I say this because reading is changing. Some are familiar with BookTok (ahem), and others only read if it is on a video game. I have no problem with video game reading because it was the incentive I used for my boys to read because I grew tired of constantly reading the instructions for them, but at the same time, we need to encourage them to read more.

An article at Psychology Today reiterates the benefits that we get from reading. The increase in empathy, improvement of mental health, and an improvement in social cognition are all benefits to reading. With mental health being at the forefront of concern for middle and high school students, the push to encourage reading in this age group is founded.

When I was struggling with my own mental health and anxiety issues, reading was one of the suggestions give to me as a part of my health plan. Turning off my phone and TV to focus on reading at least a chapter before bed was a great way to destress and unwind. My bad habit was overstimulation from electronic devices (TV included) and the inability to sleep due to focus on external stimuli I had no control over. Reading provided me a way to calm my anxiety and focus on something other than those things I had no control over.

At one time, my biggest argument for reading was telling my students how little they would earn than those classmates who read, but all it took was one student to rally against that and state they didn’t care. They’d rather live in poverty and on welfare than pick up a book. That was their exact words. It didn’t matter. But this was the same student who later came to me to share a book that changed their life. Most don’t realize that they need the messages in books. Not the messages that parents feel are indoctrinating their children. No. Instead they need the messages of hope, love, and the ability to overcome.

In college, my professor had me keep a reading journal. In this journal, I listed those books read and made a note as to what students would benefit from reading that particular book. There were books that I wouldn’t suggest due to the material and the fact that as a mother, I don’t think so, but I did find books that I felt my students who were struggling with identity or loss of a parent might find helpful. These are books that the students found helpful because of the improvement in their mental health that they didn’t know they received.

Connections are everything…

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What happened during that time period?

During the time of Covid, we saw a huge jump in virtual education, but we also saw a huge influx of students who became as addicted to social media, such as TikTok. I remember having students in my class while I was trying to teach who were going through the motions of a TikTok dances. Guess what? TikTok is still popular amongst middle school students.

This influx of social media with its instant satisfaction (think of the constant scrolling and the fact that videos were extremely short) created students who were conditioned to expect that stimuli be short, quick, and satisfactory.

How do we compete with that in the classroom?

In our school district, we began to utilize this in our classroom. Mini lessons became the name of the game, and we could easily fit 2 or 3 in a 60 minute class. This meant jumping and transitioning from one to the other. Allowing students shortened writing and processing times. How did this help with reading? You were basically teaching comprehension in short 5 to 15 minute bursts. But building up stamina for reading? Not really.

We are going to have to move past just competing with social media. We are going to have to retrain students in building up reading stamina if we are going to have any success in the classroom. Among my students who tested well this year, it was learning to skim read that helped them with their tests. But here in South Carolina, we have new standards and new tests in ELA. Skim reading may not help, but teaching students how to read a question and then find answers could benefit them. Over all, finding a way to engage students into reading and incorporating the shortened lessons to activate their need for constant changing stimuli could benefit post-Covid students.

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Then, this year happened.

This year, things changed in my thinking process because we switched over to another data system that revealed to us some cold hard truths about our students: Many were far behind. We had 7th graders whose reading skills were between Kindergarten and 3rd grade level. How could I possibly expect everyone to understand the theme of Poe’s poem, “A Dream Within a Dream,” when they couldn’t grasp the meaning of words in context or sound out words they didn’t know or identify the speaker? We’re talking about a lack of vocabulary and phonics skills. We’re talking about reading something and not remembering what they read.

The problem became clear when we first started reading a text. I asked a question about a character and the students were clueless. They couldn’t identify which details were about the character. They couldn’t identify which details were about the setting.

Example: “A man was traveling at dusk…” “The primrose were just beginning to blossom…”

Question: When did the story take place? Answer should be in the evening and the time of year is beginning of spring. Answers I received: Morning. Fall. Early in the morning. Summer.

The sad part is that we talked about what dusk meant. We talked about primrose, and prime meaning first, etc.

So I went back and retaught using colored highlighters. One color for character. One color for setting. Still there were struggles.

I’m back to the drawing board and we are in October. I realize that I have to abandon my ideals of teaching texts for teaching reading skills. Using those graphic organizers to keep track of identification. Teaching how to use the organizers. Teaching how to find the information when it is not right in your face. How to connect the dots in the middle when all you have is the beginning and the end.

When I was in college, I didn’t think about teaching students how to read. I thought about teaching those classic stories that I loved so much. Teaching reading was for elementary, right? Wrong! As teachers, we are having to go back and teach students how to read. Teach them how to find information in a text. Teach them to skim. Teach them what it means to find the information in the “context” of the paragraph. To read before and after. To re-read something multiple times to pull out all of the information and not just what they think it might say.

Some of this I feel came from that Covid bubble, but much of it can be traced back to how we once taught reading. It’s the same as when we moved away from teaching writing. We decided to do it prescriptively and only teach what was needed. Now we have students who lack writing skills. No punctuation. No paragraphs. Just words on a paper. No capitalization even. And then these students enter middle school and we have to teach them all over how to write. I told a student that a paragraph should be about the same thought. They didn’t know how to read their own writing and distinguish what information talked about a similar thought. It’s their writing. You would think that they would know what they wrote. Alas, no they can’t.

What about you? What instructional strategies are you discontinuing, and why?

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As I stood at the front of the classroom with my copy of the article in my hand and the one projected on the board, I looked out at all of the confused faces. Even the journal prompt had stumped them when I asked them to “define” bullying and what is “unintentional” bullying? The words “define” and “unintentional” were lost on them. If these words confused them, how could I manage to get them to understand what it was that they were reading? Even my honors students struggled with some of the vocabulary.

In the long run, it set me back in my plans. I needed to find a way to unlock the skills needed so that they could understand. I needed them to know that reading word-for-word wasn’t always necessary if you knew what the questions were or you were given a set task. In this instance, I asked them to find some facts in an article. We even made a list of what facts would look like. Skimming through to find those facts should have been easy, but they gave up quickly.

Is this the trend? If it seems too hard, you just quit. We will be reading a novel soon, and I need to know that they can push through. Their stamina is at an all time low when it comes to reading. Their motivation is non-existent. It’s time to teach some new skills that will help keep them motivated in the long run.

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I think I have tried everything possible with these students, and it had become clear that what had worked in the past would not work with these students. This is a different generation of student. One that has come through Covid. One that no longer has the intrinsic motivation necessary to become successful students, and extrinsic rewards do not appeal to them. Plus, behavior is horrible.

Now, not all teachers have the issues with the students that I have. Those teachers have either another teacher in the room with them, or they have taken on the role of a stern teacher from the beginning. My mistake is that my reputation precedes me. I have tried to be the one who seeks out the problem and take a kind approach, but what I’ve learned is that my reputation is one of a “pushover,” and you can do what you want in her class.

There was a change this week. My newly medicated self (thank you, ADHD meds that make me feel like I’m on top of my game) has taken a complete 180. I’m fully aware. I have my stuff together and organized. I am more than capable of pulling myself together rather than feeling like a tightly wound ball of anxiety.

I started on Tuesday reading and discussing Cisneros’s “Eleven.” It’s short enough to keep their attention. They can easily identify the fact that the teacher shouldn’t have pushed the sweater onto Rachel. They can also empathize with Rachel’s feelings about Sylvia who states the sweater belongs to Rachel. Plus, they can think about why Rachel states the fact that the teacher is right because she’s older. Later we will read an article on intentional and unintentional bullying by teachers and discuss that in reflection of this story. My biggest purpose is to make them think outside of the stereotypical bully by hinting at a teacher could bully or someone you don’t expect could bully.

Wednesday we talked about the problems around laws that address bullying. We also started a first glimpse at South Carolina’s Safe School Climate Act. They started talking about some of the forms of bullying, and I had them look into some vocabulary that they may not know. Friday we will completely unpack the law that addresses what schools need. From here on out, the SC law will be a frequent piece in the classroom as we read and discuss several text pieces. We have a Fall break coming up starting next week, and when we return from break, I am planning to start our novel study.

Today they started building a case for how they feel about the punishment for bullying and whether that should be more strict. I pointed out on Wednesday that an author who was interviewed on NPR stated that labeling a bully could be a stigma that they couldn’t get rid of. My hope is to help them understand that all of us tend to bully, and we don’t want to be labeled as a bully. We want prevention. We want conflict resolution. We want to change the climate within the classroom and school. Not just “Here’s a law and if you don’t abide by it you will be punished.” The Safe School Climate Act specifies that schools have a set of rules in place, but how do you teach them? Just saying don’t do it isn’t the clear answer. Because of this, I love to teach this unit. It makes them think. It makes them take ownership in what we are doing and why we are doing it.

With that said, I can’t do it if they are not willing to listen. I had to put students out of my class this week because they were disrespectful. Not just to me, but to each other, as well. And some had to learn that what they asked for is a two way street. You can’t say to me, “You never stop so-and-so when they say stuff to me,” and then when I deal with it, you say something rude to them. It doesn’t work that way. Me handing out a consequence to them doesn’t give you a free pass to do it back thinking you won’t have a consequence.

I just hope that this new backbone holds strong. They’ve pushed me into a corner, and I don’t do corners.

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I began teaching in 2012, and I was shocked to realize that I had 8th grade honors students who did not know how to sound out words in which they were unfamiliar. I’m certain that if that student had been able to sound out a word, they would have been able to answer the question correctly on a test. It was not a new word. It was a word that I’m certain they had heard in everyday conversations, if not, on television or movies.

Somewhere along the line we stopped teaching phonics. We reverted to a new method of teaching reading titled, Balanced Literacy. This approach to reading involved teaching students to look for cues to unknown words and to build a love for reading. The problem with this is that students who struggle to read do not enjoy reading. It’s like trying to decode an unfamiliar language.

An article in The New York Times by Sarah Mervosh titled, “‘Kids Can’t Read’: The Revolt That Is Taking On the Education Establishment,” brings to light the reform that is taking place in certain states and is being fought for by parents in many other states. Mervosh states that the Covid-19 pandemic made many parents aware of the reading problems of students. With parents in charge of their child’s education, they realized that there was a problem.

Across the nation many states are starting to see that the reading curriculum is falling short with many students. There is no one-size-fits-all when it comes to reading instruction. Our school district implemented a more science based reading approach, but they also use the READ180 and System44 programs for our low readers who have IEPs (individualized education plans). The program is great with our older readers, and I’ve seen students make great gains while in the program. The downside? It is not a great fit for those students who have dyslexia. The only program that supports dyslexic readers the way that they need reading support is Gillingham-Norton.

As for me, I’m a huge supporter of phonic instruction and the science of reading approach. Phonics instruction supports reading and writing. Students who have phonemic awareness can decipher text and write unfamiliar words that can at least be understood.

Despite all of this, it is clear that reform needs to happen. Illiterate students are a growing concern because these students are fast becoming illiterate adults faster than alliterate adults. While trying to inspire a love of reading is important, having students who know how to read and can decipher unfamiliar words to comprehend written texts is even more important.

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One of my most favorite activities to do with my students is to create book trailers. It allows them to give a summary of a book in a visual format that also gives them the opportunity to utilize their creativity.

There are several ways that students can create their book trailers. One is to use iMovie on an iPad to create their movie trailer. iMovie actually comes with several templates where students only need to create their text and snap in pictures to create a powerful movie/book trailer that will even include mood enhancing music. It is simple and easy to use. I even used the same thing to create a book trailer for a book that I wrote. You can see that below:

If you do not have access to iPads, and students are handy with the movie maker on Windows, they can use that to create their book trailer; however, that may require a more advanced skill set. I know that they do sometimes still have templates, just not those like iMovie.

The one that we use most often in the classroom is PowerPoint. PowerPoint, in case you did not know, has the capability to be saved as an mp4 which is a movie format. The only thing that students need to make sure of is that they use transitions, and not “on click” to go from slide to slide. In other words, they need to create the PowerPoint to basically play itself in Presentation mode. Please note that the online version in Office will not have the ability to create these types of PowerPoints. You have to use the desktop version. I’m not sure why they are not the same, but they are not created equal when it comes to creating these mp4 movies. I think that they do not add all of the bells and whistles to the online version. It’s the same with Word documents, as well. They just are not the same.

Once students have everything in their PowerPoint the way that they want it, play it through and make sure that the transitions are long enough, and once they are happy with it, they can use the File->Save As to save it as a mp4. Just change the PowerPoint to mp4. When I did this with my students, I always showed one or two students how to do it (make sure it is your tech savvy students) and then they always helped their classmates. This was a life saver, because it never failed how many times you had instructions on the board, gave them a print out of “How To”, and even included a step-by-step video, they still asked, “I don’t know how to do this.”

Once you’ve used this in the classroom, you’ll find multiple ways to use it yourself. I have created one with my students, even, before having them create one of their own, using one of their Short Stories we read during the school year (if at the end of the year). This was always a huge hit with my students. One year, we did this instead of a book report, and we even had an awards show like the Oscars, where we handed out trophies (purchased from Amazon) and did a viewing of all of the book trailers. It was a huge hit. The teachers on our hall selected the winners for each category and we opened envelopes just like the real awards ceremony. It was a lot of fun. You can be as creative as you want to be with these.

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We started our poetry unit this past week, and by Thursday I was feeling about as “Blah” about poetry as my students. I hadn’t yet broached my favorite poems as I was using one larger poem in each of my grade levels to teach some of the basic poetry terms, so my enthusiasm was really starting to wane.

I looked around my classroom for some inspiration and discovered a lot of old Close Reading books that needed to be tossed out. Then a brilliant idea struck: Why not rip out some pages and let them create poems?

Blackout poems are poems that students create by selecting certain words or phrases on a page and blacking out all of the rest. I pulled up some examples, selected my own page (part of “The Tell-Tale Heart”), and hoped for the best.

When I announced the assignment to my 1st period class, it was met with uncertainty, but my 6th grade honors managed to pull it off. 2nd period? Some jumped at the assignment with enthusiasm, and others struggled. 3rd period? Questioned everything. 5th period? A single student shouted, “Oh my god, Yes!” She was excited and asked to do more than one. I have to agree. I enjoyed creating mine as well.

The results of this assignment was fabulous. One student asked to re-do her poem because she felt she did it wrong. She didn’t understand that what she pulled out spoke volumes. Isn’t that what writing is all about. Allowing one to make mistakes that fall into place? Creative writing should be a safe space. It’s a teaching moment that allows you to try different ideas until something fits. She was given an opportunity to recreate a poem, but I informed her that I liked the original.

I’m going to share some of my favorites below.

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As soon as I heard Amanda Gorman’s poem, “The Hill We Climb,” I knew right away that I wanted to purchase a copy of her book. I pre-ordered the book in January 2021, and I have been waiting a long time for it to arrive. I was pleasantly surprised when her book, Call Us What We Carry, arrived today.

I think that as an ELA teacher, we need to introduce our students to more than just the poetry that they will find in their textbooks. Gorman has poems that are relevant to right now. I’m sure that not all will be a fit for my 6th and 7th graders, but those about COVID are relevant to them at this moment. The poem from the Inauguration is a relevant right now poem.

It’s difficult to try and explain poems that were written in a time period in which the students were not born. They know what they study in history class, but usually students don’t “study” to retain. They “study” to pass their test and then forget. Analysis of literature is lost to many of them because of this fact. It’s why I collect literary texts to use.

We need to expose our students to different writers and poets. We need to show them that there is an expanse to the written language that even they have the ability to master. They won’t learn that by studying old, dead, white men. They need the Maya Angelous, the Anna Quindlens, the Pablo Nerudas, the Nikki Giovannis, and the Amanda Gormans to expand their thinking. To introduce them to a different point of view.

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