Why Are Students Compliant Rather Than Inspired? Re-examining Traditional Practices and Empowering Teachers to Empower Students

[Notes from a session with Kathy Collins, Angela Bae, Michelle Baldonado, and Cathy Skubik]

Readers’ Notebook vs. Reader’s Notebook according to Dr. Gravity Goldberg:

• If the notebook belongs to the reader, then it’s singular possessive.
• If it’s a notebook that the teacher is having the students keep, then it’s plural possessive.

If we all go on a trip, and then make a scrapbook, we’d collect different things.

What if reading notebooks were more like scrapbooks of our reading lives? Each individual might look for and collect different things.

Observed: KIds were being compliant, but not necessarily engaged. Why?

Goldberg’s Mindsets and Moves Lens: Admiring Lens (Taking an appreciative stance)

What are the kids showing us they can do?

• Traditional practices:
  Reading logs
• Partnerships/talking about reading
• Writing about reading

Reading Logs

Gut check: Routine is established, but something feels like it’s off. Is something we are doing causing compliance vs. engagement.

• Reading logs: Reading levels, parent signature.
• Is it an essential tool, or a love of reading killer?
• Podcast at Teacher Learning Sessions with Jen Serravallo
• Mindsets and Moves: Students regard volume and recording data as the goal of reading.
• Time adding up minutes was taking time away from reading.

They tried having the kids design the reading log.

Partnerships

Observed what is happening

New idea: Rather than talk about book, talk about your thinking.

“I think… I noticed…” (About the book)

Coaching into partnerships to lift the quality of discussion and shift the focus from just retelling to discussing thinking.

Writing About Reading

She sees a lot of approximating, but is it compliance? Are they doing it because they are being asked to do it by their teacher? Are we getting bright ideas, or are we checking boxes off?

What Readers Really Do: Teaching the Process of Meaning Making 
by Dorothy Barnhouse et al. 
Link: http://a.co/dhiqlnI

Dynamic Teaching for Deeper Reading: Shifting to a Problem-Based Approach 
by Vicki Vinton 
Link: http://a.co/gg0jXr1

Reading Projects Reimagined: Student-Driven Conferences to Deepen Critical Thinking 
by Dan Feigelson 
Link: http://a.co/aagrrNr

If you feel like you have more compliance than engagement, give yourself time, and listen to kids. It takes time to change, but it's worth the effort.

We need to pay attention to our gut check rather than focus on maintaining control and following curriculum. According to Gravity Goldberg, we ARE the manual.