Juli Kendall's Weekly
Reading Workshop Journal
A MiddleWeb Listserv Project
Self-selected members of the MiddleWeb Discussion List are joining
together to explore the Reading Workshop and other ideas about supporting
young adolescent readers. Juli Kendall, a reading teacher/coach in Long
Beach, California, is helping moderate the discussion. Juli is also keeping
a weekly journal of her own Reading Workshop initiative. Find out more about
our project at our Reading Workshop homepage.
You'll find Juli's background article here.
Links to many of the tools created by Juli and her colleagues are embedded
in these journals. Most often, when you click on them, a PDF file will begin
to download. You'll find a list of the downloads here.
Week #6
Current Events Influence
Our Read-Aloud Selections
Life doesn't frighten me at all, not at all
Life doesn't frighten me at all.
-- From "Life Doesn't Frighten Me," a poem by Maya Angelou
Not long ago, Vanessa asked me, "Does the war start today? That's what
they said on the news." And then she said, "They say that children
will have to go to fight. I heard that on the news, too."
When I asked Ramon what books he liked best, he said books about airports
and how to fly airplanes. Then he asked, "What does FBI mean? What's
the FAA?"
Choosing books for Interactive Read Alouds suddenly took on a whole new
meaning.
To give this a context, here's how Lively
Discussions, a 1997 book from the International
Reading Association, defines Interactive Read-Alouds:
Well planned and well thought-out interaction during read-aloud
time helps students make meaning of text. "Before and during reading,
the teacher elicits predictions, poses questions, and utilizes illustrations...
There is a sense of mutual discovery...." that helps students learn
to make such reading discoveries on their own. Interactive read-alouds seem
effortless, but to be successful they require careful story selection and
careful question planning.
-- From a review of Lively Discussions
Since the middle of September, one of our major considerations for selecting
Read Aloud texts is helping students deal with their anxiety about what's
going on in the world. For so many of us, whose students come from war torn
areas of the world, this becomes even more imperative.
Our particular school has many Cambodian students who attend and whose families
have endured great tragedy, unbelievable loss and relocation. We are extremely
fortunate to have experienced teachers from Cambodia to assist students,
parents and staff in processing current events.
One of our teachers, Mory Ouk, co-authored a book for the California Department
of Education, A Handbook for Teaching Khmer Students (1988). The
book is now published by the Southeast
Asian Culture and Education Foundation. It states that there are after-effects
of trauma for children and their families -- "symptoms intensified
whenever they saw events that reminded them of their trauma or when they
were under any kind of stress." Another teacher helped us understand
how important it is for students, especially at this time, to see the learning
they do at school as their job and responsibility. By staying in a routine
at school, they can continuing to focus on their education.
With our Reading Workshop students, we read Maya Angelou's poem, "Life
Doesn't Frighten Me," which has been made into a beautiful book
with illustrations by Jean Michel Basquiat. We used several books by Eve
Bunting, including A
Picnic in October and The
Wall, How
Many Days to America? Sadako
(Eleanor Coerr) and Baseball
Saved Us (Ken Mochizuki) also seemed to be accessible for them. Students
responded well to the honest emotion in these books. Since they are fascinated
by facts about New York City, we read several books about New York, the
Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island that were already in our book collection.
And so we go on, believing that good literature that is shared and discussed
will help us all learn more about ourselves, each other and the world we
live in together.
Up next p; The start of one student's journey through Reading Workshop
See Juli's October curriculum map.
Read Juli's next journal entry
Read Juli's previous journal entry
Read Juli's backgrounder about her work
Back to Juli's journal index
Back to the Reader Workshop Index Page