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 #27
Favorite Authors Can
"Light a Fire" Under Students
A few weeks ago, I was asked a question: "What good non-education books
have you read?" Recent conversations on the Middleweb listserv revolved
around this "Question of the week."
What I'd been thinking about was: "What's an author study, and
why would you want to do one?" I decided to reflect on my own
reading first. Just what do I read? Do I read a range of books by the same
writer -- a necessary beginning for an author study?
Right here, right now, I read lots and lots. Currently, my nightstand is
covered with the Willow books - Shadow Moon, Shadow Dawn and
Shadow Star. They were prompted by the release of the "Willow"
DVD that I love. The new Elizabeth George mystery is there, as well as Barbara
Hambly's Graveyard Dust and Fever Season -- part of a series
of 3 -- and Tough Cookie by Diane Mott Davidson (a new author for
me), and an anthology I reread constantly titled The Norton Book of Nature.
The Art of Fiction by John Gardner and Anna Quindlen's book of essays
from her newspaper column, Thinking Out Loud, get me through my "writer's
block" moments. It's an eclectic collection.
I am one of those people who keeps treasured copies of two books which were
given to me by a friend: Marian Wright Edelman's book, Lanterns,
and Encouraging the Heart: A Leader's Guide to Rewarding and Recognizing
Others by Kouzes and Posner. Barbara Kingsolver is perhaps my favorite
author, partly because she writes about Tucson where I grew up, High
Tide in Tucson, and partly because I like her style, The Poisonwood
Bible. So her books are piled up on the cobbler's bench we use as a
coffee table.
I also keep books at school. My copies of The God of Small Things
by Arundhati Roy and Woman Hollering Creek by Sandra Cisneros are
for when I am modeling what lifelong readers do. And of course, the shelves
are filled with great juvenile titles like Love That Dog, Because
of Winn Dixie and all the Jon Scieszka books.
The answer might not have been "Yes" when I started, but as I
finished my list of books, I realized that my reading life is full of author
studies. Now all I had to do was translate my experience with reading into
my practice in our Reading Workshop.
I found kids in the class who were already reading several books by the
same author. In some ways, as I surveyed them, I was relieved. I found Judy
Blume, Dave Pilkey, Patricia Polacco, Louis Sachar and Jonathan London among
their favorites. What they like about books and look for in the authors
they read varies. Johnny loves nonfiction. Esmeralda likes series and family
stuff. Many of them like Patricia Polacco because, as Melissa said, she
includes things from her life in what she writes, so "I feel like I
get to know her when I read her books."
Funny thing, they're just like me when it comes to the "why" of
reading.
Using author studies with the reading strategies
We haven't ventured far from the tried and true in this area. Currently
we're immersed in a study of Jonathan London's nonfiction writing focusing
on the reading strategy of Visualizing. He's got some great books:
At the Edge of the Forest
Baby Whale's Journey
Dream Weaver
Hurricane
Panther, Shadow of the Swamp
There are many reasons to read books by the same author, but the fact that
we've discovered that it's all about connecting with authors is not inconsequential.
On p. 73 in Strategies That Work, there's a list of "Text to
text connections in order of increasing sophistication":
* Comparing characters, their personalities, and actions
* Comparing story events and plot lines
* Comparing lessons, themes, or messages in stories
* Finding common themes, writing style, or perspectives in the work of an
author
* Comparing the treatment of common themes by different authors
* Comparing different versions of familiar stories
I tried following this sequential order, but found myself mostly working
with "finding common themes, writing style, or perspectives in the
work of a single author." We just cannot seem to fit it all into our
Reading Workshop. So many connections, so little time...
Esmeralda discovered www.JudyBlume.com
after school on a Friday. She loved it! "It's the bomb," she said.
Not surprising since Judy Blume is her favorite author. This new way of
learning about authors and their books (author studies) lit a "fire
to connect" under our readers. Now everyone seems to want to find an
author they can call his or her own.
Our next author study will be with Jon Scieszka. His books (The Time
Warp Trio series; The True Story of the 3 Little Pigs; The
Stinky Cheeseman and Other Fairly Stupid Tales; Squids Will Be Squids:
Fresh Morals, Beastly Fables; The Frog Prince Continued; Math
Curse, etc.) are uniquely suited to boys. He even has a website, www.guysread.com,
that's all about boys and reading. Like Dave Pilkey and his Captain Underpants
series, boys are magnetically attracted to these stories. And that's what
we want- -- kids connecting to text.
At some point, the kids got it: they realized that this is exactly why we
do author studies -- because it helps us build our understandings about
what we read. And that is the difference, in their reading as well as in
my own, between just reading and reading with understanding.
P.S. Here's another good site for authors: Educational
Paperback Association
See Juli's April curriculum map
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