Content Reading...There I was the other day, strolling through the courtyard outside the science wing at my high school. I was on my way to the portables to visit some classrooms. The school was quiet, the sun was bright and the skies were clear. That’s when a group of kids exited the building with novels in their hands. They were on their way to the courtyard to read for a bit outside, enjoying the sun and their books. It was the perfect setting for a literacy lesson. As they passed me, I said: “You guys heading out to read?” “Yes,” they told me. Then I said: “English class?” “No,” several muttered. “Biology.”
Biology? A novel in biology class? I reflected for a few moments about how far we had come as a school. I ask you to stop for a moment and reflect with me. How many times have you seen a group of high school kids reading a novel in science? Now, how many times have you seen them outside, under the sun – as if the novel was the lesson? I mean, even if a content teacher dares to tackle a novel, he or she typically does so during “free reading” time or as part of some school-prescribed DROP (drop everything and read) program. In fact, I have probably never seen a teacher of any subject (other than English and reading) actually use a novel as the key ingredient to a lesson. I’m not saying that they don’t exist; I’m just saying that I’ve never seen one.
Despite our best attempts at content literacy during the past 30 years, we have seen only the occasional “read aloud” from a novel or newspaper or maybe, maybe the use a novel as an enrichment activity that is adjunct to the true lesson (which in science is typically a lab or in social studies is some sort of project or video around government or history). By the way, when I say novel, I would also include any type of creative non-fiction texts (which have excellent ties to content classrooms).
At the moment that I saw those students there, reading along with their biology teacher, I harkened back to my first days as an assistant principal. It was three years ago when I first arrived on campus and found that our school’s reading scores were so bad that we were in real danger of receiving an “F” on the state’s accountability rubric. At the time, we had received three “D” grades in a row – based largely on our poor reading scores. When I first met with our principal to discuss our steps for improvement, she talked about a school-wide reading strategy or program that could excite the staff and engage the students. To her credit, she was (and still is) a mover-and-shaker principal who is willing to try new things.
Still, I knew what she meant as we tossed around “school-wide reading” initiatives. I knew that she meant well. She mentioned the read-aloud program that had begun the year before (which I really liked), a “word of the day” sort of event on the morning announcements, or maybe a common novel that everyone in the school read. Though all of these ideas were great and certainly would help, they simply would not go far enough (or deep enough) to impact struggling readers. And the ideas that we kicked around that day were not what I call “real literacy.” They are close-to, but not quite “immersion literacy.” Why? Because none of the ideas above places literacy in the “middle” of the lesson. Again, they are examples of the “fringe literacy” that I do not support.
Let me put it this way: If there were a way to judge the amount of literacy gained – a literacy scale of some sort – as the result of any lesson, how much reading improvement would come from a 3-minute read aloud at the beginning of a class? Of course, the answer is some. By the way, I think reading aloud is an excellent way to build good reading habits, fluency, even vocabulary (especially in the earlier grades). But…what if the rest of that day’s lesson is unrelated to true literacy (such as a lab or video or poster project), then literacy ends after the opening three minutes. Of course, I understand that learning content is key to building background knowledge and that (in turn) supports literacy growth, but the primary reason we are in this mess is that kids are not reading and writing enough.
Now take the lesson that I observed in the courtyard. The teacher and students were not just “doing literacy” as part of some artificial, school-wide initiative. It was no gimmick. They were not just reading in fear that the principal might walk in. What I saw that day was the integration of reading and writing as the primary part to the lesson itself. The students, by the way, were reading Code Orange, a book about a boy who is doing a research paper on infectious diseases and then is kidnapped by bioterrorists. It’s a fun read and the teacher was connecting it to a lesson on viruses. Of course, there are lots of ways to study viruses, many of which involve literacy and many which do not. I’m simply applauding this teacher (and the kids) for finding ways to teach and learn science and improve their reading and writing habits.
I’m not sure how long they read that day, but it was much longer than three minutes. On the literacy scale that I talked about, this novel activity would be off the charts in its ability to help kids become more literate. Of course, I called the principal to the courtyard and asked her to witness what I had just seen. As we walked away, I whispered to her: “Now that’s what I mean when I say: ‘Real literacy.’”
I can’t help but think of Roland Barth’s most excellent book Learning By Heart and his call for educators to think out of the box about the problems that we face. He quotes an old definition of educators as those who “think otherwise.” What he means is that we have to dramatically shift our paradigms if we are to dramatically change our kids. Our literacy struggles in America will not be solved by school-wide reading initiatives that are more gimmicks than they are solutions. The problems we share run much deeper than that and the solutions we seek will require all of us to think otherwise.
