“Dickens simply won’t matter to most twenty-first century teenagers unless they have developed a love of books first” (Kittle, 2013, p.23). To me, that statement sums up the importance of giving kids as much choice as possible when it comes to reading in grades K-12. It is a nice counterpoint to anyone who advocates for the focus on only or mostly Classics at the high school level Although, I do have common sense, and this makes sense, I am the first to remind folks I am not an expert when it comes to reading and writing. As you might guess, being a high school science teacher and administrator for 23 years prior to becoming a Curriculum Director didn’t give me a whole lot of experience with elementary education and especially reading. I wasn’t a big reader myself while going through school and it wasn’t until late college that I really started to read for “pleasure”. That is why I was almost jealous when I first saw how our K-2 staff was providing opportunities for kids to read in class through our own version of the Reader’s Workshop. Over the last two years, our Reading Specialist/Coach, Jen Miller, has worked hard to support teachers in grades 3-5 as they also started to incorporate a Reading Workshop framework which allowed more student choice and this has now begun to overflow into our middle school as well. The reason I bring all this up is that I recently finished Penny Kittle’s (@pennykittle) latest book titled Book Love and I was “inspired” to investigate how a version of the Reader’s Workshop could be implemented at the high school level.
I talked a lot about my, admittedly limited, understanding of the importance of getting kids in authentic text through choice and helping them develop their voice through conversations and writing in my earlier post “Oh Good...Are They Just Reading?”. However, I didn’t specifically mention that a version of the Reader’s Workshop could be pulled off at the high school level. This is what Book Love addresses and as you read the book, which I highly recommend, you will see why Kittle’s students would buy in to her philosophy of reading. One of the key components of getting high schoolers to read more is setting the expectations by developing a culture of reading within the classroom. “The way forward is to make people see themselves as participants in a community that view reading as a significant and enjoyable activity” (Kittle, 2013, p.3). Kittle does a great job of explaining how she has nurtured such a culture, but she also references other experts such as Daniel Willingham, Richard Allington, Donalyn Miller, Kelly Gallagher, Alfie Kohn, and many more, so that by the time you are done with this book you could have a whole list of authors to revisit or learn more about depending on your own prior reading background.
If we take Kelly Gallagher’s advice from Readacide to “never lose sight that our highest priority is to raise students who become lifelong readers” (Kittle, 2013, p.16) and you combine that with the fact that we teach kids not subjects (see “Guilty as Charged!”) then Kittle’s advice in Book Love becomes more like a practical framework to build a type of Reader’s Workshop at the high school level. This includes the importance of allowing students to construct their own understanding and not be told the meaning of a piece of literature by us as mentioned by Kittle stating “it is more important that they (students) think in terms of their own connections triggered by their own understanding, not mine” (Kittle,. 2013, p.123). It all works towards a classroom culture that can ignite and nurture our students’ love of reading which will, not only spill outside the ELA classroom walls, but lead to the potential of creating lifelong readers. However, as I said in an earlier blog, you don’t need to believe me, take it from the kids in this short video from Penny Kittle on the power of authentic reading.
References
Kittle, Penny (2013). Book Love: Developing Depth, Stamina, and Passion in Adolescent Readers.
Portsmouth, N.H.: Heinemann
