My Reading in 2022

See the rest of My Year in Books at https://www.goodreads.com/user/year_in_books/2022/5706089

Reading in 2022 connected me with my grandchildren, deepened my faith, refined my teaching, educated me about the world, strengthened my empathy, introduced me to new viewpoints, helped me think about complex issues, and gave me hours of enjoyment. Tracking my reading on Goodreads provides me the opportunity to reflect back over the year of reading: 50,416 pages in 196 books including nearly every genre, format, and age level.  

Here’s a sampling:

• Get Real: Sharing Your Everyday Faith Every Day by John Leonard is an old favorite I return to every several years for encouragement, practical advice, and a lot of inspiring stories from the author’s life about how to live grace, love people, and naturally connect the two.
• Notice and Note: Strategies for Close Reading by Kylene Beers and Robert Probst is the book from my summer professional reading that has most impacted my teaching this year.
• The Art of Talking with Children: The Simple Keys to Nurturing Kindness, Creativity, and Confidence in Kids by Rebecca Rolland I discovered as part of an audiobook offer free to educators from Libro.fm. Its principles are illustrated with many examples from the author’s experience as a school psychologist and as a parent.
• Victory. Stand!: Raising My Fist for Justice by Tommie Smith, Dawud Anyabwile, and Derrick Barnes is a graphic novel where Tommie Smith recounts his life story within the frame of his 1968 Olympic race and the historic protest against racism of all 3 medalists at the award ceremony. It has been popular and eye-opening in my 6th and 7th grade classroom.    
• All Thirteen: The Incredible Cave Rescue of the Thai Boys’ Soccer Team by Christina Soontornvat is full of beautiful glossy pictures and graphics, explanatory insets about everything from hypothermia to Thai culture, and, of course, the story of the impossible rescue of the 13 boys trapped in the Tham Luang cave system by floodwater in 2018. I really enjoyed reading about the intense collaboration by many different people with different knowledge and skills from many different countries. It just arrived during the vacation, so it hasn’t been road tested with my students yet, but I have a couple who have lived in Thailand and a couple who are soccer players, so I think it will raise some interest.   
• A World of Curiosities by Louise Penny was pure recreation for me: #18 in the Inspector Gamache mystery series which is full of literary allusions, wisdom, and characters that actually grow over time. Also, the Quebec setting provides cross-culture interest as French and English speakers interact. 
• The Lost Ryu by Emi Watanabe Cohen is one of the most unique and insightful middle grades books I’ve read—with the added plus of being set in Japan, like my school. It’s 20 years after Japan’s defeat in World War 2, but it's a world where small, shoulder-sitting dragons are ubiquitous pets. Kohei, an English-speaking Japanese boy, is supposed to help Isolde, the Japanese/Jewish American girl who has just moved into the downstairs apartment, adjust to life in Japan. Actually, Isolde helps him uncover his family's stories and heal a little of the hurt in the world. As a 30-year resident of Japan, I can say the culture and language works. This was another libro.fm audiobook, and it was really delightful to hear the Japanese that sprinkles the text. 
• The Blackbird Girls by Anne Blankman was one I found when searching for books to allow my students to access stories of their Ukrainian neighbors. It alternates between the story of 2 girls whose fathers work at the Chernobyl power plant as they flee the nuclear disaster and the story of a girl fleeing the Nazi advance 2 generations earlier. It touches on bullying, antisemitism, domestic abuse, and is a beautiful tale of how love risks all to assert and protect the value and dignity of God’s image bearers.   

 
How do I find all these books? Here are 3 resources that I’ve been delighted to discover this year, plus one extra: 

1. The Redeemed Reader. This is a Christian organization with the tag line “We read ahead for you.” I love their philosophy, and their book lists are so helpful.
2. The Brainstorm Plus. This is the blog of the librarian at a Christian international school in Thailand. It is amazing—not only does she have lists and lists of books (here's part 4 for her "Top 10's of 2022"), but also every book is linked to her Goodreads review, which is quite thorough.
3. Libro.fm. This is an audiobook site that supports local bookstores and also offers a selection of 6-8 free new releases to educators every month. If you are an educator, don’t miss this great offer! I’ve enjoyed new releases by favorite authors (I Must Betray You by Ruta Sepetys) as well as discovering new gems (see above: The Art of Talking with Children and The Lost Ryu). 
4. Readeo.com. This is an online platform that has provided us hours of reading and chatting with our grandchildren even when separated by the Pacific Ocean while a global pandemic shut all travel down. For a modest annual fee, you get 5 accounts to share with all the children you want to read with. 

How about you? How has reading benefitted you this year? What are some books you’ve enjoyed? How do you find them? 

Why and What I Blog...Even in an AI World

 

Merry Christmas from my writing happy place to yours!

If I had not written the 490 posts on this blog in the last 10 years, what difference would it make? In the final weeks of December, I make it a habit to reflect on my blogging for the year—to review my purpose and the year’s most popular posts. The release last month of ChatGPT (see last week’s post) adds a new dimension to this reflection: What does writing DO in my experience? Should I just quit and send ChatGPT my queries? Let my readers do the same?

Put like that, the question becomes nonsensical. If the primary purpose of my writing were providing others with information, it’s possible. However, my primary purpose in writing this blog has always been to consolidate, elaborate, and apply my own learning. 

If I had not gone through nearly every week of the last 10 years thinking, “What am I learning about learning and about life that I can reflect on in writing?” I would be a different person. Writing has made me a person who learns, reflects, grows, and shares that learning. I would be different teacher. Writing has made me a teacher of writing who is a writer, and who is continuously experimenting with best practice of both teaching and writing. 

The biggest difference writing this blog has made is in me. I wonder how I can help students in an AI world experience and value writing for the difference it makes in them.

After I’ve wrestled my own learning into words, sentences, and paragraphs, then I find the possibility of sending it out into the world to see if there is a community of like-minded learners out there. Is there someone who will be encouraged by a reflection I offer as a reminder of joy, or a catalyst to action, or a personal example illuminating theory, or just an invitation to learn, unlearn, and relearn in company? 

AI can’t offer that, either—the personal connection between author and audience. Whether it is me, the writer, offering specific examples of what a problem or an experiment or an epiphany looks like in my life, in my classroom. Or whether it is me, the writer, discerning and responding to the felt needs the audience has—the questions and circumstances they are facing. I wonder how I can help students in an AI world experience and value writing for the personal connection between reader and writer. 

As I reflected on the 5 blog posts that garnered the most reads in 2022, I those were the two thoughts that came to mind as significant reasons for me to write: How writing these posts changed me, and how the personal reader-writer connection showed up. Here they are, starting with the #5 and building up to #1. See what you think:       

• What Type of Relationship with Staff Helps Students Flourish (23 Sep 2022): Students’ relationships with their teachers have a significant effect on their learning. As I desired my grandchildren to be welcomed into learning communities where they would flourish, I thought about what I could do to extend a welcome to every student who walks into my room. My deep hope is that students in my classroom and at my international Christian school are experiencing caring, collaborative, respectful Christ-centered staff. What might that look like for me? See the blog post for a list of specific examples. 
• Looking for Books to Love My Ukrainian Neighbors (26 Feb 2022) When Russia invaded Ukraine, I realized my deplorable lack of knowledge about Ukraine’s history. I tackled that problem in the way I usually do: hunting for books. I searched for both fiction and nonfiction, both for myself and for my middle school students. Since then I discovered a wonderful middle grades jewel set in Ukraine and Russia, alternating between the time of the Chernobyl disaster and World War 2: The Blackbird Girls by Anne Blankman.   
• What Do I Do with a Classroom Full of Immortals? (2 Sep 2022) What do I get when I combine a CS Lewis quote, a family photo, and the concept of people being made in the image of God? A memorable object lesson that I love to use at some point every year in every class. 
• Sharing Joy, Sharing Life, Sharing Faith (30 Sep 2022) We added a grandchild this year as a daughter and her husband adopted a child they’d been fostering. Sharing this significant family event with my class was part of building relationships and providing real stories of the difference knowing Jesus and sharing his love makes in real people’s lives. The added delight: That using my blog post to reflect on sharing this with my class amplified the joy by sharing our news with many others! (I have learned that reflecting on big family events generates a large readership—reflections on my mother’s death and a daughter’s wedding are in my top 10 most read posts.)
• Independent Choice Reading Builds a Culture of Reading (1 Jan 2022) One year ago, my regular reflection on how independent choice reading for the trimester has gone turned into the year’s top post. It’s all about audience: I was involved in an online ed camp about independent choice reading, and I wrote the post with the questions in mind that were being asked by participants, with the purpose in mind of sharing the post in the group. 

Writing those 5 posts—as well as the 485 other posts I’ve written since July 2012—has changed me. Given the number of readers, they’ve also found some personal connection with an audience, which absolutely delights me—that the thoughts I labor over putting together find an echo and leave a blessing in another human. And those are two things writing does that AI-generated responses don’t: change the writer and create human connection. That is the question I will be carrying into my 2023 writing lessons—How can I help students experience and value the personal change and connection that writing creates?

What about you? Do you write? What difference does your writing make in an AI world? What about writing do you experience and value that you hope students continue to experience and value in an AI world? How will you help students do that?

9 Questions for English Teachers in a World with AI

Photo by Alex Knight

The death of high school English was declared by The Atlantic last week. Cause of death: Open AI’s new ChatGPT. Enter any prompt from “Compare the themes of The Great Gatsby and Death of a Salesman” to “Make a 10-item to-do list for a supervillain” to “Write a mission statement for a Christian school.” In seconds (or less) an answer is composed—currently for free.

A frenzy of discussion erupted across online English teacher land, ranging from panic (How do we prevent cheating NOW?) to new motivation to highlight process, creativity, and project-based learning. It’s a fascinating discussion to follow (including one that incorporates AI’s answer to how English teachers should respond to AI!). Here’s some of it:

• Human Skills in a World of Artificial Intelligence (John Spencer 9 Dec 2022)
• No, ChatGPT Is Not the End of High School English. But Here’s the Useful Tool It Offers Teachers (Peter Greene, Forbes, 11 Dec 2022)
• No, Artificial Intelligence Won’t Destroy High School English (or Any Other Subject) (John Spencer 12 Dec 2022)
• Will AI Make Writing Teachers Obsolete? A Conversation with ChatGPT (Tamara Tate, et al, Write Center, 13 Dec 2022)
• Why I’m Not Worried about the New AI Tools (Betsy Potash, Spark Creativity, 14 Dec 2022)

One thing that is clear to me: we need to respond somehow. If not proactively now, then it will be reactively later. And it’s not the English class apocalypse: math and foreign language classes have continued even with the advent of the calculator and translation software. A place to start is with questions. 

Here are some questions that I'm considering: 

1. What is English class for?
2. What kind of a world is AI creating?
3. How can we prepare students to flourish in that world?
4. What can people do that AI can’t do?
5. What must people be able to do even IF AI can do it?
6. What brings people joy to do even IF AI can do it?
7. How do we help students value and master those skills (see #4-#6)?
8. How can AI be a tool to help people do more of what they can do (#4), should do (#5), and love to do (#6)?
9. How might AI hinder human flourishing? How can we be aware of and guard against that?

As I begin to ruminate on these questions, I start by reaffirming what English class is for. It's not for producing novel summaries and essays (something AI can do), but for nurturing thinking that is curious, clear, nuanced, compassionate, creative, just, humble, and well-supported, and for effectively communicating that thinking to audiences in ways that build shalom, reimagining God's intention for creation. I will remind my students of this: The goal of this class is not your essay; it is your growth as a thinker and communicator. (For more background, see my blog post Naming the “Arts” in “English Language Arts”). Such thinkers will be needed more than ever.

I’m intrigued by the ways AI can be a tool. For example, models are important for writing. I can get a model essay from ChatGPT in seconds rather than kicking myself for not remembering to keep past samples and then laboring over creating one myself. I can tell the kids what I did, what the AI provided, and together we can explore where it is weak. I can use it for revising exercises. (I loved John Spencer’s idea of taking the AI-generated 10-item to-do list for a supervillain and revising with voice, specificity, and humor.) An ESL teacher I follow on Twitter used ChatGPT to generate conversations (specifying topic, English level, and line length). My husband muses about how small international Christian schools could generate initial policy drafts. 

I’ll continue to teach reading strategies, discussion skills, and writing process. I’ll continue to use creative thinking tools, like reading journals, hexagonal thinking activities, and one-pagers. And I’ll continue to pay attention to the discussion of thoughtful, creative English teachers and how they are helping their students flourish in a world with AI.

How about you? What have you heard about ChatGPT? What questions interest or concern you? How will you respond?

Putting My Time Where My Mouth Is: Independent Reading

 

Reading is awesome because you can have fun while getting smart! —6th grader

I remember the days when I used to require outside reading but give no class time for it. After all, independent reading is just that—it can be done independently. And we had so many demands on our class time.

With a lot of cajoling, reminders, and scary mom stares, most of the students would finish their required book or two. At least, they posted a book review or scheduled an interview with me. But I’m pretty sure none of my students ever said, like one did this week, “Reading is awesome because you can have fun while getting smart!”

Time is one of our most precious commodities. Students understand this at a gut level. It’s not that students can’t read at home. It’s that in the past my actions out-shouted my words as I demonstrated to them that what we did in class was more important than developing a lifelong habit of reading. That knowing the symbols in this particular play or learning that particular vocabulary list was more important than sinking into the state of flow with a good book, and all the other benefits that come from that.

This is my third year of reserving the first 10 minutes of every 45-minute class period for independent reading, and it has revolutionized my students’ attitudes toward reading. I end every trimester with an opportunity for students to reflect on their independent reading. Today, I’ve been reviewing this term’s data. My 6th and 7th graders read an average of 7 books since the beginning of September. The range was 3 - 15, with a mode of 5 and a median of 7. Here are some of their responses to prompts on the reflection:   

How do you feel about your progress in reading? 

• Compared to the start of the term, I think I have expanded my range of vocabulary.
• I can understand everything in the books while reading at a faster pace.
• I like reading historical fiction and don’t really read fantasy, so I will try to read those.
• I sometimes use the vocabulary from the book I read. 

What benefits have you experienced from independent reading this term?

• I have learned about different cultures around the world, or just had a relaxing time reading.
• I learned how successful people are not successful just because of their skill.
• I have improved my vocabulary and expression which I have applied to my essay.
• I am enjoying reading now even though I hated reading before.

What was a satisfying book you read this term?

• The Book Thief: (1) There isn’t as much “plot armor” (people not dying because they are the main character) as some novels have. (2) It’s from a unique point of view (the grim reaper). (3) It’s long but doesn’t get boring.
• Quiet because it took long, it is long, and because it had a lot of information in it.
• Trevor Noah: Born a Crime [young readers version] was the most satisfying because (1) Trevor Noah himself wrote the book so it was funny. (2) I started reading more after this book. (3) It was not too easy or too hard.
• Victory. Stand! It was about running track. It was nonfiction. It was about challenges with racism.
• Prisoner B-3087: I liked Alan Gratz so I was happy that I could read his new book. 

What strategies are you using to help you understand your book?

• If I find a word I don’t understand, I either look it up immediately or note the word and page somewhere.
• Read everything on the cover. [This students was referring to Challenger Deep--a book with an unreliable narrator. I'd told him to start it since he'd picked it, and I'd check with him the next day to see if he needed any help. He took it as a challenge and discovered this helpful strategy.]
• I summarized my book by telling people about the content.
• Read. Then read it one more time to see if I have mistaked thing. [Reading this comment reassured me that this student who I'd noticed returning to books wasn't just avoiding picking a new one.]
• Imagine what’s happening in the book. 

Complete the following statement: Reading is…because…

• Reading is important because you can learn new things, and is also a great way to relax.
• Reading is beneficial to our future because having good understanding and good vocabulary will open up chances for jobs that need bilingual employees.
• Reading is important because it can improve your writing skills, and you can learn more words.
• Reading is helpful for you because it improves your focus, memory, and communication skills.

It’s been a delight not only to spend the first 10 minutes of every class period in a room full of focused readers, but also to see them grow. The student for whom English is a 3rd language who has gone from reading only fantasy a year ago, to historical fiction in the spring, to non fiction (Quiet by Susan Cain and Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell!) this fall. The student who shared with her peers in her book talk on Kelly Yang’s Room to Dream, “I have had the same problem as Mia: how to follow my dream and still keep my friends. This book showed me it is possible.”

How about you? How important do you think it is for your students to develop a life-long reading habit? How do you help them do it? 

Give Yourself an Early Christmas Present: Silent Discussion

Give yourself an early Christmas present! Ask your students what they’re learning about the big ideas in your unit or course. Even better, use an interactive protocol where they can see each other’s learning and build on it. Best of all: do it in writing, so you can capture it to reflect on when you need encouragement, to know that you are making a difference in young people’s lives. Previously I’ve used online discussion boards, hexagonal thinking, and one-pagers. This week I used a silent discussion protocol. 

In 6th and 7th grade ELA, we’d just finished our final literary analysis essay on A Long Walk to Water by Linda Sue Park, and I wanted to wrap up with some reflection on our big learnings. The novel alternates between the true story Salva, who became one of the Lost Boys of Sudan, and the story of Nya, a composite portrait of the life of a girl in South Sudan. I gave each student 3 post-it notes, and I made 3 posters, each with a prompt in the center that they were to address on one of the post-it notes:

1. What did you learn about the world: What’s amazing? What’s awful?
2. What did you learn about your neighbors: How people are like/unlike you? How knowing that helps you love them?
3. What did you learn about yourself: Who you are? Who you want to be?

Here are some of the things students wrote on the notes that they stuck on each of the 3 posters:

(1) What did you learn about the world: What’s amazing? What’s awful?

1. I learned that my “normal life” might be somebody else’s dream. Being able to go to school every day, have a house, and eat.
2. The world is not a perfect place and never will be, but we can try to make it bearable and prosperous for everybody.
3. In the story, even though Salva’s uncle was killed by some people in the Nuer tribe, he didn’t become prejudiced against everyone in the rival Nuer tribe because he gave water to them, too. Even if you have a bad experience with someone from a certain community, tribe, etc., that doesn’t make everyone from that place bad.

(2) What did you learn about your neighbors: How people are like/unlike you? How knowing that helps you love them?

1. I learned other people’s struggles could be way worse than mine, and I felt encouraged by other people’s stories and how they overcame their struggles.
2. I learned that I shouldn’t just look away from people that are in the middle of a problem even if I don’t know that person that much. 
3. Neighbors are sometimes all the way in other countries, like when the workers at the camps helped Salva to live a better life.

(3) What did you learn about yourself: Who you are? Who you want to be?

1. I would like to be like Salva who has the power to take action for other people.
2. I learned that I am very fortunate and should appreciate the family and people around me.
3. I learned that I should be more grateful for my surroundings, and be thankful for my opportunities.

Students then divided themselves into groups. Each group got 4 minutes at each poster. Students were eager to read their classmates thoughts and write their own responses on the poster around the post-its.

And I’m still smiling, reading over what they learned. 

How about you? Does knowing that students are learning important things in your class energize you? If so, how do you find out what important things they’re learning? How do you ask students to reflect on, interact with classmates over, and record their their big learnings from a unit?

What Is the Most Significant Resource for Helping a Teacher Flourish?

Photo by aldi sigun on Unsplash

As a kid, I imagined the principal as an ogre who sat in a dark cave in the inner recesses of the school, waiting for disobedient children. I got sent there once in first grade: I was terrified. Looking back, it was probably just a protocol—late students were to report in at the office before going to class. But 6-year-old me didn’t know that, and when I showed up at my classroom, I was sent to the office, and by the time I was standing in front of a big desk, I could hardly choke out between sobs my confession of a failed alarm clock and my promise never to do it again. 

As an adult, I’ve sensed that some people think of school administration as the dull but necessary bits of, yes, discipline, as well policies, schedules, and budgets that somebody has to do so the teachers can get on with the real business of educating students. That is, of course, a bare minimum and essential for a school to function. However, in my 35 years of experience in international Christian education, I’ve been blessed to experience leaders who have not only seen how the discipline, policies, schedules, and budgets are a vital part of the larger school vision, but also taught staff by word and example the dispositions, knowledge, and skills that create a culture of purpose, belonging, and learning where staff flourish in Jesus.

So if you ask me what is the single most significant resource for helping me and my colleagues flourish, I'd say it's leaders, more specifically, skillful, encouraging, Christ-centered leaders with a trust-and-inspire mindset. Let me explain:

(1) Skillful leaders are ones who are knowledgeable about education, people, and leadership; they know there is always more to learn, and they delight in mastering, practicing, and sharing that learning. For example, I’ve grown from working with leaders who hosted breakfast discussions of teaching from a Biblical perspective or participated in after school book discussions. 

According to a 2021 ASCD article, what effective principals do, besides manage strategically, is interact with teachers around instruction, build a productive school climate, and facilitate collaboration (“What Great Principals Really Do”, see graphic below). Jal Mehta and Sarah Fine in their book In Search of Deeper Learning confirm that in all their observations “the most skilled school leaders used professional learning time to give teachers the kinds of learning experiences that they hoped teachers would recreate in their classrooms” (location 7545). Skillful school leaders are the chief learners and collaborators of their organizations, showing the way for their teachers. 

(2) Encouraging leaders are ones who provide an environment where teachers know they matter. For example, I’ve worked with leaders who schedule frequent, brief classroom walkthroughs, and follow up with short, specific appreciative comments. This encouraged me. 

I’ve also worked with leaders who start meetings with 5-minute check-ins. This could involve sharing with a partner, small group, or whole group. The question could be as simple as "What is something that made you smile today?" or as focused as "What is an example of student learning you saw in your class this week?" or as broad as "What was a high and a low from this week?" (See this link for a list of 30 reflection prompts for teacher well-being.) 

When teachers are pouring into students’ lives, who is pouring into teachers’ lives? For a deeper dive into helping teachers know they matter, check out the 2021 ASCD article "How Mattering Matters for Educators." 

(3) Christ-centered leaders are ones who can say to teachers, “Follow my example, as I follow the example of Christ” (NIV I Cor. 11:1). As they do so, they model for teachers what teachers should be doing with their students.

I have been blessed to work with...

• Leaders who have regularly joined morning prayer meetings, praying with and for staff. 
• Leaders who have started meetings with short devotions, focusing on how their faith informs, motivates, and empowers the way we’re going to deal with the topic at hand. 
• Leaders who, as they’ve encountered personal and professional successes and setbacks, articulate and embody what it means to be part of a fallen, redeemed, Spirit-empowered community of grace. 

These leaders weren’t perfect, but they were models of vulnerability and of what it means to be a vital, growing disciple of Jesus in the world of education. 

(4) Leaders who have a trust-and-inspire mindset are neither micromanagers nor absentee landlords. I recently saw a post on social media in a teacher group, asking whether people preferred leadership that micromanaged teachers or that did not really know or care what teachers were doing. Teachers who were limited to a scripted curriculum or required to submit detailed daily lesson plans longed for freedom, and teachers who were languishing from lack of leadership longed for some attention and connection. 

A few voices said, “Wait, it doesn’t have to be an either-or choice!” Stephen M. R. Covey calls the third option trust-and-inspire (instead of command-and-control). It involves leadership modeling (who you are), inspiring (connect to why), and trusting (how you lead). These leaders unleash the best in the people who work for them. And when they are leaders in international Christian schools, they have the opportunity to unleash the best in God’s people, helping these school staff to flourish and to help students flourish. 

Think of it this way: just as a skillful teacher can help more students to learn more effectively more of the time, so a skillful leader can help more staff to flourish even more, even more of the time. I want staff at international Christian schools to flourish in terms of helpful resources, and my deep hope is that staff are experiencing the most significant resource—skillful, encouraging, Christ-centered leaders who have a trust-and-inspire mindset.

How about you? What is your experience with school administration? What are the characteristics of leaders that have helped you flourish? What are the characteristics of leaders you hope the staff at your international Christian school are experiencing?

Experimenting with Using a Novel to Teach EFL

Student: What is a dozen?

Me: Twelve.

Student: So a dozen means 12—not 11 and 13?

I answered affirmatively. However, curious as to where the question was coming from, I then looked at the sentence in When My Name Was Keoko by Linda Sue Park that had prompted the student’s question: “I can’t keep still. I stand up a dozen times, go to the door, look toward the gate” (82). 

I backpedaled: “Actually, it depends on the context. A dozen can mean exactly 12, or it can mean sort of more than 5, but not 20.” I’m constantly amazed at the nuances of English I had never considered in 3 decades of English teaching, even when teaching AP English Comp, before expanding into teaching English as a foreign language (EFL). This is my 3rd year in that role, and my big experiment this term is teaching using an English novel in its original form (not abridged or leveled) to teach an advanced middle school class. It’s been fascinating and fun both for me and for the students. 

I’m energized by it because teaching literature is my jam—it’s what I’m knowledgeable about and experienced in. And even at that (and having taught the novel last year to the combined 6th and 7th grade ELA class) I’m learning things about language, about style, and about this story reading it slowly (5 pages per day—fewer at the outset), out loud, with inquisitive companions.

For instance, I’d never realized that as the point of view alternates between two narrators, the sister (Sun-hee) tells the story in past tense, and the brother (Tae-yul) tells the story in present tense. We’ve had interesting discussions about why the author might have done that (my theory is that it communicates the methodical or impulsive nature of the characters) as well as when we use present tense in English, and the importance of being consistent with verb tense.  

The students are learning vocabulary, pronunciation, grammar, reading strategies, and they are having meaningful discussions. Here's how we tie each of those in. 

(1) Vocabulary: As we read, we stop frequently for students to ask questions and clarify confusion. When the question is about the meaning of a word, I explain it. If it seems like a pretty significant word, or if this is the third time the same word has been asked about, I’ll write it on the board for a possible vocabulary word. Every Wednesday we finalize a list of 10, Thursday we play a review game, and Friday there’s a quiz.

(2) Pronunciation: Because we’re taking turns reading aloud, it’s great pronunciation practice. It’s a small class with a high level of trust, so no one is feeling embarrassed. The other day one student was determined to master deliberately (l, b, and r all being difficult English sounds for a Japanese speaker). I'm able to reinforce things like the significance of doubled consonants (staring/starring) and whether the context of the word read puts it in present or past tense. 

(3) Grammar: I've cross-checking the standards I’m supposed to teach, areas for growth I’ve noticed,  and questions students ask as we read to choose a list: adverbs of frequency, gerunds/infinitives, count/non-count nouns, passive verbs. We spend 10-15 minutes per day on worksheets from Teach-This.com or a chapter from a textbook resource. We notice when the pattern comes up in the novel. The novel has also offered great opportunities to review perfect tenses from last term (especially past perfect!). And cloze exercises from yesterday’s reading are a quick opportunity for review. (I copy a paragraph or two from the novel and whiteout articles, or prepositions, or verbs.) 

(4) Reading strategies: We reviewed these last term (the students remembered learning them the previous year), and now we are becoming quite proficient in using them. 

• Asking questions: These can range from clarifying vocabulary to uncovering motivation to probing plot holes. What does recite mean? How old is Sun-hee now? Why didn’t Tae-yup tell Abuji? And the one that stumped me (spoiler alert!): How did the Japanese soldiers not find the rose of Sharon tree hidden in the shed when they searched for Uncle while the rest of the family stood in the street for 2 hours? (See this blog post for a list of questions asked one class last month.) 
• Making predictions: What will happen next? I love hearing the rapid intake of breath or the giggle that means someone has already made a guess.
• Making inferences: (Spoiler alert!) Friday we just read the chapter where Sun-hee decipher's the true meanings in Tae-yul's first letter past the military censors. Talk about a master class in making inferences!  
• Summarizing: At the end of a day’s reading or the next day before picking up the reading again: What happened today? What happened yesterday? 
• Making connections: Many of these are to the historical background they already know about the war, or noting similarities and differences in Japanese and Korean culture. But there’s also just the way families and friends interact. 
• Envisioning images: Sometimes students ask, “What just happened?” and I end up acting it out, like “Abuji was pacing back and forth in great agitation” (113). Sometimes Google images works better, like for World War 2 army kit bag or the “topknot” describing the grandfather’s traditional hair style.

(5) Meaningful Discussions: Reading a significant work together gives rise to discussions on meaningful topics. Gratitude—What do you have in your daily life that these characters would be grateful for? Difficult choices—What would you risk your life for? Empathy—How does reading this help you understand your neighbors who you are to love? Character—Which characters do you admire? Why? Individuality—How do different characters show the same characteristic in different ways? Identity—What makes each character unique? What makes you unique?

My students and I may both be enjoying the novel study, but is it effective for their English learning? Great question. A week ago they took the TOEFL Jr. Test. My school administers it about a month before the end of each trimester. My students came to class afterward grinning. When I asked them how it had gone, they said, "Perfect!" When I asked for specifics, they said the reading comprehension part was so much easier than last term. So, I'm encouraged. And I'm really interested in seeing the actual scores when they come in. But if they think they're learning, that's pretty good in my book. My experiment is paying off!

How about you? What experiment are you trying to lean into your strengths to help your students grow?