For teachers looking for a replacement or paired text for Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men.
This Korean American contemporary retelling of Of Mice and Men tells the story of a teenage girl trying to protect her neurodivergent older brother as their family searches out better access to services for him.
For students who like stories about justice or indigenous peoples.
I have been excited about this book since I heard the author describe it at the 2022 NCTE Convention as Tomb Raider but where the protagonist is recapturing stolen indigenous artifacts for her community. This book has a starred Kirkus review.
For students who have money goals, jobs, dreams of business, or maybe just need a wake-up call about money. Anyone could read it, but she often addresses the barriers specific to people of color and speaks to the experiences of first-generation Americans.
Another one I have been looking forward to reading! Berna is a financial edutainer on Instagram/Tik Tok. I have no doubt that this book is written in her trademark informational (and hilarious) style. This book has a starred Kirkus review.
For students who like action and science fiction. This would be a great book to entice students to read more science fiction. Reminds me of 172 Hours on the Moon by Johan Harstad, a fave in my classroom.
In 2098, Jessica Mathers travels to a deep space colony to reunite with her scientist parents, but when she arrives, she can’t find anyone. Just a destroyed landing unit and some bloody handprints along the corridor…
Female perspective written by a male author, but I’m willing to give him the benefit of the doubt, since this is a starred Kirkus Review.
For students who like urban fantasy and books about community, family, and activism. This would be a great book for students who liked the Shadowshaper trilogy by Daniel JoséOlder. After reading it, students may be interested in realistic activism books, like The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas.
Yolanda Nuelis Alvarez is a Black Dominican American girl who is being trained in her family’s bruja (witch) traditions. She receives visions about potential gun violence at her school and takes action to prevent it from happening by embracing her gifts.
Autumn Reeves has been waitlisted at her dream school. After planning an amazing promposal for her friend, she launches a promposal-planning business to set herself apart.
For students who like dystopic horror and humor. I would give this to students who are looking for something really different. Maybe they liked Survive the Night by Danielle Vega or Beauty Queens by Libba Bray. Or I would recommend those next. I would eventually recommend the Sookie Stackhouse books, because it’s a classic in the monster-gone-mainstream genre.
Three years ago, a small percentage of the population was exposed to a pathogen that left them craving human flesh. A group of four girls travels to a music festival with a cooler full of synthetic meat. One of the girls goes feral and begins killing boys. Oops. This is a starred Kirkus review.
Novah has six siblings, and she spends her days taking care of the younger ones while her older sister is busy on the volleyball team and her parents are at work. When her parents unexpectedly pass away, her older sister ends up as the guardian. The two girls struggle to raise their siblings together.
2023 Recommendations
Check out all by 2023 recommendations here.
This post may contain affiliate links, meaning when you click the links and make a purchase, I receive a commission.
There are lots of positive thoughts students have about reading independently, but this post is about the negative ones, why they’re valid, and how we as teachers can respond. You can see an Instagram live version of this post here.
What Students Think About Reading Independently
Here are some of the most common thoughts I hear students say.
1. I’m being forced to do this.
Teachers tell students it’s “choice reading” or “independent reading,” but the book is the only thing they are allowed to choose, and usually with parameters. They’re not wrong that they are forced, but that word certainly doesn’t help them reap any possible benefits.
2. No one does this.
What they might mean is that they never see any of their friends or family read (nor do they read). And that might be true. Even if they are readers, they probably never time themselves to read for just 10 minutes in a room full of 30 people doing the same thing. That’s not how most readers read either.
3. I’m bad at this. I must be doing it wrong.
Students collect evidence from their teachers’ corrections that they are “doing reading wrong” or that they are bad at it. When they get those labels year after year, it’s no wonder they think being “bad at reading” is a fixed trait, not a by-product of consistently not being included in the reading done in school.
4. Ten minutes a day isn’t going to suddenly make me a better reader.
Teachers often try to reason with students, explaining research about the thirty-million word gap to get students to read. Even if students buy into the now-suspect study, it doesn’t take a researcher to see that 10 minutes a day isn’t going to come close to closing that gap. If students don’t buy into the study (as they shouldn’t), it still begs the question–isn’t there something a teacher can do to help me read better? If the secret was just books this whole time, why is English Language Arts even a subject?
5. The teacher doesn’t trust me.
Students have to fill out all this paperwork to prove that they read–the thing teachers wanted them to do. If teachers thought that reading was that great, they wouldn’t need to double-check. They would trust the books and the reader to just do it.
6. The teacher just wants me to be quiet.
The first ten minutes of class are reserved for everyone sitting still and not talking. If the teacher is only offering admonishments to be quiet and read, a student may wonder if the teacher is just looking for some peace and compliance.
7. This isn’t important.
They might think this if, after reading time, the class goes on to something else–a whole separate unit–and the reading doesn’t come up at all. If it were really important, it would be the main thing. Again, this is a thought I can totally understand.
8. Reading is boring.
In school, we certainly have a lot of ways to make something boring, but I also believe that boring is a mindset. If you expect something to be boring, you will often find that it is. Other people have a different mindset–they find the exact same thing fascinating.
Using a Thought Ladder
You cannot argue someone out of a thought. They must decide to choose a different one for themselves, and they often need evidence and support to make that shift. One of my favorite personal tools for this is a thought ladder.
A thought ladder comes out of cognitive-behavioral therapy. Sometimes, when we identify a thought that is no longer helping us, making the jump to the exact opposite creates too much cognitive dissonance for our brains. If a student tries to go from “I’m bad at reading” to “I’m an awesome reader,” their brain will come at them with a dump truck full of past memories of why they are not-so-awesome.
Instead, we start small, like climbing up one rung of a ladder.
Observing One’s Thoughts
Here’s an example.
A student is maybe thinking that they are forced to read.
A teacher can mirror back to them, “So you keep thinking you are being forced to read.”
This phrase, “you keep thinking” or “I keep thinking” is the first rung up on the ladder. It creates just a sliver of distance between the thought (which sounds like a fact) and the fact that it is a thought. Now the student can observe what they “keep thinking” and decide if they want to keep thinking it.
Thinking Neutral Thoughts
Next is often a neutral thought, which is an actual fact: “Part of class everyday is for reading.” This is true. It removes the connotation of “forced to read.” Also, no one is forced to read. A student can always not do it; they just might not like the consequences (if the teacher includes some).
If going to a neutral thought is too big of a jump, because the student may be really angry about reading, you can try this thought with them: “What I’m asked to do in class is not what I want to do.” Again, can’t argue here, but we are taking out the force.
Entertaining Positive Thoughts
After the student seems to accept the neutral thought (which may take a week or more), a teacher can inch the student toward a more positive thought: “The part of class used for reading could be beneficial.” The phrase “could be” makes it easier to accept. It’s not for sure. It just could be.
Once the student has secured a few reading times that were actually beneficial or enjoyable, you could help them practice the thought that “Reading benefits me.” Again, not saying always. There are times I read and remember nothing (no benefit!), but certainly a better mindset to approach the time than being force to do it.
Creating Lifelong Readers
Perhaps the most important thought we want our students to think is “I am a reader.” This represents an identity shift. With this thought, many of the thoughts above will dissipate.
The thought ladder I use to get students there is a key part of my upcoming Creating Readers Workshop. This is my last call to join the waitlist. Details are coming soon!
Have you seen those Instagram vs. reality videos and memes?
Photos by Geraldine West
This is like that for how educelebs say independent reading should look versus how it actually looks. I am having a little fun with this post, but I really do appreciate an aspirational lens and am inspired by people who capture these perfect moments in their highlight reels on Instagram. But for anyone who may be seeing their own independent reading program and thinking it lacks or is not good enough because there’s such a gap, this one’s for you. For a video version of this post, check out my Instagram live.
Instagram: All students start and stop reading at the same time.
Your beautiful meditation timer chimes the start of reading time, books open and heads go down for 10 blissful minutes until the chime sounds again.
Reality: the students come wandering in late, take 8 minutes to settle down, and stop early. You hear their books snap shut before the timer goes off.
Instagram: All the students keep perfect lists.
Everyone knows what books they read all year. They can take before and after photos with the stacks of books they’ve read (a smaller stack for last year and a bigger stack for this year). The students even know which books they’ve abandoned. And how many pages they’ve read. Their records are as accurate as an accountant’s.
Reality: they rely on you to remind them what they read and find how many pages it has. They forget the titles and remember just a plot point or the cover. They lose whatever paper where they were keeping track of things.
Instagram: They take books home to read.
They actually check out a book, put it in their backpack, and carve out time to read each day.
Reality: they might shove the book back on “their spot” on your shelf and also keep their class papers in it, leaving your classroom unencumbered each day. When someone else actually checks out “their” book, they are incensed.
Instagram: They read one book at a time.
They read a book from start to finish and then they start a new one.
Reality: They are reading multiple books at once, and one of them is on Wattpad. You have to create a special sheet to track their progress across books and a special page conversion rate for books read on cellphones. You wonder if they really are reading all these books or if it is a “fogging” technique meant to throw you off their trail
Instagram: The shelves look nice and all the books are away in their correct spot–or maybe even in rainbow order.
It doesn’t even look like any books are checked out!
Reality: the books are toppling over where books are missing. You find romance mixed in with horror as the students put the books back in the first open space they find. Even when the shelves are full, the worn books look a little messy.
Instagram: They read at their actual pace.
They completed a ten-minute timed read to find their page rate and are reading that amount of pages consistently.
Reality: you time it out and find that they are not reading for the full time or are reading even slower in the right amount of time. Other kids are reading, like, an obscene amount of pages, like 12,000 in two weeks. They out-read you (and their rate) by a mile.
Instagram: They choose to read a wide variety of books.
The students pick up new kinds of books based on their wandering interests and conversations about books.
Reality: once they finally find something they like, they stick to it. Only through cajoling and multiple invitations do you get them to branch out.
Instagram: They volunteer to talk about their books at length.
They call you over, reread part of the book (that they have also written down in their notebook in some artistic way.
Reality: you ask them how it’s going and they say fine. If you ask a better question, you get the answer to that question and little more.
Instagram: They all love to read.
If you survey the students they say they love to read.
Reality: most say it’s fine or that they only do it for a grade. Some say it’s boring. A few say they hate it.
Before you lose hope…
So this list can leave us feeling depressed, like there’s no hope for creating a beautiful environment of inspired readers, but let’s turn this list inward for a sec.
Do I start and stop reading on time? Absolutely not. Not in class, where I find it hard to read while students are reading. Not at home, where I stop and start again.
Do I keep a perfect list of all the books I’ve read? I have books on my Goodreads list that I have been “reading” for a few years.
Do I take books home to read? No. I have home books and school books.
Which means I also don’t read one book at a time.
Are my books at home organized? Sort of, but they require a reset from time to time, and even so, it takes me awhile to find what I’m looking for.
Do I read at my actual pace? I have no idea, because I would never time myself in that way. That’s a school thing we do to track progress.
Do I choose to read a wide variety of books? Honestly, not as much as I used to. With my current time frames, I focus on the specific genres I need to function. Juicy horror. Informational. Early readers with my daughter.
Do I volunteer to talk about books at length? Every once in a while when I want to make an impassioned book recommendation, but not to analyze anything.
Do I love to read? Heck yes I do (but also not all the time. I love lots of activities). And still, even though I show up as reality and not Instagram, my love is no less perfect.
What Happens Next
I’m really excited to dive into independent reading in the classroom in an unconventional way. My independent reading workshop will discuss
Title: 9 Rights for Teachers of Reading to Reclaim
1.The right to not read what your students like.
You hate fantasy? Hate YA? Good for you! Do your research to provide what your students like and build affinity groups of students to recommend books to each other. Then, model what it is to be someone who has unapologetically taken ahold of their literate life and read what you darn well please.
2. The right to donate or throw away (recycle?) books.
I confess to being a book hoarder. Just in case a student would want to read the book someday, but the students never picked up the old books that I knew were good but looked…not so good. Not every book you find should be kept in your classroom library. There is an art to classroom library curation. The library is only as good as the reader’s ability to find anything worth reading.
3. The right to decide how to use independent reading.
When your principal asks what the purpose is, there are lots of other things to show her besides completed worksheets and book projects. You can use it to
transfer standards to independent practice. It can be assessed through conferences, peer conversations, or student book talks.
build background knowledge. Students make connections to what the whole class is working on during a whole-class activity.
develop social emotional behavioral health. Use it as a brain break or transition to class activity. Take the time to check in with students and make connections to the character’s emotional journey in their books.
use it as an extension activity. Pull small groups of students who don’t want to read to engage with you in a way that will help them open up to the possibility of reading. Let the students who already love it just enjoy it.
4. The right to trust the process.
Let go of trying to control other people through compliance measures. You don’t have to take off points for kids’ pages (or lack thereof), bathroom breaks, talking, or fake reading. You can observe what’s happening and lay down more invitations. Check out my suggestions for motivating students.
5. The right to include independent reading your own way.
Lots of edu-celebs (and randoms like me) have opinions about how you need to do independent reading for it to be “good.” You may have internalized some of these opinions and then shamed yourself when they didn’t work or you were inconsistent. You don’t have to do book talks or First Chapter Fridays. It can be loud during “Silent Sustained Reading.” You can take days off. You can start or end class with it. Like your reason for what you’re doing and refuse to beat yourself up if it’s imperfect.
6. The right to put the right book in the hands of the kid who asks for it.
Gentle Reading Teacher, use your miraculous combination of book knowledge, past experience, and deep knowledge of that student in particular to create magic, one book at a time. This is relationship building at its finest.
7. The right to feel however you feel about states legislating against these rights.
Angry. Depressed. Frustrated. Anything. Or nothing. Whatever your feelings, they are valuable information.
8. The right to choose how to respond to state legislation.
You can sit with, numb, repress, or react in any way you choose. We are all responsible for how we decide to act in response to our emotions. While the legislation may feel (and is) restrictive, there are still so many choices (even if you don’t like them, and it’s okay not to like them). Teachers will make different choices in reaction to the legislation, and that’s okay too. You can
Quit teaching
Close your classroom library
Just keep doing what you’re doing
Raise funds to pay fines for you and other teachers
Hide unmarked books all over your school
Redistribute your library to free little libraries around your town
Let students read on their phones and bring in their own books
Have students write and read each other’s writing instead of published books
Get newspaper and magazine subscriptions
Hire a lawyer and exploit loopholes
Teach more historical documents and speeches from the public record
Use juxtaposition and lens work as employed by the #disrupttexts movement
When reading a longer whole-class text, amplify the parts that emphasize race or sexuality (spoiler: they exist in every single book ever). Let the students notice and name it.
Sponsor an anti-censorship club. Let the students lead.
Do your civic duty: sign petitions, call your legislators, participate in protests, walkouts and boycotts
Use your radical imagination
Want to Learn More?
If you are feeling more passionate about independent reading than ever, but want support in your next steps, I’ll be sharing details soon about a workshop on independent reading. To be the first to know, join the waitlist.
We all studied motivation for at least a nanosecond in our teacher training programs. I remember them focusing on extrinsic and intrinsic motivation. When finding ways to motivate students to read, we tend to focus on extrinsic. Positive reinforcement, like sticker charts, raffles, and prizes. Negative reinforcement, like losing points for not reading (or not reading enough). The studies always said that intrinsic motivation was better, but how can we impact that?
For an Instagram live version of this post, go here.
4 Unusual Ways to Motivate Students to Read
How to Encourage Students to Read for Pleasure
Many ways to motivate students to read involve increasing the pleasure!
Make reading at home a date. Tell a student to take a book on a date for 10 minutes that night. The next day, if the date was bad, they can break up and go on another date. This lighthearted approach makes the reading feel temporary and nonthreatening. You don’t have to fall in love with the book (though we teachers dare to hope!). If the date is a flop, no big deal. There are plenty of fish in the sea (or books in the library).
Read them the first paragraph of a book that starts right in the action. These homerun books (with a teaser that’s cut short) will suck a student in, luring them back to the page once they get home.
Use positive peer pressure. Partner two students to read the same book. If they enjoy chatting with each other about the book or reading together during class, they can read at night so they can stay on the same page.
How Can Teachers Motivate Students to Read?
Besides those extrinsic-become-intrinsic approaches, I like to use a thought ladder. This cognitive behavioral therapy and life coaching tool works well when students can’t make the jump from “I hate reading!” to “I love reading!”
People don’t change overnight. Think of something you don’t like doing. How long do you think it would take you to love it?
Here is the process I use for students opposed to read. First, I want them to entertain the possibility that maybe there is a book they will like. This is the first rung on the ladder. Through the dating process above, the student tries a lot of books until they find one that maybe they like.
Once they find a book that they are willing to say they like, we move on to “I really like X kind of book.” To identify with something, you need to have your own tastes and preferences. This is ownership. Most opposed students spend the bulk of the year getting to this place, where they have an established areas of interest.
How to Motivate Students to Read Books They Don’t Want to Read
Many motivated students become unmotivated when asked to read outside their preferences. These students must climb another rung on the thought ladder: “I’m willing to try something new.” This is an important rung, as we all must read something we don’t want to read from time to time (a tax form, a jury summons, etc.). Being able to summon up this thought to confront the discomfort of something unfamiliar or unchosen is important too.
Motivation is a funny thing. People want to work out and eat healthy, but they don’t always follow through. Students may know reading is good for them, may even like (or love) it, and still not do it at home.
Why the disconnect?
First, their priorities may already be in the proper order. They may be choosing family, friends, extra curriculars, other homework, or working over reading. If they are secure in the order of their priorities, then they are following their own intentions. Honestly, this is what I do. After my child has gone to bed and I’ve connected with my partner, there is just a little time left for my own reading.
With these students, I like to validate what’s important to them. Then we talk about time. Usually there are a few quiet moments before bed that are the perfect time to read.
For other students, systemic barriers are the reason they don’t read, not motivation. I have students who work full time overnight and go to school all day. I want them sleeping every second they’re not in either place.
For a third group of students, it’s a beautiful learning opportunity. From firsthand experience, I know that habit change and formation is difficult. This is a student’s chance to muck around in the process with an experienced and vulnerable mentor.
Want to Learn More?
I’ll be sharing details soon about a workshop on independent reading. To be the first to know, join the waitlist.
If you haven’t had a chance to check it out yet and aren’t sure where to start, you’ll get the basics from this post and somethings you can do with ChatGPT today to make lesson planning easier.
Chat GPT: What is it?
I am going to put this in super non-technical terms. I am not an expert, but I’ll give you enough for a basic idea. ChatGPT is a chatbot (a robot that can chat). You may have seen them before on website customer service pages and in Facebook Messenger ads. What’s special about ChatGPT is that it synthesizes the entire internet (from 2021 and earlier) to answer complex questions. Because this synthesis is delivered to you without sources, beware of copyright infringement.
Also, it’s still very much in a test version, so how many people can use it at a time is limited. I actually tried for a month before I could get logged in. You have to make an account, which I don’t like doing, but it does save all your chats, which is nice. If you want more detail, Angela Watson at Truth for Teachers has a great guide/blog post/podcast about how it can be used to reduce teacher workload.
Text: If ChatGPT is cheating, goodbye Google. Seriously though, no one gets ideas in a vacuum. We’ve all googled or talked to colleagues. With ChatGPT, your brain is still deciding what to ask and how to use it. You don’t need permission to make your life easier.
What to Ask ChatGPT
Angela’s podcast warns that you often have to ask a question and then rewrite it to get what you want, but I got what I wanted on the first try for the most part (#englishteacherskills). Sometimes I asked it one thing and then another so I would get two versions of something. You’ll see in my examples below using prompts that contained
a request for a specific number of answers or a specific length of answer
terms that I knew ChatGPT could find on the internet and apply
specific texts available on the internet (or I pasted in the text if I wanted it to focus on a specific part)
I focused on how ChatGPT for teachers could do certain parts of my four-move literacy lesson plan for me. The results would save me time as a teacher. I can definitely see myself taking what it gives and improving upon it in the classroom. It’s like a made-to-order curriculum, and with my added expertise, it could be so powerful.
Graphic of what to include in a ChatGPT prompt: result amount or length, technical terms, text title or pasted in text, and ready to rewrite as needed.
1. Anticipating Challenges
I will still swear by reading the text yourself, but ChatGPT can be a helpful tool in sifting through all the different challenges a text presents to help you decide which challenges to teach.
Vocabulary
I get overwhelmed pretty quickly when picking words for us to learn as a class, so I asked ChatGPT about it (see prompt below). The answer was great, but I will keep playing around with asking for an amount and type of word (maybe academic vocabulary next) in a particular text. I can also paste in a shorter text for it to analyze if it isn’t indexed on the web.
Image of output for the question: What are the 10 most frequently occurring tier-2 words in A Raisin in the Sun?
Background Knowledge
I also hoped that ChatGPT could help me uncover blind spots in the background knowledge that I taught. By asking it about the background knowledge needed for a particular text, ChatGPT could remind me of anything I may be forgetting.
Image of output for the question: What background knowledge do students need to read Romeo and Juliet?
Structure
I thought structure might be more difficult for ChatGPT, but check out this amazing result. Again, it gave me things I could find and notice for myself, but now I can move past finding them to focus on instructional planning.
Image of output for the question: What is complex about the structure of A Raisin in the Sun?
Theme
For theme complexities, I went with one that I needed help with last fall (better luck next fall!). I will say that this is a great start, but I would have to use my expertise. Introducing the theme with an entire novel, as #2 suggests, is something I would never do, as it would introduce a ton of extraneous detail. However, I could use this for generating new ideas to launch units and springboard from there.
Image of output for the question: Name five ways to introduce the theme of belonging to high school English Learners.
2. Every Student Reads
I also used ChatGPT to help me generate ideas for ways to read something, since I tend to get stuck in the same old ruts.
Image of output for the question: Name five ways a class could read a poem.
3. Every Student Discusses
Due to time constraints, I struggle to make daily text-dependent questions consistently well. In this example, I asked for a certain number of questions about a certain text. I would probably want more specific results in the future. For example, I could ask for questions about part of the text that I pasted in and have them be about certain topics that matched the standard focus of the lesson.
Image of output for the question: Write ten text-dependent questions to go with the Odysseus and Cyclops scene of The Odyssey.
4. Every Student Writes
In addition to daily discussion questions, I need writing prompts that are specific to a text and align to the standard I want to teach.
Image of output for the question: Write a prompt for CCSS RL.9-10.2 for “Fish Cheeks” by Amy Tan.
My grade team used “Fish Cheeks” for an assessment in the fall, and we could’ve used something like this as our first draft. Once ChatGPT generated this general version, I asked it for a version I could give to my level 2 English Learners. This could have helped me make sure my class aligned with the general classes. I specified the English Learner level because of the wide difference between a level 1 and a level 5. The more specific I am, the better results I will get.
Image of output for the question: Rewrite the prompt for Level 2 English Learners.
What are the 10 most frequently occurring tier-2 words in A Raisin in the Sun?
What background knowledge do students need to read Romeo and Juliet?
What is complex about the structure of A Raisin in the Sun?
Name five ways to introduce the theme of belonging to high school English Learners.
Name five ways a class could read a poem.
Write ten text-dependent questions to go with the Odysseus and Cyclops scene of The Odyssey.
Write a prompt for CCSS RL.9-10.2 for “Fish Cheeks” by Amy Tan.
Rewrite the prompt for Level 2 English Learners.
Applying these prompts in ChatGPT for teachers will make lesson planning with the four moves even more of a breeze. If you haven’t gotten your copy of the four moves every literacy lesson plan needs yet, get it for FREE today.
Image of the template for the four moves every literacy lesson plan needs
As I get sucked into the day-to-day of teaching, I can lose sight of the big picture–and so can my students. That’s why taking time to breathe, reflect, and dream are so important for me to do with my students. Finding activities that help us pause makes sure we focus on what’s most important. A reading and writing portfolio is good for this because the students can see their own growth, we can connect over it, and I’m ready for parent-family conferences all in one go. More frequently used in elementary schools, reading and writing portfolios are powerful for any high school ELA classroom–assuming you avoid the classic pitfalls.
Blog title: Joyful Reflections with a Reading and Writing Portfolio
Fail-Proofing Portfolios
Reading and writing portfolios have been in use for a long time. I’m pretty sure I stapled some things together for my teachers when I was in high school. That was just it, though. It became an exercise in rewarding kids who could keep track of their papers.
Instead, I design fail-proof portfolios using the following criteria.
Create a flood of opportunities. Because the four moves every literacy lesson plan needs for soaring reading growth happen everyday, there is not a kid who is too absent to do the portfolio. They may not have as many artifacts to choose from, but that is valuable information for them to reflect on too. It can really help them see how much school they’ve missed.
Use a consistent, accessible submission routine. No more lost artifacts! For some classrooms, this is electronic submission. You can also use notebooks or binders that students leave in the room. This works better in my sheltered class for English Learners, or other groups that may need support in executive functioning.
Make submission mandatory. I have grade what students have done on the due date, whether or not they are done. When time’s up, time’s up. Done is better than perfect, and not finishing is an excellent thing to notice and discuss in a portfolio.
Quote: The point of reading and writing portfolios is not compliance; it is connection.
Using a Reading and Writing Inventory To Gather Artifacts
With the fail-proof criteria in place, I collect the cornerstone work of my class, which may or may not be the same as yours. Choose what you know you can collect in light of the above criteria.
Timed writing sample. We do a timed writing almost everyday, so everyone has at least one to choose.
Extended writing project. This is typically done as culminating project to practice a longer writing process. Again, even if students don’t finish, they can discuss what they did do and what they want to do differently next time in order to finish.
Close reading samples. Typically, these are annotations on short literature and nonfiction texts. These can be done online, collected the day they are done, or kept in each student’s classroom binder or notebook.
The book that really got me starting with joyful reading and writing portfolios is Maja Wilson’s Reimagining Writing Assessment.
Wilson’s major premise is that having students tell the story of writing whatever they wrote is a much richer way to inform assessment. It gets beyond applying simple grades to holistic work that is inherently multi-faceted and contextual. Essentially, her questions that she suggests have you ask students about the work from start to finish, how it emerged and developed over time, and finally what students would do if they had more time to work on the piece. This brings closure to the assignment, given the fact that it is now “done” (in that there is no more time to work on it as any piece of writing is truly never done).
I ask very similar questions, which she intended for extended writing projects, to reading and timed writing as well, because learning is a narrative act. Additionally, I ask students to mark where in the work they meet our standards, because I think that is a key act of reflection, to see one’s work clearly.
Finally, in later grading periods, I ask about growth. I have students compare their work with that in earlier portfolios. This tells yet another story–between learning tasks rather than just within. It also makes space for the fact that the learning may or may not be linear, as any story may be told.
Making Joyful Reading and Writing Project Videos
There are loads of ways to submit portfolio artifacts and answers to reflective questions. Simple online or handwritten responses will do, and I’ve even done a fairly complex website version, but the most joyful way is through a conversation. There’s nothing like the back-and-forth of an actual dialogue.
Students sit beside me with a slide presentation based on a template I give them. If they have physical papers, they can put just the answers to questions on the presentation and show physical papers to me or upload pictures of physical papers.
Depending on your numbers and timeline, you may not be able to meet with each student individually. That’s where videos come in.
Because students typically dislike being on camera, have them make a screenshare video of their presentation. They can do this using whatever screen services are available in your district. Many districts have an LMS that allows this (for example, Canvas), but I have also used Screencastify and Flip (formerly Flipgrid).
Grading a Reading and Writing Portfolio Assessment
While most teachers agree that developing metacognitive skills in students is important, how to grade those skills can be daunting. I focus on three areas.
Sample rubric for grading timed writing. Evidence marked “E” supports the claim and is introduced and punctuated correctly. Claim marked “C” needs evidence and reasoning to support it. Interpretation of evidence providence insight into student’s experiences, context, or history with writing. Reflection on interpretation: clear sense of strengths and areas needing improvement. Teacher can mark strengths and opportunities for each criteria.
Mastery. I require students to mark evidence of meeting the standards in their artifacts. This helps us ground our work in the priorities, ensuring that we all stay focused on them. It also gives students something specific to reflect about so I don’t have to grade a bunch of vague portfolios. If the students realize they can’t mark something as mastered, I let them change the artifacts and add it. This is a more pragmatic way to invite revision, especially for “one and done” student writers and readers.
Interpretation. This is where the storytelling happens. Students must tell the story of each artifact in a way that helps me understand them better–their experiences, history, and context both during the class and before it started. The point of portfolios is not compliance; it is connection. This is where I learn valuable insights about my students that aren’t stated in their actual work. I learn about them as learners and people, which helps me make deep and meaningful changes to future unit plans.
Reflection. There is a clear distinction for me between interpretation and reflection. Interpretation is the how and why of the work. Reflection is the what next. When students reflect, they celebrate their strengths, and I build future lessons that help them to showcase these strengths in the next unit. They also acknowledge opportunities for growth and explain which ones they want to seize in the next grading period. Again, knowing this helps me customize my unit planning going forward. In later grading periods, I can ask students to look back on these goals–are they seeing any progress?
A Joyful Reading and Writing Portfolio
With a fail-proof, repeatable reading and writing portfolio in mind, I created a resource that will help you connect with students, plan future units, teach metacognition, and have meaningful parent-teacher conferences. This resource can be used at the end of each grading period. Some of the guesswork is taken out of grading metacognition with some simple single-point rubrics. This resource contains a student portfolio (fillable PDF or fillable Google slides) and rubrics for grading all or some of the portfolio pieces (fillable PDF or Google sheets that can be imported to an LMS like Canvas). Enjoy!
Image of Reading and Writing Portfolio Summative Assessment and Rubrics
This post may contain affiliate links, meaning when you click the links and make a purchase, we receive a commission.
Why is teacher clarity in the classroom important? Teacher clarity is important for teachers because it brings purpose and fulfillment to a career that is otherwise demanding. Without a why to return to, it’s easy to spiral into dissatisfaction. It’s important to students so that they can buy into the purpose and relevance of their learning.
What’s helped you gain clarity? I’ve gained clarity through working with other people, iterating my practices, and consulting outside sources, but my first line of clarity always comes from the values I hold and my vision of what those could look like.
Creating clarity in the classroom is a lot like planning a vacation. I love planning trips, and I’ve heard that anticipating a trip can be just as if not more enjoyable than going on the actual vacation. So today you’ll not only learn how to create clarity in your profession, but how to plan a really great vacation. You’re welcome! If you’d like to see the Facebook live version of this post, you can check it out here.
Image of title: 7 Ways to Create Teacher Clarity in the Classroom Today
It’s Like Planning a Vacation
So, here are 7 ways to create teacher clarity in the classroom that you can use today, and 7 ways to bring your dream vacation to life.
Dream about how you want the vacation to look and feel. What are my non-negotiables? Before I even choose a destination, I set iron-clad intentions. Am I looking for a relaxing vacation? Do I want to feel adventurous? What must I absolutely experience? In teaching, this question considers the full context of the classroom. How do you want to feel? What do you imagine yourself doing? What does the classroom look and feel like? The students? What kinds of growth are deeply important to you? These are your non-negotiables.
Ensure your non-negotiables are included. This is where I choose my destination. If beach time is non-negotiable, I am going to choose a location and time of year where that can happen, and not just happen, but be really great. In the classroom, this is dreaming up the summative assessments that will snapshot your non-negotiables. Just like the “pics or it didn’t happen” phrase, if it’s not assessed, it didn’t happen to the extent that it was that important. Of course, to take the actual snapshot, you’ll have to get specific about what standards you want to assess. Equally important, you’ll want to choose a form that preserves the look and feel you want to create.
What are some special opportunities? Once I’ve decided on a specific location and time, it’s important to explore the area. I didn’t go to every beach or just any beach, I went to one in particular. What local flavor can I add to anchor me to a time and place? In teaching, this looks like creating inspiring and authentic transfer assessments. After summative assessments, I like to design these extension activities that bring the learning into real life a little more. I can also use it as an opportunity to reteach for students who didn’t show mastery on the summative. Rather than send them to a remedial wasteland, I prefer adding more context and authenticity. Sometimes they actually do better because there’s more variety in the form.
Anticipate the journey. Once I know where I’m going, what I’m doing, and when, it’s time to plan. How will I get there? What could go wrong? What do I need to pack? When I anticipate the road toward my final assessments, I can anticipate and prepare so that students have everything they need for the journey—any preskills, knowledge, and ample practice that will help them shine. I’ve traveled with people who are quick to announce their frustration when there’s a setback. “This isn’t what I expected,” they’ll say. I rarely feel this way, because I expect there to be challenge and spontaneity, and I delight in it. Things still “go wrong,” but it doesn’t ruin my vacation. Same for the classroom. Despite my best preparations, there will be other unexpected occurrences. It doesn’t mean my whole unit is a failure. I just get the opportunity to model for students how my own learning is unfolding alongside theirs.
Infuse the journey with scenic overlooks. A trip that is all about preparing for the worst is no fun at all. Each day should feel like vacation (yes, even a travel day!). You can make the best of it by finding scenic overlooks. On a road trip, these are the places where you can stop and stretch your legs, taking in a beautiful sight, and always take a picture. It’s the journey, not the destination, right? In the daily grind to get to the assessments, we can lose sight of the scenic overlooks. Again, go back to that overall vision of how your classroom should look and feel. That should happen every day. And be sure to take a snapshot (a.k.a. a formative assessment) to track the journey’s progress.
Follow a routine. So often, we lose sight of routines on vacation because we are outside of our everyday routines. Some of us may even look forward to that break from monotony. But our routines are what help keep us healthy and happy at home—that still applies on the road. I do my morning and evening routines while I travel, abridged as necessary, but still touchstones that serve my health. I eat very similarly as well. I don’t forget all about my good eating habits (the ones that make me feel good) just because I’m not at home. If anything, I try to make better choices to support my body when so much else is different. My classroom routine is using my literacy lesson plan. It doesn’t matter what’s happening each day in class, I can always use the lesson plan to design our work and keep us “healthy,” focused on the essentials of reading, discussing, and writing as a classroom community. Students know what to expect, so even when I throw new challenges their way, they can trust in the routine to care for them.
Trust a guide. Have you ever come home needing a vacation from your vacation? That’s a sign that you could use some help. Hire a travel agent or read a travel blog. Let them build the itineraries for you. Then all you have to do is show up and take care of yourself while you do it. I would love to be that guide for you. My forthcoming course is like those itineraries. Trust in a solid design, then show up and take care of yourself.
Teacher Clarity Resources
How are you feeling about creating clarity? You may be feeling like this all feels like too much, like you know you need a vacation but you have no time to plan it. Start with my lesson plan.
Teachers long to celebrate not only their results but having a clear direction for their work. Without this clarity, we often can’t even see that our work is making a difference. Instead, we stay trapped in cycles of overwhelm that go something like this: get excited about an idea → try it → the students find all the ways it doesn’t work→ try something else→ nevermind, there’s a fire drill and an assembly next week→ here’s a new initiative from your principal to focus on asap→ you realize the real problem isn’t the thing you were trying to solve it’s something else→ change to a new idea→ try it→ forget what I was originally trying to do. I’ve been there, and more! What about the following?
Going into your classroom or on your computer and forgetting what you were originally going to do.
Keeping all your tabs open because you are actually working on all those things. Simultaneously.
Trying something new and giving up by November. Trying something new in January and giving up by March. Trying something new in May.
Making all the decisions while needing to drink enough water, to go to the bathroom, schedule an appointment, and eat during your “duty-free” 20-minute lunch.
Spending most of your time thinking about what just happened or what’s about to happen (not the bigger picture).
Whew! No wonder you’re feeling overwhelm, right? Not anymore. If you’d like to see the Facebook live version of this post, you can check it out here.
Title: 5 Simple Solutions to the Standards for Overwhelmed Teachers
What if these were the words you were saying?
“They’re doing it!! I’m seeing growth and comprehension across my student body!”
“The curriculum feels more inclusive, more kids engaging”
“Built in scaffolds have been very helpful so that it doesn’t turn into a reactive situation.”
“Students are feeling more confident at tackling complex texts now that they have seen some success with it.”
“Students respond well when they feel they have the ability to engage with the material without me, their teacher.”
“Thinking about it proactively is helping me be wiser about how much I give students to read or to do.”
“The guiding questions help me stay focused on what’s important. I feel like I can do these lessons a million different ways.”
The comments all come from teachers who used my literacy lesson plan and joyfully stepped out of overwhelm. It’s possible for you too.
Tips for Overwhelmed Teachers
There are five simple solutions to get you there.
Manage your mind, don’t let it mismanage you.
Validate the heck out of how you feel, but emotions are meant to rent space in your body; don’t give them a permanent home. Once you’ve acknowledged, expressed, validated, and sat with how you feel, figure out what you’re thinking that’s causing you to feel that way, and try on a different thought. The trick is to find the balance between acknowledging what feels like reality and inviting ourselves to step into a better one. It’s like that thing in the magazines where they give you healthier food swaps that are still palatable. Here are three common overwhelm thoughts and their healthier swaps.
Perfection: Everything has to be perfect. Swap that out for I’m doing my best or Learning is a process.
Isolation: I’m the only one who can do this. Instead, try I share responsibility for my students’ success with lots of people, including the students themselves.
Time: There isn’t enough time. Try I make the best use of the time I have or there’s plenty of time for the right work.
For more thought-swap ideas, check out this article–so many of these harmful thoughts are rooted in white supremacy culture.
Adopt an aligned curriculum.
This could be a highly reviewed curriculum for purchase or an OER, but some external roadmap toward your most important standards. This can alleviate some of the overwhelm of what to teach, but in its place can come “there’s so much to teach” because external curricula often overdeliver (thanks?). While I like using an aligned curriculum to help ensure I don’t lose the thread, I also like to debloat that sucker. I focus on the priority standards and put the rest in the maybe pile. I’d rather do a few things well than a lot of things very poorly. This approach accepts imperfection, runs toward creativity with the constraints of time, and shakes me out of isolation. Having an external roadmap makes me a better collaborator. It’s not my idea versus someone else’s–we are navigating to the destination together.
Quote: Learning is a Process.
Don’t unpack the standards.
Compare them. A lot of districts spend time on long, drawn-out standards unpacking, and while there is value in deep textual analysis (I am an English teacher, after all), people can get stuck perfecting and arguing in this process for a long time. In ELA, we often act like we have to teach a standard from scratch, but our standards spiral. Look at the standards in the grade level before yours. See? You are not responsible for giving students the entire origin of the concept of theme. You probably only have one or two fresh items to introduce. Again, let go of perfection and trust the colleagues before and after you to opt your classes out of the time war.
Quote: I share responsibility for my students’ success with lots of people, including the students.
Use my literacy lesson plan.
This lesson plan is extremely process-based (not perfection or performance-based). Students are engaged the whole time in learning–not in performing. The lesson plan relies extensively on collective action of the classroom community–how we read, discuss, and write together matters. The teacher may design the lesson beforehand, but once class starts, the students become the primary agents (especially as they gain experience with the form). Finally, time is not the enemy of this simple lesson plan. Doing a few things well is the whole idea.
Image of someone completing the literacy lesson plan.
Trust a system.
Between an aligned curriculum and a daily literacy lesson plan, there is a system. I trust it and rely on it to buoy me against the waves of school. The system includes a cycle for teaching reading, writing, discussion, and language. Without these cycles, I would lose the clarity I need in order to see the impact of instruction on students. These system pieces are covered in-depth in my forthcoming course–something I’ve never shared to this extent before and is a particular zone of genius for me. This ability to create a stress-free yet stable commitment to our multi-faceted standards is what teachers ask me to share all the time. I’ll have more details announced soon!
Is teaching worth the stress?
How are you feeling about these simple solutions? You may be feeling like it’s not really the standards that are the issue because so many other things may be contributing to any overwhelm you may be experiencing. Certainly there are other issues that seem more pressing. My simple lesson plan used consistently is well within your locus of control, and can bring you some relief.
