Reading to Learn about the World

 

Imagine a world without writing or reading. Not just a world without Shakespeare and English essays, or even without Harry Potter and love notes—but a world without cumulative human knowledge or any written record of thoughts, discoveries, or events from the past. There would be a few trained bards who would have memorized for recitation genealogies and one history, but there would be no way to confirm, augment, or counter that one narrative. 

I can hear my students arguing that they would have photographs, audio recordings, and video to fill those functions. But I doubt those technologies would have been developed without the ability to hold a thought or discovery and communicate it to someone in a different place or later time to build on. 

Let’s take something simple, like the dinner I’m going to start fixing later on. Without writing and reading, I could only make the recipes I could remember. The food in my cupboards wouldn’t have any labels on it. Would there even be packaged food? Would the factories and machinery to mass produce it have been built? How about my refrigerator, gas stove, and hot and cold running water?

Aaaakkkk! Whew…extracted myself from that alternate universe. 

Because we have writing and reading, I can not only look up an old favorite recipe of my mom’s or find an exciting new one on the internet, I can learn just about anything I want to, from how to be a better teacher (currently reading The ELL Teacher’s Toolbox, Becoming a Globally Competent Teacher, The Art of Talking with Children, and Book Love) to what it’s like being a Japanese-American middle school girl living in Kansas (Dream, Annie, Dream) to Christian thoughts on end-of-life decisions (Departing in Peace).

Sometimes, I take a deep dive into an issue. When Russia invaded Ukraine two months ago, I found myself completely lacking background knowledge. In addition to the news, I turned to books. I read... 

• History (Ukraine: What Everyone Needs to Know by Serhy Yekelchyk and The Gates of Europe: A History of Ukraine by Serii Plokhy)
• Memoir (Lessons from the Edge by Marie Yovanovitch)
• Fiction, adult (I Will Die in a Foreign Land by Kalani Pickhart)
• Fiction, middle grades (The Open Steppe by Esther Hautzig and Letters from Rifka by Karen Hesse)
• Fiction, YA (I Must Betray You by Ruta Sepetys)
• A children’s picture book (Rechenka’s Eggs by Patricia Polacco). 
• Nonfiction (Putin’s People: How the KGB Took Back Russia and Then Took on the West by Catherine Belton). 

I know a lot more about Ukraine, Russia, and surrounding countries now than I did two months ago. 

I noticed some things about my reading. At first, I was lost in the history—so many places, people, and events I’d never heard of before. But I was getting a general outline—lots of cultures, lots of conflict, lots of empires. Eventually, I began recognizing some names. When I read I Will Die in a Foreign Land, set during the Maidan uprising of 2013-2014, I gained empathy for the human experience of that event in that place I’d read about. 

The empathy transferred. I ached for the narrator in I Must Betray You when he wondered whether the world had forgotten about Romanians still behind the Iron Curtain. Then I read a news report about the continuing civil war in Myanmar, and I wondered if the defecting soldier in the story felt the same. 

However, all the violence and despair needed a counterpoint. It just so happened that at the same time, I was reading Prayer in the Night: For Those Who Work or Watch or Weep by Tish Harrison Warren. It was comfort in the strongest sense of the word to be reminded of how Christians ancient and modern have held onto God in prayer.

Now I’m back to nonfiction, struggling through Putin's People (so much economics!). But I'm willing to struggle, letting the economics go and reading for the politics. I understand so much more about Russian politics that I did at the beginning of the invasion when I was flabbergasted that a leader’s promise not to invade could be so flagrantly violated. 

What if students did this? What if students got curious, and had the skills to go find out? This is the course goal at the top of my 6th and 7th grade ELA syllabus: Students will grow in their confidence, competence, and joy in using the English skills of reading, writing, thinking, speaking, and listening in order to learn, communicate, collaborate, love their neighbors, and impact the world.

One way I’m working on that is creating a homepage displays for our online library that focus on nonfiction and ask students what they want to learn about the world. (See photos above and below.)

Another way is by curating books that will connect students at all levels with things that are going on in the world. In my original list, the YA and middle grades aren't explicitly Ukrainian--but they are as close as I could find. However, just this week I discovered a new book middle grades book that fills the bill: The Blackbird Girls by Anne Blankman. I’ll have to order it and read it. I’ll let you know if it’s good.

What does it look like when students discover the power of reading to learn about the world? One student who last year in 5th grade was most excited about reading Dogman is now devouring Alan Gratz’s historical fiction (he’d finished Grenade and started Samurai Shortstop in the first 2 weeks of 6th grade). 

What are you reading to learn about the world? What do you do to connect kids with the learning power of reading?