Gradual transfer of control from explicit instruction through modeling/ scaffolding/ coaching to independent practice Focusing on comprehension instruction across contexts  Opening community share: teach those strategies ALL students need (e.g., questioning skills, identifying important information)  Guided reading: teach those strategies appropriate to particular reading levels  Writers Workshop: teach strategies unlinked to reading ability through flexible groups

Writing: Making Writing Central Writing into the unit Writing through the unit Writing out of the unit

Writing Into: Life-Timeline

Writing Through Using Logs to support thinking  Questions to ask during fishbowl/book club Assignments to help identify important information  Beginning  Middle  end

Writing Out: Family Stories

Class Quilt

Promoting Meaningful Talk Passion about ideas Evidence of text comprehension Intertextual connections Respect of others’ ideas

Mississippi Bridge Grade 5

The Book Club Research Line: Summary of Key Questions How can we create an authentic literacy learning environment that still has multiple opportunity for instruction? What constitutes literacy instruction? What constitutes effective professional development? How do we re-engage struggling readers across all grade levels? How do we demonstrate progress? Current: Book Club and the English Language Learner

Useful Resources Book Club resources:   Language Arts, November, 2001  The Reading Teacher, February, 2001  Heinemann Workshop April 7, Hartford QAR Resources  Wright Group: Super QAR for Test-wise Students (