I've Got Something to Say : How Student Voices Inform Our Teaching [1 ed.] 9781551388533, 9781551382890

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I've Got Something to Say! How Student Voices Inform Our Teaching

David Booth

Pembroke Publishers Limited

© 2013 Pembroke Publishers 538 Hood Road Markham, Ontario, Canada L3R 3K9 www.pembrokepublishers.com Distributed in the U.S. by Stenhouse Publishers 480 Congress Street Portland, ME 04101 www.stenhouse.com All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any form or by any means electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, scanning, recording, or any information, storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. Excerpts from this publication may be reproduced under licence from Access Copyright, or with the express written permission of Pembroke Publishers Limited, or as permitted by law. Every effort has been made to contact copyright holders for permission to reproduce borrowed material. The publishers apologize for any such omissions and will be pleased to rectify them in subsequent reprints of the book. We acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Canada through the Canada Book Fund (CBF) for our publishing activities. We acknowledge the assistance of the Government of Ontario through the Ontario Media Development Corporation’s Ontario Book Initiative. Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication Booth, David W. (David Wallace), author   I’ve got something to say : how student voices inform our teaching / David Booth. Includes bibliographical references and index. Issued in print and electronic formats. ISBN 978-1-55138-289-0 (pbk.).--BN 978-1-55138-853-3 (pdf)   1. Student-centered learning. 2. Communication in education. 3. Teacher-student relationships. 4. Classroom management. I. Title. LB1027.23.B66 2013 371.39 C2013-904235-0 C2013-904236-9 Editor:   Kate Revington Cover Design:   John Zehethofer Typesetting:   Jay Tee Graphics Ltd. Printed and bound in Canada 987654321

Contents

Foreword by Jane Paterson 7 Introduction 9 Chapter 1: Why Classroom Talk Matters 11 Talk as a Condition of Learning The Importance of Opportunities for Talk 12 Strategy: Discovery Box Wonderings by Brian Crawford  13 The Talk Curriculum — Criteria 14 Strategy: Talking to Clarify a Concept by Barbara Clegg  14 Modes of Talk in the Classroom 15 Teacher Talk in Relation to Student Talk 18 Reflecting on Classroom Talk 20 Chapter 2: Is Anyone Listening to Me? 21 Finding, Freeing, and Expressing Voice Choice and Voice in Making a Collaborative Decision 22 Finding Voice 22 Benefits That Accrue from Including Voice and Choice in the Classroom 24 Listening Well, Earning Trust 26 Strategy: Understanding the Language of Power by Linda Christensen  27 Including All Voices: English Language Learners and Special Education Students 28 Winnie’s Story: An ESL Student Blossoms by Peter Jailall  29 Strategy: How to Help Students with Difficulties Focus on Writing by Shelley Murphy  30 Twenty-One Things That 21 Boys Taught Me 31 Early Voices, Emerging Identities 33 Strategy: How Governments Can Give Students a Stronger Voice 33 Reflecting on Classroom Voices 35 Chapter 3: Building a Community of Voices 37 When Students Work Together Teachers and Students: Moving into a Learning Partnership 38 How Choice Affects Voice 39  3

Strategy: Hold Class Meetings — A Democratic Approach to Classroom Management  42 Small-Group Activities: Interacting with Peers 43 Strategy: Buddying Students of Different Ages by Jill Jones and Marie McLay  44 Strategy: Promoting Cooperative and Collaborative Activities by John Myers  45 Strategy: Freeing Student Voice Through Authentic Questioning by Lynda Marshall  47 Reflecting on Classroom Community 48 Chapter 4: Releasing the Story Makers 51 How Story Supports Voice From “As if ” Voices to Insight 52 Strategy: Reading Aloud with Voice 52 Strategy: Storytelling — Exploring Its Forms and Potential by Bob Barton  54 Strategy: Welcoming Student Comments and Questions by Larry Swartz  55 Strategy: Telling a Story on Tape by Jane McGarvey  57 Constructing Our Life Stories 58 Strategy: Sharing Life Stories 59 Strategy: Finding Voice Through Photography by Lynda Marshall  60 Reflecting on Storytelling Voices 62 Chapter 5: Finding Student Voices Inside Texts 63 How Literacy Encourages and Supports Voice Building a Community of Readers 64 Responding to Text 64 Strategy: A Response Repertoire 65 Strategy: Book Talk in Literature Circles 67 Strategy: Independent Reading 68 Strategy: Interacting in a Reading Response Journal 69 Strategy: The Reading Conference 70 Reading in the Content Areas: Challenges 70 Strategy: Choice and Voice in Exploring Social Issues by Sarah Papoff  71 Reflecting on Literacy Voices 74 Chapter 6: Who Can I Be? 77 Imagining the Voices of Others Finding Our Own Voices Through Role-Playing 77 Building a Drama Event 79 Strategy: Role-Playing as a Class 80 Strategy: Adding Tension to Deepen the Work 82 Strategy: Creating a Parallel Story 82

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Strategy: The Teacher Working in Several Modes 84 Reflecting on Role-Playing Voices 84 Chapter 7: Listening to Our Own Voices 87 Speaking and Reading Aloud Inside the Social Frame 88 Strategy: Training Tour Guides by Brian Crawford, interviewing Ruth Wyman  89 When Students Read Aloud 91 Strategy: Promoting Oral Reading 15 Ways 93 Reflecting on Out-Loud Voices 94 Chapter 8: Capturing Our Voices 97 Constructing, Composing, and Creating Discussing Our Writing with Others 98 Finding Voice Through Writing 99 Striving for Voice Through Revision 99 Strategy: Writing in Role 101 Drawing On Stories, Creating New Ones 102 Beyond Rhyme to Deep Feeling: Voice in Poetry 103 Strategy: Prompting Writers to Strengthen Voice Through Feedback by Shelley Stagg Peterson  104 Conducting and Constructing Inquiries 105 Strategy: Using Digital Art to Represent Voice 106 Strategy: Enhancing Literacy Skills Through Digital Video Production by David Hutchison  107 Strategy: Finding Voice Through Artifacts by Jennifer Rowsell  108 Reflecting on Voice in Print, Spoken Word, and Image 109 Chapter 9: Supporting Voice Through Technology 111 Communicating Face to Screen Why Is My Smartphone Sitting on a Pile of Books? 112 Can Technology Support Student Voice? 113 Strategy: Guiding a Think-Aloud Session on Screen by Tina Benevides  114 Strategy: Blogging as a Community by Royan Lee  117 Strategy: Virtual Editors, or Giving Focused Attention by Jeff Bowring  119 Strategy: Conversations on Screen by Dianne Stephens  121 Strategy: Collaborative Reading of a Shared Book: Promoting Family Literacy in the Community by Tara-Lynn Scheffel  121 Reflecting on Online Voices 124

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Chapter 10: Organizing and Assessing a Classroom of Voices 125 Assessing Student Voice as a Condition of Learning Strategy: Incorporating Student Voice to Change Teaching Practice by Scott Johnson  126 How to Approach Assessment and Evaluation 127 Strategy: Strengthening Voice Through Differentiated Instruction 128 Gathering Information on Voice Strengths 129 Strategy: Today in History: Present Voices Revisit the Past by Karen Hume and Gordon Wells  130 Assessing the Development of Voice  131 Self-Assessment and Peer-Assessment for Growth 132 Strategy: Assessing and Using Students’ Voices to Improve Your Curriculum by Nancy Shanklin and Paige Gaynor  133 Reflecting on Assessment of Student Voice  136 Bibliography 139 Index 141

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Foreword by Jane Paterson

A young student once told me: “Drama is so wicked. In drama, you don’t really forget what you do. It’s in your head. You know what happened. You know what’s going to happen. You know what’s supposed to happen.” In other words, learning through drama has power. For those of us lucky enough to have experienced the power, it is one of the parts of school we remember. I remember having a conversation in a Graduate Studies class with David Booth. It was a week to the day after the attack on the World Trade Center in New York City. The class had just read a series of personal reflections by working New York City artists, published in the Times. David made eye contact with me, addressed me as one of the Times’s artist contributors and began asking me questions about my art and my life in the immediate aftermath of 9/11. I slipped right into role and answered the questions with all of the empathy and imagined experience I could summon in myself. The moment had so much power for me that even now, I can call up the emotion in an instant. David is passionate about powerful learning, the experience of drama, literature that moves us and changes our thinking, and art — in all its modes of expression — that shifts our perspectives on events and ideas, and helps us to know what we cannot know. In this book, he celebrates those teachers he has met who understand how finding and freeing student voice through interactive cognitive and aesthetic learning can infuse their programs, resulting in the increased energy and engagement of the students. David has arrived at a point in his career where he can reflect on the patterns of a lifetime of teaching and learning. He can identify a pattern, talk about it then and now, and reflect on its enduring importance. That is what he has done here in this resource. He has collected the voices of students and teachers. He also uses his own voice from yesterday and today. All of these voices will resonate with teachers, with learners, and with teachers who are learners to help us think about our work from a range of perspectives informed by time and space and place.

Jane Paterson Administrator, Learning Design & Development Curriculum & Instructional Services York Region District School Board

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Introduction

About 20 years ago, I was fortunate enough to participate in the Peel Talk Project. With Carol Thornley-Hall and Gordon Wells, I worked as part of an action research team, funded by the Ontario Ministry of Education. Two hundred teachers in the Peel District School Board were engaged in an action research inquiry, examining and implementing strategies for building a talk curriculum in their classrooms. As the Peel teachers explored ways to promote interactive speaking and listening with their students, they shared through professional development events, such as team meetings and conferences, the results of their observations, their findings, and their reflections. They built with one another a strong awareness of the value of talk in their classrooms. What developed was called the “Talk Curriculum.” Over the three years of the project, many schools in Peel delved further into the processes of how students learn from one another. Several teachers videotaped lessons for discussion with colleagues or wrote articles on their progress with implementing talk as a medium for learning in different components of the school curriculum. The focus was students’ active interaction. As I reviewed their writing and videotapes from those years, I found I wanted to bring the focus back to the issues that surround talk and move it forward into a discussion of voice. That’s because teachers have the potential to create contexts that permit and encourage young people to express their thoughts and feelings about issues and concerns that matter to them. Students have many ways of revealing their voices: these range from responses to what they read and view in class to contributions to the democratic functioning of their classrooms. When we open up opportunities for them to express themselves, we help them develop a sense of self-efficacy, that they, alongside parents and teachers, can be effective agents of their own learning and growth. In 2013, as I read through accounts of many interactive experiences with students from teachers whom I have observed and taught with, and whose writing I have included in my own professional books, I thought once again about the Peel Talk Project and its implications for the new emphasis on student voice. As I revisited in my writings the descriptions of what teachers have explored and achieved, I recognized the power of their programs to create stronger schools through incorporating student voice. I also wanted to add to this vital pedagogy ideas from teachers now working with students to implement programs that support this dialogic model of learning. In this resource, I hope that the teacher voices from the past will resonate with the classroom suggestions of teachers today, so that we will see interactive learning as a necessary component on the continuum of educational change. Here, in I’ve Got Something to Say!, you will find 10 chapters — my attempt at developing a structure for implementing choice and voice in our contemporary  9

classrooms. Each chapter begins with an excerpt of student voices, from transcripts and journals, taken from classrooms where I have worked alongside the teachers. Some voices are from interviews, some are from literature discussions, and others are from storytelling or from speaking in role, but all voices represent students’ authentic words as they engage in meaningful classroom events requiring interactive thoughtful responses. The students are thinking aloud about significant issues in their learning and in their lives. You will find dozens of strategies for implementing a talk curriculum that supports voice and choice. Many of these are provided by teachers drawing on their classroom experiences from more than 25 years. Strategies range from classroom meetings to blogs, from peer editing to social activism. At the end of each chapter, there is also a list featuring suggestions for activating student voices in your classroom. Those who study educational changes and trends support the idea that student voices are central to effective classroom learning; indeed, as teachers we know that when students have a sense of ownership in how their school day functions and feel secure that they will be heard, the classroom becomes a vital place. Establishing our programs of learning in an interactive, supportive, and challenging environment will do much to help our students articulate their thoughts and affirm that they have something to say.

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1

Why Classroom Talk Matters Talk as a Condition of Learning

The following is taken from the transcript of an interview with a student. The interview was conducted by Jane Paterson for presentation at a conference for the York Region District School Board. Student: My name is Bebe, and I am in Grade 8. While I am a competitive cheerleader, and that’s lots of fun, it’s not just about getting thrown up in the air; you have to have physical, emotional, and mental strength. For example, in science classes, it’s best when I am actually doing the experiment. I feel that hands-on activities give you a better feel for what you are doing; it explains what the teacher expects of you, what they want you to understand, more than just learning from a textbook, because sometimes it’s a bit different from the textbook, and a bit challenging. I like working in groups: if you don’t understand something, you’ve got someone to help you, to back you up. If you are working on a team project, I find those are really enjoyable because you’re not only doing something individual; you are finding things out you could not have learned if you were working by yourself. For example, that’s a new way I could try, or I could try something different next time. I basically enjoy presentations. I am one of those people who like to speak about what they were demonstrating. I feel that essays are one of those things where, if you drag them out too long, they get boring, and I am not a very strong writer, so I feel that presentations like PowerPoint or anything like that would really help.

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The Importance of Opportunities for Talk Students do most of their important learning as talkers, questioners, arguers, and chatterboxes. Students will learn most effectively when they have frequent opportunities to interact both with teachers and with peers.

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The transcript of the young girl being interviewed allows us to tune into her life both in and out of school. The girl’s words point out the importance of designing opportunities for our students to engage in talk activities that matter to them: that require them to interact with us and with their classmates. Today, the everwidening scope of oral and visual media brought to us by electronic technology is forcing us to recognize that teaching “oracy,” as Andrew Wilkinson termed it, is as important as teaching literacy and numeracy. Research is helping us to focus on the relationship between language and thought, theories of language acquisition, the nature of talk, and the various uses of language. Language skills are not developed in isolation from learning but are an integral part of it. Talk is not a subject; rather, it is a condition of learning in all subjects. It has many functions: it leads students to understand new concepts; it enables them to communicate clearly as active learners with others; it lets them consider a diversity of viewpoints; it helps them develop a critical tolerance of others. When we are dealing with new ideas or coming to new understandings, talk helps us make sense of both our thoughts and our feelings. If we can put our knowledge into words, then we will be able to reflect on that knowledge, to act on it, and to change it. Students have opportunities to use oral language for many varied purposes: planning, speculating, predicting, listening, organizing, mapping, storytelling, sequencing, narrating, interviewing, questioning, asking for information, persuading, reporting, giving details, tape-recording, elaborating, reasoning, criticizing, evaluating, reporting on present and recalled experiences, anticipating and predicting, comparing possible alternatives, perceiving causal and dependent relationships, giving explanations of how and why things happen, expressing and recognizing tentativeness, creating experiences through the use of imagination, justifying behavior, and reflecting on feelings — their own and other people’s. We want students conversing with one another, discussing in groups, asking clarifying questions, conferring honestly with teachers, presenting research to group members and to the class, reflecting on their progress and participation, demonstrating and presenting, role-playing, reading aloud, offering support to and building on the ideas of others, challenging ideas, and modifying perceptions and viewpoints. We can examine talk as a medium of learning, look at its relationship to the classroom, to the teacher’s role of instructing and questioning, and to the variety of students’ learning styles. We can look at the strategies various teachers have devised to ensure that negotiating, collaborative, and analytical talk occurs. We watch students think aloud, test hypotheses, and risk voicing ideas, engaging in true conversation about the world. We watch teachers talk to each other and listen to students, treating talk as a way of learning in every classroom activity. Today, schools are full of the sounds of students talking, and educators recognize the functions of speaking and listening in the process of learning. In talk-filled classrooms, students engage in conversation and dialogue, learning through interaction. They contribute their emerging perspectives, closely examine ideas, share their thinking, reveal biases, raise questions, rethink answers, offer explanations, report information, and come to grips with complex issues, all through opportunities for making their voices heard. By having students talk, share, and reflect upon their learning experiences, we maximize interaction and allow scope for independence of action and participation.

Strategy: Discovery Box Wonderings By Brian Crawford Brian Crawford was a primary teacher at Queenston Drive School and earned his PhD degree in early childhood education at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education.

My Grades 3 to 5 class used “discovery boxes” in a two-week investigative science unit that provided opportunities for both inquiry and interaction. To begin, I held a discussion, asking the students to consider things they wondered about in the scientific world: how something works, how something was invented, what the effect of one substance on another was. Once they had determined their topics of interest, they prepared lists of questions that aroused their curiosity, narrowing down to focus on a single question for investigation. They then gathered the necessary materials, conducted an experiment, and reported their conclusions. When the research had been done, all the necessary apparatus and instructions on how to carry out the experiment were placed in a shoebox. The student wrote the question on the lid of the box. Each student then exchanged boxes with a partner, who conducted the experiment by following the instructions, thus “discovering” the answer to the scientific question. As the students gathered their equipment, collected data, and shared in each other’s work, the classroom became like a science lab. Greg wanted to discover whether pulling an elastic band farther makes an object go farther. David wanted to discover how much two toy boats of different shapes could hold before sinking. Hala wanted to find out how many seconds it takes for marbles of different sizes to go down a ramp. Michael wanted to discover whether pulleys really make it easier to lift a heavy load. Stephanie examined the relationship between weight and air pressure. As in any good laboratory, the students’ planning, speculation, and revision led to a continuous exchange of information and ideas. The students talked as they planned their experiments, questioned one another about procedures, described their work, and reported their findings. Having them write the instructions caused more talk as they helped one another clarify the various steps required to do the experiment. Because the second phase called upon other students to work alone without the assistance of the researchers, the instructions had to be clear. After the individual work, there was more discussion as researcher and experimenter shared their discoveries. In the following conversation, two girls discuss an experiment that involved smelling different substances: Student A: I’m not sure why you wanted to do this experiment. Student B: I began to think about the way things smell. Then I wanted to find out if people could guess what different smells were. Because I knew that I was going to do the experiment with nearly everybody in the class, I decided to compare the difference between the sense of smell of boys and girls. Student A: Why did you want me to be blindfolded? Student B: I didn’t want anyone to see the jars I had. Student A: I read somewhere that if you take away one sense from somebody, then their other senses become stronger. Like a blind person can hear better. I think that by being blindfolded, I was able to smell better. Student B: How many of the smells did you guess correctly? Student A: I wasn’t sure about the cinnamon. Student B: Most kids had trouble with that one. Student A: Do you really think it makes a difference whether you’re a boy or a girl?  13

Student B: I don’t want to be sexist, but I think that most of the girls did better on the survey.

The Talk Curriculum — Criteria The talk curriculum is not a series of skills to be mastered and cannot be confined to a weekly timetabled session for speaking and listening. Talk is a dynamic medium for learning in all areas and at all levels of schooling, a tool that will increase not only students’ knowledge, but their ability to enquire into, argue about, reflect on, and make sense of information. So, school must be a place where students are permitted and encouraged to talk their way into learning, where thoughtful exploration is valued, and where conversation is a necessary mode of exploration. We therefore need to develop strategies for making the most of classroom talk, to build a talk curriculum where students • choose both words and language style to suit the context • note the effect of what is being said on the listener or audience • find a personal voice that informs and connects to what others are saying • use talk as a precursor to written work • become involved through talk in a group task so that they can accomplish more • appreciate that talk is central to making sense in all learning situations • reflect on their own participation in talk events Schools can use the talk curriculum, then, to develop students who talk to think, to communicate, to reflect, and, most of all, to belong. Talk provides an opportunity for learners to try out ideas, to obtain feedback, to build on one another’s insights, and to construct knowledge collaboratively. This book is full of designated strategies that further the goal of building the talk curriculum.

Strategy: Talking to Clarify a Concept By Barbara Clegg Barbara Clegg was an early childhood teacher at Queenston Drive School and participated in the Peel Talk Project, noted in the Introduction.

The skills and strategies associated with the language arts program cannot be separated from other areas of the curriculum. Talking, reading, and writing are essential elements of math and science learning. In my Grade 1 class, I expect students to extend, enhance, and clarify their understanding through talk. Here is how three six-year-olds experimenting with wooden blocks and other materials came to understand the geometric concept of “arch.” Through conversation during the activity as well as in the sharing of results, balance, support, and symmetry became familiar terms as the children built their way into learning. Jamie: Here’s symmetry. Mandeep: That’s not symmetry. Symmetry means it’s something that’s cut in half. Jamie: It’s the same size on both parts. Phillip: The farther one stands up better, but they don’t have symmetry. Mandeep: I got this idea from a book.

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Phillip: Where are the magic crystals? They make the house magic. The mountains are not magic. Learning appears to be most effective when the students carry out inquiries, but here, Phillip is moving into story building from the symmetry discussion. This transcript represents constructing meaning in the most integrative of fashions: the students are exploring and thinking in any mode that works for them at the moment; they are not confined by the idea that they should think in compartments called “subjects.” I asked the students to record their results in a notebook. In their writing, the students reflected on problems they encountered during the mathematical exploration and outlined some details of the process they went through. Many had written stories about their structures, and because each student’s ability and understanding was individual, these notebooks served as excellent vehicles for assessing students’ progress and knowledge. When young students use concrete materials to build things, they are naturally inclined to tell stories about their creations. Students can express their imaginative ideas and feelings as they build and invent. In this instance, after the class’s work with structures, I read aloud Leanna Builds a Genie Trap, and then in a drama activity, the students worked as inventors to help Leanna solve her problem. They also designed their own genie traps from materials in the classroom, and I videotaped them at work. Looking for Talk in All the Right Places chatting, announcing, narrating, describing, explaining, informing, recounting, brainstorming, imagining, sharing, commenting, comparing, classifying, questioning, hypothesizing, predicting, opining, complaining, analyzing, applying, creating analogies, inferring, directing, reporting, persuading, rephrasing, rethinking and revising, decision making, problem solving, role-playing, reflecting, interpreting (reading aloud)

Modes of Talk in the Classroom Several types, or modes, of talk can play valid roles in the classroom. The varying benefits of social talk, exploratory talk, dialogic talk, accountable talk (such as text talk), formal talk, rehearsed or scripted talk, and drama talk are now acknowledged, and teachers can determine which talk form is most effective at a given time in the day, recognizing the continuum of experience and background required by the more formal kinds of talk. And of course, we must add digital talk, a ubiquitous presence in our students’ interactive lives. First though, let’s look briefly at the most private kind of talk.

Inner talk Our students may be silent at times, but talk continues to play a part in their thinking processes, as it does for us. Inner and outer talk play a major role in our sleeping and waking lives. We tell ourselves stories in the head. We reweave personal tales to ourselves from our storylines of events that have captured us like  15

fish in a net, worrying about what we will say next time, replaying comments that others have made about us, or remembering a holiday where life was completely full. And sometimes, these stories are told aloud with no one listening but the mirror in front of us or the empty chair beside us, still belonging to inner talk, not ready for public awareness. We are processing our thinking inside our heads before framing our ideas and sharing our words.

Social talk Social talk, vital to our well-being, is the conversation we engage in most of the time. A student who is isolated from others in a class, for whatever reasons, sounds a warning bell because healthy students need interaction. Through social talk, we learn to appreciate the people we want to know and to get along with the people we have to know. All the rituals of social behavior are included in social talk — greetings, goodbyes, chatter, gossip, and jokes. Social talk is sharing in the lives of others, building our identities as we interact. Often, classrooms have directly discouraged social talk, but students find occasions for friendly chit-chat during the school day — at recess, during lunch, or walking home after school. Such social exchange should be part of the curriculum as well, not as a focus, but as a natural feature of classroom activities. In this way, the environment for talk models that of the family, the workplace — and life. Students naturally recount personal experiences to each other as they work in groups, often as counterpoint to accountable, or task, talk. Tidying up after a project, preparing for a change of subject, welcoming visitors, sharing after story­time, chatting with the teacher about the weekend — all of these moments ­represent occasions for social talk.

Exploratory talk Generally, students in school are not given the time to talk themselves into understanding — to think aloud. Douglas Barnes calls this groping towards meaning “exploratory talk.” Such talk is usually marked by frequent hesitation, rephrasing, false starts, and changes in direction. This type of talk is one means by which new knowledge is assimilated and accommodated into the old. It must thus be part of every language interaction that is to have impact upon students. Talk is a bridge that helps students explore relationships that arise between what they know and what they are coming to know. It can help them make sense out loud as they come to grips with new ideas and understanding.

Dialogic, or interactive, talk Dialogic, or interactive talk involves peer talk — the collective, building on ideas of others. It encompasses dialogue, conversation, and reciprocal listening; use of appropriate language and register; an awareness of the social conventions of talk; and a willingness to rethink and revise after listening to others. Robin Alexander recognizes the characteristics of dialogic talk in the classroom behaviors of Collectivity (teachers and students addressing learning tasks together rather than in isolation); Reciprocity (teachers and students listening to each other, sharing ideas, and considering alternative viewpoints); 16  

Support (students articulating ideas freely, without fear or embarrassment over “wrong” answers and helping each other to reach common understandings); Cumulation (teachers and students building on their own and each other’s ideas and chaining them into coherent lines of thinking and inquiry); Purposefulness (teachers planning and facilitating dialogic teaching with particular educational goals in view). (p. 104)

Accountable, or task, talk Students can best express their thoughts and feelings within a social dynamic where the context rather than the teacher does the controlling. When we act as involved listeners rather than as detached evaluators, we open up a whole range of communication strategies. Students talk not only to express their ideas but also to reflect on them, to modify them, and to refine them. The responses of listeners are an important indicator of their success. By creating opportunities for significant dialogue, we can help students both to find new meanings in their experiences and to communicate those meanings. We need to guide our students into working with cooperative dialogues as we engage in collaborative tasks.

Formal talk Formal talk is hardly the most common or significant mode of interaction, but if surrounded with authentic contexts and opportunities for exploration beforehand, it can be a basis for learning. We will need to build a healthy and nurturing atmosphere for encouraging talk in formal situations. We can use the curriculum to create low-threat learning contexts that encourage sharing work in progress and presenting completed ideas and information. When students share ideas first with partners or small groups rather than with the whole class, they can develop into confident speakers with something to say. Letting students use notes and various aids, such as PowerPoint, or chalkboard diagrams, can support their efforts at formal presentation. Some students are able to speak easily in a whole-class setting, offering personal thoughts and feelings unimpeded by how many people are listening and responding. True dialogue seldom emerges, however, because only one person speaks at a time in such a forum. Whole-class situations may be more useful for introducing units, listening to stories, watching films, or sharing findings. Formal class meetings can allow students to debate problems of organization and management, such as preparing for a prospective field trip.

Rehearsed or scripted talk Rehearsed talk is talk influenced by print. Often, the words are scripted, but when students recognize the power of the words they read, listen to, speak, or interpret, they begin to understand the reciprocal nature of speaker and listener. Students who visit words they have read before through storytelling, reading aloud, or improvising become aware of the subtext, the layers of meaning, and the associations lying below the surface. Students can find that, after exploring their own responses and rehearsing the text, reading aloud is a satisfying mode of communication. Reading aloud lets them try on new language styles, voices, and patterns of speaking. Oral reading verifies print and helps what were silent readers to “hear” dialogue. Small groups  17

can come together for oral reading; older students can read stories they have prepared for younger listeners. Students will grow as oral readers not when errors and mispronunciations are publicly corrected but when the situation calls for skillful interpretation for true listeners.

Drama talk The possibilities of drama are explored more fully in Chapter 6.

As a collaborative social activity, drama allows students to speak and listen to one another within contexts that demand concentration and response, both in and out of role. As the students explore ideas and plan and debate events through improvisation and role-playing, they use all they know about communication and persuasion. Their reflections and writing, talk and art, will reveal the power of real language in imaginary situations.

Digital talk The form, the technical format, the audience, and the immediate response time characteristic of interacting through technology are significant factors in determining what we say, to whom we say it, and how we say it. So, what impact will digital talk have on our students’ abilities to communicate and interact with others? How can we incorporate digital talk in our classrooms, alongside faceto-face interaction? In Chapter 9, we will explore the effect of electronic communication modes on how students are talking to one another and to the world.

Teacher Talk in Relation to Student Talk As teachers, we need to understand the nature of classroom talk so that we can harness its impact on the lives of our students.

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Today, teachers see themselves as participants in the classroom community. We engage in chit-chat and in significant dialogue; in interviews with individuals and in sharing stories, personal and literary, with the whole class; in moderating disputes; and in building the curriculum with the students. We can create a rich environment for talk in several ways: by opening up opportunities for independent, group, and whole-class activities, by encouraging students to claim ownership of the planning of events, and by involving them in organizing the classroom, working in small groups, planning field trips, and interviewing guests. By giving students a choice of activities, we capitalize on their interests and encourage them to talk — to exchange information, share feelings, and plan learning events. Blocks or challenges that may silence student voices can, however, occur in our classrooms. It is therefore vital to understand how talk can be encouraged by such simple matters as the physical arrangement of the room: areas can be provided for private conversation with the teacher, for pairs of students to collaborate, for small groups to work, and for large groups to come together. Each student needs opportunities to take part in classroom talk in a variety of communication patterns. We can also facilitate student talk by reducing or strategically shaping our teacher talk. For example, we can • ask authentic and open-ended questions, altering the power roles between student and teacher, facilitating discourse, modeling and demonstrating appropriate talk behaviors

Tribes Learning Communities is a research-based process that creates a culture whereby learning and human development are maximized. Tribes TLC offers collaborative skills, community agreements, meaningful participation, strategies for integrating curriculum, and professional development at the elementary, middle, and high school levels, in leadership, and in after-school youth development programs and administration.

• demonstrate, instruct, and scaffold learning as we help students to unpack large ideas, prompting and pressing for depth, paraphrasing ideas and enriching the conversation, offering feedback, summarizing, and linking relationships and previous ideas • manage talk events (student-initiated talk, working in pairs, organizing flexible groups, engaging the whole class in building a caring community) • prepare students in the conventions of talk (through cooperative games and TRIBES) • model and demonstrate think-alouds • hold teacher–student conferences • prepare students for formal talk times • incorporate use of journals, notebooks, mind maps, guides, rubrics, and feedback opportunities • build programs around student voices so that students are more engaged in and actively contribute to their own learning through conversations, responses, writing, and inquiries, thus promoting authentic discourse and influencing instructional design In The Whole Story, Brian Cambourne describes six phases of teacher response to students, which I summarize here: 1. Seek clarification of the learner’s intent. Ask questions like these: “What are you doing?” “What are you trying to do?” “What are you supposed to be doing?” Doing this helps the learner verbalize the task or reveal strategies or problems. 2. Listen to the learner’s response. The message to be communicated to the learner is “I find your response worthwhile and I am listening to it.” 3. Focus on a gap in the learner’s knowledge or skill and respond with a quick demonstration then and there. 4. Extend the student’s frame of learning into new areas. Ask: “What else will you [could you, should you] do now?” 5. Refocus the direction of the work if the student is unclear about it. 6. Redirect the learner when the work does not match the expectations that you as the teacher hold. For example, you might say: “I think you should just work on getting the ideas organized in the right order now. You can handle the difficult spellings later.”

Modeling oral language And what of the teacher’s own art with language? How important are our own skills of speaking and listening? What types of talk behavior do we demonstrate for our students during our time with them? Do they learn the art of talk from us simply by observing, interacting with, and listening to us? We must be ever aware of the power of language and the pleasure and inspiration that our words can bring to students. Even though few of us have trained voices, when reading aloud, we can speak with integrity and commitment. We can develop an ear for effect, a wide range of tone, effective volume and pitch, and an awareness of the reactions of the students. Our own communication abilities are important resources in teaching. We should be able to rework classroom talk where necessary — elevating, correcting, elaborating, extending, focusing, altering the mood or the tone — always

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encouraging both the participation of the students and the quality of their language and thought.

Reflecting on Classroom Talk ☐  How have talk patterns changed from your own school education? ☐  Consider these oft-used interactive modes with students in today’s schools: interviewing, asking questions, solving problems in groups, reading aloud, retelling life stories, sharing inquiries, explaining science experiments to others, working in role, and using intergrade groups for reading. Which processes are you including or strengthening, in your classroom? As we discover more about how children activate learning, what changes do you foresee happening in the talk patterns of your school? ☐  Opportunities for natural talk are expected and welcomed in our classrooms. But can we discover more useful situations that require students to talk in pairs, in small groups, and as a class, so that the listening and speaking grow naturally from activities that the students regard as real and important? ☐  How will technology affect speaking and listening in your program? For example, do your students make use of taping to replay significant moments from their text discussions? Could you use the new gadget that plugs into a computer and records voices? Are students using graphic technology, such as PowerPoint, Prezis, and iMovies, for presentations in your classroom? ☐  Think like a dialogue coach. Our own talk patterns and behaviors can be the source for future change. You might record and assess a conversation between yourself and one student or a group of students, and then consider the following: • How did you extend their use of language without interfering with the flow of ideas? • Were you an interested partner in the dialogue to help the student or students report on their experiences or voice their thoughts? • Did you rephrase and restate ideas from your point of view as listener? • Do you think our classroom interactions are too teacher directed? ☐  Are there techniques you could use for promoting accountable talk in groups, such as always requiring feedback time after discussions? ☐  Can you find occasions where you can elevate the discussion, highlight the significant moments in students’ conversations, deepen the points the students have made, or redirect the discussion to extend their meaning making? ☐  Let’s assume that you observe students engaged in talk. What would you include on a future observation list so that you could better reflect on their behavior and patterns of conversation, and apply when you set up other interactive situations for promoting student voice? ☐  How can you relate talk to reading aloud for the students, so that they come to understand the importance of interpreting the written word, as if they were speaking, and of finding their voice inside the words of the text?

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2 This dialogue was transcribed by Philip Taylor, in Pre-text and Story Drama: The Artistry of Cecily O’Neill and David Booth (published by the National Association for Drama in Education in Australia in 1995).

Is Anyone Listening to Me? Finding, Freeing, and Expressing Voice

Members of a Grade 5–6 class were working in role as islanders from a picture book, The Expedition. Strange as it may seem, I was in role as “the hypnotized stranger,” and the student leader was interrogating me, with whispered suggestions from her classmates. Student: (to David) Sit down. What do you know about the temple you stole from us? Why do you think and say we shouldn’t take it back from you? David: The temple is real and a fraud. Within the stones are the voices of your people, and they say to give you the temple, but also with the stones are the voices of my people. The group members are whispering among themselves to help the one they chose as leader to find the questions she can ask David, which could reveal the visitor’s mission. She listens as the questions are whispered to her and selects those that she believes will reveal the truth. Student: Why are you giving the temple back after all these years? David: We need to put something on your island to control this area. Student: Why do you want it on this island? David: We need to control the ocean. Student: But why do you need to control the ocean? David: We need a base here. Students whisper suggestions to the student leader. Student: But why this island? David: Because this island lies between the two great lands. Student: Which two great lands? David: The two great lands to the east and to the west. Student: What happens if we do accept it? David: You will have your temple back, and we will have your island for a base. Student: What kind of a base? David: I am not to tell you this. Students again whisper suggestions to the student leader. Student: Is it a base for war? David: Yes. Students, who are very agitated, whisper suggestions to the student leader. Student: Against who? David: Against any enemy. Student: Why do you need enemies when you can have friends?  21

Choice and Voice in Making a Collaborative Decision

Learning to Risk “As students explore through conversation and role-play — interacting, listening, and speaking — they learn to risk and to express. These are necessary experiences on the road to literacy. Students explore life through their own storying and through the stories of others, creating their own unique narratives, their own ways of representing yesterday, today and tomorrow. They require broad, thoughtful experience with real situations to learn how to read the world intellectually, physically, emotionally, spiritually.” — Philip Taylor

Students from a local elementary school in Australia held the power in the roleplaying event just outlined. With me they were exploring the wordless picture book The Expedition, which portrays a band of marauding soldiers who invade an island, steal a temple, and retreat to their boat with the stone temple, only to discover that their steam engine has been stolen by the island’s inhabitants and placed where the islanders’ temple used to be. The transcript above points to the outcome of their actions. My words had confirmed the suspicions of the islanders: that their temple had been vilified and might be an instrument of their own destruction. They terminated the hypnosis, refused the return of the temple, and lived with the fear that their community’s maxim — What is the use of having enemies when we can all be friends? — would be of no use given a conquering aggressor. Here, I was working in two roles: the drama role of the hypnotized captain, and the real-life role of the teacher. So, too, were the students working in two roles: as the islanders and as students in a drama classroom. They were in charge of the action and of me as captain, making all decisions, coming to grips with the problem, and finding a way to make a collective decision. As teacher, I control the classroom event: I can stop the drama and redirect the action. As role player, I can only respond to their questions as a stranger on their land, with a secret they need to discover. Student voices were being heard, and they had — and used — that power to determine the outcome of the activity.

Finding Voice Think back to a time in school when your voice was actually heard, when you realized that you, as an individual, had something important to say and that others were listening to and interacting with you. You were building on one another’s comments. Student voice can be defined as the individual and collective perspectives and actions of young people within the context of learning and education. Promoting student voice means giving students the ability to influence learning on the level of policies, programs, contexts, and principles, including issues of equity and justice. We need to examine and explore the power of incorporating student voice in our classroom communities. As learners strengthen their confidence in their own capacities, come to realize their own potential, maximize their own abilities, and begin to take a self-determined path of personal growth, they are more likely to find and free their voices. Since student voice increases engagement and promotes a willingness to take part in classroom and whole-school activities, we as teachers will want to find strategies for promoting and valuing it. Students have better opportunities for buying into their own learning if they have a voice in determining, organizing, structuring, and responding to the events occurring in their classrooms. These opportunities may challenge the thinking of students and of their peers in meaningful ways, so that the students are constantly reflecting on their learning, increasing, altering, modifying, and deepening their understanding through collaborative and cooperative events.

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As students and as teachers, we have encountered the term voice in discussions of what we are reading and how we are writing, but in this text, we are exploring the student voice as a means of participating in learning, as students become significant partners in the daily events in which they find themselves engaged and involved, from conversations with classmates, to debating an issue, to helping to develop school policies as members of council teams. Students’ identities and sense of agency are entwined in their actions as student-participants who want — and need — to have their views heard. A 2011 Reading Research Quarterly article by Melanie Sperling and Deborah Appleman says this about voice in the context of literacy studies: Some students, but not all, have a voice in their learning. Some voices are silenced, some privileged in reading and writing contexts, some stronger than others at different times and places and under different reading and writing circumstances. Students might speak, write or read in many voices. Voice can be given and taken away by teachers or others in students’ lives. As writers or readers, students can lose or find their voices. As writers and readers, students hear and are influenced by others’ voices — social, political and personal — and these voices may be concordant or conflicting. (p. 71)

The Necessity of Voice To be silent in hopes of not offending, in hopes of being accepted.   But what happened to people who never spoke, never raised their voices? Kept everything inside?   Gamache knew what happened. Everything they swallowed, every word, thought, feeling rattled around inside, hollowing the person out. And into that chasm they stuffed their words, their rage.  From Bury Your Dead by Louise Penny

As teachers, we hope to create situations and settings where those students we see or label as “quiet,” “shy,” or “introverted” are allowed to participate from their own strengths. With sensitive teachers, such students can be encouraged to enter the conversations, the enquiries, the games, perhaps with a partner or in a small group, or by giving a presentation with group members, where they participate in a supportive role. Sometimes, when the activity catches fire, a quiet student will voluntarily join the conversation with information or opinion, where the focus is on the issue, rather than the student. Of course, many students enjoy public speeches, and others may become accustomed to presenting in front of the class, but some require a different dynamic for adding their voices to the dialogue or conversations, through their writing, or their art. Many adults who would be considered quiet do extremely well in their careers or positions, as they find ways to be “heard” through personal interactions, written information, or media support. In Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking, author Susan Cain examines research on the psychology of temperament and offers ways of empowering quiet children and of extending their natural talents. Developing and freeing voice, and then learning to be an effective speaker in different contexts, is a cumulative process, a lifelong journey. Cain mentions the orchid hypothesis: “some children are orchids and need a lot of time and attention while other children can bloom right where they are planted.” We can find different ways and means for encouraging and listening to children’s authentic voices. We must work towards ensuring that we not marginalize any student and helping every student to feel a sense of equity. In Meaningful Student Involvement: Research Guide, Adam Fletcher, an internationally recognized expert on student voice, writes about incorporating ­student voice into school governance: It is not enough to simply listen to student voice. Educators have an ethical imperative to do something with students, and that is why meaningful student involvement is vital to school improvement. Meaningful Student Involvement  23

is the process of engaging students in every facet of the educational process for the purpose of strengthening their commitment to education, community and democracy. (p. 2)

Benefits That Accrue from Including Voice and Choice in the Classroom Having voice and choice in the classroom will depend on teachers being adaptable and flexible, choosing different ways of being “teacher,” sometimes participating from inside the activities, and focusing the talk as the need arises. The classroom must be a safe place, where all participants feel respected as they engage in social, academic, and emotional learning; move towards acceptance of others’ viewpoints; overcome anxieties, personal and student related; and develop selfefficacy. So much learning can grow from a classroom where students have partownership in how authentic communication can function on a day-to-day basis.

A sense of classroom partnership From a radio interview with John Malloy, director of education, Hamilton-Wentworth District School Board: “. . . when we listen to our students they tell us better than anybody else can what they like, what they dislike, and what we can do better.”

Teachers will want to recognize the importance of including student voices and choices in selecting topics or texts of relevance, substance, and interest. Students can buy into their own learning when they understand that they are participants in constructing how the classroom and events will function, that there is a purpose for their contributions. Within a classroom setting that supports inquiry, questioning, and discussion, students and teachers are co-learners. A sense of democracy is felt by students who begin to take some responsibility for their learning, who can co-construct the rubrics of assessment, who have a say in the texts they meet and the response modes that evolve, and who help shape the way the classroom functions. Students learn best when they are consulted about their learning and engaged in structuring the learning events.

A concern that all voices be heard Students will recognize when they have voice as participating citizens, when, through their inquiries, they discover who is marginalized and what they can do to ensure that all voices are heard, so that they can begin to make a difference in the world. Students can develop insight into what they as individuals can do to have a voice and to help others make their voices heard. They begin to recognize the importance of the factors that affect them as speakers and listeners — culture, background, language, personal and social identities, passions and interests, aspirations and abilities. As they and we participate as individuals in a cooperative setting where student voices and identities are welcomed and inclusive, an awareness of community is built.

Strong motivation to learn Students can learn to approach each text they meet both critically and creatively, thereby developing positive attitudes about learning. As they seek opportunities for expressing their thoughts and feelings, what they think and what their responses are matter to them. A sense of competence and a developing belief in 24  

their own abilities to learn build confidence and increase motivation. Students learn to co-construct knowledge through membership in an evolving community, to persist and concentrate in accomplishing their work, and to take satisfaction from their achievements. Students connect personally to the texts they encounter, using their backgrounds and their experiences, becoming agents of their own learning. They can express and explore their developing selves, with opportunities to discover ideas that can affect their lives. Furthermore, their literacy proficiency grows as they read and write for real reasons, recognizing that strategies for making meaning with text forms are requisite in articulating positions and opinions, and in being understood. They are recognizing their own roles and responsibilities as learners.

Interactive learning that is transformative Teachers can incorporate learning strategies that will engage students in thoughtful dialogue and discussion as a class, in groups, and with partners. These opportunities may challenge the students’ personal thinking and that of their peers in meaningful ways, so that they are constantly reflecting on their learning, increasing, altering, modifying, and deepening their understanding through collaborative and cooperative events. These experiences can be transformative in their lives: the student builds on others’ talk, takes turns, recognizes points of view, carries the conversation forward, modifies and adapts ideas, links to the ideas of others, explores and questions, accepts or adopts the role of group leader, initiates conversation with the teacher, looks for alternative solutions and suggests new lines of discussion, reveals feelings, shares personal anecdotes, and relates new information to known. This interplay among learners supports meaning making in every discipline and creates shared understandings as individuals recognize how their own views and perceptions affect the thinking of the other participants in the ­learning.

Rich resources, rich perspectives Students need to encounter rich resources to develop their global understandings, to increase their frames around important topics and issues through technology, books (both fiction and nonfiction), newspapers and magazines, and guests (in person and online) so that they can gain insights, alter perspectives, be challenged on current thinking, and engage in deep inquiries. A rich environment allows for student choice in texts of all kinds and in responses generated by those texts. The class benefits from the personal views and knowledge that individuals bring to the issues being explored.

Improved communication skills Incorporating student voice in the daily routines of the classroom provides students with opportunities to explore issues that are relevant to their lives, to become more articulate in their arguments, and to discuss complex points with growing confidence. They have reasons for reflecting on and revising thoughts and opinions; they come to understand the need to inform and persuade; they begin to grasp the requirements of different audiences and to articulate and rethink what they want to express.  25

Listening to Student Voices, or Teaching with Our Mouths Shut: Jeff Wilhelm This text is derived from “Next Steps in the Journey: Learning to Listen to Student Voices: Teaching with Our Mouths Shut,” in Voices from the Middle 18, no. 3 (March 2011): 49–51.

Finkel, Donald. Teaching with Your Mouth Shut. Portsmouth, NH: ­Boynton/Cook, 2000.

Much of the power of the teacher resides in the capacity not to do work for students through talk, purveyance, and control, but in the willingness to work with students through listening, accommodation, and collaboration, so that students can come to work by themselves (p. 49).   Teaching with our mouths shut involves working through new concepts and processes that develop in concert through purpose-driven activity. Learning involves thinking, talking, writing, composing, acting, and applying. Teaming involves listening and watching, responding, and collaborating in ways that extend students’ continuing impulse and capacity to learn. Teaching is often about not knowing, but it is also about wanting to know and knowing how to proceed. Learning encompasses learning why and how to learn; it is about the willingness and capacity to engage in sustained investigations, perhaps extending over a lifetime.   All of this means teaching with our mouths shut, as Donald Finkel advises in Teaching with Your Mouth Shut. Finkel points out that when we teach with our mouths shut, we have a lot to do, but what we do is in service of students taking over the work and constructing the understandings. All of these kinds of activities help students to listen to themselves and to each other. They also help teachers to listen to students as learners (p. 51).

Listening Well, Earning Trust This text comes from “Using Student Voices to Guide Instruction,” by Susan E. Elliott-Johns, David Booth, Jennifer Rowsell, Enrique Puig, and Jane Paterson, in Voices from the Middle 19, no. 3 (March 2012): 25.

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My colleague Susan Elliott-Johns organized several of us to develop an article on student voice for the March 2012 issue of Voices from the Middle, a journal published by the National Council of Teachers of English. Here is a key piece of our message: We advocate for increased acknowledgement of why student voice matters, and how teachers can integrate opportunities to promote student voices across the curriculum. The development of student voice through dialogue and conversation is central to learning processes that require students to be active, responsible participants in their own learning — with the capacity for self-reflection. Furthermore, the development of personal agency must be actively supported in middle level and high school classrooms and can, we suggest, be effectively taught by integrating talking to learn in the classroom experiences of teachers and students teachers to promote student voices across the curriculum.

Strategy: Understanding the Language of Power By Linda Christensen When teachers and writers talk about an author’s voice, we mean word choice, tone, and syntax. We mean the voice readers hear when they read a piece of written work; we mean the language of a particular community, a voice that sometimes identifies the writer, narrator, or character as a member of a certain generation, class, or ethnicity. But when we talk about voice, we also need to speak about the intersection of voice and power. We need to teach students to ask questions about voice: Whose voices get heard? Whose don’t? Whose voices are marginalized? Voice is more than a score on the ubiquitous six-trait rubric; it is a linguistic marker that privileges some and hurts others. That is why we must raise our eyes off the scoring guide and look instead at the variety of voices rattling around in the world. We can do this in a number of ways: • We can share literature written in diverse dialects. • We can open spaces for students’ authentic voices to become part of the classroom by encouraging them to use their home language in their poetry and narratives. • We can teach students to critically examine the relationship between language and power by looking at indigenous languages, colonialism and language extinction, or linguistic profiling. • And we can teach them to respect their home language when we respond to their papers. Instead of marking errors in their narratives and essays, we can explain the difference between their home language and Standard English.

This text comes from “Finding Voice: Learning About Language and Power,” by Linda Christensen in Voices from the Middle 18, no. 3 (March 2011): 9.

Instead of designating usage as right and wrong, we can support students as they learn to code-switch — to choose the appropriate voice for their audience. So, how do we both nurture students’ voices in their writing and help them learn the language of power? We start by telling them what they’re doing right. Too many students are scarred by teachers’ pens in the margins yelling, You’re wrong. Wrong again. Ten points off for that comma splice. Where is the past tense? Language arts teachers become accustomed to looking for errors as if we will be rewarded in some English teacher heaven for finding the most. I know this from experience. I still remember the day when in a frenzy of doing my job right, I corrected every error on Jerald’s budding paper and witnessed his transformation from eager to dejected student. I had to turn that practice around and look for what the student does right. Obviously, when a student’s paper is filled with errors, giving only positive feedback is a dereliction of duty. Students need to know how to access the language of power. Once students begin to understand that Standard English is one language among many, we can help them access their multiple voices: the one they use on the basketball court, the one they use in speech and debate, the one they use at the kitchen table, and the ones they use in their writing.

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Including All Voices: English Language Learners and Special Education Students As the racial, ethnic, cultural, and linguistic diversity of a community changes, so do the educational needs of its students. In recent years, the number of students entering our elementary schools who speak English only as a second language or who have little proficiency in English has increased dramatically. In some schools, English as a second language (ESL) students, English language ­learners (ELLs), or English as a second dialect (ESD) students make up a majority of the school population. Teachers and school administrators have made significant changes in their classrooms, their schools, and their programs to serve their students. Although students who do not speak English are welcomed into a reception classroom, those of us who have learned a second language know from experience that we do not gain true mastery until we are immersed in the language environment and truly need to communicate. We also know that students placed in the regular classroom as soon as possible will feel part of the community sooner and learn language much faster from real interaction with native speakers. The ELL teacher can then move through the school working with the students and assisting classroom teachers by offering special strategies for working with ELL students. Although we encourage students to integrate with the life of the classroom and the wider community, we have learned that we must give due weight and respect to the first language and cultural background of the students and their families. Research indicates that, while most school settings do not provide for it, students should be able to learn to read and write in their first language. Multicultural themes are now part of most classroom curricula, however, and books in students’ first languages are included in classroom libraries to encourage students to think, speak, read, and write in their first language as well as in English. We as teachers are committed to the concept that the student’s home culture is to be accepted and valued in the school setting. When students who speak little English arrive at school, they are paired, usually with other speakers of their home language. The first-language buddies welcome the new students and orient them to the school, smoothing the transition and creating a feeling of belonging. Buddies can help each other in their own class; older students can serve as tutors for primary students. Teachers can ensure that content, resources, and activities for these students are appropriate for their age and grade level — they don’t try to teach 12-year-olds to read English using a Grade 1 primer. As they find themselves in social situations where a variety of real-life demands are placed upon them, the students soon discover the need to use English and begin to function in it as their second language. Good Music In Home of the Brave, Kathleen Applegate beautifully describes the feelings of youngsters new to a country, to the school, to the social fabric surrounding them. Kek, from Africa, is in an ELL class in Minnesota. Even when teased by his classmates, he remembers home: I draw a bull with great curving horns, like the finest in my father’s herd. I even give him a smile. But it takes me a while to decide on his coat. 28  

In my words, we have ten different names for the color of cattle. but the writing chalk is only white. I am working on the tail when someone in the back of the room says, Moo. Then more say it, and more, and soon we are all a class of cattle. At last we can all understand each other. I think maybe some of the students are laughing at me. But I don’t mind so much. To hear the cattle again is good music.

Winnie’s Story: An ESL Student Blossoms By Peter Jailall Peter Jailall is an ELL teacher and a well-known Canadian poet writing on issues of equity and his childhood in Guyana.

Winnie, a quiet, shy six-year-old, whose first language was Cantonese, came to our school in September. She did not utter a word to me during her time in reception or to her classroom teacher, Katie Thurston, for three months. We were beginning to worry, but we decided to wait. On October 8, Winnie printed her name; she then drew a picture of herself. During November and December, she used picture making to represent significant others in her life — mother, father, sister, and friend. I talked to Winnie about her pictures, her family, and her friend. At the same time, I helped her to label her pictures and provided opportunities for her to share her work with others. All along, she was free to set her own agenda, to decide what she wanted to draw and label. I intervened judiciously. She drew and we labeled together the sun, a house, an ice cream, a tree, a book, a pizza. Through January and February, I continued coaching and supporting her in her writing endeavors. After the completion of each piece of writing and artwork, I praised Winnie for her efforts, which I valued very much. I had confidence in her ability to create pieces of writing, and I tried to be patient with her small efforts to succeed. Winnie worked with a group of other ESL writers like herself, and they supported each other, talking about pictures, ideas, and the possible spelling of words. They often giggled as they exchanged writing in their own scripts. During this sharing, they came to understand that they each had a unique form of writing — Chinese, Japanese, Portuguese, Punjabi, and Hindi. I encouraged them to write and to talk both in English and in their mother tongue. It was mid-April when Winnie suddenly began to put strings of words together to make meaning in her own way. She wrote: I like my mother to me. I like my father to me. I like my sister to me. I like Kyoko [her friend] to me.  29

She began writing and reading longer texts in English and in Chinese, and to share her pieces of writing with her classmates in ESL and in her homeroom. She also brought her parents to our Parents’ Night. She was now excited about drawing, writing, reading, and talking about her work. As teachers would say, Winnie blossomed. She had discovered the joy of sharing with others. But most of all, she suddenly found out how her writing could make others listen, respond, and recognize her ideas. Winnie became a new student — talking, laughing, enjoying school, making friends, learning language skills, and gaining enough confidence to launch out further afield into other areas of the curriculum. Winnie continued to develop new understandings every day in her drawing, writing, talking, and reading, and she was doing it by herself with full support from me, her classroom teacher, and her classmates. She had been truly empowered through her newfound ability to communicate.

Strategy: How to Help Students with Difficulties Focus on Writing By Shelley Murphy How will we help students who have great difficulty focusing on reading and writing to develop strategies so they can read different texts and communicate their responses? Shelley Murphy offers explicit techniques for assisting students in these literacy difficulties. Shelley Murphy, who was a teacher and literacy specialist, is now an instructor in the Curriculum, Teaching and Learning Department at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education. Her doctorate focused on the topic of inclusive strategies for students with characteristics of ADHD.

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• Increase support in the pre-writing stage and spend a few minutes helping brainstorm ideas. Students with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) often get stuck at this critical pre­planning stage because executive functioning weaknesses result in poor planning and organization. I would help a student plan by having a conference of 3 to 4 minutes or by pairing him with another student, offering writing prompts (e.g., a picture, a song, a poem, or a news story), and teaching use of graphic organizers. I would provide examples of filled-out organizers as a reference. • Teach explicitly (and continue to revisit) the steps of the writing process: pre­ writing, composing first draft, revising, editing, proofreading, and publishing. • Teach and then guide practice in applying each step separately. Students with executive functioning weaknesses often experience cognitive overload when faced with several steps at one time; they might shut down completely. You can significantly increase and improve a student’s writing output if you teach each step explicitly, and give frequent and immediate feedback, especially after each step. (Here are the steps in the pre-writing stage, here’s how to do it, here’s what it looks like, you try it, show me what you’ve done, here’s feedback, next step.) This level of support can be reduced once students show an increased level of independence. • Create a checklist that outlines the specific steps students need to take in each phase. • Have students write for 10 to 15 minutes and then stop to exchange work with another student to receive feedback.

• Give the option of composing stories on the computer. Let students use desktop, laptop, or AlphaSmart computers to compensate for weaknesses in finemotor skills. • Suggest the use of assistive technologies. These include Dragon NaturallySpeaking, which helps students get their stories and ideas on paper by using a voice recognition system, and without having to type or write; Co: Writer 4000 Solo, which is a word prediction software that also provides grammar and vocabulary support for struggling writers; Write: OutLoud Solo, which is a talking word processor and writing software program that provides auditory feedback and purposeful revising and editing tools. • Substitute written reports with alternative reports that draw on student strengths. Allow students to present their work through oral reports, audio recordings, dramatic presentations, singing, PowerPoint presentations, drawing, dancing, Readers Theatre, or another way. • Give time off the clock. When written assignments (or tests) are timed, it is not always helpful to give students with ADHD the standard extra time accommodation. Problems with attention and concentration may increase. Instead, give students 2 to 3 minute breaks to stand up, walk around, or doodle, and do not include these minutes when you are timing the test or assignment. Breaking tests or assignments into smaller chunks and having frequent breaks helps to increase attention and concentration. Students will gain more time to write the test, but are not expected to sit through more active work time.

Twenty-One Things That 21 Boys Taught Me I had asked for boys at risk in literacy, but the school wisely requested that I film a range of boys with different abilities in order to truly represent the nature of the student body.

I had the good fortune to be allowed to interview 21 boys from Grade 1 to Grade 8 at one elementary school in an urban setting for a film I was making to be shown at a conference on boys and literacy. Over two days, I met the boys one by one and chatted with them about reading, writing, and classroom literacy events. During the interviews, it took only a minute or two before the boys forgot the camera and focused on our conversation. I had no particular questions pre­ arranged; I just tried to follow their leads as topics arose. Every time I watch the film that grew out of those interviews, I am surprised by the boys’ confidence and by the ease with which they talk openly to me. They are products of a school that is a nurturing and exciting community: the library, the computer room, the art on the walls, and the collegiality of the teachers tell me as a visitor that students thrive here. The school culture welcomes the students, and the students and the teachers define the culture. The answers of the boys often surprised me and made me realize that we seldom make use of the thoughts our students share with us to build our practice. (In the margin beside each set of statements, I model how to use or respond to honest student comments in order to build teaching practice.) The statements that follow provide a sampling of what the boys said as they talked about their literacy lives.

Activating the 21 Points the Boys Taught Me

Student 1: My father reads out loud to my brother and me every night before bed. David: What is he reading now? Student 1: The Penguin Book of Norse Mythology. He finished Harry Potter already.

1. We read aloud and share texts that our students might not select.

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2. We value libraries and what children select on their own.

Student 2: I go to the library every Saturday with my friends. We like hanging around there. We play on the computers and take out books. My favorite books are manga and other graphic novels.

3. We read aloud with interpretive power.

Student 3: The student teacher read stories out loud to us, and she used a different voice for each of the characters.

4. We recognize and expand gendered choices of texts.

Student 4: Boys read adventure books. And dangerous books. Girls read Barbie stories.

5. We respect texts of home faiths.

Student 5: My older brother reads the Bible.

6. We understand the stages of literacy and literary growth in our students.

Student 6: I think boys and girls read similar books. David: Would you read a romance book? Student 6: Yes, some day, when I’m ready.

7. We work in partnerships with parents.

Student 7: When I couldn’t learn to read in second grade, my father taught me that summer with books from the library. He helped me with the hard words and never yelled.

8. We incorporate on-screen and in-ear texts.

Student 8: I like working in the computer room. We’re making a zine right now about the Maya.

9. We value home languages.

Student 9: My father reads the newspaper. David: Which one? Student 9: The Sri Lankan paper. But he also reads the English ones.

10. We recognize families as literacy educators.

Student 10: My grandma lives upstairs. She reads romantic books. And sad ones.

11. We read texts to children who are having difficulties. 12. We schedule time for digital learning.

Student 11: My teacher read us three novels already this year. Student 12: I’m only allowed to play computer games on weekends.

13. We find opportunities to publish student work.

Student 13: My friend and me wrote a story about a king who couldn’t have children. He wouldn’t have an heir. We sent it to a publisher, but we never heard back.

14. We read and share funny, even silly, texts at times.

Student 14: My teacher read a funny book to us about lima beans. How silly!

15. We value and support parents who use libraries.

Student 15: My mother reads books for herself that I bring home from the school library.

16. We understand that the ­perceptions have their own ­realities.

Student 16: I just read The Landry News by Andrew Clements. David: What’s it about? Student 16: It’s about a teacher who is lazy and doesn’t work hard for the students. David: It must be fiction. Teachers aren’t like that, are they? Student 16: Some teachers.

17. We organize cross-age reading buddies.

Student 17: I work with my reading buddy in third grade. I listen to him read and I talk with him about the story. I help with hard words.

18. We value out-of-school experiences.

Student 18: I wrote a story about my village, about a Baba. You know, a seer who can tell your future by reading your hand.

19. We replace book reports with more effective strategies.

Student 19: I’m not too good a reader and I have to do a book report every week. It’s hard.

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20. We incorporate reading contests as motivators.

Student 20: I’ve read 17 of the 20 books you need to read for the Silver Birch contest. You have to read different genres.

21. We are literacy models for all of our students.

David: Do you know any men who read? Student 21: (After a long pause . . .) You.

Early Voices, Emerging Identities After all my years in teaching, watching my grandchildren develop language has been an eye-opening adventure. I have heard them speak their first words, move into sentences, express their feelings, formulate ideas, begin to engage in real conversations, try on power roles in play, and reveal how their own emerging identities are beginning to take shape. Statements about fair play, right and wrong behaviors, and what seems to make sense are everyday utterances as voice begins to emerge. The experience has prompted me to reframe my approach to early voices. As a result, I believe that asking “What am I hearing?” is not the appropriate question. Instead, when we hear young children speak, we need to consider this question: “What does it mean?” At five years old, Mara calls out Daddy or Mommy, but in talking to me, she will reference them as Jay and Katie. She understands their roles as parents and as people; she is beginning to form her worldview of identities. Our friend Lia, who was five when she wrote and painted these words, clearly raises her voice in admiration of all she sees, and we welcome her thoughts: Once upon a time there was a landscape it had hills and green grass and some flowres and a sunset and clowds and people loved it soo much and if you wur there when   the sun is seting   it is byooteyful

Strategy: How Governments Can Give Students a Stronger Voice Several provinces in Canada have created a Minister’s Student Advisory Council, comprised of about 60 students from all parts of the education system and various regions within the province. Council members are able to share their ideas and advice with the provincial minister of Education on how to improve their schools. In Ontario, for example, the minister signed the order to create the Minister’s Student Advisory Council, under section 10(a) of the Education Act, in 2008. The first-ever Council meeting was held on May 12 a year later. Since then, students from across the province have had opportunities to give advice on how to strengthen and improve the public education system.

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The purpose of the Council is to empower youth to “be the change.” Council members are encouraged to “think big,” to speak up, and to act in aid of other students across the province. They can express their views directly to the minister of Education, sharing perspectives and serving as change agents. As a council, the students meet with the minister of Education twice a year to share their ideas. Council members form sub-committees on matters of interest and meet virtually to discuss them. They may be consulted on policies or programs that would have an impact on students, and they can also attend the appropriate Regional Student Forum. The following vision was composed by Ontario’s 2011–12 Minister’s Student Advisory Council: Dream We have a dream . . . . . . where every student sees their potential and feels a sense of belonging in school. We dream that students with addictions will receive support so they can overcome this challenge and achieve their dreams and that students’ voices will be heard and respected and will find support in peers, teachers and families. We dream that teachers will be open to teaching to a variety of learning styles and overall students will become more engaged. . . . that the well-being of each student is recognized and assured through a variety of health and physical education classes tailored to each student’s needs. . . . that standardization doesn’t exist, where students are taught to their learning styles, where students go to class because they want to, where extra-curricular activities not only exist but are encouraged. In this dream, students are truly involved and engaged, attending school with a positive manner. . . . where students will feel free to dream about their futures, where they are able to connect their passions with possible career options, and that the opportunities and resources needed to support these decisions are provided. . . . of having all resources available electronically for anyone and everyone who may want or need them, especially for those who are visually impaired. . . . that every secondary school in Ontario will have a students’ council that will have a universal constitution that serves as a mold for their structure and purpose and that the councils will grow beyond their current role and represent the student voice in tackling the issues they face. . . . where the big or small, the quiet or loud of Ontario can become leaders no matter what the circumstances. Where leadership is encouraged in schools by both peers and educators. Where students have the opportunity to live meaningful experiences. Where no one is afraid to take initiative and where leadership creates positive changes in our communities. . . . in which all teachers would be able to use technology with ease. That the use of items such as smart boards, iPods, iPads, laptops and tablets occurred in every classroom, and that every student across Ontario would have equal access to technology in their home schools. . . . where schools are equal and void of stereotypes, that it takes a community to raise a child, where there is an apparent unified and accessible community identity, and that the curriculum involves native studies for everyone. . . . to create a network between schools, medical centres and research institutions that would be promoted by celebrities, athletes and politicians with the purpose of raising awareness and support for students dealing with mental

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i­ llnesses through open and comfortable student–councillor relationships with the use of personalized resources.

Reflecting on Classroom Voices ☐  How can you continue to build a classroom culture that promotes the development of student voice? Can your students help you to develop an environment that promotes open-mindedness during discussions, along with collaborative skills? ☐  In your whole-class sessions, can you find ways of including the voices of your students by incorporating a variety of procedures, such as Pair-Share and small-group response activities? ☐  As your students work in groups, can you set up conditions where each group member is participating and also ensure that you take time for the giving of feedback at the close of the group time for sharing or reflecting on the activity? ☐  What observations could you make concerning the development of voice in each of your students? Could you help them with a different set of strategies to reveal their own thoughts on how they feel about participating, and what they see as blocks or obstacles? ☐  What strategies can you demonstrate to depict how students can participate as contributors to each other’s learning through authentic classroom events that support interaction? ☐  Do you reinforce socially constructed frames of being a boy or a girl, or do you help youngsters to expand on or to redefine frames? ☐  How do you handle male peer groups who pressure others in the class to respond in “stereotypical male” fashion to ideas that are shared? ☐  Do you open up response discussions so that boys and girls can note the different ways of becoming a reader and a writer? ☐  If reading reflects and confirms gender, can you use that influence on behaviors in boys and girls to see gender issues through a critical lens? ☐  Why do you think some classrooms are able to extend the literacy behaviors and constructs of so many boys and girls? Why are these effective changes happening in some schools, regardless of their socio-economic contexts?

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Building a Community of Voices When Students Work Together

The following transcript involves a Grade 4 class and grew out of the picture book Harald and the Giant Knight by Donald Carrick. In the story, set in medieval times, Harald and his family have their farm taken over one spring by the baron’s knights because the knights’ regular practice fields have been flooded. The knights trample the farmer’s crops and eat the livestock. Harald begins to reassess his concept of “knighthood.” The students were in role as feudal peasants, and I was in role as their leader. A visiting teacher entered the drama later, in role as the baron. David as village leader: All of you are going to come to the cave to make your plans. Do you think we should go to the baron? You have information about our problems? What have you heard about the baron? Students make general comments about the baron’s power. Student 1: He owns all the land, and we pay him rent and he never seems satisfied. David as village leader: I’ve heard rumors about other times it seemed to be his fault that people in the village died. Student 2: Could the baron stop us from picking wild blueberries to live on? Student 1: Anyway, we can’t keep on living in caves, and we can’t live on his land in our cottages anymore. Student 3: How can we live in these caves when the food is all gone? David as village leader: Do you think if we all went to see him he would kill us all? Student 4: Could we sneak in or send a spy? Student 2: We could send a child — he wouldn’t hurt a child. [Some discussion about dressing up like knights or wearing disguises occurs. Other alternatives are considered but rejected by the class.] Student 4: Why don’t we just kill him and get rid of him? Student 1: His men would just kill us, you stupid. David as village leader: Well, let’s go watch him and see how he acts. Maybe, there will be a chance to talk to him. Be careful not to threaten him — try to keep your tempers under control. The students regroup as if watching a tournament. The baron enters the scene. Visiting teacher as baron: (shouting to knights on the field) That’s right! Get him while he’s down! . . . And who might you be? Students: We’re farm people. We are just looking at the jousting tournament.

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Visiting teacher as baron: Well, be sure and keep out of the way. (looks away from the farmers) Watch out, there, Sir Daigle . . . What are you people staring at me for? David as village leader: It’s just that we have never seen knights on our farms before. Student 1: Why were the crops trampled? Visiting teacher as baron: They got in the way of the horses. Student 1: That’s not a good enough reason. David as village leader: I’m sorry. I do apologize for our behavior. It’s just that a knight killed this girl’s father.

Teachers and Students: Moving into a Learning Partnership When the class began exploring the story through drama, there was some laughter, but before long, the students were inside the work. The language began to reflect their degree of commitment, and as they moved in and out of belief, their language power fluctuated. The original story seemed far away at the end of the lesson, but in retelling it at the conclusion of the work, the details fell into place. The concept of “knight” was explored in a very different manner from that of the book. I felt it important to help the students build a bigger frame for the word knight, and I had to work in role along with them to refocus the work when they could not see the consequences of their actions. It was important that they explore the position of the baron and the reason behind the killing of the girl’s father. Many of my tentative suggestions were rejected. I had to push hard to slow down the acceptance of the knight by the villagers so that the students could begin to put together the whole picture of this society. In discussion away from the baron and knight, the language was informal, and the role commitment, minimal. It required the theatre tension of the baron or knight to stimulate thoughtful language response. Of course, not all students were talking constantly, but there were times when all were involved, listening and observing in an emotionally connected way. The students who generated the transcript above were working as a classroom community, tackling a historical issue in role, working collaboratively to have their voices heard. In many of the classroom communities that I have observed over the years, a positive partnership between teacher and students has had a supportive and enabling effect on how the learning developed. I realized that, in these instances, the teachers • pay attention to individuals, offer help until they can proceed alone, encourage them to compete with themselves rather than with others • make certain all are involved • explain and discuss classroom and school rules • listen with interest to their experiences • acknowledge their feelings • create an atmosphere in which it is safe for students to take risks • ask open-ended questions • supply new materials, resources, and information • help students solve problems • teach new techniques, or review what has been learned 38  

The goal is to build a curriculum that addresses both what each student wants and what each student needs. Skills are not ignored — they are taught, as students need them in their quest to communicate and make meaning. When the teacher moves from being the disseminator of knowledge to becoming the facilitator of the learning process, teachers and students move into partnership and share the responsibility for selecting and organizing tasks. The daily program can allow various types of learning to occur simultaneously so that teachers can meet individual needs. A range of instructional strategies, resources, teaching styles, and activities will accommodate the interests, abilities, and backgrounds of both the teacher and students; it will also provide opportunities for students to work alone, in flexible groups, and as a whole class. Choice should be an integral part of the classroom program.

The classroom as a literacy community Fostering Growth Students grow inside and outside the classroom. As teachers, we can learn much about our students’ experiences and backgrounds through parent interviews, home visits, orientation sessions, observing student interactions, and simply talking to students. In so doing, we are better able to help them to develop self-esteem and trust, and to create an environment in which they feel secure and able to take risks with their learning.

Literacy Education: A Wider Definition “Literacy is a thinking and communication process for the purpose of meaning making that takes place within social and cultural contexts. It includes skills such as the ability to decode, interpret, synthesize, evaluate, and effectively communicate thoughts, experiences and ideas.”

What is really exciting about a literacy community is discovering that what is achieved as a group usually exceeds what individuals could have achieved alone. Students are shocked and surprised into knowing. We are aware of how the minds of our students construct and reconstruct their burgeoning world knowledge. We want them to become — like ourselves — involved in understanding the different literacy forms and requirements of the various disciplines in order to apply these learnings to their own problem-solving and decision-making endeavors. Envision a school where the students spend a week, or even months, exploring a topic or theme that interests them as a class, in groups, or, occasionally, as individuals. What might they read, write, construct, observe, record, paint, revise, make, critique, and present? How will they share and reflect at the close of the inquiry? What will they remember and take home to pin on a wall or put on top of a dresser? How are they employing inside and outside school those literacy strategies we keep talking about? How can we facilitate this kind of classroom? How will we organize students’ time and help them track their experiences? What resources, including technology, books, magazines, and films, will we search for to deepen their experiences? How will we account for and represent their learning? What have we taught them about how literacy, in all its modes and shapes, works? Good schools everywhere are looking at all of these components as basic to learning; and literacy education, in its new and wider definition, including writing, is a mainstay of every successful school program.

— Laura Collins

How Choice Affects Voice Queenston Drive School is in Mississauga, in the Peel District School Board. I spent a year there, observing the interactions among students, among teachers and students, and among teachers and the administration. I chronicled my year of learning in Classroom Voices, which led to my continuing interest in finding, freeing, and supporting student voice.

Several years ago, I worked with the principal and staff at Queenston Drive School, Ontario, where together, they had built a culture of voice and choice. I want to revisit their thoughts and emphasize that concerns about student voice have been evident in effective schools for many years. The following three viewpoints on voice and choice continue to demonstrate the prerequisites for building community: Paul Shaw was the principal of Queenston Drive School, and his mandate then is still relevant today; Doris Bryce and Brian Crawford were teachers in his school. All three understand the strength of a whole-school program that values voice and choice as attributes of a powerful learning dynamic.  39

Choice in learning: Paul Shaw Later in the book, we will meet contemporary school settings and recognize the continuing efforts of educators to support the goals inherent in these programs.

When I came to Queenston, I felt our first task was to know about our students. I sat down with the teachers and I said: “Tell me about your students. Tell me about their needs. Tell me about what we could do that would help them to really make a difference.” And the teachers responded with ideas. I know that successful schools are focused on their students and have come to understand what’s really important for them. In our professional growth sessions, we decided there were things we needed to know. We began to gather data. Literate people read and write voluntarily, out of choice, so we decided to measure how much choice students had. We chose a day and asked each teacher to keep a classroom list and to record every time any given student or group of students had an opportunity to choose something to do with their curriculum. For example, if the student got to select a book during reading time, that was a choice; if the student chose a topic to write about, that was a choice; if the student chose some aspect to explore in science, we recorded that. The lists we put in order from Kindergarten to Grade 8 and posted in the staff room revealed something unexpected. We were interested not in what one class did as opposed to another but in the range and opportunity for choices across each age group. What we discovered was that as the students got older, their opportunities to choose diminished. The students who had the most choice were in Kindergarten; those with the least were in Grade 8. That made us think about our image of the learner. Obviously, our students were not self-directed. That was quite a revelation. It sparked all kinds of discussion and provoked a lot of reading and a lot of talk, in particular, with respect to the older students. Out of that experience grew a discussion paper about the Grades 7 and 8 students, summarizing the data that we had collected and including a series of recommendations. Some of the staff took this extremely well because they were excited about the possibilities for change. Some were tentative, but willing to look at the report. A few staff members found this inquiry culture overwhelming. We decided to focus on choice and the self-directed learner through the vehicle of literacy. We wanted students to become more independent, more in control, and to make better choices. Out of that came a range of decisions: about how to build a timetable; what our priorities are; how we spend our money; what we want to communicate to parents. We established a personal reading time for every student during the school day, and we worked with the expectation that each teacher would share literature with every student at least twice a day. We decided each student would have a writing folder. Today, teachers are beginning to inherit students who have had three years of choosing their own literature, responding to books, choosing their writing topics, sharing and celebrating the books. These are a very different kind of student: they are comfortable making choices; they are used to buying in; they would be very concerned — and would voice their concern — if they didn’t have some control and some ownership over their learning.

My journey to choice-based teaching: Doris Bryce If anyone had said to me several years ago that I would be a proponent of active learning and the holistic language approach, I would have scoffed at the idea. I 40  

had been a successful traditional teacher for many years, so why change a good thing? As I look back on my last few years of teaching, I realize that I have, in fact, changed — not only in my own beliefs and methods, but also in my understanding of how students learn and how to create the necessary environment for them as learners. I have had to revise my behavior as a teacher, learning to “let go” of my students and give them the freedom to make decisions about their learning and to try new ideas, and the encouragement to express and share ideas. I’ve learned to give the students opportunities in both group and class discussions to ask questions, to share knowledge, to draw conclusions, and to interact with each other, not just with me. I have seen them become more independent learners and take more responsibility for their daily agenda. The students and I have been more like partners in establishing the purpose of an inquiry, in setting goals, in discussing strategies, and in monitoring progress. Not all activities are elective, but I have learned not to focus overly on language conventions, particularly in written work. By necessity, my assessment methods have changed. I have become more used to gathering data on language development from the full range of subjects and activities in the classroom. The students join in the assessment through discussion and individual conferences. I can see benefits to this new teaching style: learning is taking place in a more relaxed environment; the students are immersed in situations where they take charge of their learning and make necessary decisions. And we have learned together that the teacher is there to encourage, to interact with, and to confer with when necessary.

Setting up a voice and choice classroom: Brian Crawford Looking back at past journal entries from the years when I taught a family grouping of junior-grade students, I can see how important “choice” was for me. The day before school started, most of my comments revolved around how much influence I would have in setting up the classroom: I’m trying to strike a balance for the creation of our classroom. Will I have too much influence? Will the fact that I am one of two adults (myself and a student-teacher) in the classroom result in an assumption by the students about who controls what happens? When the students entered class in September, they found a room piled with furniture and boxes. It could be someone’s definition of chaos. Through brainstorming, reflection, discussion, and organization of ideas, we came up with a plan for our classroom. This process occurred individually, in small groups, and with the large group. This occasion was our early encounter with choice. That night, I wrote in my journal: The organization of the room went better than I had anticipated. In the brainstorming sessions, the students gave excellent ideas of what we needed. They have a very good awareness of what they require in a classroom. When they worked, they were in focus. They were able to discuss the merits of why things should be placed where they were. They challenged each other. They were able to take the information from the six groups and use it to come up with a class blueprint.

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This was only the beginning. As I indicated earlier, I feel choice is important. I demanded choice as a student. My parents have filled in the gaps of my memories and have reminded me of how they negotiated with me as I explained why I was going to do what I had chosen. In a way, I was negotiating my curriculum: one of the main thrusts of choice in the classroom. I think of the students discussing their interests with me and how they were going to carry out these journeys. More often than not, their choices coincided with provincial and board curriculum. Once they decided on an area of exploration, my main role was to provide possible strategies to help them examine it as fully as possible. The most significant result is that the students took on more and more responsibility for their learning. Learners having choices usually results in their setting goals that are important for them and in their finding more of the learning meaningful to them. The very concept of choice inspired some students to write about it. Choices Are Important Choices are very important to me. Mr. Crawford was the first teacher to give me a lot of choices. We get a choice of what we want to study in Social Science, we get choices on who our partners are going to be, we get choices about almost everything! In the beginning of the school year, Mr. Crawford let us design our own room . . . Everyone agreed it was our room, not Mr. Crawford’s. We all share it. I think if I didn’t get choices, I wouldn’t participate in a lot of things. Kids should have choices because if they don’t then they might not be interested in what the teacher wants them to do but they might be more interested in what they like. There are choices to make in life everyday: from the least important, such as what to have for lunch, to the most important, such as refusing to take drugs. Sometimes choices are hard to make because things could be tempting. For example, stealing a piece of candy from a store. When you have difficulty making choices you have to think of the consequences and discuss it with other people. If you make the wrong choice then you have to learn to live with it and never make the same mistake again. I spend most of my days in a classroom. That classroom is 109, a place where you get to choose. My year started with choosing about our room and what we need. We set up the room well with everything we needed. And the room became ours. We moved into reading and writing, slowly at first, but I think choosing your book and story helped the new people. It certainly helped me when I was new. I worked hard to put it on paper. Math, Social Science and art revolve around choice. Choosing how to explain yourself, or which way to do something. As our year goes by we become ourselves when there is no teacher making you live the life they want and not your own. Not all classes have choice, but I’m glad mine does. — Sharon, age 9

Strategy: Hold Class Meetings — A Democratic Approach to Classroom Management Donna Styles has found many benefits to holding class meetings, with students’ greater accountability for what they do chief among the benefits. In classrooms that hold regular meetings, discipline is a minor issue. Any problems are ­discussed in that forum, and the students determine how misbehavior will be 42  

Class Meetings: Building Leadership, Problem-Solving and Decision-Making Skills in the Respectful Classroom by Donna Styles is a Pembroke title.

dealt with. When peers are noting poor behavior and discussing it in meetings, students feel highly accountable for how they act. Class meetings also provide students with an opportunity to serve on committees and to plan and orchestrate fun-filled activities. Donna reports that — without exception — students love class meetings; furthermore, the approach works well for the inclusion of students with special needs.

How to prepare for class meetings Several key components make class meetings effective: • Students sit in designated places in a circle of chairs, their desks moved to the perimeter of the room. • Meetings are held weekly. • A set format is followed: old business is discussed and then new business is dealt with. • A designated student leads each meeting. • Both problems and suggestions are discussed. • Students are careful to encourage, thank, and compliment one another. Be sure to emphasize that the student leader should make eye contact with each person speaking and talk loudly and clearly.

Trust the Process Be sure to have faith in the creative problem-solving process. Beyond that, trust that your students can lead meetings, take part in discussions, choose appropriate solutions, and make reasonable decisions.

Good practice is to take two or three lessons in the first weeks of school to prepare students for class meetings. Lesson themes should focus on encouragement and how to give it, creative problem-solving, and how to discuss in circle formation such topics as problems that arise in the day-to-day functioning of the class, excursion plans, and community concerns. After several trial meetings, with the teacher leading and modeling the process, students become discussion leaders. Each student takes a turn during the school year. During class meetings, the teacher and the student leader both have expectations to meet. The teacher acts as a coach, providing guidance to the leader, when necessary; serves as class secretary; and contributes as a group member, offering information when needed and comments to ensure that the tone is constructive. As for the student leader, after opening and closing the meeting, the leader focuses on running the meeting smoothly, following the agreed-upon steps for conducting the meeting, for solving problems, and for discussing suggestions. The student keeps discussion on topic; asks questions, clarifies, or restates problems or ideas; lets peers know if they are out of order, and summarizes meeting content. Any student can raise an issue at a meeting by placing a slip of paper inside a box provided in the classroom. The papers, which include the name of the student and the date, constitute the new business of the next meeting. Typically, a paper raises one of three types of issues: a problem involving one or more people, a problem or issue affecting the whole class, or a suggestion for a class activity.

Small-Group Activities: Interacting with Peers Students spend much of their day working in groups, but these groups are continually changing. Sometimes, the groups are of the students’ own choosing, based on friendship or common interests. The teacher may also assign students to groups to ensure a range of skills and approaches to learning. In such heterogeneous groups, those with more developed skills guide and instruct others directly or by example, consolidating their own understanding. Occasionally, the  43

teacher creates flexible and temporary homogeneous groups in order to teach a particular skill or concept. Groups vary in size depending on the task. Pairs may read a story, making meaning together from the narrative and pictures, discussing new concepts, and helping each other with the words they find difficult. Groups of four to six may create a poster or build a model. Larger groups may prepare a shared reading selection or join in discussion led by the teacher.

Strategy: Buddying Students of Different Ages By Jill Jones and Marie McLay Jill Jones and Marie McLay went beyond the walls of their own classrooms to introduce their students to one another. Initially, they decided to buddy their students for reading, but found the program idea mushroomed until they were combining their classes at least once a month over the year for a variety of large- and small-group activities and special events. At this time, Marie McLay taught Grade 1, and Jill Jones, Grade 5. My buddy is Ryan. Every time I say Hi to him, he smiles at me. He reads stories to me and I know where he lives . . . At recess I watch him play football. He read Arthur’s Halloween to me. I liked when they went into an old lady’s house and their friends thought it was a witch’s house. — Maria

Maria talked a lot about how much she liked her Grade 5 buddy, Ryan. Her little dictated story expresses the quality and characteristics of our buddy program and the warmth and sharing that grow between two friends of different ages. At the Awards Assembly to recognize special happenings in our school, we took this opportunity to highlight our buddying program by giving Maria and Ryan awards for “best buddies.” Last year, we arranged for three Grade 5 students each to take a mat out into the hall to sit with two Grade 1 students each and read them a story. We wanted minimum disruption in classroom routines, and this practice eliminated the problem of students wondering what to do when some were finished while other groups were still reading. We both believe that buddying students of different ages is an ideal way of extending learning for both groups. The buddy program facilitates growth in children at both age levels. The older ones gain a new purpose for reading, and all the students can discuss their likes and dislikes after a story. Reading and discussing a book without the presence of a teacher enables our students to perceive themselves as reasonably competent and efficient individuals. This year, we determined to proceed on a more ambitious basis. We revised our plan and decided that each older student would read to his or her own buddy only. In September, each student from both classes chose a book from the library, and we stored these books in our buddy library. A pair of buddies chooses their story for the day from this collection. They sit on a couch in the library to read their story just as they would if reading with a family member at home. Then the Grade 5 student delivers the younger buddy back to the Grade 1 classroom. The buddies are gone for about 5 to 10 minutes. When books need changing, we all 44  

meet together to choose new ones. This system runs itself, and we do only minimal monitoring. Shared enthusiasms evolve as the students interact with books. The trust that develops between buddies encourages risk taking and allows maximum opportunity for feedback and praise. The younger students enjoy the one-on-one attention, as well as simply being read to. When a Grade 5 buddy arrives at the door and the Grade 1 buddy is absent, others beg to fill in. We have made some amusing and informative videotapes. Through these, we can observe at our leisure how individual pairs and groups of students interact. We have discovered the use of different kinds of talk among the students. The one-on-one shared reading in a relaxed and informal setting is one of two parts of our program. The second is that, at least once a month, groups of buddies work together on a common theme. We plan individual conferences, small-group settings, whole-group discussions, and activity-based centres. We take advantage of special events and outings to allow the buddies to spend time together in a relaxed atmosphere. In the fall, we went together to the Royal Winter Fair. At our Winter Carnival and later, our Summer Play Day, we placed buddies on the same teams; we found this reduced the competitive quality of the events and led to more cooperative play, as well as giving the little ones a sense of security. We planned buddy activities for a large portion of the hectic week before the winter break, and noise levels were lower and involvement higher than we normally expect at this time of year. It has been interesting to see the cooperation and support between buddies even when they were engaged in different activities.

Strategy: Promoting Cooperative and Collaborative Activities By John Myers John Myers, a curriculum instructor at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, has a special interest in collaborative and cooperative team building, both with his college students and with students in the middle years.

For the promotion of learning through purposeful talk, the following kinds of tasks are suitable for designing group activities for pairs or larger groups. These include tasks that stress engagement for the collaboration advocates and tasks that structure the interaction for the cooperation advocates.

“Collaboration is a philosophy of interaction and personal lifestyle where individuals are responsible for their actions, including learning, and respect the abilities and contributions of their peers; cooperation is a structure of interaction designed to facilitate the accomplishment of a specific end product or goal through people working together in groups.” — Ted Panitz

Sometimes, you may want students to struggle with new information by talking through ideas. Small-group brainstorming to generate ideas and reactions to a provocative question that either you or a student poses are two facilitating modes of working. Some opportunities and variations for Think-Pair-Share serve as examples. First of all, here is the original Think-Pair-Share procedure. 1. Teacher poses a question. 2. Student thinks about an answer for 5 to 10 plus seconds depending on the question or prompt. 3. Student pairs with a partner to share and compare answers and come to an agreement if possible. 4. Pairs share their responses as part of a whole-class discussion.

Tasks involving exploratory talk

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The structure is relatively simple and low risk: after all, it is hard to hide in a pair. Furthermore, it is flexible, with more than a thousand combinations when you consider the many ways to think, to pair, and to share. Here are three of the most popular options. • Think-Write Pair-Share: Individual students write a response before pairing. • Timed Pair-Share: Each member in the pair has a specific time limit to present a response while their partner listens; they then switch roles. • Think-Pair-Square: The pairs share with another pair before the whole-class discussion. Several other variations and possible uses of Think-Pair-Share follow. An Inside-Outside Experience “Students participate in an insideoutside circle that allows them to share their thinking and build new understandings. Students test their ideas in pairs. One of the circles rotates three times to facilitate each student’s opportunity to gather a variety of ideas. This structure allows students to practise communicating their ideas before sharing with the whole class. Students are able to work with a variety of peers. There is no wait time and everyone is fully engaged throughout the insideoutside experience.” — Viewer’s Guide: Discovering Voice (The Literacy and Numeracy Secretariat)

Point-of-View Pair-Share: An initial prompt directs students to imagine themselves in the situation. For example: “As you read the story about the flood, imagine having a farm in the path of the flood water. How might you feel?” Tasks involving checking for understanding: You might have a student turn to a partner and review the key points of a film or a presentation. Students may be more willing to express uncertainty in a small group or with a trusted partner than in front of a whole class. That’s why the oft-used any-questions-any-comments approach, directed to an entire class, may not work. Think-Pair Paraphrase-Share: One partner responds to the teacher’s prompt about the main point of the passage; the second partner paraphrases the response: “Are you saying that . . .?” Tasks involving problem solving and/or decision making: Members of a small group can combine different perspectives, either based on their own experiences or on the task you have created. They must talk it through in order to achieve a consensus and in so doing, achieve a deeper understanding. Think-Pair Consensus-Share: “What is the message in the poem?” Tasks in which a variety of abilities are required: Different students may bring different talents and experiences to a task. Using roles can help here. For example, if students create a propaganda poster for the First World War, some students can draw while others work on the caption. While allowing students to work from their strengths is important, your ultimate goal is to help students develop strengths in many areas of learning. Think-Pair in Role-Show: One member of the pair draws, and the partner writes a caption explaining the drawing. The showing is done as the pair holds up the drawing and caption, representing their view of the event they have just read about for all to see. Follow-up class discussion assesses similarities and differences in the responses, if the passages read are similar. Tasks involving review of previously encountered ideas or material: If you ensure individual accountability, students can review material in small groups prior to a quiz or major test. If you used direct instruction or another whole-class approach for the initial learning, change the approach for review. After all, students who mastered the work the first time do not need review, while those who struggled with a teacher-centred approach the first time are unlikely to learn through more of the same. This advice is reversed if the initial teaching used a group-learning format. Depending on what is to be reviewed, there are many Think-Pair-Share options, including those identified above and the variations that follow.

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Think-Interview-Share: Each partner asks questions of the other about the content of the reading. This interview could be done in role. For example: “Please explain to our viewers how a combination of diet and exercise promotes good health.” Think-Rally Table-Share: Partners take turns writing or performing a task, going back and forth several times, as in a rally in tennis; for example, contributing ideas with evidence to support an argument in a position paper on who won the War of 1812. Exploratory talk as a substitute for individual practice in a direct instruction lesson: Some cooperative approaches consist of peer tutoring in the practice phase of direct instruction. In my own experience — and the research seems to bear this out — we often overuse seatwork or implement such individual practice sessions without much effect. We usually concentrate on misbehavior, thus making it difficult to help those who are struggling, especially the “closet confused” who do not want others to know of their academic difficulties, for fear of being labeled. Exploratory talk as a vehicle for reflection on the learning: This works in the same way that people talk after a movie, play, concert, or other event. It promotes synthesis of information. In short, teachers should do what doctors, counselors, and psychiatrists do: ask the client. In addition to honoring student voice, you will often find out more about what learners know and can do. In other words, you are doing quality assessment.

Strategy: Freeing Student Voice Through Authentic Questioning By Lynda Marshall Lynda Marshall is an award-winning English and Literacy teacher at Widdifield Secondary School, North Bay, working with Grade 10 boys and students in Grade 12 University English.

For my class, I chose Finding Freedom: The Pride of Baghdad by Brian K. Vaughan as a whole-class graphic novel. This novel is a short, concise true account of a series of events that took place in Baghdad in 2003. The United States bombed Baghdad, destroying the Baghdad zoo, killing hundreds of animals and releasing into the streets the ones that survived. The story is told from the point of view of the pride of lions that, at the beginning of the tale, are longing to be free. After the air raid, they escape and are free to roam the streets of Baghdad. What they see makes them question many things, including what freedom really means. To introduce this novel, I did some research on the Internet where various news reports, as well as BBC and CNN coverage, were easily found. I also found statements from some of the American soldiers who lived in the bombed-out zoo for a short time and were given the task of rounding up the animals. We uncovered a court martial concerning questionable behavior from one of the soldiers, which really grabbed the boys’ interest! I quickly discovered that a geography lesson was needed, as both the location of Baghdad and the nationality of the people were mysteries to these young people. Even the media messages had been misinterpreted by many of the boys. We broke down many stereotypes in the process, which was an absolute bonus!

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Reading as a social, thought-exciting activity The overwhelming number and variety of visually rich media, such as television, computer screens, video games, and magazines with scores of images, mean that the average student is continually exposed to a reading experience that demands interpretation of image and text together. Furthermore, the world outside the home has become saturated with images and texts through billboards, signs, and advertisements. Young people naturally are influenced by this visually saturated world and become dependent on it. We as educators can take advantage of our students’ sense of comfort with visuals by incorporating the graphic novel for our own educational purposes.

Now that the stage was set, I distributed the novels. The artwork by Niko Henrichon is intriguing, and their interest had already been piqued so this was an easy sell. The boys read at very different speeds and levels. Some read the short novel two or three times while others made it through once. Their reading became a social activity. One student would see or read something “cool” and quickly move around to find someone else reading the same section so they could talk about it and share. Some of the boys made drawings while they read and readily shared them with the others. I wanted them to enjoy the reading and to be comfortable with the graphic novel, to understand the differences between a graphic novel and a comic book, to open their eyes to other parts of their world, to hook them with the artwork, to make them think more deeply, and to understand others’ struggles. The interaction, the responses, and the readings were successful, and the boys talked a blue streak about a variety of parts, situations, and risqué humor in the book. They made a big deal out of the lions “making out,” as they so eloquently put it! Once all of this was over, I sat down calmly and asked them the real question: “What is freedom?” The silence was comforting because I had struck a nerve. I could almost hear the wheels spinning in their heads. It was a wonderful, thoughtful moment. The boys found this question difficult to answer, given their personal experiences in comparison with the novel. We moved to the computer lab and began research. We researched women’s rights in Afghanistan, child labor, and child soldiers from many countries. The boys worked in small groups and informally shared their new learning with the others. This was an unplanned activity, yet one so powerful that it opened their minds, blew apart stereotypes, and left them asking for more.

Reflecting on Classroom Community ☐  Students in many classrooms come from a variety of linguistic, cultural, and social backgrounds. How can the school honor each family’s way of life and at the same time develop a sense of school and classroom community? ☐  Are contributions from the students expected and welcomed in your classroom? Are there situations that require students to talk in pairs, in small groups, and as a class, so that the listening and speaking grow naturally from activities that the students regard as real and important? ☐  Do you keep dialogue journals with your students, on paper or online, where you share and model your own views and responses? ☐  Do you build the program around content of real interest to the students, perhaps organized into thematic or genre units, rather than only around sets of skills? ☐  Do the students feel responsible for deciding at times what they will read and write and how they will interact with others during group activities? ☐  Does the way you organize your time allow for individual conferences and interviews, small-group mini-lessons on particular skills, and whole-class information and sharing sessions? ☐  Are the students helping one another become better readers and writers, leaving you more time to work with individuals and groups?

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☐  How can we include volunteers in the classroom to help us and the students? Consider in what ways parents, student-teachers, high-school students, older student buddies, and invited guests can participate in your classroom. ☐  Consider occasions you can organize in your program for students to interact formally and informally with a variety of audiences: friends, younger or older buddies, and members of the community. ☐  What resource staff does your school provide the teacher for working with students with special needs in the regular classroom? How can you structure your program to make best use of their help in a classroom of students with different abilities and experiences? ☐  A study in New York State (New York Times, October 17, 1992) revealed that students labeled “learning challenged” improved amazingly when placed in ­specially created “enrichment” classes for gifted students. What changes must you make in personal attitudes and approaches to students branded with such labels in order to create a school environment that engages them in significant learning events? ☐  Some schools have used parents as researchers, involving them in drawing up questionnaires, holding interviews, and analyzing results and reactions. As a result, parents become informed about the school community and the programs being implemented. Can you organize a project for your area that would include parents in a significant way?

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Releasing the Story Makers How Story Supports Voice

I was working with a Grade 6 class as a demonstration with my group of studentteachers. I wanted both groups to work as storytellers. I began by telling The Selchie Wife, a folk tale of a Nordic seal woman, and then the student-teachers, in small groups, extended the story by creating their own versions, as each group of students listened. After the retellings were completed, the groups of children assembled together, retold the stories of the Selchie woman they had heard from their studentteachers, and then added their own voices concerning the fate of the half-woman, half-seal. The first group begins to tell the story they had heard: Student 1: The woman as a seal was sitting on the rocks with her sisters. As the day grew longer, her sisters slipped into the water. Student 2: She fell apart from them and was lost. At first she was scared. Student 3: Of humans. She had never seen them before. Student 4: A man in a boat stole her sealskin, and now she couldn’t go back to the sea. He took her back to the land. Student 5: They watched the sunset. They were silent. She also felt love. Student 6: He had a life with her. Student 2: Now she had to live on the land all her life. She had two children. Student 1: But her sister came on the land, and was trying to make a skin for her so she could go back to the sea. David: Are you telling me that the sister on the land is trying to bring her back? Student 1: Yes, she had made her a skin. But then the sister who had gone to help on the land died. Student 4: So the Selchie had to decide if she should stay or go back to the sea. David: (moving all of the class of students into role as villagers) We as a community have to make a decision. Should we make her go back to the sea? If so, the rule is: she can never come back to the land again. Student 3: That’s not fair. She will have to see her children on the rocks by the sea once a year. Student 2: The children will feel abandoned by their mother. They will have a single parent. Student 1: To see their mother on a rock in the sea is sick! Student 4: A mother should have the right to see her children anywhere she wants. Students: Yeah!

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From “As if” Voices to Insight As we see in the transcript, student emotions ran high as they voiced their responses to the stories they had heard. The narratives took on a life of their own, and the students struggled to make sense of these complex issues drawn from folklore. As we engage with story, we can compare the worlds others create with our own representations, re-evaluate our feelings and ideas, come to terms with past experiences, enter into the lives of others, and hone our own identities. Students also need stories from us to give reassurance to their inner stories: the ones that demonstrate their curiosities, fears, and concerns. And we can connect them to other people, other times, other selves, and, of course, other stories. Story, whether fact or fiction, or told as poetry or film, is a continuous process. We borrow from others to see how our story fits theirs, and then we remould it, add to it, alter it, and tell it anew, always exploring fresh possibilities. Story can cause us to tap into the universal situations of life, to stand in the shoes of others in all the world’s past, present, and future, taking risks, suffering, sorrowing, laughing, wondering, challenging, feeling satisfied but, most of all, tuning into the archetypes of all story wisdom. As storying teachers, we can find ways to both inspire and enable our students • to gain insight into their own stories through the process of sharing in the story circle, deepening their own storytelling practice and transforming themselves from within the tales they tell of their lives thus far • to be strengthened by the storying process so that competence, confidence, and self-esteem will accrue

Strategy: Reading Aloud with Voice As we read aloud and think aloud in classroom demonstrations with a common text, we can share our own reading strategies. Students can see how we construct meaning in a variety of ways with different types of texts, how we teachers still grow as readers. We read aloud different texts, often in different ways, sometimes in role. As a Grade 5 student named Charles told me, “When our student-teacher reads out loud, she sounds just like the character she’s reading, sometimes an old man, sometimes a kid, whatever voice the character needs.” This sort of interpretation helps listeners make meaning. It also engages them. Constantly look out for texts to share with students. I do. I clip newspaper columns, download interesting information from the Internet, search for excerpts from a novel I am enjoying, share a review of a new film, or bring in an instruction sheet from a piece of ready-to-assemble furniture. I might scan a selection to use on the data projector, tape a piece to the board, or make copies for students to read and highlight. I have these teaching tools for illustrating so many aspects of how I make my own meaning with these types of texts; at the same time, the students meet selections they might not notice on their own. They also come to see that literacy is an everyday occurrence in our lives. As you share different texts, be sure to adopt some of these voices with your students: • Read aloud as a salesperson. Choose several new books from the library and share excerpts from each, so that the students will want to read them on their own. 52  

You might bring in a newspaper article, an excerpt from a novel you are reading, an on-screen list of websites, a poem you enjoy, a complex song lyric, a recipe that troubled you, a YouTube segment, a paper you have to read for a course, or a magazine article.

• Read aloud as a traveler. Share stories and information from other cultures, other places, other times. Let your students meet words and expressions from England, Australia, Sri Lanka, . . . translations from other languages. • Read aloud as an expert. Choose texts that are unfamiliar to the students, more difficult than they might be able to manage on their own, so that their “ear print” continues to be challenged. • Read aloud as a researcher. Use the content of the different school subjects as resources for sharing excerpts, anecdotes, observations, and reflections from newspapers, articles, and additional resources that you and the students find. • Read aloud as a bard. Chant and sing the poems and ballads of the past and present; ask the class to join in the refrains. • Read aloud as a storyteller. Retell a story that you know well or want to learn by heart. Freed from the print text, you can move and gesture, and alter your voice to bring the text alive. • Read aloud as an actor. Choose a role in a script or a Readers Theatre selection, and model passionate and energetic voices as you read along with the students, trying to find voices that fit characters. • Read aloud as an editor. Select revised and completed writings by the students, practise them, and share them in a public reading, adding significance to their words with your careful reading. • Read aloud as a lover of print texts. Choose texts from your own life to read to the students, perhaps a column from the newspaper, bits from a course you are taking, a letter from a friend who lives far away, an excerpt from a book you loved as a child, the picture book you read to your child last night. • Read aloud as a literacy learner. Once a week for five minutes, demonstrate how readers come to make sense of a text. These sessions will establish you in students’ eyes as a working member of the community of literacy learners. Adopting this practice gives you 35 or so literacy demonstrations a year. Begin by selecting a different text form for each demonstration, so that you can help students to recognize the demands of particular types of text. Next, you can read the text aloud, share it on a Smart Board, make copies, or post it on the chalkboard. As you think out loud, the students can observe how a reader functions while trying to make meaning with a particular text. The text box below lists prompts you can use as you share aloud how you make meaning. Prompts to Consider When Making Meaning Aloud How did you prepare to read the text? What was your reason for reading the text? What connections were you making as you read the text? Did you highlight any important points? What are the most important ideas? What words or phrases presented difficulties and how did you handle them? Where were you required to infer? to reread? to seek assistance with an on-screen dictionary? How did you adjust to the format of the text? For example, did you compare advertisements for prices? What puzzlements remained after your careful reading of the text? What responses did you construct after reading?

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As you have demonstrated these strategic prompts with your different text forms, your students can then use them to make meaning with a particular text they encounter. Using them throughout the year will help your students to develop into strategic readers.

Strategy: Storytelling — Exploring Its Forms and Potential By Bob Barton Bob Barton is a renowned storyteller, author, and educator, who teaches drama education at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education.

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Storytelling includes the retelling of familiar stories as well as the development of new stories. It involves a performer narrating or enacting various roles to bring a story to life. As students retell a text, they can enrich and extend their personal hoard of words, ideas, stories, songs, and concepts, and deepen their understanding and appreciation of literature. Storytelling develops the ability to turn narration into dialogue and dialogue into narration. Storytelling activities can take many forms. • Students can tell stories in a circle, with a partner in a frozen picture, chorally, or as narration for mime. They can improvise from the story, change the story, or find new stories to tell within the story. • Storytelling can provide the initial starting point for drama work; it can reveal an unexplained idea in even a well-known story; it can focus particular details; it can serve as a review of what has already taken place; or it can be a way of building reflection in-role. • Using picture books with little or no text, such as Tuesday by David Wiesner, students can describe in their own words what they see happening, sometimes supplying the characters with what they feel is appropriate dialogue. Showing students unusual and exciting pictures may also promote storytelling. • Students may enjoy playing the different characters as they tell the story. Or they may dramatize a story while it is being told, assuming the parts of different characters (e.g., a witch, a bird, or two lost students). • As the storyteller spins the tale, you as teacher may signal for someone to continue the story, or another student may choose to take over at a dramatic pause in the story. • In another variation, the students sit in a circle on the floor so that they can all see one another. A subject or style of story is then identified. A story is built as each student, in turn, contributes one (or two, or three, or more) words. A student may begin a new sentence at any appropriate moment and may add as much as he or she wishes to the story. The student who is speaking holds a talking stick, which is passed on to the next student when the speaker stops (sometimes in mid-phrase). Once the students are working easily with the activity, the teacher may stop and start speakers at random, recognizing the threat increase for some students. • The teacher tells an improvised story, pauses every so often, and points to someone in the group to add an appropriate word. “Once upon a time there was a young . . .” “He walked until suddenly . . .” “He said . . .”

• The teacher asks the students to imagine that they are about to go on a great adventure. The students decide individually where they are, who they are, and why they are embarking on this adventure. Perhaps it is midnight and they are standing outside a castle, or at the edge of an enchanted forest, or in front of a modern tower block, or outside a prison camp. They must enter this place to accomplish some vital deed. They may decide that they are heroes or spies; in any case, they are to be well aware of all the attributes that such characters are likely to possess. Their journeys will be beset with dangers and difficulties. Individually, the students move off on their various quests. When each quest has reached its moment of greatest tension, that student freezes.   The students then choose partners, and each tells the other the story of his or her adventure. In the telling, the stories usually become even more exciting and the difficulties exaggerated, as do the courage and resourcefulness of the teller. Pairs may combine to make groups and small groups to make larger groups, so that eventually some students will be talking to quite a large number of others. • The teacher chooses two narrators to share an original story between them. While the students sit in a circle, one narrator tells a short portion of the story, stops to let the other person continue, and then takes over again after a few minutes. The rest of the students become the characters and objects in the story, acting it out silently. Their participation may influence the shape of the story. This storytelling duet can also be played with the narrators providing the story and the actors making up their own speeches. • The teacher introduces the subject of storytelling occasions, when people gather together to relate various stories. To give students practice in sustained narration, the teacher asks them to pretend that they are part of such an occasion, for example, when Robin Hood and his band of outlaws recall their most famous escapades; when the world’s greatest spies and secret agents have an annual meeting to recount their greatest exploits; or when tribe members tell stories of the deeds of their ancestors and narrate the legends of the tribe. Once the teacher has established a situation, the participants discuss their roles, and a storytelling session takes place.

Strategy: Welcoming Student Comments and Questions By Larry Swartz Larry Swartz was a teacher at Queenston Drive School and a consultant for the book Classroom Voices, a longitudinal study of the school, the teachers, and the students. A well-known speaker and writer, he lectures in literacy and drama at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education.

I read Maniac Magee aloud to my Grade 5 class as part of a theme on survival. The story is about Jeffrey Lionel “Maniac” Magee, a young white boy famed for his athletic feats, who tries to bring together a city’s segregated East and West Sides. As I read sections from the book, I encouraged the students to keep a listening log or response journal to record their thoughts about the story or its writer. In a discussion, during which students referred to their notes, the class raised the following points (see pages 56 and 57), which I recorded on chart paper:

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What did you like about the novel? Responding to Text in Student Voice When we accept student voices in response to text, we increase the range of ideas and language that they bring forward and deepen their personal understandings of what they have read. In their spontaneous comments about Maniac Magee, the students noted qualities of the characters, complex or unusual expressions, stories within the novel, the chant of Maniac McGee, special episodes in the plot, moments of kindness, and maxims of advice.

untangling Cobbler’s knot the baseball episode Amanda’s toughness Mars Bar’s invitation to visit his home running the race between Mars Bar and Maniac Amanda’s gift of the book Butterscotch krimpets the author’s description “before the story”

football throw/frog Fishbelly chant “Maniac, Maniac . . .” story about illiteracy/Maniac teaching Grayson Grayson’s kindness birthday party “Don’t get the facts mixed up with the truth.”

What bothered you in the novel? allergic to pizza the fact that there was segregation Amanda and Mars Bar’s fight stealing — Piper and Russell “I’ll let you be a white.” war games — “I’ll let you be a white.” running backwards “I feel so bad I’m half black.”

Amanda’s argument/library card Fishbelly; Honky Grayson’s death — no tears pallbearers didn’t care to show up pitching frog incident — believable? black/white issue — not clear if it has been solved

What patterns did you discover in the story? Maniac is with a home . . . then he goes to streets . . . with a home . . . then streets again . . . with a secure home . . . white side/black side . . . alternate settings buffaloes — slept with them at the beginning and at the end No matter what happens to him, Maniac never gives up. Maniac feels that every family he goes to gets in some sort of trouble.

always achieving things hero — caught the football, untangled string, won race took anything he could get In the end, people always cared for Maniac. hero by bringing whites and blacks together Maniac was never racist, never bragged, never complained. always searching for a home

What questions or puzzles do you wonder about? Why did he run away in the first place? Whites and blacks — did they really get together? Why would somebody want to write a book like this about blacks and whites? Sometimes, I was confused whether the story was taking place on the black side or on the white side. How did Maniac get the blacks together? Was it one event? Why did he stay in that town? Why did Mars Bar invite him to live with him? Why didn’t Maniac accept? Before the story — was Beale’s house still there? What happened to the aunt and uncle? Did they seek out Maniac? 56  

Why wouldn’t Maniac go with Amanda unless he was forced to? What was so special about being a “white” when you were playing a game? Why did he leave Beale’s house if they were so good to him? How did Mars Bar “suddenly” become a good friend? Is Maniac happier on the streets or being home? What will Maniac’s future be like? How did the blacks get their opinion of the whites in the first place? How did the whites get their opinion of the blacks in the first place?

Strategy: Telling a Story on Tape By Jane McGarvey When students audiotape the dialogue of a story as a script, they are practising skills of interpretation and using the responses of peers to deepen their understanding of what the text means. In Jane McGarvey’s primary class, there was a storytelling centre, where students told their stories on tape so others could listen to them at a later time. The students also used the tapes as a basis for their writing. This feature focuses on the taped storytelling of one student, Laura, and the effect Laura’s tape had on others. Jane McGarvey was a teacher at Queenston Drive School, with a deep interest in children’s literature and literacy in early childhood. She also took active part in the Peel Talk Project, noted in the Introduction.

I started trying out formal storytelling lessons after the students listened to Strega Nona by Tomie dePaola. They told stories in role to convince Strega Nona they needed her help. When we read Judith Viorst’s Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day together, they detailed their own worst day to a partner (embellishing as necessary). Such activities were met with enthusiasm and success. But this wasn’t quite what I was interested in anymore. I thought about my own childhood and what I expected of my Grade 1 writing program, and came to realize that it was important I learn about storytelling as an art. I am told that, as a young student, I had lots of stories to tell, and I considered that we ask primary students to retell their experiences in journals and to create books in their writing folders. So, together, the students, our friend the librarian, and I identified sources of stories. We studied the work of one storyteller (Robert Munsch) and told stories we knew by heart.

Laura: A storyteller emerges By October we began to look at ourselves a little differently. We discovered reallive storytellers among us. Laura, a small, at times quiet, Grade 1 student, was the first to try audiotaping a story she knew by heart. After reviewing how to load, record, pause, stop, rewind, and play the tape recorder, Laura went into the hall to tape a story she had learned at summer camp. She was gone a long time. When she returned, her smile signaled success. Her only problem had been interruptions by passersby in the hallway. We both put on headphones, listened, and laughed! Here is a transcript of Laura’s story: Baby and the Oatmeal Once upon a time there was a family and the baby wanted something to eat. So the mother sent the little girl downstairs to get some oatmeal. And she got halfway down the cellar stairs when she heard a voice say, “I . . . I am the ghost with

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the one black eye.” So she ran upstairs, told the mother, “There’s a ghost downstairs in the cellar.” So baby couldn’t eat her oatmeal.   So she sent her brother, the little boy, downstairs to get some oatmeal. Then, he got halfway down the cellar stairs when he heard a voice say, “I am the ghost with the one black eye.” He ran upstairs and told the mother that the baby couldn’t have any oatmeal.   So then the father came home. The mother said, “Baby wants some oatmeal so you’re going to have to go downstairs to get some oatmeal.” So he got, he got halfway down the cellar stairs until he heard a voice say, “I am the ghost with the one black eye.” He ran upstairs, told the mother the baby couldn’t have any oatmeal.   So the mother went downstairs by herself. And then she got halfway down the cellar stairs when she heard a voice say, “I am the ghost with the one black eye.” She ran upstairs, told baby he couldn’t have any oatmeal.   So the baby jumped out of his highchair and ran downstairs. He got all the way down the cellar stairs when he heard a ghost say, “I am the ghost with the one black eye.” Baby said, “If you don’t give me my oatmeal, you’ll have two black eyes!”

Laura’s story became a favorite choice at the listening centre. During our notnecessarily-quiet activity periods, a voice might be heard to boom, “I am the ghost with the one black eye!” I asked Laura if she would consider teaching the rest of the class her story. Laura played off the tape, asking us to pair-and-share after each short segment, and we all learned the story by heart.

Making stories their own Storytelling had a positive effect on story writing that jumped off the pages! Laura’s own written version of the story indicates her growing awareness of the feelings of the ghost and its voice. A version written by a Grade 2 classmate who had been struggling with language arts clearly shows how her active involvement in learning to tell the story has allowed her to make it her own. A Revealing Picture . . . Hassan sat in the reading corner with Fela and Miss Kelly and his picture.   “That’s my house in Somalia,” he said looking at Fela, who put his words into English.   “That’s my family.” And he named them all, right down to the baby. “And that’s my cat, Musa, who we had to leave behind.”   “And who is this?” asked Miss Kelly, pointing to the smudge near the red splashes.   “That’s my uncle Ahmed,” said Hassan. And then he told them the whole story — about the noise, the flames, the bullets, and the awful smell of burning and blood.  From The Color of Home by Mary Hoffman (Phyllis Fogelman Books, 2002)

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Constructing Our Life Stories A student’s identity, culture, and origins will be revealed in each story told, and the resulting experience will give the original tale a pattern and texture that will enrich both the teller and the told-to. We need to revel in a student’s identification with and personalizing of a story. Each retelling may incorporate a new dialect, different syntax, unique rhythms, particular observations, emotional shadings, specific locales, and alternative time frames. The story fabric becomes elaborately embroidered as each student weaves a personal retelling. The stories that our students tell about themselves should be honored in our classrooms, for through their stories, they build their self-esteem and sense of belonging in the world, and, of course, how they come to understand how stories work. And how do we get better at telling our life stories, at recapturing the essence of what we think happened, at reflecting upon the experience, distancing ourselves until the universal connections peek through, so that we can share our stories with another, with thoughtfulness and delight, providing the listener with

satisfaction? And how true will our life stories remain as we rework them? We act as the artist-teller, shading what should be shadows and illuminating what could be significant to our listeners.

Strategy: Sharing Life Stories We can strengthen the students’ story lives by making the classroom a safe place and a starting point for sharing life tales: • encouraging spontaneous personal storytelling on each occasion when it is appropriate • asking students to connect their own experiences to what they have read about or listened to • using special events (a touring play, a professional storyteller, a visiting guest) as an occasion for sharing memories stimulated by the experience • allowing time for students to recount life stories formally during current events, or informally on rainy day recesses or at cleanup times • using polished life tales as building blocks for personal writing, for painting, or inside the safety of role-playing in a drama lesson • helping students to use real-life stories as the basis for their fiction creations, both strengthening the believability of their writing and offering them a means for handling issues too sensitive to be told in a straightforward manner • designing opportunities for deep listening on a visit to a home for senior citizens or a hospice • arranging for sharing stories with a buddy class of different-aged students in the school, or having a local high-school class come and tell polished life tales about their years in elementary grades • sharing stories for each and every celebration involving different members of the class • calling for family stories to be retold (with permission) for parents’ night • bravely telling your own life tales from both your professional life and your personal life to strengthen or model a point that arises during a discussion or a shared reading — swapping tales is still the best way of motivating your students to tell their stories

Family stories at Lord Dufferin School As part of a two-year project at an inner-city school in Toronto, story became the focus of the students’ work. Students, teachers, and parents decided to promote the development of their skills in storytelling, and storytellers from different parts of the world shared part of their culture and background with the school community. I worked with the teachers connecting writing and literacy. As a result of this project and publication of Family Stories from Lord Dufferin P.S., we are able to read the life stories of a community, a school of narratives. Here is one child’s contribution. Coming to Canada My mom and I came to Canada because back in Vietnam we were poor and because my aunt, uncle, grandmother and grandfather lived in Canada. My mom swore that if she could make it over to Canada she would cut her hair bald.

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  It all started when my mom, aunt and uncle and I left Vietnam on a boat. There were a lot of people, about 40, so we had to eat less. When we got onto the Ocean there were storms and lightning. At the time I was only 2 years old. My aunt and uncle thought they were going to die. My uncle got a rope so he, my mom, my aunt and I could tie our hands together so that if we died and floated to land people would bury us together.   But the next morning, the storm and lightning stopped. We were so happy that we hadn’t died. We went to Singapore and we were separated from my aunt and uncle. We lived there for a while. Then the people from Canada came to test people to see if they knew how to speak English, but my mom failed. They sent us to the Philippines. My mom and I stayed there for 4 years. By then, my mom had my two year old brother and a sister, just born.   Soon after, the people from Canada came again. This time my mom passed and they sent us to Canada. The church people took care of us. They gave us food and clothing. They asked if we wanted to live in a church in Mississauga. My mom said no because by then my aunt, uncle, grandmother and grandfather lived in Toronto. She wanted to be near them. The people helped us to get a house to live in because we didn’t have a father and this is where we live now. — Van Quan Phu, Grade 7

Strategy: Finding Voice Through Photography By Lynda Marshall The Photovoice project involved 14 boys with 14 digital cameras. The students were given the cameras and asked to photograph their lives outside of school. Handing them these cameras further developed the trust and mutual respect needed in a classroom. It also made the students active researchers, as well as participants. They were given a voice through photography. These photographs were to include • physical environment — their homes, bedrooms, yards • hobbies — Xbox, reading, television habits, skateboarding • friends and get-togethers • transportation — how they get to and from school, the mall, and movies • extracurricular involvement • out-of-school activities — sports, classes, and clubs • people who are important in their lives • what they are reading, wearing, and watching • what they eat for breakfast, lunch, and dinner • where they eat their meals • family interactions The boys were asked to document their photos through captions in either a writing journal or a video journal or both.

Documenting life journeys Through picture and the written word, boys were given a voice. They were given permission to tell educators what they need in the classroom to be successful.

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A few scenarios: Terrence: Terrence discovered a talent for photography and visual art that set him on a path to college programs in film and photography. His talent shone through to the class, and we watched his confidence grow and his future plans emerge. Terrence had struggled with school, authority, and alcohol, and had turned a corner in his life. When handed a camera, he documented his journey and his new choices and interests. His talent was obvious from the very first photo shared with the class. Students immediately praised his work and enjoyed his narration of his adventures. What talent! For a final product, Terrence chose to create a DVD of his life, which included photos, oral narrative, music, and the use of technology. His DVD has been shown in our school to motivate struggling students. It has also been shown to faculty of education students and to teachers at staff meetings as an exemplary example of one student’s success, talent, and growth.

Unfortunately, Tyler is representative of a group of students who often fall through the cracks. Being able to share in a safe environment was healthy for Tyler and a life lesson for the rest of the class.

Tyler: Tyler announced he had nowhere to live. Of course, he could not take pictures like the other students. The other boys in the class were dumbfounded. They may all be from different backgrounds, beliefs, likes and dislikes, but they all had a home. Immediately, the class supported Tyler and echoed my own sentiment that I was so proud of him for being in his seat, in this class, period five, when he had no bed last night. Would he mind documenting his journey? Tyler quickly agreed: he would call it his “couch-surfing adventure.” True to his word, he shared daily, as he mowed lawns in exchange for a bed, bought broccoli for supper, and hung out with friends. Regardless of his lack of sleep, strange eating habits, and family problems, Tyler attended class every day, sharing and being supported by his peers, who were now his friends. At the end of the course, the boys were asked to respond to the most amazing, surprising, exciting, or unexpected outcome from this project: Every boy wrote about Tyler: Tyler with the droopy jeans, Tyler with the supposed attitude and the ear holes, Tyler with no home for three weeks. They wrote about how proud they were that he came to school and how much they respected him for his perseverance and resilience. They also wrote about appreciating their own homes and families even more after experiencing Tyler’s journey. Shane: Shane waited a few days before speaking out. He watched the photographs of his classmates’ bedrooms, PlayStations, families, collections, and so on before raising his hand to say, “Ms. Marshall, I don’t actually have a bedroom, so I do not know what to take pictures of for my project.” The class went quiet as I asked, “Where do you sleep?” Shane explained that he slept in the living room at his house. He was told that that was his space then, and he should begin there. Two or three weeks before this sharing began, the students might have made jokes or comments or ignored him. Due to the sharing and the trust that had been building so quickly through Photovoice, the boys supported Shane immediately. They made comments like, “Cool! Do you get to kick everyone out of your room when you want to sleep?” and “I guess you get the TV all to yourself whenever you want? Must be great to watch the basketball games!” For Shane, a teenage boy, to share this information with a group like this is very telling. The instant support he received catapulted him into photographing every corner of his home, his yard, his family, and many other intimate parts of his world. He stood proud knowing he had nothing to hide.

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Reflecting on Storytelling Voices As a teacher, you can represent a story model for your own students. You can value story in your professional and personal life, organize time to take part in storying activities in your daily program, share personal story experiences with students when opportunities arise. As you tell and read aloud narratives, both fiction and non-fiction, to the whole class or to a group, and as you read aloud other story resources, such as samples from your journals, emails, and letters you receive, you are adding to students’ knowledge of how narrative works. You might also have guests tell stories to your class, and use tapes and website content as sources. ☐  By having the students engage in storying activities, such as retelling literary and life stories, retelling in role, writing from the story, engaging in research stimulated by a story, playing story games, and singing story songs, you are providing a culture of narrative building that will support and encourage students’ own voices. ☐  Your story program can affect curriculum learning in other areas, as you connect your storying activities to the contexts of the various content areas your class is investigating. For example, teaching about pioneers means sharing the stories of their lives. ☐  Students who are discovering their voices through stories • are aware of a variety of stories in the classroom, in different curriculum areas, and at home (e.g., books, computers, magazines, television, family stories) • listen to and appreciate stories told and read aloud (at home, at school, live, taped) • respond emotionally and empathetically to story (appreciate humor, sadness, and so on) • tell personal life stories from family and school • connect, compare, and contrast stories read and told with personal life experience • consider extensions to stories that offer possibilities • reveal thoughtful interpretation and share personal voice • read and retell stories in a variety of situations, individually, with a partner, in a small group, and as members of the classroom community

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5

Finding Student Voices Inside Texts How Literacy Encourages and Supports Voice

In the following transcript, a group of Grade 5 students working with Larry Swartz respond to “Tuning,” the prologue to Gary Paulsen’s The Winter Room, and share some of their ideas about reading. Larry: How does a book affect us? Student 1: Because when the author writes a book, he gets all his enthusiasm and puts it on paper. Student 2: He puts his imagination on paper. So you can read his mind . . . read his thoughts . . . A book is nothing without a reader. Student 3: A book is just black and white line on paper. A person is nothing without a book either. Larry: Why do you say that? Student 3: Because we wouldn’t know anything. Because you pass on things you know to your sons or something by writing it down. You can’t tell them when you’re dead. Student 4: I think books can’t have light. Student 2: They do have light! Student 5: They have light when people read it. They have light when the sun shines in. Or when your eyes shine on it . . . Student 3: But it won’t shine by itself — unless it’s a really good book. Larry: How does a reader help a book come alive? Student 2: The reader helps the book come alive because you give it sort of like a light. Student 1: . . . and the book gives them more thoughts. The reader is part of the mind of the book . . . the thoughts and the mind of the book . . . When he reads it, a person makes pictures in his mind. Larry: Is it the person’s imagination that does that or is it the author’s writing? Student 1: It’s both. The author uses his imagination and gives you sort of like a plot and you can think about the theme or what happens. Student 5: So he puts his thoughts on paper to put thoughts in your mind. Student 3: I think books do have light. Sometimes, a person is mad or miserable or something. A book sometimes lights them up and brings them into world instead of this one.

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Building a Community of Readers All students in a classroom must feel they are part of the reading community. Even pre-readers can sense that they are somehow part of the print world — listening, joining in, and rehearsing the reading process with well-known stories that they select and hold and turn the pages of. Belonging to the literacy club requires success with print at every age and stage of development. Students in all grades who have difficulty reading need support for the belief that they, too, can become readers. They need all kinds of materials in their classrooms to gain access to the world of print, and these resources must connect to the satisfaction of reading. We learn to read in the pursuit of genuine purposes. To build a community of readers, we as teachers must create an environment for literacy with support systems that encourage students to accept literacy as a needed and desired way of life. We can set up conditions whereby the students can see themselves as readers. We can provide times for • regular private reading, when students select books and read silently • group reading, when several students discuss the same book or a number of books connected by author, theme, culture, or pattern • shared reading, when the whole class participates • audience reading, when individuals read aloud to a buddy, a group, or even the whole class if they have rehearsed and volunteered to do so We can also provide places in the classroom for students to read alone and together, and to gather as a whole class; for displays of books; for students’ responses, posted on bulletin boards; and for featured posters and paper-jacket covers of new or favorite books.

Responding to Text When it comes to responding to text, students have many literacy needs. They need time to respond to and reflect upon what they have read and to explore various modes of response. They need to feel that these activities connect the story to themselves and to their private worlds. They need time and opportunity, alone and with others, to make their ideas and concerns explicit, to discover forms in which to express their thoughts and take them further — doing so will increase their ownership of the reading experience, their exploration of their own voice. Their responses must be as embedded and as authentic as the stories they read. In considering student responses to reading, we are wise to look for instances where students • challenge previous notions they had about a topic • gain new learning through interacting with others • discover a new way of viewing a character or an event • see the text in a larger context, noting the big ideas • check the accuracy of their predictions • consider questions that were answered, and others that were unanswered • review the main themes of the text • think about what they have gained from reading and link it to their existing knowledge 64  

• question, compare, evaluate, and draw conclusions from their reading of the text • reflect on the experience of the text and incorporate it into their lives • represent their interpretations in a different mode, such as poetry Sometimes, however, students spend more time responding to a text than reading it. We need to encourage them in their reading, for the accumulation of positive, meaningful reading experiences is what will drive them forward to become lifelong readers.

Strategy: A Response Repertoire Through carefully designed response activities, we can nudge students into different and divergent levels of thinking, feeling, and learning. Here is an outline of response activities to choose from.

Text talk • Gossiping about, reflecting on, and commenting on the texts • Discussing our connections to the text, who we are in the text, the text events, the context, the impact • Talking about other books that this text conjures up, as well as other genres, versions, themes, styles, authors, cultures, even story structures, such as novels written as free verse, that come to mind (Together, these connected books form text sets.) • Having presentations, seminars, and debates about the text issues • Discussing the authors and the people they have written about, and background information that supports the authors • Brainstorming, problem-solving, and making decisions about issues and problems depicted in the text • Establishing buzz groups, where students discuss ideas informally, and literature circles, for deeper conversations • Exploring feelings and thoughts both inside and outside the text • Generating questions and connections that arise from the text • Sharing discoveries about the text and ourselves

Telling and retelling stories • Relating our own anecdotes revealed by the text • Retelling the text from a personal point of view • Revisiting the text in role as a witness or character • Telling other stories that connect to or grow from this text • Playing storytelling games and activities growing out of the text • Revisiting the story in role as a witness or character in the story

Building drama • Role-playing situations from the text • Developing analogies to the text that are constructed together into drama • Placing characters from the story in new contexts  65

• Using the mood, setting, or atmosphere of the text as the basis for building drama • Exploring the text through movement, mime, or puppetry

Reading aloud • Sharing favorite sections aloud with friends • Reading selected pieces from other sources that connect to the book • Reading our own written responses to others • Introducing the story to others by reading aloud a section • Taping the story for a listening centre • Building a cooperative chant for choral speaking by reading some of the dialogue as script • Reading the narration aloud while others move or mime • Reading to a buddy or a younger child • Using the story as a source for scripts, as in Readers Theatre

Writing our own texts • Patterning our own texts from the original • Writing versions and variants of the story • Writing in role as characters involved with the story • Researching information for inquiries • Developing plot diagrams and story webs • Inventing other stories inspired by this one • Writing correspondence to authors, characters, each other • Using journals to record thoughts and emotions elicited by the text

Doing parallel reading • Reading other texts by the same author or illustrator • Reading other texts connected to the theme, concept, style, or culture of the original • Locating background information and research by reading about the author or illustrator from websites • Reading non-fiction texts that relate to the original • Finding reviews and reports about the book, the time, the setting, or the author • Reading related texts written by other students

Responding through visual and graphic art • Responding to ideas and feelings generated by the text through visual art • Setting up displays (for instance, on bulletin boards) related to the text, theme, or author • Mapping and graphing incidents in the text • Constructing three-dimensional art as a response to the text • Making posters, book covers, advertisements from the text • Using other media to represent the text: iMovies, video, slides, films, videos, or art reproductions relating to the text

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Celebrating texts and authors of fiction and non-fiction • Interviewing guest authors and illustrators who visit • Creating book talks on a theme or concept the author explores • Attending a young authors’ conference • Reading about authors, their views, and their lives on their websites • Writing and publishing books we have written • Setting up special text celebrations for the whole school

Strategy: Book Talk in Literature Circles Literature circles allow students to engage in authentic book talk. As they discuss aspects of their reading, including predictions, perceptions, and responses, students understand what they have read at a much deeper level and can relate their reading to their own lives and to their prior knowledge. They can discuss a variety of factors, including elements of plot, language devices, setting, and characters; how the text relates to another they have read; stylistic details; and the work of the illustrator. They can listen to the wide-ranging opinions of their peers and witness first-hand how the experience of literature is personal. Working in these small groups can provide students with opportunities for being heard, for expressing their individual responses to the text they are reading, for having their feelings and ideas validated, and for changing opinions and viewpoints. As in book clubs for adults, members of the group select the same book, read an agreed-upon number of chapters, and discuss the book’s effects on their perceptions about the text and their own lives. Whether students or adults, we learn about ourselves as we listen and converse with others who are reading the same material. Harvey Daniels, whose writings have helped us move forward, has rethought the process in Literature Circles: Voice and Choice in Book Clubs and Reading Groups. He notes that students who have difficulty reading a text can still enter the group discussion if they have had the opportunity of using technology that offers assisted reading support. (Many excellent programs are available online or licensed to school districts.) Every teacher can be a member of a book club or a literature circle simply by reading a novel that a group of students are reading and entering the conversation about the text. A teacher can enter as a listener and sometimes as a contributor who grows in personal understanding through the contributions of other book club members. Join in! It’s free.

Guidelines for literature circles 1. Choose multiple copies of quality children’s literature from a variety of genres. 2. As students listen to you, provide introductions to each of the books. 3. Students then choose the book they want to read. 4. Students find classmates who have chosen the same book. An ideal group size is five; a group should never be larger than eight. Students form a literature circle.

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5. Discuss with the students how much text they will read each day and when and where they will meet. 6. Students read the text and record their thoughts in a journal. Their responses to the text can take many forms, including notes, questions, and drawings. 7. Students meet with fellow group members to discuss their experience with the reading. They can talk about any number of topics related to their reading, including challenging concepts, ways in which the book relates to what they know, puzzling questions, and the use of literary devices. 8. Students may play a variety of roles in the group (e.g., the questioner, the summarizer) to help the discussion grow. 9. As the teacher, you can occasionally work as a facilitator for the group, helping members to stay on task, extending discussions, offering minilessons where needed, sometimes acting as a participant. 10. Both the students and the teacher evaluate the success of the literature.

Strategy: Independent Reading Today, schools include independent reading opportunities in a variety of ways, and students are benefiting from the time, resources, and support that enable this program to be successful. In independent reading, it is important that students be able to select texts that connect to their lives, so that they can move deeply into the narrative or the information, making interpretations of their own, classifying and categorizing the information, identifying with characters, living their own lives inside the printed (or screen) pages, constructing their own voices. Choice and voice are strongly connected. • In some schools, the entire student body reads silently at the same time for 20 minutes or so. • In other schools, students choose from a preselected set of texts grouped by authors or themes, not unlike the texts chosen for literature circles. • I prefer independent reading time to have some structure. Some students need much encouragement, and others may need assistance in choosing or reading more books or more difficult books, or finding texts they can handle easily. • We can guide the selection and increase reading competence through book talks, individual conferences, and mini-lessons, and through promoting reading journals, where we dialogue with students as co-readers of a special text. • We need to achieve a balance between being supportive and nurturing of students’ choices and trying to modify or extend their book selections without limiting the choices or their self-worth. • One way to strengthen the literacy community is to call the students together to share and support one another’s reading. We often read independently, but our power as literate humans is acquired from the connections we make to the responses and comments of other community members. • We can invite students to share their thinking in pairs, in threesomes, or with the whole group as they reflect on and discuss how their personal reading is going. • We can take a quick review of the status of the class, where the students outline their personal reading progress: each student shares information or questions that have arisen from reading. I think of these moments as “check-ins”: 68  

the students are aware that independent reading is a significant part of their literacy program and that I care about their progress and their satisfaction as readers.

Strategy: Interacting in a Reading Response Journal The reading response journal (also called a “dialogue journal” or “literature log”) is a convenient and flexible tool that students can use to reflect on their independent reading. The journal allows students to communicate and explore the ideas and feelings that they find stories evoke. The teacher can then enter into written dialogue with the students, commenting on their responses, pointing out other connections to their thoughts, and expressing feelings about their viewpoints. We can also respond to the journal in conversation during a conference to help clarify thoughts about a text or perhaps relate the text to the student’s own life. A reading response journal makes the connection between reading and writing. Response journals provide us with a record of reading conferences, the books that each student has read, and the understandings that the students have brought to their reading. Students can track their reactions, make connections, and ask questions about any text they have read. Journal entries can be answers to open-ended prompts the teacher provides in the journal or spontaneous comments about the impressions a reading has inspired. When students begin to use the response journal, they may simply retell what they have read. As they become more comfortable with the journal, their responses to what is happening in the books they read will grow more varied. The author’s description of a character, an object, or a scene may evoke a strong mental image, or the text may arouse strong feelings or memories. Students can record what they liked or disliked about a book, predict what they think might happen next in the text, question the storyline, or register approval or disapproval of the way a character thinks or acts. The text may remind students of other stories, films, or real-life experiences, and when they choose to record these connections in their journals, they are reflecting not only on their reading, but also on how it applies to their own lives. Journals provide information about thinking and learning for students as readers and for the teacher as audience and guide. The reading response journal is a medium for interaction among teacher, text, and learner. Here is an entry from one Grade 5 student. Cynthia Voigt My author is Cynthia Voigt. I’ve read Izzy Willy Nilly, The Calendar Papers, and right now I reading Homecoming. So far I think Homecoming is the best cause of her plot about abandoned students and how they survive and her choice of words. For example, when the kids asked Dicey to tell them about their father, Voigt said, “Dicey gathered her few memories, like scattered marbles.” I thought it was a very good choice of words cause I could really picture Dicey trying to remember things about her father. My prediction is her grandmother is going to take care of them. I think Voigt has influenced me as a writer cause by reading description it’s starting to rub off on me. Voigt doesn’t describe the characters straightforward; she would say Dicey brushed her sandy brown hair or something. So far the  69

s­ imilarities in the books I’ve read are, all the main characters are girls and they all have problems to deal with. I enjoy reading Voigt’s pieces of writing cause it matches my reading level perfectly. I found Calendar Papers a bit on the dry side, but Sarah thought it was great! — Sharon

Strategy: The Reading Conference We can set the stage for reading conferences by establishing a routine in which the student feels comfortable about and looks forward to discussing privately with us what he or she has read. Often, a special corner or seating arrangement will encourage a student to open up, actually freeing the student’s voice. In a typical conference, the student reflects on the text, retells it, presents personal views on the story, gives opinions about the content, and makes judgments on the selection’s style and quality. We can close the conference by helping the student decide what to do next: whether to begin a response activity or to choose a new book. We can use the conference not only to help the student to explore further meaning making but also to assess the student’s reading progress. By noting how the student responds and contributes, we can assess the student’s attitudes, interests, and level of comprehension. During the year, there will emerge patterns in the student’s reading that can help us build a complete picture of the student’s reading growth. Conferences can occur at different times during the reading. We may want to discuss a book with a student before reading begins, perhaps relating other books to the new one or explaining the background, the author, the time, or the place. Sometimes, it may be important to confer with a student while he or she is reading a book to clear up misconceptions or to bring the student’s prior knowledge into play as an aid to understanding. The student may also request an interview during the reading to discuss the text’s background or the ideas in it. Depending upon the situation, conferences can take from 10 seconds to half an hour.

Reading in the Content Areas: Challenges

Titles by Cris Tovani • I Read It, but I Don’t Get It: Comprehension Strategies for Adolescent Readers • Do I Really Have to Teach Reading? • So What Do They Really Know? Assessment That Informs Teaching and Learning

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Over time, students are expected to read independently and more frequently, to read longer and more difficult texts in a variety of curriculum areas, to read faster and more selectively, to remember more information, and to make integrative connections. They also have to learn new words and terms in all the different subjects. At the same time, though, many of the texts are outdated, not accessible, or badly written. In many classrooms, the Internet has become a widely used text. Readers of widely differing abilities are expected to read the same resources with fewer support structures. In her books, Cris Tovani has helped us understand the need to continue teaching strategic literacy in the middle years. Our students need to learn to read like a scientist in Science, to read like a historian in Social Studies, to read like a mathematician in Mathematics. In essence, different text expectations require different strategies, forms, and formats. For example: How do we take notes when we conduct an experiment? How will we then summarize what has ­happened? How can we take time to work with our students in handling a lengthy, complicated science text?

Student inquiries and investigations can grow from big ideas, topics, or issues drawn from the students’ own interests and questions that spark their curiosity enough to want to find answers or solutions. Research can grow from science or social studies curricula as well, or from the themes in novels and picture books. These inquiries can last for a few days or several weeks. Some aspects may be covered as homework, but the classroom is the best place for identifying a topic, formulating questions, and developing a plan of research. Intensive longterm research projects built around exploring big ideas immerse the students in authentic reading and writing experiences. We can help maintain their interest and sustain their efforts. Students can write their own researched information, using the mentor texts they have found in their inquiries, working with the style, the structure, or the format of the research resources, and incorporating them into their own work. In this way, they construct and comprehend a particular genre at the same time, gradually accumulating the strategies necessary for working with a variety of forms of information. We want our students to move towards a critical perspective on the work they develop. More non-fiction needs to be shared, explored, and taught in our classrooms, on page and onscreen, so that students can better gain a grasp of the genre. In order to further their research, readers need to appreciate how certain text features signal importance: non-fiction often scaffolds learning. Although the first purpose of non-fiction is to convey factual information, important ideas, and key concepts, it’s important that students find the writing interesting as well as accurate, even rich in voice.

Strategy: Choice and Voice in Exploring Social Issues By Sarah Papoff Working with the teacher Yun Chang in an urban community school as a visiting artist/researcher, Sarah Papoff taught a six-week drama unit addressing this key question: How do we create stories that share, change, or resist power? The Grade 5 students answered through improvised drama and dance. Sarah Papoff is an elementary teacher with the Toronto District School Board. Her master’s thesis for the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education focuses on drama in the classroom.

Using the strategy of providing a dramatic source to work from, we invited the students to bring in a media image around an issue of power that they perceived as fair or unfair. I also provided images of current events in the media. Two examples of issues that groups chose to explore are these: girls’ access to education (the idea of four girls) and children being soldiers in some places in the world (the idea of four boys). These issues resonated for the students. The students worked with the images through tableaux. We then formed groups based on an image that the students chose; the students were able to create a story about what was happening in the image. It was time for the participants to do research to inform their work and multiple subject positions on class, race, gender and culture. Each group was given time to research their issues in grade-appropriate ways. For example, the girls’ education group — made up of four girls who selfidentify as being of Pakistani, South Asian, or African background — researched the idea of Nazreen’s Secret School by Jeanette Winters, a junior-level picture book with information about girls and schooling in Afghanistan. The child soldier issue group learned about former Congolese child soldier Michel Chikwanine,  71

now a motivational speaker and humanitarian, through his work with Me to We and Free the Children, and used the website for information. Once the tableaux were established and the problems fully explored and developed in the way the students understood them, we moved into role play of the problems in a process drama as I began to tell the story in role. My collaborating teacher stayed in role as herself and often took the role of recorder, side-coach, and observing teacher out of role. I was inside the drama, and she stayed outside the drama, coaching and questioning from there — a touchstone in reality. The students insisted that we meet in a circle in our secret village council meetings, where the decision to hold the protest was held. Students worked in small groups to prepare their words and voices to share with the rulers. In role as the villagers, they prepared posters, chants, raps, and words to share. They spoke to one another and the teachers in character.

Village problems: Tableaux To a drumbeat, all students as villagers entered and stood in neutral in their small groups. Sarah as narrator: Once in a land far away, there were six villages. For many years the villages were happy. They visited each other. They led a happy life. But then things changed. Rulers changed. People changed. Over time, the villages began to have problems. In response to the narrator’s words, each village, in turn, created a tableau, or still picture, to demonstrate the issue that the people faced. "Twenty-first century learners are students who have a huge amount of influence in this world, but who are unaware of their own power. They are students who can make a change in their communities, provinces, or foreign countries about issues that they know nothing about. They are global citizens in waiting." — Kevin Sebastian, Grades 7 and 8 teacher

Sarah as narrator: In the first village, people stopped having freedom to move where they wanted to move. In the second village, a war began and families were forced to hide in tunnels. In the third village, there was war and students were forced to fight. In another village, girls were no longer allowed to go to school. They were forced to work in the fields. Further away, the people were hungry. Their rulers weren’t sharing. And on the edge of the land were students in a village who didn’t feel safe in their own schools — they were constantly bullied. With all tableaux now formed, music was then played. The groups came to life and told their stories through moving images. The focus in Scene 1 was on the problems in the villages, as described above.

The final meeting As a conclusion to our unit, I asked David Booth to visit the class, and to roleplay an official from the United Nations, who could provide funding to each village that the students had developed, in order to assist with their difficulties. The tension lay in the villagers’ presentations of solutions to their problems: would they be strong enough to warrant UN support? David began by asking each village group, in turn, to express their ideas for handling the complex issues that faced them. He then questioned them about their solutions, nudging and challenging them into clarifying and articulating their responses, so that they would be worthy of financial aid. Students struggled

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to find pragmatic and workable answers, huddling in their groups, brainstorming, coming up with answers that he would accept. Each group began shaping their responses, so that the problems facing the villages could indeed be lessened or even removed with support from this outside organization. For example, the village that wanted their girls educated in schools like the boys finally determined that they could divide the school day in half: boys in the morning, and girls in the afternoon. The boys’ learning would not suffer because they would use more effective teaching strategies for the half-day lessons. Through David’s questioning, they revealed their previous explorations over the six-week unit, their background from working on the drama components with me — brainstorming, dancing, improvising. And now they had emerged with workable solutions, and he allowed the financial aid to be distributed to the villages. Theirs was a hard-fought victory, subject to constant revisions to their plans, as they rethought and reworked each aspect of their solutions.

Student voices from the class blog: Out-of-role reflection “I really like that our stories are coming very far, like finding solutions too.” “I thought this was very fun, I liked the drama activities at the beginning. I liked how you connected it to power. It was good.” “The thing that I liked about drama is that you get to go down another road and see how it feels.” “I liked this drama because we came very far and I expressed myself and to maybe present at the assembly.” “It was all fun and exciting, figuring out solutions and problems.” “I kind of felt Mr. Booth was actually from the UN.” “I was nervous, worried about messing up. In the end I knew where it was going.” “I felt like I was an actual villager, the room was a different place.” “When I was in role, I felt like I was actually the person I was trying to be in role. I think it is how it would actually be for someone else.” “It makes me think about how real people struggle through their problems.” “It connects to real life because these things really do happen.” “At the beginning I thought it would be just about power and then we started to be deeper.” “When my grandmother explained to me what happened in Guyana there were lots of poor people.” “I felt like when I was in my role, I felt like I was actually the person I was trying to be in role. And it kind of like, when we did it, it changed a lot but it was kind of a better change because like that is how it would actually be for someone’s life to be like that. In the beginning we started off with smaller problems, then after we started having drama meetings, Mrs. Papoff came and helped us. And at the end of the unit, with Mr. Booth, we were protesting and making our ideas better.”

Commentary on the drama event We need to provide opportunities for students to express their views and opinions, to share their ideas and information, but we also must find ways to turn their words into representing their authentic voices, to move them beyond  73

i­nitial response to insightful dialogue and reflection, where what others say affects how they think and feel about issues that matter. These students were engaged in creating iconic villages that highlighted world complexities, and they worked diligently and passionately to explore hopeful solutions. I marveled at their unflinching efforts to fill the requirements that I had set out in my role as the UN official, their abilities to demonstrate effective resistance, resilience, and advocacy, and I honored their solutions because they were worthy: the results of thoughtful analysis and problem solving by a class of Grade 5 students, ably supported by the weeks of work organized by Sarah Papoff, the teacher-researcher, and Yun Chang, the classroom teacher. Student voices are heard loud and clear at that school.

Reflecting on Literacy Voices As we support our students in their development as readers of different text forms, we need to constantly reflect on our interactions with them. In essence, how are we helping them — and how could we further help them — to strategically read the texts from home and school, whether it will be on a hand-held electronic reader or a computer screen, or be a manga novel or a poetry anthology? They will be able to express themselves and find their voices — their perceptions, their ideas, their feelings — as they become more proficient as readers, writers, and researchers. ☐  How will we prompt students into deeper, more enriched thinking about the text, the ideas their peers have expressed, and their own changes of mind as the conversation about the text expands and explodes? ☐  How will we build extensive text sets that change their perceptions and points of view, cause wider connections to open up, and build conceptual understanding? ☐  How will we weave together the texts from the Internet with the texts from the library, from magazines, from interviews, and from each other? ☐  How will we expand students’ construct of the world through the texts they encounter in and outside our classes? ☐  Can we connect other writings to the text we are focusing on? Perhaps a series, a sequel, an autobiography, a picture book . . . ☐  Can we nudge the students into finding patterns in the things an author writes about, in the events of the stories, in the characters, in the ideas the author seems to believe in, in the style of the writing? ☐  Have we found, or directed the students towards, any information about the author or incorporated a YouTube of the author speaking? Do the students feel the author drew on his or her own life in creating the text? What type of research do the students infer went into the writing of the text? Can students read comments about the author’s works, such as reviews on the Internet or opinions from classmates? Can they discover what the author is working on now? What questions would they ask the author about the book or about his or her life? Is there an interactive author’s website? ☐  How will we connect the texts of the classroom to the texts of our students’ lives? ☐  Do we encourage different ways of participating in print-focused contexts, modeling and demonstrating alternative possibilities for literacy behaviors? 74  

☐  Are we supplying those readers at risk with supportive technologies and programs? ☐  Are we using the testing procedures in our school, our district, our province or state as useful data with which we can plan our teaching time more carefully, more specifically, more accurately, with greater impact? Are we becoming aware of the changes in students’ literacy lives, in the texts, the formats, the forms, the genres, the interweaving of text forms, the popular texts, the enrichment texts? Literacy in content areas: We teach strategies for reading (interpreting) and writing (composing and constructing) in different genres, for different functions, and with different styles, forms, and formats; however, some of these events could be carried out during other subject times. Many teachers are exploring the literacy functions of their disciplines with students, helping them become more effective readers and writers as they learn about the content, procedures, and text forms used in a particular field of study.

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6

Who Can I Be? Imagining the Voices of Others

I was visiting a Grade 5 classroom exploring a Social Studies unit on feudal times, and the teacher, Gano Haine, had the students working in role as loyal subjects who had learned that their king had been imprisoned by a foreign ruler. She was moving them into the drama work by adding the tension of how they could reach their king with a message of support. Student 1: How will we get our true king returned to us? Student 2: We can send messages by carrier pigeon to our king in prison. Student 3: We can be bird trainers and teach the pigeons how to carry messages. Gano: Hold a pigeon in your hands. Calm it down. Stroke its back gently. How will it carry the message? Student 2: We will have to tag each bird, so we know which ones are ours. Student 4: I will do that. I know how to read and write. Gano: What other arrangements will we have to carry out? Student 5: We will need coops for all the birds. Someone will have to feed them and clean out their coops. Student 1: We will have to have a test, to see if they will leave and come back. Gano: Let the pigeons loose. Watch them fly upward. Hold your arms out. Are they returning? Is your pigeon on your hand once more? Student 3: How will they know where the prison is? Student 1: We will have to take them there and feed them there, so they can remember where to go. Student 2: How will we take them there so the guards won’t see us? Student 1: In a covered cart. We can pretend to be traders with stuff to sell and trade. Gano: We will need a rehearsal, a practice. How will you keep the birds quiet? Student 3: When their cage is covered, they will sleep. Gano: (picking one imaginary pigeon feather from the floor, and putting it between the pages of her book) In this feather is the freedom of our kingdom.

Finding Our Own Voices Through Role-Playing See Chapter 4 for information on “as if” voices.

As these students improvise the situation of peasants seeking to free their deposed ruler, they begin to pay attention to the implications in the statements being made and to the relationships among them. Drama forces participants to consider the content and context of statements made; it also provides a forum whereby students can clarify, restate, and subsequently comprehend what is occurring in the drama. The students are using “real” language in “as if ” settings.

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Giving Shape to Thought When working in role, students can express their ideas and spontaneously struggle to clarify and reflect on what they are trying to say. They are thinking aloud, influenced by their classmates’ responses, an important indicator of whether they have successfully communicated their messages.   Drama encourages students to bring their understanding of the outside world into the classroom as they deal with the problems and decisions that arise in the drama, through the medium of talk. Whether they role-play scientists or wolf children, drama talk is a means of giving shape to thought, both within and without the drama, and of discovering their voices.

Role play lets students leave the narrow confines of their own worlds and gain entry into new forms of existence. At the same time as they enter, students must find a sense of their own relationships to this fictional life: the me in the role and the role in me. They create alternative selves, alternative lives, and alternative worlds — in play, in storytelling, and in drama. When students participate in drama, they are in charge of building the dramatic experience through their actions and words. They become the drama, discovering ideas and directions that will surprise and change them. Because meanings are being made, not given, the students will find responses and language powers that are unexpected, engendered by the collective drive for group meaning. Being in role enables the student to practise language codes very different from those dictated by society. The drama context sets up language demands that will vary from situation to situation. Both emotional and cognitive commitment, supported by the drama, will provide stimuli for language exploration, freeing the students and allowing them to try out a range of language possibilities. Drama provides teachers with opportunities for classroom talk, but more important, it gives contexts for real, purposeful language.

Real language at work in drama The summary below points to the many ways in which we can involve students in developing and demonstrating their understanding of text through drama. It also presents considerations on how we might approach drama from various perspectives. Texts as role-playing resources: What if we consider the texts we use as resources for role-playing? Which incidents from the text will students want to replay in groups? How will they begin and end? Who will they role-play? Shall we share a moment or two from their improvisations to see the unique retellings? Will we televise the work on cameras? Parallel texts: Using a story, which incident in the plot will students develop? Most drama lessons move from the original text to a parallel story that grows out of students’ improvisation work. Doing so creates opportunities for comparing the two texts: the original and the created version. Moments in time: How will students capture dramatic moments in the text? Will they create a frozen picture, or tableau? Who will be in the tableau? Will there be a spoken caption? a sequence of tableaux? Will each group select a different event to represent, so that the class can share the entire story as groups take turns observing other groups? Physical representations: Children can express and represent their interpretations through a physical mode; that is, they can use their bodies in movement and dance to picture what their imaginations have created. They might select a piece of music to support their work or incorporate drumming or singing as part of the movement drama. Research for the drama: Finding information to strengthen and support the drama through Internet searches for documents, books, and images will be a powerful asset in expanding and deepening the drama work. Who will be the researchers? Who will ask the questions? The future can open up new modes of researching, expressing, and presenting. Sharing within a community: We want our students to experience presenting their work and sharing their creations. As always, drama opens up possibilities for building a community forum. Students can share the story they have read or 78  

created to others in role as members of a community. What will be the implications of this sharing to the rest of the drama developing through their roleplaying? Writing in role: We will continue to search for opportunities for our students to do authentic writing. The letters, diaries, and documents they compose on the theme being explored can serve as artifacts within the work itself. In-character in technology: As technology becomes more available in our schools, we can participate in a blog or by e-mail as characters-in-role discussing issues with one another. What scenes will we film so we can see the varied interpretations groups have developed? In what other ways can we involve technology in our active learning sessions?

Building a Drama Event Creating drama is a cumulative affair, like creating a Lego model. Each scene grows from the stimulus of the preceding ones. In my mind, I keep track of what has already happened, so that I can begin another scene with a different context, drawing upon the energy and events of the previous one. Speaking in front of an audience causes the participants to become more conscious of what they are saying. If the learning context is secure and the speaker can cope with the situation, the resulting change in language can indicate a growth in the ability to use language effectively with the concerns of the listener in mind. Situations in drama can call for various degrees of presentational interaction: • leaders speaking to followers • role players re-creating their dialogues for others who are in role to listen to • groups demonstrating their ideas to others for future use • individuals explaining their views to others who are in role • groups storytelling to others who need the information within the story • role players narrating what had happened in their groups to concerned others • students presenting their reports and findings to the whole class • role players being interviewed by others who are in role • students summarizing their exploits in the drama for others who are listening in role • groups engaged in the drama while others observe for dramatic involvement, perhaps to make a decision, to gain information • students depicting tableaux to determine how the drama should progress • groups sharing responses to the drama, as they reflect on what had happened The distance between the student as speaker and the rest of the class as audience lies on a continuum, and as the students become more confident and proficient in using drama as a way of learning, they can interact with class members at different places on that continuum. The range of possibilities extends from dramatic playing right through to the performance mode, and from students engaged in private or informal talk to a formal debate in role. In fact, an individual may be working in several stances at the same time, exploring the dramatic situation, yet as leader, clarifying and exploring what is happening to other members in role.

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A Continuum of Drama Talk In role: dramatic play    improvisation and movement   playmaking   sharing   performing

Out of role: informal talk   group discussion   researching   responding and reflecting

Strategy: Role-Playing as a Class In a particularly memorable example of a class role-playing, I used Ian Wallace’s Boy of the Deeps as a source for improvisation. The work centres on a journalist who has come from Europe to write a profile of a mining town. The journalist runs into difficulty with the class distinctions in force within the community. The Grade 7 class and I developed several scenes to explore the issues. The students worked in pairs, in small groups, and as a class, depending on what each scene required. I listened to and observed the students carefully, asking questions to make the work deeper or at least, move it along further. I had no intention of working through all of the scenes that the book could suggest; I wanted to set up situations requiring student voices in role so that students could engage in real and meaningful dialogue. A few of the scenes that emerged are outlined below: Scene 1: When the mine owner tells about his difficulty with the miners, two or three miners commented on their treatment by the bosses. Scene 2: Next, a miner’s wife shares her life problems with her husband as she irons his Sunday shirt. Scene 3: All the women of different ages meet at a quilting bee. Scene 4: Finally, the drama evolved around the young lad who was beginning his life as a miner. We created a parent–teacher career night as the setting. Five students role-played the principal and four teachers, and the rest were parents. The discussion revolved around one youth who wanted to leave school, even though he was eligible for a college scholarship. In role, the students commented on the different issues involved in the youth’s decision. Speakers included his parents, saddened by his choice but supportive; a mine worker trumpeting the solidarity of miners; wives who had married at 16, some with and some without regrets; a mother who wanted her boy to get the scholarship now available; a mother saddened by her sense of being trapped in the village; new parents concerned about their child’s stereotyped future; and teachers who felt they had done their best for the miners’ students (and who all, when questioned by me, admitted they would never marry a miner). The drama shone brightest, though, when one mother told of a wedding she had attended for her brother’s son, who was joining the military. She was asked what she wore to the ceremony, and with eyes shining, she said: “A black and white polka dot dress with a red belt, a white, wide brimmed hat, and white shoes. I looked good that day!” What happened there made two young women weep in real life. Drama is such real pretending.

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Seeking entry points

For drama educator Dorothy Heathcote, the students behave as adults with responsibilities, who must live with the consequences of their decisions. Yet, of course, every child enters the drama at his or her own level of socialization, imagination, and knowledge. It is up to the experienced teacher, she suggests, to identify those who sit back, who imitate, who observe, and who lead or initiate the dramatic moments, to facilitate the interaction, drawing in those on the outside, moderating the dominant voices, and bringing the narrative to a fuller experience. This work thus builds students’ social and dramatic skills, and ultimately creates opportunities to develop strong, dramatic moments.

When facilitating drama, I listen carefully to the improvised dialogue for entry points into the next incident. Scene upon scene, layer upon layer, the drama takes shape. Groups engaged in drama can also come back to a scene we have seen, or a character can offer another viewpoint. The action becomes layered with different meanings as the role players learn more and more about their lives. While young students will always find time to engage in dramatic play, teachers are now recognizing the benefits of using role-playing with older students. These students gain opportunities to try on different characters, to explore different viewpoints, to enter into spontaneous dialogue, and to change their minds as the drama unfolds. So, how can we begin to integrate role-playing into our curriculum work with these older students? We can begin looking for entry points into the improvised role-playing after sharing the picture book. For Boy of the Deeps, I would consider questions like these: Will I select an incident from the text to have the children explore in role with partners? Will I have them retell the story from the viewpoint of characters within it? Will I use the themes of the book to move into a unit that examines the different aspects of the miners’ lives, and begin with a town meeting? The future work holds so many possibilities for thinking and talking “as if.”

Helpful prompts for structuring a drama event During the lessons I create with the students, I hear myself using many of these statements and questions to help organize the action of the drama. These statements and questions act as prompts for finding ways of rethinking and redirecting the work in progress. I may ask one student in role to clarify his or her position, or I may ask a group to replay what they have created so that we, as a class, can interpret their suggestions: • [Repeating their words] Is that what you said? • Is that what you meant? • What are the implications of what you have said? • What are the implications of what you have done? • What do others think about their actions? • Show me the effect of what she has said or done. • Remind me of how this work began. • Reminisce about your lives [in role] before this event began. • What happened in the past that affected this action? • Flash back to the incident. • Flash forward to a future where . . . • Freeze the action so that we can see what is happening. • Ask someone about an action or a statement you saw or witnessed. • Talk aloud and all at once about your responses to what has happened. • In groups, revisit and replay the scene where . . . • Gather as a group to observe the scene where . . . • With a partner, explore what happens when . . . • Create a frozen picture of . . . • Alone, create the scene where . . . • In a circle, one by one, comment on the story so far. • In groups, draw a diagram of . . . • I will be working in role alongside you as . . . • This is a story of a group of people who . . .  81

Strategy: Adding Tension to Deepen the Work Tension is the secret, the mystery, the surprise, the dangling carrot, the time frame, and the space limit. Just as a playwright does, we as teachers need to apply pressures of some kind so that the students know the urgency of solving the problem or of making the decision at hand. We can use a surprising or shocking experience. For example: • We can foreshadow that one of the people in the great canoe will die. The shock may force the students into rethinking what they were going to do. • We can pull the experience in the opposite direction from where it seems to be going. For example, in a plan where the class in role were to take over a community by appearing in the early morning fog, we tell them the fog has disappeared, the sky is clear, and we are in view of the enemy village. • We can place special demands on the role players: they may have to solve a riddle so they can gain the right to speak to the wise one; they may have to speak in a way that the king will accept, using carefully chosen language to influence him. • As teacher-leaders, we can make things difficult for the students: only one person knows the combination for the safe, or the swans will return earlier than normal because of the eclipse of the sun. • We can also ask students to become experts in a field: those who have information on a particular animal that is almost extinct or those who understand a people’s culture on an island we are about to visit. • We can slow down the work deliberately by asking the students to reflect within the drama on what has happened. For example, we may see three plans enacted in order to choose only one of them; we can rehearse the battle with the monster so that we can check the state of our weapons; we can use a flashback or a flash forward to heighten the choices we must make; we can require careful planning exercises using chart paper and markers. • Of course, by working in role as teacher-leaders, we can offer many more tensions than we could if we were only at the front of the room. Just being able to say, “When I was a young child in this village, I remember something similar happening,” adds other directions for the drama. In implementing such strategies, our goal is to elevate the students’ feelings and ideas, so that the ensuing drama will be stronger. We are not only responding in action but with reflection. We are creating an elaborate context for what may happen.

Strategy: Creating a Parallel Story On one occasion of having a parallel story evolve, I worked with the novel Children of the Wolf, by Jane Yolen. I began with a discussion of books and films the students had read, seen, or heard about concerning children raised by creatures of the jungle or the forest, and the class recalled Tarzan, Mowgli, and a wolf child remembered from rumor. I then presented the problem to be solved through drama to the class: “We are a group of scientists who have been awarded the contract for developing a program for ‘humanizing’ a 12-year-old boy, discovered living in a jungle, raised by wolves. In four years, it is our job to create a civilized 16-year-old who 82  

will have a chance at a normal life. The first step for our group is to create a set of priorities concerning the training of the wolf boy.” Working in small groups in role as scientists, the students considered the various problems that confronted them concerning changing the feral child’s behavior and values. Different groups developed strategies for affecting the wolf boy’s language, clothing, food, education, social habits, and emotional needs. The small groups then presented their ideas to the whole class who, along with me in role as director of the project, questioned them and offered suggestions. The students were building a belief in the existence of the wolf boy, and as the members of each group processed the contributions of the class and altered their plans, they were using talk in role as their medium for learning. I telescoped time by announcing that one year had passed and now each group of doctors would reveal the progress they had made with the wolf boy. As the groups presented their findings, the language of the students changed dramatically. They took their roles as scientists seriously, using notes from their clipboards as the basis for their discussion. Their body language, choice of words, sense of audience, and strength in role became much more complex. As their commitment to the drama grew, they seemed to sense themselves as authorities. When presenting their findings at the end of year three, the first group announced that they felt the boy should be freed to return home. Their proclamation divided the class, so we formed new groups representing the two sides of the issue. The emotion was strong, resulting in a third group that was undecided and stood between the other two. The argument continued, and those in the middle found themselves joining whoever was speaking at the moment. Unfortunately, the school bus arrived, and there was no completion to the drama. The teacher had the students write me letters describing their feelings, and the following excerpts represent the range of opinions that grew from the work.

Expressing opinions founded on the drama work I think he should be a boy. It was confusing to decide if he should be a boy or a wolf. It was hard I think that he should be a wolf. I like the story about the wolfboy and I said the wolfboy should have cooked food and the scientists said the wolfboy should be in a white room to be studied and see how to eat the raw meat. Thank you for inviting us to hear the story about the wolfboy. We had fun with the scientists. I think we should leave him a wolf boy because he doesn’t see anyone to tell him something about people. It was a very interesting morning. I enjoyed myself a lot. It was real exciting. I also learned a great deal. It was a great experience for me and I will never forget that day. And let the wolf boy do his own choice. I really enjoyed talking about the wolf boy. (Even if I pretty well thought it wasn’t true.) It was a very interesting subject. Although I am a shy person, I didn’t talk much but enjoyed listening to others while having a bunch of thoughts whizzing through my head.

The students and I never “met” the wolf boy: there seemed no reason for his presence. The students talked about him and created him in his absence. They cared passionately about his past and argued with conviction about his future. Their language grew with the situation and with their belief in the wolf child. In  83

role, they were scientists who wore the mantle of the expert; they controlled the direction of the drama and the quality of the language — they had ownership of their work. They were discovering their real voices inside the imaginary context.

Strategy: The Teacher Working in Several Modes In the making of a drama, I see the teacher’s roles as a combination of several modes of working: • the storyteller, who every so often narrates what has happened thus far and who needs the role players to fill in the gaps so the story builds its layers of meaning (In this town, a young woman dreams of a party dress amid the greyness of daily life, but no one believes in her dream.) • the teacher-director, who prods and questions the players into rethinking and reconsidering the implications of their words and actions (What are your thoughts about your injured husband not making any money to support you and your children? What will you not say to him?) • the teacher-manager, who organizes the brief scenes as they emerge from the talk and actions of the role players, and who makes sure that different players have opportunities to respond to what has just happened (As a parishioner, are you aware of the priest’s sense of failure? When you clean house for him, does he talk to you about his depression?) • the coach, who stands beside or behind a hesitant player with suggestions or questions, who gently prods the student into the action of the play (Tell about the accident when you lost your legs. Who helped you? Who told your wife?) • the role player, who occasionally works as a townsperson, commenting on or questioning another’s actions or statements (I give to the church from my pay pocket, and I am truly hurt by someone stealing money, even if it is to feed your students. What do the rest of you miners think?)

Reflecting on Role-Playing Voices ☐  How can you begin to integrate role-playing into your curriculum or work with older students, who often have less exposure to it? How can drama ­strategies allow you to move inside the students’ world and help them to strengthen and use their voices, while addressing curriculum needs. ☐  What part could role-playing have in helping students to hone interview questions and develop spontaneous responses? Could students interview a character from the original text the group is reading? What if students develop their own interviewing situations from documents, history, or novels? Can you use technology to promote deeper involvement, as you transcribe the interviews or incorporate still photos of the speakers as their words are heard? ☐  Will you consider the texts you use as resources for role-playing? Which incidents from the text will students want to improvise with a partner or in groups, or retell in role? We can share a moment or two from their improvisations to see the unique retellings. It may be possible with iPads and smartphones to film or televise the work of different groups and share the dramatizations using a computer and projector. ☐  Using a source text, which incident in the plot will students develop into a parallel story, changing the setting, the time frame, the place, the participants? 84  

How will you take the opportunity for students to compare the original and the created versions? ☐  How will students capture dramatic moments in a text? Will they create a frozen picture, or tableau? Will there be a sequence of tableaux, with each group selecting a different event to represent, so that the class can share the entire story? ☐  In the future wireless classroom, how can you enable boys and girls to express and represent interpretations of what they picture in their imaginations through movement and dance, perhaps accompanied by music, drumming, or singing? ☐  How can you engage your students in finding information to strengthen and support drama? What use will they make of Internet searches for documents, books, and images that can help expand and deepen the drama work. Who will do the research? Who will ask the questions? ☐  How can you use the potential of drama to build a community forum? When will you let students share the story they have read or created to others in role as members of a fictional community? What will be the implications of this sharing to the rest of the drama developing? ☐  How can you involve students in authentic in-role writing while working on a drama? What letters, diaries, and documents can they compose on the theme being explored? These can serve as artifacts within the work itself. ☐  How can students use the technology available in your school to participate as characters in role discussing issues with one another? (Blogs, e-mail) What scenes will you film so you can see the varied interpretations groups have developed? How else can you involve technology in your active learning sessions? ☐  What scripts or stories can you choose to provide appropriate challenges for your students to explore through role play and improvisation?

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7

Listening to Our Own Voices Speaking and Reading Aloud

We can provide opportunities for students to explore all types of audience-informed talk. Reviewing a book or a film, reporting the outcome of a group task, summarizing the results of a project, giving instructions for a game, and making announcements on the public address system are all occasions for planning what to say. We often ask students to recount past experiences or retell a story, allowing them time to go over incidents and information and to work out a sequence of events before they present their narratives. Sometimes, students read aloud their own writing, and when they do, they may manipulate the text on the spot, changing words, omitting others, and rephrasing as they speak to adjust to the needs of their listeners. In this transcript, teacher Nancy Steele is conferring with a Grade 8 student about his response to reading a novel he had self-selected. Nancy Steele, who has contributed articles on education and literacy for several of my books, was a Grades 7 and 8 teacher at Horizon Alternative School. She is an instructor in Literacy and Equity at the Ontario Institute for Education. 

Nancy: I see you’ve just finished reading Rule of the Bone. You seemed pretty absorbed while you were reading it, and you finished it quite quickly. Why do you suppose that was? Student: I liked it. It was about reality stuff. I like books like that. The kid, Choppy — that was his name before he changed it to Bone — real stuff happens to him. It was interesting. Nancy: What was interesting about it? Student: Well, he had a hard life, getting abused by his stepfather and all, and then he runs away, and he and his friend start living with some bikers, and then there’s a fire and the main biker guy tries to save him, and the kid gets out but the biker guy dies. Nancy: So, it was really exciting. Did you like it because it seemed realistic? Student: Yeah, but it was far-fetched as well. Like he [the author] made the story more interesting than a real-life story would have been. Nancy: So, you don’t think it really could have happened? Student: Probably not all the things in the story. He meets this Rasta guy who lives in a bus and the guy starts to take care of him. Nancy: You mean I-man. What did you think of him? Student: At first I liked him. He was really good to Bone, but then it was like he started to use Bone. When Bone got the money to go to Jamaica, then it was like he wasn’t interested in Bone anymore. Bone kept asking for advice and he kept saying, “It’s up to you.” Nancy: So you thought he should have helped Bone make a decision about going? Student: Yeah, I guess, but that’s one of the things he (I-man) was teaching: it’s up to you. Nancy: You mean I-man was trying to help Bone realize he had to take charge of his life?  87

Student: Yeah, the book was teaching you stuff. It had a moral. Nancy: But it sounds like you felt I-man should have taken better care of Bone. Student: Except it makes sense because I-man was used to not supporting people. Nancy: So this is what you think he really would have done, but maybe not what he should have done. Student: Maybe. Nancy: Do you think it is the job of adults to help kids? Student: Only if they need it; otherwise, leave it alone. Nancy: What did you think about what happened to I-man? It seemed that he was talking about a peaceful world in Jamaica, one where you could have a perfect life. Do you think that’s what Bone believed? Student: Yeah, and then this guy comes and kills I-man because of some drug deal, and it’s sort of racist too because he says he would’ve killed Bone except he’s white. Nancy: So I-man didn’t have all the answers perhaps? What do you think Bone learned from the experience? Student: I don’t think he’s ever going to depend on anybody again. Nancy: Really? Why? Student: Well, everybody he depended on let him down. His father, his stepfather, I-man . . . Nancy: Do you think Bone could ever be a good father himself? Could he be different than his father was? Student: Yeah, but he might not. He didn’t have many good examples.

Inside the Social Frame The student who was in conversation with Nancy Steele is not a particularly proficient reader. He says he remembers when he was trying to learn to read: he would memorize the story and pretend to read, but people inevitably found him out because he would repeat it out of order. One day, though, he says, he was amazed to find that he was reading. How this happened remains a mystery. At school, he would rarely bring his own novel to class. If given a free moment, he would play with a tiny skateboard, making it do complicated jumps and turns. But one day he was totally absorbed in Rule of the Bone, which had been passed around and enjoyed by his friends. Here was a book that both the student and Nancy, his teacher, could talk about together, in a real conversation, where his perceptions and views mattered. He was already inside the social frame for reading the book. Some students develop a deeper, more fully realized understanding of a text when they can share personal meanings and responses with others. Such forums include talking with classmates and the teacher in literature circles, book clubs, conferences, and reading groups. By going public with their responses, students increase the connections they can make with those who are reading alongside them, where individual responses are both shared and altered by the contributions of the members, and often by the nurturing support of the teacher.

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Giving voice to words found in print Students benefit from opportunities to give voice to words they have previously thought about. For example, that is what they are doing when they discuss a book with the teacher, report on information they have researched, introduce a guest speaker, or read a group of poems aloud. The audience receives their message live but understands that there has been premeditation. Students can find effective reasons for engaging in these activities, all founded on print: reading aloud giving speeches giving book talks performing in play presentations making presentations giving and conducting interviews reporting making announcements participating in debates sharing their writing sharing research reading to younger students

Strategy: Training Tour Guides By Brian Crawford, interviewing Ruth Wyman I was very interested in an event for parents designed by our Kindergarten teacher, Ruth Wyman. Her young students were the knowledgeable ones on this occasion, in charge of explaining their Kindergarten work to their parents. In this formal talk situation, the students were secure and comfortable in their role as speakers. Brian: Can you tell us about the child-guided tour that you and the children planned together? Ruth: When I visited my own daughter’s classroom, we were told that the parent–teacher interview would be conducted by my daughter and not by the teacher. This seemed like a very interesting idea, and when my husband and I arrived, she “wrote” her report card and then “read” it to us. She and her teacher had made a plan, and she showed us some of the things she had learned. The teacher was available to help her. The interview ended with a social time for the teacher, the four sets of parents who were there, and the children. The atmosphere was tremendous and very, very empowering for the children. I asked the teacher’s permission to adapt this idea, and she thought that would be terrific. Brian: How did you use the idea with your children? Ruth: The established reporting procedure at our school didn’t allow me to use this method exactly as it had been used in my daughter’s school though that is what I’d really like to do if I had it all my own way— Brian: Me too. Ruth: But Education Week was approaching. Often children, especially in Kindergarten, have difficulty in talking about school to their parents. I thought, if Education Week is about showing parents what their kids are doing, what better way than to have the kids lead them on a tour? I sent a letter home to the parents and told them that during Education Week, they would be welcome to come in and their child would take them on a tour of the classroom. Brian: How did it work?

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Ruth: I made a very definite structure for this tour. Many parents responded, and I decided to have only four or five tours going on at a time and found that it worked out well. We had to do the tours after school or in the evening. Brian: What happened on a tour? Ruth: The child read a book or told a story, showed the parents a drawing and writing book with work from September to April, taught the parents a math or computer lesson, and demonstrated a favorite school activity. We then all had juice and cookies together. Brian: Did the children do it all in the same order? For example, did they read the book and then show them the drawing? Ruth: That’s a good question. I helped plan the tours during class time. We devoted a good chunk of time to this. I usually took two or three children at a time, and together we agreed on a plan. I transcribed the plan for the kids, using pictures along with words so they would be able to refer to it easily. I expect I led them to do it in a certain order because I worked through the plan the way I had thought of it. Sometimes, they decided what they wanted to do next and the order would change. If I did this again, I think I would ask what they would like to do first, and then allow them as much freedom as possible while still giving them some strategies to work with. Brian: Did you hear any comments from the children or their parents after the tours were conducted? Ruth: The children really enjoyed doing the tours but didn’t make a lot of comments afterwards. My feedback came largely from watching the tours in progress. There was an atmosphere of great power in the children’s hands; they had poise and dignity, and it gave them tremendous self-esteem. With one exception, they all treated this very seriously and did an excellent job of showing their parents what they were learning in a very direct way. It’s all very well for me to write it down on a report card! Brian: Yes, I think it’s extremely important that the children have the control, and now the parents have seen the children actually engaged in learning, they can make connections when they do get a written report. Ruth: The parents did ask a lot of questions and are thirsty for this kind of information. They felt very proud and interacted with their children in a very absorbed way. Brian: Did you talk to the children afterwards about it — what they would change or do the same next time? Ruth: No, I didn’t do much follow-up, and maybe that would be the challenge for the next time. I would like to have much more discussion afterwards. Brian: The parents must have been amazed at what children of this age can do. I think this idea could be built into our evaluation of the children to supplement some of the other things that we do. Ruth: I made some notes after the parents had left while things were fresh in my mind. Brian: An evaluation tool — I feel this could be one of the key components of evaluation. Ruth: Yes. I received a letter of thanks from one parent who wrote: “Whenever I entered your classroom I felt an unrepressed atmosphere which was rich with possibilities. Evan proved this on that wonderful day when he took me on a tour and happily tackled all the opportunities he could, showing me proudly

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what he had learned.” When this mother thinks back over the year, this is what stands out in her mind as a parent, a rare opportunity for parent and child to share something very wonderful.

When Students Read Aloud Students usually find that reading aloud, after exploring their own responses and rehearsing the text, is a satisfying mode of communication. It lets them share their reading comprehension and try on new language styles, voices, and patterns of speaking. Oral reading verifies print and helps silent readers to “hear” dialogue. Small groups can come together for oral reading, or older students can read stories they have prepared for younger listeners. Oral interpretation, when done well, can improve all the skills of comprehension, lead to revelation for the readers, and strengthen how readers understand both the text and themselves as readers; in doing so, it offers opportunities for finding and sharing voice while inside printed words. Students need opportunities to explore text before reading it aloud. If they do not first interrogate the text, rub up against it, notice how others are feeling and wondering, question private belief, expand information, and hear the voices of print struggling for freedom, they will be sharing print aloud for no real reason. Sometimes, it is the reader who is listening best, learning through the ear and the eye at the same time. As for me, I have been reading aloud with students throughout my teaching career. I read, they read, we read together, we echo each other, we make dialogue into script, we chant, we sing, we demonstrate, we share moments, we delight in words, we repeat, we whisper, we shout, we read and move our bodies, we read and clap our hands. We read to those who can’t or don’t; we read what others don’t have or can’t see. We read from our memories, without print. And why do we read? We read to reveal information we have found, we read to make a point, we read together as a ritual of belonging, we read to hear the sounds of language, we read to give others our print ideas, we read to change direction and refocus, we read to find the voices deep within the well, and we read to raise our own voices in tribute to literacy and language. And what do we read aloud? We read what we’ve written, excerpts from other stories we love or wonder about, words that touch us or puzzle us, tales from before, stories about today and tomorrow, scripts from people’s lives, poems that cry out for sounds in the air, letters from friends, stories about places where we have never wandered, stories about dogs and horses, stories of mothers and granddads and eccentrics and students, stories of school and city and countryside, stories of hope and death, wonder and fantasy. We read short stories and scripts that build up the tension for days. We read from album covers and music sheets, blurbs about writers from the backs of book jackets, titles, reviews, and recommendations. We read aloud, filling the classroom with the voices of our ancestors, our friends, our novelists, our poets, our playwrights, our native peoples, our researchers, our journalists, our ad writers. We read aloud.

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Interpreting scripts In reading a script, the students have to penetrate someone else’s written words and illuminate those words from their own experience. Then, using memory, observation, and perception, they have to invent complete characterizations, while remaining true to those suggested by the writer. They also have to memorize and deliver the scripts to an audience, sounding as if they were creating the lines spontaneously. The students must be able to read the script, not locked into one meaning; to enjoy the script’s content and style; and to relate the script to their own life experiences. If print has been a normal part of their lives, if exploring meanings in text and responding have been integral parts of learning, the students will have been part of the reading process. Much of the meaning of a play is in the subtext, the meaning that lies beneath the apparently logical order of the words in the text. In life, actions and words usually have an obvious and unambiguous meaning, but underneath, there is a whole range of motives and impulses that support or conflict with the obvious surface meaning. Novels, poems, and picture books written for young people are an excellent source of good dialogue that may easily be adapted into scripts for oral reading. Students can work in pairs or in small groups, reading the dialogue silently and then aloud. Teachers can have the students change roles; they can introduce new settings or new tensions; they can change the time period and use various other means to help students dramatize the selection in such a way that they can discover new meanings in it.

Owning the words In one Grades 7 and 8 class in an alternative school, the boys and girls were part of a pilot study on gender and literacy where they were separated for literacy instruction. In her work with the boys, the teacher had them writing in a variety of modes, especially poetry and script writing. The teacher felt that poetry was an effective means for helping the boys to capture their thoughts and feelings at their stage of adolescence, and for honestly representing their own voices. For example, the emotional swings, the observations of the adult world, the new awareness of strong emotions all seemed to fit inside the shapes of the mentor texts that she modeled and shared with them. The scripting units resulted in each student having completed two scripts: one drawn from personal experience, the other a satirical comedy. In the spring, the boys and girls came together, held readings of their plays with members of the class as actors, selected the six plays that should be produced, rehearsed the productions, and shared the work in an evening of plays attended by parents. At the end of the school year, the students stated that they believed their success as writers was aided by the separate literacy classes and that they felt secure as contributors to the class poetry booklet, distributed at graduation. Every student in the class was represented in the collection through several poems. When we can observe such students, both boys and girls, working to bring printed words to life, to give voice to ideas embedded in text by finding and developing connections to the words, it helps us as teachers to realize the importance of finding time and opportunity to delve into text before reading it aloud, for constructing our personal interpretations as we negotiate between text ideas

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and our own lives. As for the students, they can begin to find and share their voices through writing and reading aloud, “owning” the words.

Strategy: Promoting Oral Reading 15 Ways The following suggestions may promote read-aloud activities with students. 1. They can join in by reading songs, verses, and poems aloud. 2. They can be part of the choral speaking of poems and rhythmic stories. Nursery rhymes offer words that “trip upon the tongue,” where students can have the enjoyment of interpreting fun ideas from these old rhymes, choosing from a spectrum of presentational modes, such as cheerleading, rapping, newscasting, and doing small plays. 3. They can read favorite lines from selections on Smart Boards, projectors, or copies. 4. They can read their own writings aloud in small groups after editing their print to permit ease in reading. 5. They can work with a buddy from an older class, someone who will offer an experienced shoulder to lean on as they read to each other and delve deeply into the story to bring it to life. 6. They can read the dialogue of a story in groups as if it were from a script. The narrator will give clues as to how to interpret the words. They can share excerpts from story novels with others who have not read them, so that the listeners will be attentive. 7. They can read aloud sentences, phrases, and words that are useful in proving a point during story discussion, responding with the words of others to support their own ideas and viewpoints. 8. They can read aloud in an assessment situation, one-on-one with the teacher or diagnostician, without rehearsal and without the embarrassment of peers listening in. Adding uninvolved listeners to a testing situation will alter the character of the situation and skew the results. 9. They can read aloud inside the drama frame, using words they have created through role play, rules, statements, findings — or words they have found in excerpts, letters, documents, or tales. This role reading gives added strength to the oral interpretation; belief and commitment often transcend any limitation or difficulty with reading print. 10. They can read aloud findings from their research activities to other interested students. Perhaps different groups have explored various aspects of a theme or topic, and want to hear from each other to expand their knowledge. They can transfer their findings to screens or large charts and share the information by reading aloud. 11. They can read scripts aloud in small groups, first reading silently, then exploring the concepts, and finding the voices. The groups can taperecord their scripts to help themselves further their interpretive work. Perhaps different groups have explored various aspects of a theme or topic, and want to hear from each other to expand their knowledge. 12. They can dramatize poems and excerpts using the words of others, but through interpretive improvisation, bring to them movement and belief. These minimal scripts offer opportunity for partner, small-group, and whole-class exploration. Situations can be added, characters can be

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changed, and music can be incorporated. The students may want to commit changes to memory: the ultimate act of oral interpretation. 13. They can chant, sing, shout, and call out alternative lines or sections of a story. At the conclusion of a particular theme or unit, they can read interesting or significant findings — poems that touched them, excerpts that made connections, quotations from novels that represent universal truths, personal writings from journals or writing folders that they feel will have special appeal for their class. The ritual of sharing and summarizing is vital to oral reading in many aspects of tribal life. We can incorporate this power into classroom teaching. 14. Readers Theatre allows the students to dramatize narration — selections from novels, short stories, picture books, and poems — instead of reading aloud scripted material. The students can have one person read the narration and others, the dialogue speeches, or they can explore who should read which line. For example, a character who speaks dialogue may also read the information in the narration that refers to that character. Several students can read narration, as in a chorus. 15. In story theatre, students can dramatize material other than scripts. In addition to interpreting the dialogue and the narration aloud, the participants can play out all the actions and movements in the story. Simple narratives, such as those found in myth, fable, legend, and folk tales from the oral tradition, are best suited for story theatre.

Reflecting on Out-Loud Voices How can you relate talk to reading aloud for the students, so that they come to understand the importance of interpreting the written word, either their own or that of others, as if they were constructing these passages with their own improvised voices? Which of the following opportunities for reading aloud do you use in your program and which others could you most easily introduce? • Reading aloud the stories they write: Students can do this during the writing process, informally in a group, or as part of a formal presentation, such as a poetry festival or a sharing of life stories for a parents’ evening. • Rehearsing a picture book for a small-group presentation: Bringing the words of a picture book to life lets students interpret both print and images, and they create a new medium for sharing. The pictures could also be shared on a screen using an opaque projector or slides. • Joining in chorally with a poem: Poetry slams, which are popular, offer a model for students to select or create poems that speak directly to their peers and to present them in dynamic and forceful ways. • Reading aloud a story with a partner: Partner reading allows students to bring both narrative and characters to life, and to discover the meanings between the lines, as they interpret text and give it voice. • Reading with an older or younger reading buddy: These cross-grade experiences benefit both students. The mentor prepares, models, and supports, and the mentee’s reading is elevated by the partner’s expertise while they read and during the follow-up discussion. • Finding in a text and reading aloud a sentence that contains particular information or expresses a particular emotion: During the literature circle, proving

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a point or substantiating an opinion offers opportunities for interpreting text orally. Students in the group can also share a favorite passage. • Reading school announcements or community information to the class: We need to capture every chance that arises for giving students chances to read aloud, but only after they have had an opportunity to preview the text and clear up any problems. • Reading as a herald with a royal proclamation in a dramatic context: Reading aloud in-role lets students try on different voices, power positions, and genders, and various ages or backgrounds. • Reading prepared information in a class debate: When we give students real reasons to read material aloud, we add an authentic quality to their voices. • With a group, reading a script or dialogue from a story: Readers Theatre lets the group involved struggle to find common meanings and ways of interpreting a text, and then share it with an audience that has not read the selection and meets it through the voices of the readers. • Planning, preparing, and taping an interview about a topic in which they have a special interest: Such practice models how interviews work and can lead to guests, on Skype or in person, participating in interactive sessions with students. • Presenting information from a researched inquiry to a group, a class, or an invited audience, perhaps using PowerPoint, a graphic organizer, or Prezi: The student work has been recognized, and the reflective sessions can add a new dimension to student findings and interpretations.

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8

Capturing Our Voices Constructing, Composing, and Creating

The following transcript is of a conference between teacher Brian Crawford and Sara, a Grade 5 student, discussing a story Sara had just written about twins. Brian: I’d like to start by saying that it really helped by hearing both of the characters, John and Chris, speaking in the dialogue in your story. It seemed to come alive. You didn’t just use the word said. I particularly liked when they plopped into a chair. I could just see them sinking. Your story reminded me a lot of other books about twins or people switching positions, such as The Prince and the Pauper and The Whipping Boy. You also made me think about what it might be like to have a twin. You bring out some of the bad things. What I’m wondering about is where you got the idea for this story. Student: This week I’ve been watching movies about twins. I saw The Parent Trap, this Disney movie where two girls change places. And, oh yes, we just got two new twins at our school across the hall. Brian: You know, there are some parts of your story that sound real. I loved the fact that you’ve included your character Super Pig into this story. Is this your first draft? Student: No, I’ve rewritten this already. Brian: When you went from draft one to draft two, what did you do? Student: I read it over to myself and some parts didn’t make sense. When I said that Chris went into his pajamas and John went into his pajamas, nobody would understand it, so I had to change it to “they switched.” Brian: After you finished draft one, did you find an audience to read it to? Student: I like to let my mom read it, but she wasn’t home, so I gave it to my brother, but he doesn’t give me many comments except “It’s good.” Brian: Then what did you do? Student: I just read it to myself and became my own audience. Brian: What do you think you’re going to do with it? Student: I’d like to publish it. I want to change some of my sentences around and maybe tell another adventure that the twins had. Brian: Is there something that you think I might be able to help you with? Student: I’m having trouble with the parts where they talk. Do I have the quotation marks in the right place? Brian: Maybe if you read it aloud to me again, I can help you with the dialogue . . .

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Discussing Our Writing with Others In Brian Crawford’s Grades 3 to 5 classroom, learners shared their writing explorations with others during phases of the writing process as well as in the finished product. Writing conferences, both with the teacher and each other, helped students experiment with different forms in an environment that valued choice and risk taking — and valued student voice. Brian created this choice-focused environment from his first meeting with the students when he invited each of them to list four topics of personal interest on an index card. Brian first modeled by writing down four ideas of his own, sharing his thoughts aloud as he chose topics. The students saw him struggling to come up with the third and fourth ideas. The students had a chance to piggyback ideas with their classmates. They talked about what they knew and had experienced before they recorded their points. For example, one boy mentioned learning to ride his bicycle, which triggered a girl’s memory of learning to tie her shoes. Once the students had chosen their four topics, they began to confer with one another about their “stories.” In a few minutes, the room was full of the sound of pencils leaving behind records of thoughts. Brian himself wrote for about 10 minutes and then got up and moved from child to child, asking, “How’s it going?” or prompting, “Tell me about your writing.” The brief interactions that followed lasted from 15 seconds to a minute or two. Brian connected with writers in his class in such teacher–student ­conferences daily. The students, by their comments, set the direction that the conferences would follow. At first, Brian did not look at the student’s work; instead, he prompted the student to read it to him. This choice put him into the role of listener-responder and ensured that his “mental pencil” did not mark what the student had written. In the following days, teacher and students explored other ways to confer. At the beginning of the year, the students met once a week in teacher-assigned groups to share their writing, though each child did not have to bring a piece of work every time. Those who did talk about their writing identified the type of feedback they needed from their listeners. Brian expected responders to give at least three positive comments before asking any questions, which were often for clarification and might lead the writer to consider changes in future drafts. The usefulness of these groups disappeared as the first term progressed, so they were replaced by the students’ own informal peer conferences, usually taking place in groups of two or three. The students used the procedures that they had learned in the teacher-assigned groups and in conferences with the teacher. As the students took on the role of responders, Brian was able to have longer conferences with individual students. For example, Greg brought his paper airplane experiments to a conference and wanted to talk about how to present his new knowledge. Teacher and child explored together some possible ways, and then Greg made the final decisions. Derik, who had seen Phantom of the Opera, decided to use the play’s premise for a story of his own but to create new characters. When he had written several pages, he decided he needed a conference because he wasn’t sure where the story should go next. Editing conferences occurred only for pieces that were to be published. Teacher and student made changes to polish a piece of writing. From these discussions, Brian noted points of concern in spelling, punctuation, and ­grammatical 98  

c­ onventions, which he would then work on during the next week with those students who required assistance. Whole-class sharing times provided the students with another setting in which to gain feedback about their writing. The students and Brian also used this time to discuss writing by professional authors in much the same way they discussed their own work. Here, the learners began to make the connection between reading and writing and to see themselves as a community of both readers and ­writers.

As Peter Elbow, author of Writing with Power, put it: “Writing with voice is writing into which someone has breathed. It has fluency, rhythm, energy, and liveliness that are enjoying a conversation. Some people who write frequently, copiously, and with confidence manage to get voice into their writing. Writing with real voice has the power to make you pay attention and understand — the words go deep” (p. 299). When Brian Crawford and his students discussed published texts by professional writers, they were considering mentor texts.

Finding Voice Through Writing What will I write about? Given that students have asked this question for generations, we first need to focus on helping them to create an array of ideas that they care about, topics that call for their personal responses and allow their voices to emerge. For years, I thought it was my job to provide topics for writing, but now I understand that my role is to work with students in negotiating what is significant in their lives. In their independent writing projects, students will need to choose a topic that matters to them. Since they will be working for an extended time composing and revising, and perhaps publishing, what they are writing about becomes paramount. Students need to explore their interests as they hone in on topics, probing issues, deciding on the genre and format, the style and audience, and referring to the models they have experienced in their reading and life connections. Students can find mentor or touchstone texts — memorable texts in a variety of genres and formats that can act as reference points for their own writing, providing stimuli for motivation, ideas, formats, and styles. It is important for them to determine which ideas should be developed further before beginning the writing process. Classrooms have become writing workshops, where everyone is part of the teaching/learning dynamic. Students in groups help their peers improve drafts; they listen to others read aloud their stories as they would listen to published authors. Teachers confer with young writers, asking enabling questions and offering help with editing. The once-a-week writing period is a thing of the past, for writing has become part of daily classroom life. The process lets students see themselves as real writers with something to say to real readers.

Striving for Voice Through Revision In A Writer’s Notebook, Ralph Fletcher says we require a place to record “our thoughts, feelings, sensations, and opinions or they will pass through us like the air we breathe” (p. 35). Young writers need to explore, experiment, look inward, discover what matters, and as Nancie Atwell writes in In the Middle, “name and examine their thoughts and feelings” (p. 49). In writing notebooks, students can write in interesting ways about things that matter, clarify personal concerns, and explore social issues. I wish I had kept a writing notebook while I was growing up. Most of us learn the craft of writing through revision. As students revise and edit their work, they organize, choose an appropriate format, use language to create effects, sequence information, recognize and eliminate irrelevant material,  99

and become aware of how standard spelling, correct punctuation, and legible handwriting, print or cursive, help to convey their message to their readership. For some, collaboration during the writing process encourages them to use a variety of strategies to solve spelling, grammar, and language usage problems. Students should see writing as something they can manipulate, rather than as something that comes out right the first time. While the teacher may be a facilitator at any stage, it is important for the writer to retain ownership of the piece and to make final decisions about it. A piece of writing often requires days to reach completion. Keep in mind that not all writing has to go through the entire process. Some pieces may be abandoned because the writer loses interest or feels the pieces are not going anywhere. Others may go through many revisions before the writer is satisfied enough to be willing to share. Students need opportunities to share their writings. Publishing, displaying, or reading aloud selected pieces will enable students to see what the results of the full writing process can be. Dated samples of work kept in a writing folder will assist both teacher and child in monitoring progress and planning suitable instruction. Be aware of emerging patterns in the students’ writing behavior. When, and how often, does a student have dry periods? Which student seems to have trouble getting started on a piece of writing? Which student never seems to finish a piece? Which student seems to write on one topic all the time? You will soon realize which student needs a writing conference and at which stage various students need the most assistance. When students revise their work, they can journey further into their compositions and can incorporate the meanings that can accrue for them. As they strive for a fuller understanding of what is happening in their texts, their writing can become more complex and their language, more sophisticated. Revision can reveal voice.

The role of the writing folder A series of self-edited or collaboratively edited writing samples kept in a writing folder provides concrete evidence of progress. It is recommended that writing from all curriculum areas be included in the folder. When teachers examine dated writing samples, they can pinpoint patterns of development and focus whole-class or small-group mini-lessons on needed skills. Keeping samples of each child’s writing from the start of the year through to the end is important. Doing so allows students and teacher to see the growth students have achieved. Photocopies or other writing samples may be sent home at regular intervals to give parents easy-to-understand, concrete proof that their child is learning. Three to five pieces of each student’s writing can then be placed in a special writing folder that is passed on to the teacher for the following year. The samples serve as a reliable assessment tool: by putting pieces of work alongside one another, teacher, parent, and child can recognize growth and ­development.

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Strategy: Writing in Role By working in role, students change perspective and move into inventive worlds and unfamiliar contexts. They can explore numerous writing strategies: freewriting; making journal entries; interviewing; brainstorming; listing; letterwriting; creating announcements, proclamations, and petitions; reporting about events within the drama; designing advertisements and brochures; inventing questionnaires and important documents; and writing narrative stories that are part of or are conjured up by the story told. Beyond that, writing in role provides many opportunities for collective writing, in which groups collaborate on a mutual enterprise. For example, they can cooperate in collecting data, organizing information, revising, and editing, all in a drama context. A group of nine-year-olds had been working with Kermit Krueger’s telling of the folk tale The Golden Swans. They had improvised the incident that occurs when the stranger who accidently killed a golden swan is forced to build a statue in memory of the swan. The death of the one swan caused the remaining golden swans to depart forever. As villagers, a number of students wrote these warnings to be carved on the statue: • Death to those who come here to kill. The hunter who killed our ancestors carved this. The man who killed the swan has carved the swan for us. This is a tribute to show what happened to the ancestors when one hunter came along and destroyed them. They were in the form of a swan. • Do not touch the swans or else. Because they mean so much to us. Never kill a thing. • Those who kill our swans shall be put to work. Those who kill in this village shall be punished. To the passers and villagers that live in the village. You have killed the swan and have done evil. • We do not kill. And those who do kill will do work and they will not finish until it is completely finished. Never kill a golden swan without permission, for the story says never. • People who are near read this: This statue is a dead swan; it is alone for all to remember.

In the following letters by students playing the role of the stranger in the tale, the students show strong role identification, as well as an understanding of the feelings of the hunter and the consequences of his deed. In their discussion, they had decided that the story was set in Vietnam. The letters vary between the formality of the hunter who has committed a crime and the informality of people away from home writing a friendly letter. Dear brother I have found this strange town with the name of Viet Nam there is a story about some golden swans which are really spirits when you grow up please come and you might even see them. They were made by Indra’s god come when you are older. Dear daughter and son, I am writing to you to tell you I am ok. I am in Viet Nam in a little village. It is very strange in this little village. Then one day I was walking in a deep forest when I saw a lake and some golden swans I ran and caught one. When I felt it died. And  101

the people of the village were angry with me. I said I was sorry, but they still are angry. I have pondered for many days, and I have thought of an idea. I have built a statue of a swan, and the people have lost their angriness. From your father, P.s. Hope you are keeping well. Dear Son It is very strange in this place. I killed a golden swan and all the towns people were very mad with me. I hope you are ok. They played war with me for being a hunter because they had no hunters in that land. I hope I will be coming home soon. I just sit here thinking about the crime I caused. I know no one here. I hope mum will send me clean clothes.

Drawing On Stories, Creating New Ones When students write stories, they begin with their own selves in fictional settings, trying on situations for size and sensing from the stories they have heard and read how authors combine imagination and real life. Their stories may depend on flights of fancy or may revisit and retell the happenings of their own neighborhoods. As they build narrative, students see how stories work, how sequence and cause and effect play upon plot, and how characters are developed. In the following story, a 10-year-old brings all her experience with story as she works within the folk-tale structure and plays with words and images drawn from her reading. Yukuto Chung Once upon a time in China, there lived a man named Yukuto Chung. He was extremely artistic but did not know it. One day his fiancée, Mai Lee, went up to him and said “Yukuto! You are a very good artist! PLEASE, draw, paint, do whatever but, put your talent to use!” “I am not a good artist” Yukuto replied and, without another word, walked away. Later, in Mai Lee’s chambers she talked silently to God. OH MAKE YUKUTOBELIEVEHE IS A FANTASTIC ARTIST! MAKE HIM BELIEVE!!!! That night Yukuto had a strange dream. He dreamt he was outside. He was flying a kite. He looked up straining his eyes from the sun. It was a beautiful kite! It was the color of the sky at sunset. It was pink, blue, grey, all colors! And then, at the bottom of the kite was a gorgeous ball of fire. I have to make that kite! Yukuto thought. As soon as Yukuto awoke, he set to work. He started with a rag as a rough draft. He mixed together blue and pink. No way he thought. He took another rag and started again. All through the day he started and finished another rag. Nothing seemed right. Days went by, weeks, months, years. Fifty years later he was still working on it. He was eighty years old. His wife was seventy. He worked and worked. First grey, blue and orange, then red, yellow and green. On the night of Yukuto’s eighty-fifth birthday, he had the dream again. This time he looked with his wide eyes and saw every color of the world mixed in. That night at 9:00 he died. Mai Lee was upset and she refused to even meet anyone else. She cried for weeks. 102  

* Yuans is Chinese money.

One day she was going through Yukuto’s stuff when she found the hundreds of rough drawings he had done. They were all so beautiful! Mai Lee also had artistic talent. She decided to finish off Yukuto’s project. She worked hard. She wasn’t lonely at all for, Yukuto’s spirit guided her through the days. Finally, years later (Mai Lee was ninety and very healthy) she finished the kite. It was so colorful and almost exactly the same as the one Yukuto had seen in his dreams, but yet Mai Lee had never had the dream herself. She would not sell the kite. One man offered here 1 million “Yuans”* but, that kite was the only thing that reminded her of Yukuto and the good times they had had together. Mai Lee always kept Yukuto’s side of the room neat. She believed that Yukuto’s soul lived in the house. It remains a mystery! THE END — Lisa, age 10

Beyond Rhyme to Deep Feeling: Voice in Poetry A poem allows us to say things in a special way, yet many students are convinced that poetry always has to rhyme and follow a rhythmic pattern. That’s because playground verse tends to rhyme. Hearing many poems read aloud will help students appreciate the variety of forms open to them. Manipulating chants and cheers by substituting words and lines is an easy way to begin working with poetry. Imposing a slightly unusual pattern, such as that of an acrostic, in which the initial letters of each line form a word or phrase, or a cinquain, in which each stanza has five lines, can help distract the students from the artificial constraints of rhythm and rhyme. Some, however, will immediately see free verse as an effective means of expression. When students begin to see past rhyme and to notice the affective side of language, they are coming to understand poetry as a special way of representing their “voice.” Consider the poem below. After a lesson where the class had been exploring a story about the Chinese workers building the Canadian railway, the students sent me their poems, filled with their feelings about the suffering of the workers. In this work, you can hear one girl’s voice clearly: Remember all my thoughts, my words For I am gone now, like a bird. My body rests underground, but My spirit ventures somewhere sound. Everything I did and said Recalled upon my own deathbed. Just for now I want to say, “Look at me where I lay.” In my eyes do you see Anything resembling me? Now I leave you with no word For I am gone now, like a bird.

On another occasion, I was teaching for a term on an island in Hudson’s Bay. As I was leaving to board the plane home, an Inuit teenager handed me a poem he had written. He said it was the only poem he had ever written, and he wanted me to have it. I have kept it for 30 years.

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Musk Ox: Hey Goose, can you find my wife? I really need my wife. Do you know where my wife is? If you tell me where my wife is, I will save you from the hunter. I am suffering for my wife. Sea Gull: You’ll never know where your wife is. I married her yesterday. She said she loved me. — Johnny

How strange that the form of communication we seldom turn to as adults seems for young people the most accessible means of voicing their deepest feelings and perceptions. I value poetic writing as a most fulfilling mode for truly meaningful response.

Strategy: Prompting Writers to Strengthen Voice Through Feedback By Shelley Stagg Peterson Shelley Stagg Peterson is a professor at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, where she teaches courses in writing, children’s literature, and literacy, and conducts many research studies examining teaching practice.

This feature is derived, in part, from “Improving Student Writing: Using Feedback as a Teaching Tool” (Research Monograph #29) in What Works? Research into Practice, published by Literacy and Numeracy Secretariat, Ontario Ministry of ­Education, in October 2010.

Given that teachers spend a great deal of time providing written feedback to students, it is important that the feedback have a greater influence on students’ writing development. Verbal or written feedback can be a powerful teaching tool if it is given while students are in the process of writing drafts. Comments on drafts of writing provide students with timely information about the clarity and impact of their writing. When students receive feedback while they are writing, they are more inclined to use it to revise and edit their drafts than they would be if they received the suggestions on a graded, polished copy. They also have an immediate opportunity to try out the suggestions in their writing, allowing for meaningful application of what they have learned from the feedback. Focusing on individual students’ immediate writing needs, this ongoing feedback is a form of differentiated instruction that complements the teaching of mini-lessons to small groups or to the whole class. To support students’ sense of ownership of their writing, feedback should • be given in the spirit of showing student writers the positive effects their writing is having on readers • identify potential areas where students could revise their writing to clarify meaning or more fully engage readers • take the form of suggestions, observations, and open-ended questions, rather than instructions and criticism Students should always feel that they can use the feedback in their own way: that the feedback is suggestive, rather than prescriptive. I keep a list of prompts ready to apply to each situation. I might first ask queries like these: • What are you working on? • Do you want help with your writing? • I’m interested in this idea. Tell me more.

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• Why did you want to write about this topic? • Have you changed your mind while working on this topic? • What do you see in your mind’s eye? Some prompts focus attention on purpose and how clearly it is expressed: • What is the most important point you are trying to make? • Do you think you have more than one topic here? • What is your favorite part? • Could you cut a piece out and use it in another project? • What about looking back at your idea web, or making a new one? • Do you need to find more information? • What about chunking the lines in your poem differently? • Do you think any illustrations might help? Some questions prompt students to expand on their writing: • Where did this event happen? • What happened to cause this event? • Can you expand this description? • Can you add your own reactions and feelings? • Why does this part matter? Some prompts invite the writer to consider the reader’s point of view: • Do you think a reader will care about this character? • Will a reader hear your own voice? • Read your lead aloud. Will it work for a reader? • Would a reader understand this part? • What do you want the reader to remember about your piece? • How do you want the reader to feel at the end of the piece? • I am having trouble understanding this part. Can you help me to clarify it? Have you thought of trying another pattern? • Read this quotation aloud to me. Does it sound like real people talking? Would adding some dialogue help in this section?

Conducting and Constructing Inquiries In a digital environment, the New Literacies that our students are developing and expanding involve thinking, exploring, connecting, and making meaning, often collaboratively. Students have the amazing potential of taking advantage of vast global networks, huge databases, immense archives, rich art collections, and interactions with millions of users. Our task as educators is to help young people become capable navigators of what is often a complex and disparate landscape, “making up their own maps and minds.” Many classrooms have already left behind the teacher-as-expert notion, where the students are expected to digest, memorize, and regurgitate. We are moving towards classrooms as environments where students living in the Information Age are encouraged to develop flexible and inquiring frames of mind as they sort, sift, weigh, and arrange ideas and construct new concepts. In our complex world, where simple answers, basic problem patterns, and memorized solutions

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are no longer sufficient, students, like all of us, have to shift, change, learn, and relearn. The inquiry-based classroom supports the development of a full range of literacies, as students handle the unexpected and the unfamiliar as well as the predicted and the known. Our students must create answers rather than collect them. In an environment filled with opportunities for reading, writing, and discussing, students can devise their own rich web of related questions that help them organize and structure their investigations and develop their emerging understandings. Occasions in which students present their inquiries offer opportunities for both oral communication and written and visual demonstrations of the research. I am impressed by the power of overhead transparencies and PowerPoint to prompt students to consider carefully how they will represent their findings. Young investigators may want to distribute a guide sheet for observers to note their learning and to ask further questions. Displays and bulletin boards on screen and on walls let other students benefit from the research. The community’s store of common knowledge and understanding grows as other students respond to presentations with questions, comments, and discussion, revealing their insights and feelings in a safe and focused atmosphere. The sense of community that teachers who are incorporating the New Literacies build in their classrooms fosters collaboration and cooperation.

Strategy: Using Digital Art to Represent Voice A core group of Grade 8 students from the Raul Yzaguirre School for Success attended Three Decades of Achievement, an event sponsored by the Houston Coalition for the Homeless (HCH) in downtown Houston on April 5, 2013. They displayed a selection of digital art about the homeless to not only call attention to this social issue, but also to celebrate the humanity of the homeless. The students developed their multi-faceted project using Microsoft Word, PowerPoint, and GIMP (graphic arts freeware equivalent to Photoshop). The students had also been asked to research homelessness on the Internet and then write an advocacy essay in Microsoft Word to address the social issue. This activity was in response to a learning service initiative by the National Council of La Raza (NCLR). Here is one boy’s essay. We live in a world where many people have no jobs and nowhere to live. They choose to live out in the streets where it may be cold or hot. There, many people are homeless due to lack of family support or being abused. These are big issues for America because these people ask for money on street corners, try to clean your windshield for money, and even go into businesses, and ask for money. We need to help these people before this issue gets even bigger. Homelessness may not be a big issue to some people, but families are out in the streets with their kids begging for money and food. America may have a plan for this, but government people do not actually go out there and help the homeless. The main problem is that we don’t have enough shelters. We get frustrated seeing them out in the streets. When you’re walking out of the store, you don’t want a stranger asking you for money, but you feel that this person doesn’t have a place to live since America abandoned him or her, and there are not enough shelters. This whole issue with homelessness will never be fixed if we just sit here, and wait 106  

until the government does something about it. Meanwhile, homeless people are out there in the cold and sometimes, being assaulted. — Daniel Acosta, Grade 8, RYSS

At the same time as the Grade 8 involvement in the NCLR initiative/campaign, Grade 7 students used Microsoft Publisher to create brochures on homelessness to raise awareness about this social issue. They, too, conducted research on the Internet and then worked with text, their own words, and pictures to put together informational publications. The duality of the project placed the students in a situation to focus on a social issue they may address later in life in academia and at the workplace, and to produce products, such as brochures, via publishing software, to hone their skills. The students were also asked to present their brochures through projection and discussion.

Strategy: Enhancing Literacy Skills Through Digital Video Production By David Hutchison David Hutchison is chair of the Department of Teacher Education at Brock University, as well as a professor there. His research interests include social studies, place and education, computers and education, and video games in education. This feature is derived from ­ “Enhancing Literacy Skills Through Digital Video Production” (Research Monograph #39) in What Works? Research into Practice, published by Literacy and Numeracy Secretariat, Ontario Ministry of Education, in 2011.

Increasingly, teachers are being asked to address an ever-broader notion of literacy — one that includes new forms of digital literacy, related to the multimedia technologies students routinely interact with (e.g., blogs, wikis, and social networking websites). Yet how can teachers integrate digital literacy with the curriculum, such as Ontario’s, which underscores the importance of traditional forms of print and oral literacy? Student-created videos are one possibility that affords an opportunity to integrate print, oral, and digital literacies into a compelling curriculum unit.

The 21st century literacy challenge During their out-of-school lives, students routinely interact with complex forms of online and digital media. These multimodal communication technologies (such as texting and YouTube videos) go well beyond the printed word. They entail new forms of social discourse, in which the production of knowledge and the negotiation of meaning are interwoven with forms of literacy that eschew the linearity of traditional texts. By their very nature, online media incorporate hyperlinks, dynamic text, images, sounds, and repurposed media (e.g., video mash-tips) with the fixed, written word. As young people engage with the new media, they become embedded in what Henry Jenkins describes as a “participatory culture.” Through this interaction, they continually remake their social universe, producing new knowledge with others in collaborative and interactive ways.

The six stages of video production All but the most modest of video production projects move through six stages. Smaller projects may move quickly, but larger projects will likely require a commitment of several weeks or even months.

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1. Preparation and exploration: Students familiarize themselves with the stages of video production, video production roles and video techniques, hardware and software. They prepare • a job description for various production roles (e.g., director, script writer, set designer, camera operator, actor and editor) • a categorized inventory list for the equipment they will use • an instructional guide for using the camera 2. Development: Students choose an idea for their video, research the topic, prepare a pitch for the teacher and/or class, and write a treatment, a script, or both. They prepare • a word web in which the ideas for a video are brainstormed • a treatment (synopsis) for a video • a research report, summarizing and synthesizing relevant information 3. Pre-production: Students create storyboards for each scene, work out the logistics for filming (e.g., budget and location shooting), and create any needed sets, props, and costumes. They prepare • a timeline, which lays out the production schedule • a storyboard, which graphically sequences the shots • a dialogue interchange comprising a conversation between two or more characters 4. Production: Students capture and log the video and audio footage for the video. They prepare • a log, cataloguing the video footage • a reflection on each day’s filming • a to-do list for the next day 5. Post-production: Students sequence and edit the captured footage, adding scene transitions, voice-overs, sound effects, and opening and closing credits. Test screenings with peers may also be conducted. Students prepare • subtitles for the hearing impaired • the text for the voice-overs and opening/end credits • a text-based screening survey 6. Marketing and distribution: Students prepare an advertising campaign for their finished video and arrange for its distribution (e.g., DVD and/or online posting). They prepare • a press release • a poster advertising the video • a proposal (pitch) for a sequel to the video

Strategy: Finding Voice Through Artifacts By Jennifer Rowsell Jennifer Rowsell is a professor in the Department of Teacher Education at Brock University. She is also the Canada Research Chair in Multiliteracies.

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Artifacts (everyday objects) access the daily sensory world in which students live, providing an entry point that recognizes and honors students’ out-of-school identities. The snapshot that follows demonstrates how encouraging students to write digital stories gives voice to these artifacts — and to the storytellers who draw on them. Artifacts bring everyday life to students’ writing. In many ways, artifactually based writing provides more voice than an exclusive focus on the written word. Artifacts are not so much multimodal as material; they bring culture to students’ thinking and writing. By linking together the material everyday

Identity Texts “Identity texts refer to artifacts that students produce. Students take ownership of these artifacts as a result of having invested their identities in them. These texts (written, spoken, visual, musical, or combinations in multimodal form) hold a mirror up to the student in which his or her identity is reflected back in a positive light.” — Jim Cummins, keynote speaker at the 2012 National Association for Bilingual Education (NABE) Conference, in Dallas, Texas

This feature is derived from “Using Student Voices to Guide Instruction,” which appeared in Voices from the Middle 19, no. 3 (March 2012): 27–29.

life of a student with narrative, domains of practice, home, and school can be linked, thus infusing more student voice and subjectivity into meaning making. To contextualize how the artifactual gives voice, I offer an excerpt from a case study of Patsy Flores (pseudonym).   From September through December 2008, I conducted research with a teacherparticipant on designing digital stories with 20 grade nine students at a suburban New Jersey high school. Within the group, Patsy was a design-savvy student, so much so that other students went to her for advice and feedback about their designs. Patsy began her digital story with an artifact — one of her childhood rickrack dresses that signal her aspirations to be a famous clothes designer. After reading The Odyssey in English class, Patsy decided to depict her future journey into the world of fashion as her odyssey of self, beginning with the fitting artifact of her childhood rickrack dresses.   Patsy produced a digital story that moved from her childhood dreams to a projected future of living in New York City and being a famous designer, like Chanel or Valentino. Her dressmaking was linked to the wider world of fashion. The images of Patsy’s dresses activated her memories of making dresses; the sensory world was evoked by the digital story of her childhood dresses, of their color and shape, of their modalities. Her dresses vary. They range from simple, child-like dresses with blue and white rickrack to much more ornate creations designed for parties. Each dress has a history that is tied to the color, the material, and the choices involved in making the dress.

  Throughout the four-month unit, I came to understand the power of artifacts to open up new stories, to enable the telling of a story, and to create a space for listening, which gives students more voice. Teaching artifactual literacy is, above all, about finding voice, particularly for those students who do not feel a part of the classroom.

Reflecting on Voice in Print, Spoken Word, and Image E-writing and online text have changed how we describe and define the reading and writing events that surround our students. Our understandings of literacy processes are changing, and the skills those processes require may call for use of new strategies in our classrooms. ☐  How do you incorporate technology in your literacy work? Are a variety of text forms representing the New Literacies available in your classroom? ☐  Can you provide opportunities for students to construct and create different types of texts in their responses to those texts they have encountered? ☐  How does talking with others before, during, and after working on a draft of writing affect student writing? ☐  How are you building language muscles with your students, so that they have the word and sentence power necessary for expressing their voices? ☐  Consider that helping the students take ownership of and responsibility for their own writing can be as simple as letting them retain physical control of their papers or screens while conferring with you.

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☐  The use of journals and notebooks is being stressed in many classrooms, both as a means for the students to reflect on significant events from their lives and from the books they read, and as a source of ideas for future writing. How can you ensure that the students do not see journal writing as a chore, but that they recognize and value their personal writing as a way of learning? How can you ensure the students’ privacy, so that they can select for your eyes only the pieces in their journals that they wish to share with you? ☐  Students can also select, shape, and present ideas and feelings through a variety of art forms and materials, expressing inventive and innovative ideas, finding satisfaction in making and creating artistic products, becoming emotionally and intellectually engaged, and more willing to revise, shape, and work towards improving and completing their creations. ☐  Students can incorporate a variety of multimedia and technology in their compositions; they can also transform ideas represented in one arts form into another composition using a different arts form. Finding different modes for constructing and composing their ideas can motivate and give form to expressing their own unique voice. ☐  We have many examples of models and exemplars of student writing, linked to assessment and to suggestions for mini-lessons and specific practice. I recommend that the students examine sets of these samples and find those that match their own levels of competency — computers can now help do this for students.

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9

Supporting Voice Through Technology Communicating Face to Screen

See “Conversations on Screen,” contributed by Dianne Stephens, on page 121.

The following comments were made by two classes of Grade 6 students in two different cities. The classes had read the same set of novels in their literature circles and kept response journals throughout the unit. They each read five different novels during the three months. At the conclusion of the novel study unit, the students from both cities engaged in conversations with one another through a video conference. When the students spoke, they were able to refer to comments they had made in their journals. We excerpted the following reflections from their journals, focusing on the novel Rules by Cynthia Lord. About the character David and autism

• David is real; I know because my best friend’s brother has autism. • David has autism so he doesn’t realize what he is doing . . . • David behaves badly because he knows the rule, “No toys in the fish tank,” and he puts them there anyway. • David is real because many people who have autism have something that they are good at, like David.

About the character Catherine

• Catherine wants to help her brother, but she wants her own life. • Catherine acts like any normal kid with an autistic brother. • I would react [to having a sibling with a disability] the same way as Catherine, torn between David and having a regular life. • I am like Catherine because I would also be a little embarrassed sometimes that my brother has a disability.

About disabilities in general

• The male characters are very realistic because both have disabilities like some people in real life. • David has autism and Jason has a wheelchair and can’t talk. Lots of people in real life have disabilities and learn to cope with them. • There are people out there who have a family member with a disease, and they have to put up with it. • I don’t make fun of people who have disabilities. • I would make up a bunch of random rules if my brother were autistic. • My friend never gets very much attention from her parents because of her brother’s disability. • If my brother had a disability, I don’t think he and I would be treated as differently as they were in Rules.

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• A lot of autistic children act like David does. He acts quickly and doesn’t think. • Catherine is real to life because people with an autistic sibling usually get lonely and feel left out. • Catherine wants attention because her brother gets it. • Usually, boys take autistic siblings better than girls.

These snippets drawn from student journals reflect the conversations that were carried on during the video conference between the two classes. The students’ journal entries gave them support for engaging in an extremely interactive session, resulting in authentic discourse as they responded to statements about the issues in the novel. When we create opportunities for student voices to be raised in honest dialogue, the learning increases as students are prompted by one another to think more deeply about what’s being discussed, and to reflect on and even reconsider what they have said, and, we hope, move toward new understandings.

Why Is My Smartphone Sitting on a Pile of Books?

Discovering Voice in Digital Talk One classroom’s digital modes for the year included texting; email; wikis; podcasts; Skype; PowerPoints; taping conversations; iPad Apps used in class; Blogger; Brain POP; Bridge FREE; Captions; Dragon Dictation; Educreations; Evernote; Explain Everything; Google Earth; iMovie; iTranslate; NFB; Overdrive (for access to ebooks from the Toronto Public Library); Popplet lite; Puppet pals; QR Utilities; Science360; Skitch; Sparkle Fish; Splice; Timer +; Twitter; Voice Thread.

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Just as global societies are redefining themselves, the concept of “literacy” is undergoing an evolution of its own. Theoretical and technological advances have transformed literacy from a simple dichotomy into a richer, more complex construct. More important than the simple ability to read, literacy now focuses on the ability to use information from a variety of texts and text forms in specific contexts. This focus places the practice of literacy outside as well as inside the place called school. Communication is more than a matter of words. Visual images — the view of the street, the picture in the advertisement, the action on the screen — often convey the larger part of the message. Parents, teachers, and book publishers have long recognized that pictures are important for young students, but only recently has exploration of “the media” — television, film, magazines, and especially the computer screen — been seen as an integral part of the learning continuum. The challenge confronting us as teachers is that we have to help our students balance the immediacy of visual images with the power of printed texts. We will not overcome illiteracy by ignoring the media in students’ lives and pushing books and magazines, nor will we build literate citizens by excluding reflective, aesthetic, and informative printed texts. Fortunately, when we begin listing the various forms of print that fill up students’ lives, we notice that they read many types of texts: computer screens, sports pages, comics, game manuals, TV guides, and school textbooks. The list goes on. We need to help young people, regardless of their background and ability, to consider their responses to different texts, to reflect on why they feel as they do, and to take into account the author’s role in determining how they respond to the ideas and words in texts. Not surprisingly, reading the texts we want or need to read in search of deeper understanding may be the answer to many of the common problems teachers and parents face in opening doors and windows for their young people. We want our students to meet texts of all kinds and formats, to discover the options these can bring to their choices in life — but our definition of book is about to change.

Can Technology Support Student Voice? How do we understand reading and composing in hyperlinked and multimedia environments? The ubiquitous nature of the Web raises both hopes and concerns about its potential for supporting voice. Students have diverse opportunities to engage in knowledge-building: the creation or modification of public knowledge. Information technologies can free students from physical constraints; motivate them; allow them, no matter where they live, to connect with others around the world; provide them with purpose for their projects; and give them access to powerful problem-solving tools. Computers are a tool that can empower our students. Technology in and of itself does not necessarily improve the development of voice. It requires carefully crafted learning programs focused on creating dynamic opportunities for interpreting, manipulating, and creating ideas. We need to help students skim and scan enormous amounts of information, to select and organize what may be useful or significant, to critically examine the information for authenticity and bias. Students who are struggling with literacy skills realize that their limitations with print texts often extend to their use of Internet information. Literacy needs remain constant with the different media experiences. The things we need to be concerned about range from the use of unfiltered, inappropriate materials to cyber-bullying to plagiarism to the need for immediate gratification.

A liberating approach to writing

Boys and the Web Some research says that many boys use computers outside school differently than many girls. Just as many boys prefer resources that favor facts over fiction (books, magazines, websites), they respond to the Web, which contains an endless frontier of facts on all manner of topics. Many boys respond to the factual and multimodal — written, image, sound, animation — nature of the Internet.

Many students find the computer a liberating approach to writing, and they often develop a more positive approach to learning. The development of a sense of purpose, understanding the connections between their work and the real world, a willingness to rework ideas and drafts, sharing with peers, using higher-level thinking skills, and developing more complex problem-solving abilities are all areas of growth for the students. For many students who have a predilection for solitary, fact-based activities, word processing on the computer is a natural and comfortable tool for learning. Of course, we have responsibilities to use these technological tools to move students towards higher-order thinking, incorporating the unique opportunities for collaborating and creating that technology make possible. We need to be aware that computer use may affect development in areas that students should and need to cultivate, such as collaborative learning and skill as enquiring researchers. Furthermore, we need to help students learn to use multimedia actively and critically, while being vigilant that they do not get lost in cyberspace or vulnerable to incorporating inaccurate or incorrect information into their written work. Today, when students read and generate texts on the computer, they think of themselves as programmers, as interface designers. They interweave such modes as written text, sounds, animation, and video to enhance their assignments. They might also use computers to visualize abstract concepts or to solve problems. As a result of such capabilities, we can no longer view the texts we use during literacy teaching as primarily written or linguistic — they are made up of images, of sounds, of movement, just as the texts that students read and enjoy at home are print and electronic.

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The Internet as a means to a learning end When the focus is on using technology to learn rather than on learning about technology per se, there are clear and connected language outcomes for students: • Technology can help students be more productive and creative by providing access to engaging ways of representing ideas both verbally and graphically. • Technology can help students collaborate to publish, interact with, and use a wide range of media and formats to communicate information and ideas. • Technology can help students to research more effectively by using tools to locate, evaluate, and collect information. Technology also facilitates the processing, reporting, and presenting of conclusions and insights from data. • Technology can help students work with others, including peers and telementors (online advisers), to solve problems and make informed decisions.

The text on technology and student voice is adapted from I Want to Read, a 2004 Rubicon title by David Booth, Joan Green, and Jack Booth.

We are also aware of potential drawbacks to using the Internet. Information on the Web is frequently inaccurate and at times incorrect. Here are some measures for addressing the drawbacks. • The adage “buyer beware” can be adapted here to become “reader beware.” Anyone can post a website on the Internet, and as a result, information is not checked for accuracy. Encourage students to use websites from established institutions and businesses. • We need to monitor students as they use the Internet to ensure that they are where they should be. • Not all search engines are created equal. Furthermore, some students will be able to maneuver in any environment, while others will search in vain for hours. Arrange for proficient peers to act as tutors to classmates who have less experience in finding information on the Internet. • Wandering the Internet, while entertaining, can be extremely time consuming. Given the demand for use by other students, we are wise to limit ­students’ time on the Internet.

Strategy: Guiding a Think-Aloud Session on Screen By Tina Benevides Educator Tina Benevides researched the quality of her students’ literacy skills as students searched for information on the Internet in response to her setting up an inquiry for them to explore. In the following transcript, she engages a student in a guided think-aloud process. Tina Benevides is an instructor in Literacy and Technology at Nipissing University. Her doctorate examined the use of iPads in supporting reflective literacy strategies with Grade 7 students.

Tina: A health teacher sends an email from his class to ask students for information about hearing loss related to use of MP3 players. As a result, you are going to conduct some research into the effect of high-volume levels on MP3 players’ hearing and report your findings on the class wiki. I will ask you some questions while you are conducting the research. You can research this topic on the Internet. An exchange between the teacher and one student follows. Tina: How are you going to begin? Student: I am going to start with a general search about whether loud sounds can affect hearing.

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Tina: Okay. Great. Student: Now I’m looking through the list of websites to see if there are any good resources. One that immediately jumps out at me is one by Kids Health Org. I know that that’s a reliable resource. Tina: Yes, because . . . you just know that? Student: Well, because they are on television, and in doctor’s offices, they recommend this site. Tina: Oh, okay. Student: So, I am going to read through the article really quick and see if there’s anything good in here. Tina: Okay. Student: This is saying that loud noises can cause both temporary and permanent hearing loss. Now, I’m just reading through and it’s telling me about some medical conditions that can also affect your hearing which is tinnitus, which is the ringing in your ears. I believe everyone has that; it’s just that people have it at different levels. Tina: Okay. Student: So it seems as if they are keen on the idea that it can cause both temporary and permanent hearing loss. Now, one of the things that can cause permanent hearing loss is that you have to have long exposure to loud sounds. So, I am going to switch over to Pages and write this information down. Then I am going to find out how temporary hearing loss happens. Tina: Good idea. Student: Now, I am going to return to the Kids Health Org site to see if I can find anything else. Now this is telling me that headphones and ear buds are especially bad. Tina: Eww . . . and what site are you on now? Student: I am still on the Kids Health Org website. Tina: So, you didn’t do another search? Student: No, I am just reading further in the article to see if there’s any additional research that might be useful. Tina: Okay . . . good! Student: So, I am going to go back to Pages and write down that headphones and ear buds can increase the risk of hearing loss. Tina: Now, do you think that would be at a certain volume or just anything? Student: Well, it says loud music can cause the same kind of damage especially when headphones or ear buds are being used. Some famous musicians have suffered hearing loss and developed tinnitus. Tina: Wow, interesting. Student: So, I think I have a good base of understanding from this website. So, I am going to go back now and find out if kids or adults are more susceptible to hearing loss while listening to loud music. Tina: Good plan. Student: So, here there doesn’t seem to be much good information. It’s all related to explaining what hearing loss is and such. So, now I am going to search something a little different, and that’s how long it would take listening to loud music to cause hearing loss . . . Once again, I am going to scan through the list of websites and see if any of them have any information that will be of use to me. Tina: Okay.

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Student: Most of these are just saying that listening to loud music over long periods of time can cause conditions. There is one site here, though, Time. com, that is titled, “How bad are iPods for your hearing?” Tina: Hmmm . . . sounds promising. Student: I think that I may click that to see if there’s any interesting information found inside this article. Tina: Anything interesting? Student: Yes, this lists some good information. If you listen to music with the ear buds that come with your iPod and you turn the volume up to about 90 percent of maximum and you listen for a total of two hours a day for five days per week, people with a more sensitive degree of hearing will develop significant hearing loss. Tina: Wow, that’s kind of scary right? Think of the kids in your generation. Some of you are definitely listening to it for more than two hours per day, don’t you think? Student: Yes, definitely. So, now I am going to go back to where I was writing my notes and write that down. Tina: Did it tell you how significant the hearing loss would be? Student: Umm . . . I didn’t look that far into the article, but I can look back and it is just referring to decibel levels and how it might affect the highest and lowest decibel level that you could hear. Tina: Okay, that might be important to know. Student: So, now I am skimming through the article once more for any additional important information that I might be able to jot down and use to help create my answer. Now, here it’s saying that genetics have a huge play. Tina: Interesting, how is that? Student: Umm, well, that was only the first line, so I am going to have to read further into this. Tina: Oh, okay. Student: The article says that back in the late 1960s and early 70s, before employers were required to protect their employees’ ears when working in noisy work environments, if it affected their hearing then, it could also be affecting their students’ hearing now through genetics. Tina: Hmmm . . . very interesting. Do you think that’s true? Do you think Time. com is a reputable site? Student: Well, I’ve never heard of Time.com so I have to take all of this information with a grain of salt. Tina: Do you think that Time.com has anything to do with Time magazine? Student: Perhaps. Okay, I am going to jot this new information down as well. Tina: Great. So would you assume that this is working with loud equipment or in a factory? Student: I would assume that it would be working at something like a construction site or a demolition squad. Tina: Okay. It could be even a factory though, right? Student: Yes, that’s a loud environment in and of itself. Tina: Okay. Student: I am going to return to the article one more time, but I think that I am getting the gist of the information here and that I should be able to build my answer fairly soon. Oh wait, here’s something interesting: the primary area that gets damaged in hearing loss is not the eardrum itself but the nerves that bring the sound messages to the brain which affect the inner ear. When they 116  

are overexposed or stimulated at too high of a level, for a long duration of time, they end up metabolically exhausted. In essence, they are overworked. I am going to write that down because that will be something important to know. Tina: Yes, for sure. Student: So now . . . Tina: Do you want to go back to the original question to see if you have covered everything? Student: Sure. Okay, this article is also saying that people listening to a standard ear bud at 80 percent of maximum volume could listen for 90 minutes per day without damaging their hearing, but the louder the volume, the less the duration should be. Tina: Well, that’s interesting. How does that correlate to what you found out earlier about the 90 percent volume? Student: Well, it looks like the safe range to not increase hearing damage would be somewhere between 80 and 90 percent of maximum volume for less than 90 minutes per day and not for more than five days a week. Tina: Great. Are you going to write that down? That would be good information for a principal. Student: Yes. Now, I am going to review all of my notes to see if I have enough information to write a reasonable response, and yes, I think that I do.

Strategy: Blogging as a Community By Royan Lee Royan Lee’s Grade 7 class incorporates blogging as a high-yield avenue for thought expression and connection. In the following account, the teacher offers a rationale for using this communication mode with his students and summarizes the learning that may accrue from its inclusion. Royan Lee is a teacher in the York Region District School Board. His professional interests include contemporary literacy and assessment practice, social media in the classroom, and passion-based learning.

Blogging . . . provides a real audience for our work serves as a portfolio for our work and thinking allows us to see each other’s work and provide feedback on it lets us practise how to post online and how to craft our digital footprint gives us teacher support and guidance on how to use the social media we are already using on our own teaches us to think critically about our online presence, and the importance of creating a positive one creates a community of learners lets us practise contemporary literacy skills lets us stay connected even away from class time makes all the Grade 7 kids feel like they are in one big class means handwriting has nothing to do with the quality of your work is really fun

In summary, here are specific benefits associated with blogging in the classroom. Networked Learning: The networked thinking and collaborating that the learners do is a sight to behold. Our blogs form a network. All 108 blogs (including my own) are linked together using RSS feeds and “following.” In other words, when you enter one blog, you have immediate access to all the others — it is a web. To  117

read one writer’s blog is to enter the seemingly unending array of 107 others. A more authentic audience I have rarely been able to facilitate in all my years of teaching. What is more, I no longer have to preach the value of borrowing one another’s ideas and genuinely taking heed of peer feedback. These things happen organically now. Student Voice: As an open classroom in our school board, we receive many visitors from within our board and province, as well as international guests. One consistent bit of positive feedback concerns the extent to which student voice is valued in our class. In our English class, you do not need to be an extrovert or have a demonstrative personality to have your voice heard. As a digital portfolio of work, thoughts, and, thus, passions, blogs are one great way to get students’ voices out to the crowd. We never know whose piece of writing or artwork will inspire and lead a group of others. In the sometimes-brutal social melee that is middle school, our blogs allow my students to expand their influence and connection to peers, particularly those they may not consider their “friends.” Creative, Divergent Thinking: Our world has transformed into a complex place where innovation and divergent thinking are in high demand, and blogs allow students to follow paths of literacy not always opened by the teacher. Whether it’s composing a love poem to Edward from Twilight as a synthesizing activity, or creating a Bitstrip about the absurdity of Silly Bandz, my students’ innovative blog posts never fail to amaze me. Richer Perspective on Writing: As the world changes, so does the meaning of literacy, and most certainly, too, the concepts of reading and writing. Instead of looking at it as a school-centric process, students in my class come to think of writing as a dynamic method of communicating ideas and messages. Empowered to write, using images and words in a variety of media, students learn to differentiate between the power of one medium over another depending on the context and audience. In the beginning, students are bewildered at the suggestion that they take initiative in choosing the best tool to communicate a particular message. Soon, however, they begin to flourish in a dynamic and differentiated literacy environment, where they assume responsibility for deciding which tool will do the right job. Self-Publishing: One of the main aha moments I see my students having in the early stages of blogging is when they realize what it means to self-publish. Oh, you mean, I’m in control of everything? I write the content, decide on the layout, control permissions, and design the blog so it represents me . . . ? Blogs as Building Blocks: Because the concept of blogging was so new to my students, I had to be patient with their comfort levels around posting for such a large audience on an ongoing basis. They got used to it quickly.

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Strategy: Virtual Editors, or Giving Focused Attention By Jeff Bowring Jeff Bowring is an intermediate teacher, with expertise in both the use of technology in the classroom and in the mentoring of young writers by professional writers.

In the age of instantaneous social media, blogs, emails, message boards, 500+ channels, and Internet access on almost any device (even on refrigerators!), the volume of all these electronic conversations must sound like sitting at the centre of the Super Bowl stadium at kickoff . . . and that is only if you were far away, like on the surface of Pluto. Down here on Earth, it’s so loud that everyone is deafened, media deadened to the point that advertisements are unnoticed and full speeches are denigrated to video bytes. We can’t take any more input. So, how is a young person to be heard through this cacophony? How does a student find a voice in the age where anyone with a smartphone can share thoughts and feelings in the broken language of textese in an instant? WiER, or Writers in Electronic Residence, founded by Dr. Trevor Owen, is one such place. WiER, predating the Internet, has been active for 25 years. It provides an online forum for posting and discussing prose and poetry by students. It is an active community in which students from across Canada contribute writing they are working on. Further, as the postings are open to all participants, students can read work from their class or from a class on the far side of the country. The students can then weigh in on other students’ work, discuss improvements, or ask questions. The community includes Canadian professional writers — the Writers in Residence. The writers, varied from term to term, have included Susan Musgrave, Lawrence Hill, George Elliott Clarke, and Margaret Christakos. Each piece of student work is examined and commented on by the professional authors, opening a dialogue between the student and the professional and offering the student authors insight into a professional writer’s process. The guidelines of the program, while encouraging constructive criticism as well as the right to agree to disagree, create a safe environment in which students can develop their voices as writers. They also enable young people to have their voices heard by a large group of students without the excess noise of banner ads, animations, and click-thrus that the Internet can interject. The guidelines create a framework dedicated to writing and the pedagogy of how to write effectively. Within this WiER framework, students can say what they want and gain positive reinforcement and constructive criticism from professional and amateur writers, which will help them make their writing as clear as it can be. SS, a student writer from Longueuil, Quebec, experienced such an exchange. In response to her quirky and humorous dialogue piece, Robert Priest, the professional writer, wrote: Well done, S. The dialogue here has a very fresh flow to it. Without any exposition, it gives us a good sense of the rapport between the 2 characters. Also the content of the dialogue is amusing and fun to read. It’s all kind of silly but a good run through of the way our brains can sometimes compose scenarios and events. Please see below for a few comments . . .

Within the prose, Robert added a few small comments regarding word choice and repetition. SS responds to him:  119

Thank you for your comments and suggestions. In my edits, I changed the second “attention” to “gaze,” as you suggested. I didn’t even notice the repetition, so thanks for pointing it out! Also, I see what you mean about the sentence not clearly explaining what I mean, so I rewrote it . . . Hopefully this makes it more clear. It actually sounds better this way to me, anyway. Thank you again!

Within the context of the exchange, SS has learned some valuable writing skills, such as being aware of repetitive writing and coming to realize that her writing, although clear to her, may not be clear to her reader. This will have a domino effect on all of her writing for the rest of her life: a realization that she is writing for “a reader” and not only for herself. This knowledge can evoke maturation in her writing process and thoughts even before she puts pen to paper, or keyboard to screen! Furthermore, the effects of the exchange will not be confined to just prose or poetry writing but will extend to essay writing and all forms of communication, enabling her to project her voice with true clarity. Within the learning that WiER is capable of delivering, the simple recognition that a student writer receives in the responses from the professional and student authors can have a tremendous effect beyond any assessment tools created by the teacher. The realization that someone is receiving and thinking about the student’s writing is an incredible confidence booster that goes beyond the walls of the classroom. RN, from Sydney, Nova Scotia, received verification that his poem contained his message through his online exchanges. The back-and-forth responses enabled a full discussion of his poem as well as a discussion about the techniques of writing poetry. Here, RN expresses his appreciation. Thank you so much for your comments on my poem Will They Know. You understood exactly the feeling I was trying to get across, questioning if our actions and decisions really have an influence on future generations, and if future generations will really remember us for those actions and decisions. I really like your comment, questioning whether “the details emblematic of our time whether they seem like major events in world history or not.” I feel, in high school in particular, we feel that every event will alter the course of world history, and we’ll never be able to get over it. But we need to step back and question, will people really remember what happened, will they know? Also, I felt that by repeating “Will they know” at the beginning of each stanza would bring forward that emotion again each time, and, as you said turn the poem over like soil. I’ll take all of your recommendations into consideration, in particular when you said I should leave an extra space before the last line. I really feel that adds to the closing sentiment of the poem; that not only may future generations not know what we went through, but at one point we ourselves may forget. Thank you for the feedback!

These two entries represent small samples of the pedagogy WiER is delivering on an ongoing basis through its online feedback format. Although this pedagogy can be completely separate from what the teacher is developing and giving to the students in the classroom, it is often complementary. WiER provides an authentic writing experience for student writers in that their writing goes beyond the classroom to be read and weighed by strangers. It shows students, in a real sense, what written communication, in its most basic form, accomplishes. Further, it confirms the importance of having a clear voice and intent within writing.

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Strategy: Conversations on Screen By Dianne Stephens This contribution relates to the student comments presented at the beginning of this chapter. The chief result of the initiative was that, as the conversations between the two schools developed, student voices grew stronger. Dianne Stephens is a secondary literacy teacher with the York Region District School Board. She has also been both an instructor working with teacher candidates and a researcher for projects sponsored by the Centre for Literacy at Nipissing University.

The novel study involving two groups of students from two different cities began with the selection of five novels: Wolf Rider; Among the Hidden; Rules; Words of Stone; and Egghead. Sufficient books were purchased to allow each group of students to have six copies of all five books, one copy of each book per student. The students were to read each of the books over the period of the project. Once a week, the group was to meet with the teacher-facilitator to discuss their readings during lunch period. The time frame extended over three months, beginning in April and ending in June, with a joint student conference that included all participants. The video conference between the two school districts occurred at the end of June. Students first took part in workshops related to the novels they had read; then, as the final activity in the afternoon, all students participated in a video conference facilitated by David Booth. Students could see and hear one another at both campuses. Everyone had opportunities for joining the conversation and for responding to the questions that were asked about the books they had read.

Strategy: Collaborative Reading of a Shared Book: Promoting Family Literacy in the Community By Tara-Lynn Scheffel Tara-Lynn Scheffel is an assistant professor in the Schulich School of Education at Nipissing University. In her doctorate, she examined early childhood literacy. She teaches courses in language arts and literacy education.

In February 2011, families in a Northern Ontario community were invited to participate in North Bay Reads Together, a community literacy project involving the weekly reading of a shared novel. For a span of seven weeks, a portion of the selected novel was reprinted each week in the local newspaper. As the final chapters were printed, all the students who had read the book, along with their families, were then invited to a celebration at the local public library to meet the author. The project involved partnerships with the university, the local newspaper, a well-known Canadian author, and the publisher of the novel. A blog was also created for sharing thoughts and ideas with the author, as well as to provide audio links to hear the story online. The notion of collaborative reading of a shared book is not new. Over the past years, similar programs in other cities have been successful in promoting an appreciation of reading, bringing families together, and most important, building a sense of community by reading together. As such, North Bay Reads Together was premised on the understanding that family literacy is important to students’ literacy journeys. For those considering a similar undertaking, our general process involved the following steps: 1. Approach the author/publisher and select a focus text. Initial contact with the author and publisher was made. Three on Three was selected by the committee members as a book that fit the target age range of 9 to 12 year-olds and  121

involved a topic we felt that junior students in North Bay might relate to: competition. 2. Consider diverse ways to share the book publicly. The committee brainstormed several ways to share the book, including newspaper and online sources, such as a blog and audio version that could be used by parents on iPhones or other digital devices. The North Bay Nugget was very helpful in getting this initiative under way, donating one page in the Saturday paper for the duration of the initiative. The page donated was already geared towards family and students and fit with the newspaper’s goals of changing up what was currently included on this page. The chapters were published both in print and online versions of the paper. 3. Advertise. Since we did not have a predetermined audience but instead a goal to reach families throughout North Bay, we advertised the initiative in the newspaper at our own cost. Our efforts included an initial advertisement to introduce North Bay Reads Together as well as a culminating advertisement to announce the celebration with the author. On the day of the culminating celebration, we also handed out postcards around town as a way of involving anyone who had not seen the newspaper pages but became interested due to this event. 4. Promote the goals of the collaborative reading. In addition to advertising, the newspaper also interviewed the selection committee, writing an article titled “Open the paper, read a book.” The article emphasized the goal of getting families together for the purpose of reading, building towards a sense of community revolving around literature.

The blog Using Edublogs, a free online blogging site, we sought to create an avenue for families within the community to speak with the author. The blog was organized to include an author biography, book synopsis, and room for each week’s chapter readings. Question prompts were offered for each week as follows: Week One: Have you finished reading the first two chapters? What did you think about the story and characters so far? Do you have any questions to ask Eric Walters about the story? What are your thoughts on having to write a basketball poem to join the Three-on-Three Tournament? Week Two: Well, the story sure is starting to get interesting! What do you think so far of the Three-on-Three Tournament and Kia & Nick’s search for a third team-mate? Do you know much about basketball? What has surprised you the most so far? What do you think is going to happen next? Week Three: Well, it looks like Marcus is going to be Nick and Kia’s third team member! Do you think he’ll get the poem written? How would you feel about writing a poem about basketball? What do you think is going to happen next? Week Four: Hmmmm . . . lots to think about this week for sure! Are Marcus, Nick and Kia becoming friends or do you think that first game spelled disaster? Looks like Roy is back in the picture too and not in a very nice way. What do you think will happen next? Do you have any questions to ask Eric Walters about the story? Please share your thoughts and questions below.

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Week Five: What a great story so far! What do you think will happen next? Do you have any ideas or questions to share? Let us know what you’re thinking! Week Six: You may have noticed a duplicate of Chapters 7, 8 & 9 last week and because of this, the paper has printed a double page spread this week! You have both Chapters 10 & 11 and Chapters 12 & 13 to enjoy! As you read along, we’d love to hear your thoughts below. Week Seven: We’ve come to the end of the story. Please share your thoughts below! Eric Walters responded to each comment, answering questions about whether he has played basketball himself, whether he is tall, and what to do when confronted with a bully. He provided further insight into the characters of the story and connections to his own life as an author: Since the blog was anonymous and beyond the purview of the research, we cannot share the specific comments of the students.

I wrote this book for my grade 2/3 class. Thirteen characters are kids from my class and I wrote this for them. I ran the whole 3 on 3 contest for my class. To get into the contest kids had to write a basketball poem, email somebody in the NBA or WNBA, they looked at basketball websites, and did basketball related math. The main character — Nick — is actually my son! Eric

Lessons learned While it is difficult for us to determine how wide the readership of Three on Three was, we learned much from this community initiative. We offer six lessons learned for others to consider as they begin similar initiatives, recognizing the value of such collaborative reading programs for promoting shared reading experiences at home and in the community. 1. Although questions of access drove our initial goals, we were surprised to discover that the seemingly most accessed source for the story was not the written version but rather, the audio version, which logged 1700+ hits. Offering further insight as to the ways in which the story was used by teachers, one mother wrote on the questionnaire that her son’s entire class had enjoyed the story on the Smart Board at his school. “They always enjoy being read to,” she explained. 2. Building on the use of the audio version of the story, we are looking into the use of an e-story for an upcoming year. We also recognize, however, that not all families have computers, and so this raises the need to find a way for physical copies to be available, as well, perhaps through the local library or schools. 3. Our plan for upcoming years is to connect the blogging to classrooms for an initial introduction and to then see the ways in which it builds beyond the classroom. Two of the students who posted on the blog made a connection to their classroom teacher as having prompted their reading of books by Eric Walters. 4. In terms of providing access to the novel and promoting the celebration with the author, the local newspaper was a key partner. 5. One of our volunteers, a university student and avid fan of the author, shared his thoughts on growing up reading the author’s books. We also had two well-known speakers as part of our planning team, and they shared some  123

book talks and spoke to the students about their favorite books by the author. The students were able to see the long-term effects of immersing oneself in a particular author’s writings. 6. Sharing what they had taken away from the celebration, the same mother from above wrote: “to encourage my [boys] to read more and for them to see how fun and enjoyable it can be from a male influence.” Another parent, a father, wrote that the understandings his children were taking away from the celebration were related to “expressions and highlights in a story . . . imagination in a story . . . forming your own ideas about the event of a story.” This feature is based on “Towards Literary Growth and Community Participation: Lessons Learned from a Shared Book Experience in One Northern Ontario Community,” by Tara-Lynn Scheffel and David Booth, in Literacy Learning: The Middle Years 21, no. 2 (June 2013): 35–40.

At the conclusion of the initiative, we received an email from a curriculum consultant in a large urban area. The consultant shared that she had followed along with North Bay Reads Together and was now planning to launch a similar initiative. While much cannot be tracked specifically in an initiative such as ours, we also came to realize that the project had travelled beyond our community and had served to ignite and excite others to try something similar.

Reflecting on Online Voices In some schools, technological resources are hard to come by, and schools may be challenged to catch up with the changes in technology that our students meet every day. Getting attuned to all these resources will take time, but I am amazed at how far schools have come in adapting to new technologies. ☐  Social networking: Integrating social networking into classroom events is evidenced in new educational articles and books, alongside a variety of websites. Blogging activities (e.g., Google Blog Search, Google Reader, and Flickr) are popular in many classrooms I have observed. Let us consider what these modes of discourse will mean to students’ growth as readers and writers, and to discovering and extending voice. ☐  Independent inquiry: Having students write informative yet reflective texts based on intensive and extensive research is an effective way of promoting thoughtful, cooperative opportunities, where students find their own resources, write up their data, and then present them in a variety of ways to their classmates. Moving to this type of activity can increase the reasons in the students’ lives for researching, reading, and writing, while offering avenues for revealing voice. ☐  Streamlined writing tasks: Computer programs focusing on specific strategies for helping writers can increase motivation and decrease what writers may see as drudgery. They allow us to skip tedious operations and focus on the composing aspects of writing. For students in difficulty as writers, we now have assistive programs for formatting work, reading words aloud as we write, offering revision suggestions, and providing support for writing ideas in a particular genre. ☐  Computer capabilities: The techniques of cutting and pasting, inserting graphics, downloading maps, drawing and painting with a mouse, formatting, and creating books have brought reading and writing to the fore of student interest. I have watched students spend hours during the week preparing to share their reports: writing results, revising them when they found new data, adding graphic items to support their written texts — they didn’t want to stop their work. 124  

10

Organizing and Assessing a Classroom of Voices Assessing Student Voice as a Condition of Learning

In this transcript, Principal Scott Johnson is interviewing two Grade 8 students, as part of seeking to understand student perspectives on program change at the school. Interview #1 Scott: What adds tension to your life at school? Student A: Being around people. If you act like the real you, people make fun of you. Like, if you wear glasses, people make fun of you, and I don’t like wearing these new glasses because people talk behind your back. If you bring bad marks home, it makes you feel disappointed. Parents say we have standards, and if you are below the bar, your parents add stress. I don’t like being judged by people: the way you look and the way you dress. You’ve got to hide certain things from them, and you never reveal who you are. Interview #2 Scott: Tell me what helps you learn the most in class. Student B: The ability to talk to my classmates during work periods for help. In a lot of cases, you have to call upon the teacher and that consumes time, and it’s much quicker to ask a classmate for help, and it’s easier to get your work done. Scott: And what makes it easier? A teacher can answer your questions, so what is different about asking a student? Student B: It’s more like you. And it’s from their perspective. Scott: And so it’s the bouncing of ideas with other kids like yourself that really helps with your understanding. Student B: That’s right.

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Strategy: Incorporating Student Voice to Change Teaching Practice By Scott Johnson identity + voice = engagement and learning

As principal, Scott Johnson was involved with exploring how making student thinking and learning visible can provide opportunities for educators to learn from student lives, and how it can provide opportunities for students to reflect upon, share, and build on their own and their peers’ learning. Johnson says that educators are recognizing video and photos as valuable documents for assessing student thinking and actions. Through these documented interviews, students have a voice in the process of identifying what helps their learning and well-being, as well as the learning and well-being of others. He outlines his methodology for incorporating student voice.

Questions to ask of a student • What helps you learn most in class? • Where do you still need help? • What makes you nervous about school? • What do you wish was different at school? • Tell me about a time you really enjoyed learning in your class. • Tell me about a project or activity where you learned about something that was really important to you.

How we can seek student input: A procedural framework 1. We visit the classroom (Grades 4–8) and speak to the important role the students have in steering their own learning. We remind students they have a great deal of knowledge about themselves that is helpful to teachers to plan for their success. We ensure they understand that it is important they take an active role in their learning by sharing their perspective with us so that we can change our teaching practice to better meet their needs. We BELIEVE in them and in their ability to help us become better educators. We discuss with the students the difference between a growth and a fixed mindset and that this is our goal: to change our mindset about how best to teach them. 2. We tell the students that once the question is put on the board, they are to take one minute and think quietly to answer the question with specific examples from school. They are to remain quiet for the first minute so that all students have the chance to arrive at their own answers. Then we call for a think-pair-share to allow them to share their ideas for another minute. The teacher and I circulate the room, listening to student responses. 3. We then ask the class for volunteers to come to my office and share their ideas while being videotaped. Students are informed that all videos will be shared with the teachers so they can change teaching practice to better meet the needs of the students. 4. I watch the student videos with the teacher (or child and youth worker). We discuss patterns in responses and discuss what steps the teacher can take to address the identified student need or concerns. We discuss and look at individual responses and trends. 126  

5. I share three student videos at the beginning of each staff meeting so all staff can see the student responses and appreciate the information that comes from a student’s perspective. Teachers are reminded each staff meeting that they are the most important predictors of student success and that their impact is even more significant in lower SES [socio-economic status] homes. 6. The process is continuing to evolve. My next step is to document the highlights of the student video and the discussion with the teacher to help create a permanent record that can be used later as a reference point. I am also interested in determining how to measure the impact this process has on student achievement.

How to Approach Assessment and Evaluation As educators we are still struggling to find methods for both testing students’ progress and connecting the results to classroom practice and to our growing understanding of how students learn. As part of this effort, it is useful to understand the two terms assessment and evaluation. The term assessment refers to the collection of information about a student, both informally through observations and conferences and formally through inventories, checklists, and tests. Assessment allows a teacher to make well-grounded decisions about what approach will be most effective with a student. Evaluation refers to the value judgments that the teacher makes when considering this information. The teacher can evaluate a student’s progress over a period of time or level of achievement at a particular point in the school year. Unlike evaluation, assessment is an ongoing process of observation and analysis of the students’ progress. Students come into the classroom with varying degrees of literacy ability and progress at different rates. It is, therefore, difficult to establish expectations for the achievement of students at a particular age or grade level. All students, however, progress through a series of identifiable developmental stages and patterns of development. Learning is a continuum, and each student’s progress can be monitored along this continuum. From the time the child first attends school, notes based on observation and analysis should be kept to build an individual portfolio: a full record of growth and development.

Assessing program effectiveness The information we collect to evaluate the students’ progress can also be used to evaluate the program’s effectiveness. We need to ask, “To what extent are the goals of our program being realized in our classrooms?” Through observation, recording, reflection, and analysis, we can assess the program and make adjustments accordingly. Although we can undertake a program assessment independently, it is often helpful to invite colleagues or administrators to participate. Networking can provide great insight. So much has changed about assessment and evaluation over the last five decades, most for the better. I recognize the need for today’s teachers to build a common and deeper understanding for linking assessment to instruction and to how we can support each student’s development. The information gleaned from our observations, checklists, tests, and student behaviors and writing helps us to determine our course of action.

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Assessment has a profound impact on all aspects of learning and teaching, directly influencing a student’s perception of learning and commitment to program goals. Consequently, to contribute to a strong and vibrant program, the techniques of assessment must reflect the actual learning situations of the classroom. The converse is also true: to provide meaningful assessment and evaluation, the learning situations must reflect a broad curriculum connected to real-world experiences.

Strategy: Strengthening Voice Through Differentiated Instruction Effective teachers have always supported students with individual needs, abilities, and interests, and little is wrong with the teacher working with the whole class some of the time. I like to think of the classroom program as including demonstrations by the teacher for the class; seminars with teacher and students who are sharing information and ideas; workshops, where groups are learning specific strategies and tools; presentations by students who have important work to share and by guests in the room and on Skype; and reflective discussion and writing, in all kinds of arrangements that benefit as many as possible and as often as possible. And, of course, the teacher reads to the whole class, leads them in song, runs with them at gym time, shows videos, and uses the Smart Board to share strategies. Even during those events, though, we observe the students — their behaviors, their attitudes, their individual focusing — so that we can assess and organize future learning events that will support them into learning, into an awareness of how they are learning, and into an understanding of their roles as learners. I think of all the teachers who find time, opportunities, and ways of supporting those students who need us most, and I celebrate their lives as professionals who care for all students in their classrooms, as best they can, with the knowledge they have. We differentiate our teaching so that students can differentiate their learning. The humbly submitted list that follows is an attempt to affirm the value in teaching the whole community of students at times and also in varying the interactive formats that effective organization and management can offer the teacher who wants to support growth in each of the students. 1. We will need to know each of our students: their abilities, their skills, their fears, and their talents. 2. We will need to assess their individual strengths and challenges, so that we can support and strengthen their learning. 3. We will need to adapt our lessons, our models of instruction, and our activities to respond to their needs, interests, and learning styles. 4. We will need to find and develop strategies for including all of our students in the teaching/learning situations, providing choices where possible. 5. We will need to incorporate new technologies so that students can find support for their literacy tasks: computers for reading, writing, and researching; and programs that read the print text aloud, that read our writing back to us, that highlight inconsistencies, and that note spelling difficulties. 6. We will need to scaffold instruction, to make small achievements possible, and to take time to work with those students with different levels of experience. 128  

Recommended Resources Hume, Karen. Start Where They Are: Differentiating for Success with the Young Adolescent. Toronto: Pearson Publishers, 2007. Tomlinson, Carol Ann. Fulfilling the Promise of the Differentiated Classroom. Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development, 2001. Booth, David. Whatever Happened to Language Arts? Markham, ON: Pembroke Publishers, 2009.

7. We will need to organize opportunities for whole-class community building, for small, flexible groups based on need and/or interest, and for individuals to work at their own pace and competence level. 8. We will need to be “kid watchers,” to notice how each student is progressing and to alter our programs for maximum impact. 9. We will need to become reflective teachers, unafraid to change our habits and our behaviors, prepared to search for new ways and different resources to reach our students. 10. We will need to engage in professional conversations with our colleagues; participate in workshops; take courses; and read journals and books in print and online about education and young people. 11. We will need to involve our students in our planning and listen to their voices as we build a sense of ownership for them in their program. They may then be more likely to reveal their concerns and ask for assistance, learning to take charge of their own progress. 12. We will need to incorporate assessment into our planning and teaching, through formative and summative assessments, using objectives and/or outcomes, rubrics, benchmarks, and exemplars.

Gathering Information on Voice Strengths In the classroom, students should be aware that both they and the teacher have reasons for keeping records. Students need to keep records in order to track the books they have read, the pieces they have written and published for the classroom or home audience, and the tasks they have completed; and to plan the tasks they need to complete. They should understand that the teacher keeps records in order to monitor their progress and be aware of individuals’ needs and interests: these records are used to plan instruction, set tasks, provide materials, organize groups, and, last but not least, report to parents. Shared task-setting and record-keeping responsibilities create a functional environment. Both teacher and student are engaged in recognizing needs and in acknowledging success. A carefully documented assessment system provides the teacher and student, as well as parents and administrators, with useful information on each student’s program.

Daily observation and formal record keeping: Achieving a balance The different intent between assessment and overall evaluation means that the teacher should maintain a balance between daily observation, which focuses on the student’s needs in the classroom, and record keeping, the basis for making reports or recommendations about the student to parents, administrators, and other teachers. The teacher can observe and talk with the students individually in various classroom situations, using these observations to record accomplishments, skills, knowledge, attitudes, literacy growth, and interests — all while gathering information on the student’s “voice strengths.” In-depth anecdotal observations about students’ day-to-day interactions can serve as a record of how and what students are learning in the classroom. Many teachers keep at hand index cards or a compact notepad to capture these moments so that, over time, records can be  129

included in students’ learning portfolios. These data can assist with formal evaluations of the students. Videotaping sessions with students, or observing a guest working with them, can offer new insights into their progress, highlighting behavioral issues or allowing you to see how certain students handle a situation. You are freed from controlling the action, and have that remove which can alter perceptions.

Strategy: Today in History — Present Voices Revisit the Past By Karen Hume and Gordon Wells The transcripts that follow are taken from a videotape of the lesson. The excerpts of the student voices help us observe the students in the middle of the learning; the teacher and a researcher observed and interpreted the students’ growth in history.   A complete account of this lesson can be found in “Making Lives Meaningful: Extending Perspective Through Role-Play,” in Building Moral Communities, edited by Betty Jane Wagner, 63–95 (Stamford, CT: Ablex Publishing).

I was working with a Grade 8 class, adding an emotional understanding to their unit on building the Canadian railway in the 1800s. The teacher, Karen Hume, and the researcher, Gordon Wells, wanted to deepen the students’ understanding of the complexities of this enormous historical project, and so I set up a situation where groups of students would represent different factions involved with the project. I worked in role alongside them. David convenes a managerial meeting and calls on one member of each group to present a report. As the meeting progresses, the existence of a conflict begins to emerge between the managers, who are charged with the responsibility of getting the railway built, and the Chinese laborers, whose lives are all too often being sacrificed as part of the managers’ solutions. Here is how the theme emerged. Scott is one of the managers, giving his report to David, the big boss. Scott [as manager]: There were a few deaths when the liquid nitrogen was put into the Rocky Mountains. David [as big boss]: Here’s why that’s very bad: The minute people hear of deaths, they will not come. Now, we’ve had a lot of trouble with the Americans taking our workers because in San Francisco, they’re building the very same railway. I want Canada to have it first. They’ve been taking the immigrants and offering them more money. We haven’t got the money. We can’t do it. So when they hear of deaths and that hits the newspapers . . . How did you keep it out of the newspapers? Scott: We didn’t say anything about it. We did Morse code to China to tell their families that there was a tragedy. David: Where did you bury the bodies so that nobody would know? Scott: We buried them in the cemetery with another person. David [as teacher/producer]: Listen carefully as two people talk about having heard in the night bodies being carried away . . . (Switching to the role of railway official, he turns to another student.) What did you hear? Bryan: Nothing. (Some students laugh.) David [as teacher]: Why might he say “nothing” to start with? Stuart: He wants to . . . not to get in trouble or anything. David: Excellent. We’ll go on. [as the same official] You heard what I heard. We were both awakened. The tents have thin walls. You heard what I heard. When you say you heard nothing, you betray your country and its people. You heard what I heard. They took away bodies. And you lie to me. You know exactly what they took away. They took away dead people. They took away dead

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people without a burial, which means their spirits wander the earth. You know that and I know that and your family knows that. Why have you lied to me? Bryan: So that I won’t get in trouble. David: The spirits that wander in anguish for the dead have not been in trouble? You will come with me to the boss, and we will tell the boss what happened. Won’t you? Bryan: Yes. David: Will you do it? Bryan: Yes. Each student embarked on the railway-building task with personal experience that was potentially relevant to the role that he or she would be asked to play. Whether earlier in the unit or at some other time, each also had encountered at least some information that might contribute to the activity. What David’s crafting of the drama did was to enable each student to bring his or her experience and information into the “theatre” of knowledge building and, by engaging the students in the collaborative effort to solve the problem of getting the railway built — despite the multiple and conflicting perspectives — to advance their individual understandings through the imaginative and empathetic efforts involved in using that experience and information to feel, act, and speak in ways appropriate to their different roles. For us, the attempt to describe and interpret the historical events through which the unit on Canadian history was enacted has also been an occasion of collaborative knowledge-building. At the start of the unit, neither of us had recognized the potential of role play for enabling adolescent students to enter into the discipline of history. But by reviewing the videotape of the railway drama, transcribing it, and selecting episodes for further analysis, then writing and discussing interpretations of them, each of us increased our understanding. And, as is the intention of conducting collaborative action research, the understandings gained through our inquiry are also informing our practice. Although the railway did not get built (at least not as a result of our enactment of the events), the drama was an important experience for all involved and one that, we are convinced, will live on fruitfully in the lives of each of us. For Karen’s students, role-playing the building of the Canadian railway enabled them to know this essential truth: the “facts” of history are always and inevitably rooted in such particular moments and relationships. And in this way, they were given an unforgettable means to understand past human events from the inside.

Assessing the Development of Voice Assessment, which encompasses speaking and listening, and the development of voice, will focus on how well students communicate in many settings, and how they feel about their participation. We should consider • how the students talk in different social and curriculum contexts • the ways they use conversation and discussion for learning and thinking, and in social situations • the range and variety of oral expression available in particular situations, from informal conversations to formal occasions, such as presenting a project • their confidence in speaking in various settings: with partners, in groups, as a class, with visitors, while reading aloud, and in role  131

• their ability to listen to, understand, and appreciate the words of others, both in printed text and in out-loud situations Below are a few profiles of students who are moving along a spectrum from talk to voice. A student who is comfortable in social (listener-related) situations • enjoys the company of others, and shows confidence and ease in a variety of speaking and listening situations • talks about personal experiences and reveals feelings • interacts with others at recess, on the way home, at lunch • welcomes visitors and others • initiates conversation with the teacher • works cooperatively and collaboratively with other people in various settings • listens to stories read aloud by peers, teacher, and on tape A student who works well in cooperative (task-related) situations • talks in the process of learning and thinking • takes turns during talk • asks relevant questions • brainstorms and explores themes • builds on the talk of others • recognizes points of view • justifies decisions and actions • mediates and resolves tensions • looks for alternative solutions • suggests new lines of discussion • carries the discussion forward • relates new to known information • modifies and adapts ideas • accepts or adopts the role of group leader when appropriate • organizes activities • interviews school guests effectively • role-plays with confidence during drama experiences A student who is comfortable in audience-related situations • presents information to groups and the class • gives instructions • makes announcements • tells stories and personal anecdotes • summarizes and reports on group work • offers a personal interpretation when reading aloud • gives book talks and reviews • works well with younger or older partners • recognizes the factors that make communication effective

Self-Assessment and Peer-Assessment for Growth Two important aspects of the students’ learning are self-assessment and peerassessment. If the students are taught to react to their own work, they may provide insights into their own learning that are not visible to the teacher as kid-watcher. 132  

In a healthy environment, students are encouraged to talk, to read, to write, and to collaborate with others. In taking ownership of the work, they monitor and assess it with one another, learning and growing from the discussion and group feedback. Making extensive use of self- and peer-assessment techniques helps ensure that the form of assessment is appropriate to the task, the kind of learning, and the stage of learning; it also ensures that the focus is on the student’s actual literacy progress rather than performance on standardized tests. Techniques for students taking part in assessment include conferences, response journals, and reflective discussions about feelings and attitudes with peers and teachers. Knowing that their opinions contribute to assessment puts students on the path to autonomous learning. It helps them become aware of their own development, to know exactly how much they know, and to establish realistic learning objectives. The teacher helps students to become conscious of the learning process and to monitor progress and make plans for the future. At the same time, the teacher monitors student needs and interests, considers programs and resources available to meet those needs, and evaluates the success of the teaching. As both teacher and students assess progress, they can modify the curriculum appropriately.

The value of auditory and visual records Analyzing audio and MP3 recordings, videotapes, and DVDs of the students’ work can help the teacher gain insight into the dynamics of a discussion group and become aware of individual students’ strengths and weaknesses. Teachers find it particularly useful to review auditory and visual records when they have been engaging in classroom activities such as drama: these records allow them to assess their own actions and their effects, as well as those of various students. Recordings can also help teachers to assess their skills in conducting conferences.

Strategy: Assessing and Using Students’ Voices to Improve Your Curriculum By Nancy Shanklin and Paige Gaynor Copyright (2011) by the National Council of Teachers of English. Reprinted with permission.

Getting detailed feedback from students about how the year has gone may seem intimidating to you as a beginning teacher or one new to a particular school. Nonetheless, we would advise you that pursuing student voice in your design of curriculum helps students take more ownership of their learning. Paige Gaynor is a middle-school language arts teacher in Cherry Creek Public Schools, Aurora and Colorado. In Paige’s middle school, students are required to complete two hours of language arts each day — one period focused on reading and the other focused on writing — with a different teacher for each. Paige teaches writing to both sixth- and eighth-graders; she fosters students’ reading as it supports their writing.

What the Grade 6 students said Paige asked her students to provide specific feedback on what they liked about writing and what they would like to see changed. She learned that her sixth-grade  133

students particularly liked three writing assignments they were asked to complete during the year: the hero essay, the business letter, and poetry. In the hero essays, students were asked to write a piece about someone that they admired and to master the structure of an essay with supporting details. As for the business letters, Paige admitted that she had thought about dropping them, but the students told her that they found it very useful to learn how to write such letters to give their opinions of products properly, lodge complaints, or request information. After their letters were mailed to the real audiences, students were excited about the answers they received. Paige reported that many students continued writing business letters on their own to real companies with hope of receiving a response. In terms of poetry, students had started the year believing that they could not write poetry. Paige used various poetry patterns to help students begin to experiment with writing their own poems and learn to be successful. As for reading, the sixth-graders exhibited mixed feelings. The girls liked to read stories or novels about relationships that they could relate to and learn from. The boys preferred to read adventure or fantasy. They said they liked books that were not about their own real worlds, but that let them escape. Many of the students really loved reading, mentioning particular favorite books they had read during the year, but others hated it, especially saying that it “takes too long.” As sixth-graders, these students had yet to develop fluency as readers, and most needed to learn to enjoy reading and to read with more speed and comprehension. The students’ responses demonstrated that they were beginning to understand that they could use their writing to express and to discover their feelings. Many were also discovering how their writing could help them learn to reflect about their lives. Their responses reinforced the workshop strategies that Paige and her colleagues were working to put in place.

What the Grade 8 students said Paige learned different information from her eighth-graders. They loved writing social justice poems, research essays, silent conversations, and authentic research. Writing

The thing I love most about writing is all of the fun things you can do with different pieces of writing and all different types. Writing is most meaningful to me when I am writing about something I really know about and understand. I liked to write the hero essay because I could compliment my brother. When you can write about whatever you want, because if someone tells me to write about a topic I don’t work at it my best. But when I get to make up my own story, I work at it with all my might.

Reading

You can take 30 minutes out of your time each day and go off into another world unimaginable. The author could have had some of the same experiences as me, and they gave good advice. Reading meaningful and relevant books to me means it has to show expression. It also has to show heart. What makes reading meaningful and relevant to me is that I can learn new words in harder leveled books and that homework can be fun if you get to read something interesting. 134  

Writing and Discussion

We wrote these poems about something bad going on in the world. I liked it because it was a chance to speak out about something close to us. I found the future essay fun to write because I could say whatever I wanted, could be as creative as I wanted, and as idealistic as I wanted. I have learned that research can lead to a great discussion. The experiences that have helped the most are the multi-genre research project. When I am feeling a certain way, I will write at my house and see how it affects me when I just let everything go. I have learned that in discussions everyone is entitled to their own opinion, and you can try to change that or you can learn from the discussion. This year I have learned that really stopping and having a thorough conversation is the best way to have a good conversation. When I read a really good book, it usually relates to me or my personality. After I finish, I feel like I have just finished another piece of the puzzle for my life. I don’t like reading as much as a lot of people, but I’m getting there. Reading current events is meaningful to me because I get to “see” what the world is going through. I like reading because it’s an escape from everyday life. You’re not the misfit student. You’re a spy saving the world or an explorer discovering unknown lands. It’s more than a movie or a show. It’s an adventure.

Assignments had led to the formation of opinions, much discussion, and structured debates. Paige learned that the students wanted to do even more of these debates. They had appreciated how she had taught them to use active listening skills and could now see the value of listening to everyone’s opinions. They understood better the need for deep, careful research to back their positions. Students also liked to write on any topic of their own choosing and wanted more learning games. These eighth-grade students’ opinions of reading were also becoming more sophisticated. They wanted their reading to be meaningful and relevant. They said that reading needed to relate to them personally or to offer an escape into other worlds.

Shaping effective curriculum through student feedback The feedback that Paige received helped her shape her curriculum for the end of that year and cement learning in students’ minds. For the most part, their feedback was positive, and Paige particularly valued knowing the opinions of her quiet students and those for whom learning is more difficult. She learned that with sixth-graders, choice seems to be very important. As a sixth- and eighthgrade teacher, however, she needs to get students to explore new genres, so she will continue to give students choices within genre. Both the sixth- and eighthgraders loved the discussions and debates, but Paige now knows that her efforts to provide structures that make discussions and debates safe for all students, as well as her strategies for teaching students to actively listen to each other and back up their opinions with evidence, have paid off. Paige understands that the best way to support students’ success is to have them read and write in class each day and to scaffold their efforts. Indeed, Paige believes that failure should not be an option in terms of students’ writing or reading. Providing ample time by the teacher during class for authentic reading and  135

writing is essential in helping students with questions as soon as they arise. Exit tickets help her learn what questions students still have and to straighten out confusions quickly. When lessons do not go well, Paige debriefs with a friend who can listen carefully and offer suggestions, dusts herself off, and keeps trying. Based on students’ comments, Paige now knows what activities to keep for next year and which ones she may need to retool. In her school, as the student body becomes more diverse, teachers are talking about building curriculum to meets the 3 Rs: Rigor, Relationships, and Relevance. This survey of students’ voices has allowed Paige to see that she is, indeed, building such a curriculum, and it gives her ideas for making improvements to better meet students’ learning needs. Paige is becoming a highly effective teacher whose students are making learning gains!

Reflecting on Assessment of Student Voice Many parents have expectations of evaluation that they express in variations of three common questions: • How is my child doing? Parents may be looking for numbers or letters that reflect “marks.” We may need to explain how real work samples, audiotapes, videotapes, students’ published books, records of books read, and writing folders all provide clear demonstrations of growth. If we show parents concrete evidence of their children’s progress, they will be far less inclined to be concerned about absolute marks. We can also point to the interest and enthusiasm students show when they are doing work important to them. Some schools include students in parent–teacher conferences; it is not unusual for children to become involved in assessing and demonstrating their own progress for their parents. • How is my child doing compared with other students? We may need to explain to parents that the way a score on a test compares with the scores of students in other schools, cities, or countries or even in the same classroom will not tell them much about their child. What really matters is how the student is developing according to his or her circumstances and environment. The focus of parent–teacher conferences should be positive, and discussion should centre on how parents, teacher, and student can work together to ensure continued growth. • Will my child pass? Many parents tend to think of learning as mastering an identifiable body of content sacrosanct to a particular grade. The concepts of passing and failing assume an absolute, required standard of performance in this content before a student can qualify to move on to the next grade. We need to help parents understand that students grow and develop through experience and coaching, some more rapidly than others. Teachers may need to redirect the focus of this question. It might be rephrased more appropriately in this way: “How might we help this student to do his or her best?” ☐  The better the teachers can describe students’ development, the more support and assistance parents will provide the teacher and the school. Decide which checklists, observation guides, strategies, and techniques will be most useful as a starting point for frequent assessment of each student and for writing evaluative reports to parents about their children’s achievements as learners. 136  

☐  For conferences with parents, some teachers prepare in advance demonstrations of the student’s growth using writing folders, reading logs, and videotapes of classroom activities. Sometimes, they include the student in the conference. Which of these ideas can you use in your own approach to parent–teacher conferences? Can you use the questions that arise during these conferences as the starting point for further communication through personal letters, newsletters, copies of articles, or self-assessment reports from the student? ☐  We now conduct assessments across the whole school, even using standardized tests. Can you use what you learn through such school-wide assessments as the basis for discussion about the students’ language competencies and potential? Can you establish benchmarks for anticipated growth through further interpretation of this material? ☐  New assessment methods have given us, as teachers, information about the crafts of reading and writing that we lacked before. We now can read a written piece and assess the specifics of the student’s progress as a writer of this type of text. We know what to look for and what to do if we don’t find it in the work. With this knowledge, I feel so much more professional in talking to the students and in reporting to the parents. ☐  Can you and your colleagues find ways, as a school, to value student voice, to recognize each student’s progress towards finding, freeing, and contributing thoughts and feelings as an involved agent of her or his own learning?

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References

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———, and Bob Barton. Story Works. Markham: Pembroke Publishers, 2002. ———, Joan Green, and Jack Booth. I Want To Read! Reading, Writing & Really Learning. Oakville, ON: Rubicon Publishing, 2004. ———, and Masayuki Hachiya, eds. The Arts Go to School. Markham: Pembroke Publishers, 2004. Cambourne, Brian. The Whole Story: Natural Learning and the Acquisition of Literacy in the Classroom. Jefferson City, MO: Scholastic Publishers, 1988. Campbell, Terry, and Michelle Hlusek. Storytelling and Story Writing (Research Monograph no. 20). Toronto: The Literacy and Numeracy Secretariat, Ontario Ministry of Education, 2009. Christensen, Linda. “Finding Voice: Learning about Language and Power.” Voices from the Middle 18, no. 3 (March 2011): 9. Cooper, Susan. The Selchie Wife. New York: Margaret K. McElderry Books, 1986. Cummins, Jim. Keynote speech at the National Association for Bilingual Education (NABE) 2012 Conference, in Dallas, TX, February 15–17. Daniels, Harvey. Literature Circles: Voice and Choice in Book Clubs and Reading Groups, 2d rev. ed. Portland, ME: Stenhouse Publishers, 2002. Dinny, B., H. Bryce, C. Combs, and A. Lacey, eds. Family Stories from Lord Dufferin Public School. Toronto: Toronto District School Board, 1999. Carrick, Donald. Harald and the Giant Knight. New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1982. Elliott-Johns, Susan E., David Booth, Enrique Puig, Jennifer Rowsell, and Jane Paterson. “Using Student Voices to Guide Instruction.” Voices from the Middle 19, no. 3 (March 2012): 25–31. Finkel, Donald. Teaching with Your Mouth Shut. Portsmouth, NH: Boynton/Cook, 2000. Fletcher, Adam. Meaningful Student Involvement: Research Guide. Olympia, WA: The FreeChild Project, 2004.

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Fletcher, Ralph. A Writer’s Notebook. New York: HarperCollins, 2003. Glass, Jennifer, Joan Green, and Kathleen G. Lundy. Talking to Learn. Toronto: Oxford University Press, 2011. Hargreaves, Andrew, and Dennis Shirley. “The Fourth Way of Change.” Educational Leadership 66, no. 2 (October 2008): 56–61. Hume, Karen. Start Where They Are: Differentiating for Success with the Young Adolescent. Toronto: Pearson Publishers, 2007. Hume, Karen, and Gordon Wells. “Making Lives Meaningful: Extending Perspectives.” In Building Moral Communities through Educational Drama, edited by Betty Jane Wagner, 63–95 (Stamford, CT: Ablex Publishing, 1999). Hutchison, David. Enhancing Literacy Skills through Digital Video Production. Toronto: Literacy and Numeracy Secretariat, Ontario Ministry of Education, 2011. Krueger, Kermit. The Golden Swans. The World Publishing Company, 1969. Lord, Cynthia. Rules. Scholastic Paperbacks, Reprint edition, 2008. Ontario Ministry of Education. Participatory Voices. Toronto: Education Minister’s Student Advisory Council, 2011–12. Ontario Ministry of Education. Oral Language. Vol. 4, A Guide to Effective Literacy Instruction, Grades 4 to 6. Toronto: Ontario Ministry of Education, 2008. Ontario Ministry of Education. Viewer’s Guide: Discovering Voice. Toronto: The Literacy and Numeracy Secretariat, 2011. Paulsen, Gary. “Tuning.” In The Winter Room. Markham: Scholastic Paperbacks, 2009. Penny, Louise. Bury Your Dead. New York: Little, Brown, 2011. Peterson, Shelley Stagg. “Improving Student Writing: Using Feedback as a Teaching Tool” (Research Monograph no. 29). What Works? Research into Practice [Literacy and Numeracy Secretariat] (October 2010): 1–4. Rowsell, Jennifer. “Using Student Voices to Guide Instruction.” From the Middle 19, no. 3 (March 2012): 27–29.

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Scheffel, Tara-Lynn, and David Booth. “Towards Literary Growth and Community Participation: Lessons Learned from a Shared Book Experience in One Northern Ontario Community.” Literacy Learning: The Middle Years 21, no. 2 (June 2013): 35–40. Shanklin, Nancy, and Paige Gaynor. “New Puzzles, Next Moves: Assessing and Using Students’ Voices to Improve Your Curriculum.” Voices from the Middle 18, no. 3 (March 2011): 57–60. Styles, Donna. Class Meetings: Building Leadership, Problem-Solving and Decision-Making Skills in the Respectful Classroom. Markham: Pembroke Publishers, 2001. Taylor, Philip. “Storydrama: The Artistry of David Booth.” NADIE Research Monograph Series 1, no. 1 (1995): 33–49. Tomlinson, Carol A. Fulfilling the Promise of the Differentiated Classroom. Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development, 2001. Tovani, Cris. I Read It, but I Don’t Get It: Comprehension Strategies for Adolescent Readers. Portland, ME: Stenhouse Publishers, 2000. ———. Do I Really Have to Teach Reading? Portland, ME: Stenhouse Publishers, 2004. ———. So What Do They Really Know? Assessment That Informs Teaching and Learning. Portland, ME: Stenhouse Publishers, 2011. Vaughn, Brian K. Finding Freedom: The Pride of Baghdad. New York: Vertigo Publishers, 2008. Wallace, Ian. Boy of the Deeps, Reprint ed. Toronto: Groundwood Books, 2005. Wilhelm, Jeffrey. “You Gotta BE the Book.” New York: Teachers College Columbia University, 1997. ———. “Learning to Listen to Student Voices: Teaching with Our Mouths Shut.” Voices from the Middle 18, no. 3 (2013): 49–52. Wilkinson, Andrew M. Spoken English [Issue 2 of Educational Review]. Birmingham: University of Birmingham, 1965. Yolen, Jane. Children of the Wolf. London: Puffin Books, 1993.

Index

accountable talk, 17 acrostic, 103 artifacts, 108–109 assessment, 127–128 development of voice, 131–132 improving, 136–137 peer, 132–133 self, 132–133 student feedback, 133–136 writing samples, 100 attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), 30 auditory records, 133 authentic questioning, 47–48 authentic voices, 73–74 authors celebrating, 67 voice, 27 blogging, 117, 122–123, 124 book talk, 67–68 books interacting with, 45 multicultural, 28 picture, 54 rich resources, 25 shared, 121–124 technology and, 112 buddying students different ages, 44–45 first-language, 28 reading, 94 buzz groups, 65 checking for understanding, 46 choice exploring social issues, 71–74 in learning, 40 voice and, 22, 24–25, 39–42 choice-based teaching, 40–41

cinquain, 103 class meetings holding, 42–43 preparing for, 43 classroom inquiry-based, 106 literacy community, 39 modes of talk in, 15–18 voice and choice, 41–42 writing workshop, 99 classroom community, 48–49 classroom management, 42–43 classroom partnership, 24 classroom talk modes, 15–18 reflections on, 20 closet confused, 47 Co:Writer 4000 Solo, 31 coach, 84 code-switch, 27 collaborative activities, 45–47 collaborative reading, 121–124 collective writing, 101 collectivity, 16 communication, 112 communication skills, 25 computers, 113, 124 concepts, clarifying, 14–15 constructing meaning, 15 conversations on screen, 121 cooperative activities, 45–47 cumulation, 17 daily observation, 129–130 decision making, 46 dialogic talk, 16–17 dialogue coach, 20 dialogue journal, 69 differentiated instruction, 128–129 digital art, 106–107

digital literacy, 107 digital talk, 18, 112 discovery boxes, 13 Dragon Naturally-Speaking, 31 drama adding tension, 82 building, 65–66, 79 creating, 79 expressing opinions on, 83–84 facilitating, 81 finding voice through, 77–79 involving students in, 78–79 parallel stories, 82–84 physical representation of, 78 presentational interaction, 79 real language in, 78–79 research for, 78 sharing, 78–79 structuring an event, 81 teacher’s roles, 84 drama talk, 18 continuum, 79, 80 early voices, 33 editing conferences, 98–99 Edublogs, 122 English as a second dialect (ESD) students, 28 English as a second language (ESL) students, 28, 29–30 English language learners (ELLs), 28 evaluation, 127–128 improving, 136–137 parents’ expectations, 136 exploratory talk, 16, 45–47 reflecting on learning, 47 substitute for individual practice, 47 family literacy, 121–124  141

feedback curriculum and, 133–136 online, 119–120 student, 133–136 writing, 104–105, 119–120 first-language buddies, 28 formal talk, 17 fostering growth, 39 graphic art, 66 history, 130–131 identity texts, 109 independent inquiry, 124 independent reading, 68–69 inner talk, 15–16 inquiries, 105–106 interacting with peers, 43–44 interactive learning, 25 interactive talk, 16–17 Internet addressing drawbacks, 114 boys and, 113 means to learning, 114 isolated students, 16 journals, 110 dialogue, 69 reading response, 69–70 knowledge building, 113 language of power, 27 learning partnership, 38–39 life stories constructing, 58–59 sharing, 59–60 listening, 26 literacy challenges, 107 content areas, 74 difficulties, 30–31 digital, 107 evolution of, 112 family, 121–124 strategic, 70 video production and, 107–108 literacy community, 39 literacy education, 39 literature circles, 67–68 142  

literature log, 69 mantle of the expert, 84 media, 112 mentor texts, 99 minimal scripts, 93 Minister’s Student Advisory Council, 33–35 motivation to learn, 24–25 multimodal communication, 107 New Literacies, 105 North Bay Reads Together, 121 notebooks, 110 nursery rhymes, 93 oral interpretation, 91 oral language modeling, 19–20 purposes of, 12 oral reading, 17–18, 91, 93–94 orchid hypothesis, 23 outer talk, 15 parallel reading, 66 parallel stories, 82–84 parallel texts, 78 participatory culture, 107 partner reading, 94 peer assessment, 132–133 peer conference, 98 peer talk, 16 perspectives, 25 photography, 60–61 Photovoice project, 60 picture books, 54 poetry, 92, 103–104 poetry slams, 94 Point-of-View Pair-Share, 46 positive feedback, 27 problem solving, 46 purposefulness, 17 quiet students, 23 Readers Theatre, 94, 95 reading aloud, 17, 52–54 challenges, 70–71 collaborative, 121–124 independent, 68–69

oral, 17–18, 91, 93–94 parallel, 66 partner, 94 providing time for, 64 reasons for, 91 scripts, 92 shared, 45, 121–124 social, thought-exciting activity, 48 reading aloud, 17, 52–53 interpreting scripts, 92 owning the words, 92–93 prompts to consider, 53–54 reasons for, 91 reflection on, 94–95 responding to texts, 66 students, 91–93 reading community, 64 reading conference, 70 reading response journal, 69–70 reciprocity, 16 record keeping, 129–130 recordings, 133 reflection assessment of student voice, 136–137 classroom community, 48–49 classroom talk, 20 literacy voices, 74–75 online voices, 124 out-loud voices, 94–95 role-playing voices, 84–85 storytelling voices, 62 voice in print, spoken word, and image, 109–110 rehearsed talk, 17–18 responding to text, 64–65 building drama, 65–66 celebrating texts and authors, 67 parallel reading, 66 reading aloud, 66 telling and retelling stories, 65 text to talk, 65 visual and graphic art, 66 writing own texts, 66 response journal, 69 reviewing ideas or material, 46 revision, 99–100 revisiting the past, 130–131 rich resources, 25 role player, 84

role playing class, 80–81 entry points, 81 finding voice through, 77–78 historical events, 130–131 language and, 78 thought and, 78 writing, 79, 101–102 scripted talk, 17–18 scripts interpreting, 92 minimal, 93 reading, 92, 93 self-assessment, 132–133 self-directed learning, 40 shared reading, 45, 121–124 small-group activities, 43–44 social behavior, 16 social issues, 71–74 social networking, 124 social talk, 16 special education students, 28 stories/storytelling building, 15 engaging with, 52 forms, 54–55 inspiring students with, 52 life stories, 58–60 parallel stories, 82–84 student comments and questions, 55–57 taped/recorded, 57–58 telling and retelling, 65 writing, 102–103 story theatre, 94 storyteller, 84 strategic literacy, 70 streamlined writing tasks, 124 Student Advisory Council, 33–35 student talk facilitation of, 18–19 responding to, 19 student voice, 22 authentic questioning, 47–48 being heard, 24 classroom partnership and, 24 communication skills, 25 incorporating into teaching, 126–127 interactive learning, 25

motivation to learn, 24–25 nurturing, 27 participating in learning, 23 promoting, 22 responding to text in, 56 rich resources, 25 school governance and, 23–24 students assessing, 127–128 being heard, 24 buddying with different ages, 44–45 choice and, 18, 22–23 class meetings, 43 code-switching, 27 communication skills, 25 computers and, 113 difficulties focusing on writing, 30–31 drama and, 18, 78 English as a second dialect (ESD), 28 English as a second language (ELL), 28, 29–30 English language learners (ELL), 28 evaluating, 127–128 feedback from, 133–136 interacting with others, 43–44 interactive learning, 26 isolated, 16 lessons learned from, 31–33 life stories, 58–59 motivation to learn, 24–25 partnering with, 24, 38–39 questions to ask, 126 quiet students, 23 peer assessment, 132–133 reading aloud, 17, 91–93 responding to reading, 64–65 revising work, 100 seeking input from, 126–127 self-assessment, 132–133 socializing, 16 sharing ideas, 17 sharing life stories, 58–60 sharing texts with, 52 sharing writing, 100 special education, 28 teachers’ response to, 19 talking, 12, 14, 17

welcoming story comments or questions, 55–57 subtext, 92 support, 17 tableaux, 71–72, 78 talk/talking accountable talk, 17 clarifying a concept, 14–15 classroom talk, 20 creating environment for, 18 curriculum, 14 dialogic talk, 16–17 digital talk, 18, 112 drama talk, 18 encouraging, 18 exploratory talk, 16, 45–47 formal talk, 17 importance of, 12 inner talk, 15–16 interactive talk, 16–17 modes of, 15–18 outer talk, 15 peer talk, 16 rehearsed talk, 17–18 scripted talk, 17–18 social talk, 16 student talk, 18–19 synonyms for, 15 task talk, 17 teacher talk, 18–20 text talk, 65 talk curriculum, 14 talk events, 19 task talk, 17 teacher-manager, 84 teacher-director, 84 teacher talk, 18–20 facilitating student talk, 18–19 modeling oral language, 19–20 responding to students, 19 teachers class meetings, 43 communication abilities, 19–20 creating environment for talk, 18 encouraging talk, 18 facilitating student talk, 18–19 partnering with students, 38–39 responding to students, 19 roles in drama, 84 seeking student input, 126–127  143

technology conversations on screen, 121 in-character, 79 learning and, 114 multimodal communication, 107 online think-aloud, 114–117 student voice and, 113–114 virtual editing, 119–120 writing and, 113 tension, 82 text/texts celebrating fiction/non-fiction, 67 exploring, 91 finding personal meaning in, 88 giving voice to, 89 identity, 109 mentor, 99 parallel, 78 responding to, 64–65 role-playing resource, 78 touchstone, 99 writing own, 66 text sets, 65 text talk, 65 think-aloud on-screen, 114–117 Think-Interview-Share, 47 Think-Pair Consensus-Share, 46 Think-Pair in Role-Show, 46 Think-Pair Paraphrase-Share, 46 Think-Pair-Share, 45, 46 Think-Pair-Square, 46 Think-Rally Table-Share, 47 Think-Write Pair-Share, 46 Timed Pair-Share, 46 touchstone texts, 99 tour guides, 89–91 Tribes Learning Communities, 19 trust, earning, 26

144  

video conference, 121 video production enhancing literacy skills through, 107–108 literacy challenge, 107 stages, 107–108 virtual editors, 119–120 visual art, 66 visual images, 112 visual records, 133 voice artifacts and, 108–109 “as if,” 52 assessing development of, 131–132 authentic, 73–74 author’s voice, 27 being heard, 24 benefits from including, 24–25 choice and, 22, 24–25, 39–42 classroom partnership and, 24 communication skills and, 25 differentiated instruction and, 128–129 drama and, 77–79 digital art and, 106–107 digital talk, 112 early voices, 33 exploring social issues, 71–74 feedback on writing, 104–105 finding, 22–24, 99 gathering information on, 129–130 government’s role, 33–35 interactive learning, 25 motivation to learn and, 24–25 necessity of, 23 photography and, 60–61

poetry, 103–104 power and, 27 print, spoken word and image, 109–110 reading aloud with, 52–54 reflection on, 35 revision and, 99–100 rich resources and, 25 role playing and, 77–79, 84–85 strength of, 129–130 student voice, 22, 47–48, 56, 113– 114, 126–127 technology and, 113–114 writing, 99 whole-class sharing, 99 Write:OutLoud Solo, 31 Writers in Electronic Residence (WiER), 119 writing collective, 101 computers and, 113 difficulties focusing on, 30–31 discussing with others, 98–99 feedback, 104–105, 119–120 finding voice through, 99 revising, 99–100 in role, 79, 101–102 sharing, 100 stories, 102–103 strategies, 101 streamlined tasks, 124 technology and, 113 writing conferences, 98 writing folder, 100 writing notebook, 99–100 writing workshop, 99