On Reading Logs and Other Experiments in Teaching

This year, my high school students are getting credit for reading. Wait, you ask, isn't that what an English class always does? Well, yes. And no.

See, high school students are always being assigned things to read, being assessed on their comprehension of what they read, being made to slog through a book they might not have read on their own, and all of these are good things. I do not believe it is wrong to train a student in how to persevere, in how to be disciplined, in how to tackle something outside of his/her comfort zone; however, I believe we have been teaching these skills in the absence of those other, readerly skills we all know and use:

How to choose a book. How to enjoy a book. How to stretch yourself from one type of reading to a new genre or style. How to have an opinion. How to reflect. How to abandon a book that is not serving you well.

These are the marks of a mature reader, and unfortunately, school doesn't often teach these, so if a student is not a reader already, he or she will never learn how to be one. And though it may be naive, I believe every student is already more of a reader than he/she may think and every student can be a mature reader. Even students who "hate" to read.

In an effort to encourage, develop, celebrate, and stretch these skills, I have reduced the number of complete works we will read together to make room for them to read things they choose themselves. I've had them create a Google Sheets Reading Log where they must record all titles (books, audiobooks, stories, poetry collections, articles, blogposts, etc...) they read this year. They will set goals for themselves at the beginning of each quarter, and they will be assessed on how satisfactorily they meet those goals and the ones I've established for every student. I've required them to read diversely (not just all white men) and to read something from at least two countries of origin. I've asked them to read at least one item from a list of genres I provided and to use their goal-setting as a way to stretch themselves each quarter.

They get to pick. They are asked to rate what they pick. They are given the chance to DNF something and mark it in their log as such. They are, in short, doing what you and I do everyday.

It is an experiment. What if students fake it? How would I know? (in part, their weekly journals will do this, but it is still possible to fool me). What if students just don't do it? What if they still hate reading at the end of the year? (this last one is, of course, not just possible but likely in some cases).

But if just a handful of kids move from hating reading to seeing themselves as actively engaged readers, I will consider it a success. After all, what's more important: that they read every word of The Odyssey or that they appreciate words and writing in new and exciting ways?

I'm putting my money (and my grades) on the last one.

Finding Poems

A few years ago, I had the pleasure and honor of observing Robert Pinsky as he conducted a small class at the University where I was working. He was warm and smart and - unlike some poets - clearly invested in teaching. He mentioned a project he assigned wherein his students were expected to read lots of poems with the aim of collecting their favorites in a notebook. Just a simple binder, probably, and maybe there was more to it than that, but the idea struck me, even in its simplicity, as important. I have always read and written poetry (see the Friday and Tuesday First Drafts effort for more), but I didn't know many poems deeply. I didn't have any memorized, I didn't gather them, I had never attempted to curate a collection.

A few days later, I started my own Poetry Notebook, and today, I assigned one to my students. I asked them why they didn't read much (or any) poetry, and they said things like, "it just takes so much effort; when I read, I want a story to take me somewhere. I don't want to have to work to figure out what it means; I just never know what it's supposed to be about; I prefer stories because I can relate to the characters." I understand their hesitations all while I lament their unnecessary resistance. They don't yet know that poetry can be funny as well as "deep," that there isn't just one right answer to "what a poem means," and that the things requiring the most effort are often the most worthwhile.

Today, I began by freeing them to see poetry in more ways than one: in spoken word or google poems; in haiku or sonnet; in found poetry or song lyrics. I showed them the spinning action in the Poetry Foundation app and watched as many of them pulled out their devices and immediately began playing with it. I invited them into the books on my shelves and shared with them my Poetry Notebook. And perhaps most importantly, I read to them. In one class, I read "Bread" by Richard Levine and maybe didn't do it justice because I don't know it well enough. In the other, I read E. E. Cummings' poem that begins

i thank you God for most this amazing day

and that one, I know. I know it intimately, musically. It makes a loop somewhere around my ribcage and thrums in my fingertips. And I think they heard it. I can't wait to see what they find.