An Alarming Reading Trend

I’m worried.

I don’t want to be, but I am. 

Partly, this is the fault of who I am. I tend more towards the cautious side. Partly, this is the fault of cold pitiless numbers. In this instance, there are specific numbers to which I refer.

 9,000
 11,000
 9,700
 8,000
 6,000

See what I mean? Ah no. Wait. It’s unlikely you do for I haven’t put them into any context. Here’s how I should have posted them.

Physical books checked out of our school library. (Numbers are rounded.)

4 years ago: 9,000
3 years ago: 11,000
2 years ago: 9,700
1 year ago: 8,000
Current year: 6,000

Have these numbers tickled your curious side? Or, like me, do they skip the curiosity phase and go straight to alarming you?

Not alarmed? Eh, interesting. 

Is it because you noticed the use of the words “physical books” to describe the circulation numbers and figure the picture isn’t complete because our school provides electronic versions of books to be checked out by students? Well, you get a gold star for noticing. We do indeed provide electronic copies to our students. 

Here is the rounded number for electronic copies checked out this school year: 1,800.

Using a high-powered calculator, we come to an adjusted number for this school year of 7,800. The revised list should look like this. [NOTE: I did not pull the number of electronic copies for any previous years as this is a relatively new offering for our students.]

4 years ago: 9,000
3 years ago: 11,000
2 years ago: 9,700
1 year ago: 8,000
Current year: 7,800

On the surface, 7,800 doesn’t appear all too bad. It reflects a small drop-off from the previous year, at the very least and maybe reflects the adjustment phase as we transfer over from physical to electronic reading. But that’s the problem with surfaces, they too often hide a reality beneath them; and, in this case, we’re talking about the difference between solid oak and oak veneer.

Students checked out 1,800 electronic books this year. It seems solid. Seems. 

Our electronic book library come with a nifty computer program that lets us see a whole swath of things: who checked out what, which books are most popular in a month, how many minutes a student spent with a book open, how many pages they viewed, and so on, and on, and on. 

The program allowed me to ballpark how many of those 1,800 checked out books were actual titles checked out versus those which were the same title checked out by the same students over several periods. The new number drops closer to 730. A big difference. 

Of those 730 or so actual checked out titles, it appears as if only 40-50 were read in full. That’s the data I care about; the data I worry about.

Of the 1,800 books checked out, only 40-50 of them show as having been read in full. And, this is with me being rather lenient and giving credit for books close to done because I don’t know how many blank, filler, author biography, first chapters of other books, etc. are along with a title. Another wrinkle is that swiping through pages and/or skipping to the end of a digital copy registers as completed in the computer program. We do have the ability to see minutes read and could try and match those to pages read, but that’s a task I’m unwilling to tackle this Saturday morning. Suffice it to write, 40-50 may not even be a true picture of what was read electronically. The same principal applies to the physical books too. Just because they were checked out doesn’t mean they were read in full. 

If that caveat isn’t enough to question the solidity of that number, then consider that a large number of these “read” books were checked out for books clubs or whole class activities and were what I think of as forced checkouts: they were for class, not for idle enjoyment. The same applies to the physical copies that left the library. Many were for book club or whole class assignments and not necessarily for enjoyment reading. This stipulation applies to any previous year too, of course, which does nothing to change the trend. It’s moving down, not up.

Because I can only conjecture on who actually read what was checked out, I won’t lower that 4-50 total. However, it is one to be taken very lightly at best. Here’s the revised total for the current school year.

Current year: 6,050

Not as hopeful. 

It did manage to get the physical circulation numbers for the grade above ours, grade 7, for the last two years. Here are those.

2015-2016 school year 5,500 books circulated.

2016-2017 school year 4,000 books circulated.

Another drop off. Yes, the middle school offers electronic books too, but I do not have those numbers. Again, I can only conjecture, but I’d go with the same scenario as our own building and assume it’s a much smaller number than the physical totals and one that can be taken with a grain of salt.

A-LAR-MING!

The big question is why is the trend going the wrong way?

It’s not at all as if we’ve suddenly changed our teaching style, goals, or enthusiasm for reading. Education rarely changes quickly and a love of reading would be the last thing to leave or bones. No, we remain a department of eight Language Arts teacher and one curmudgeonly skeptical reading teacher, employing a Reader’s and Writer’s workshop model, who love our books. Love them!

Maybe there’s been personnel change? Yes, there’s been some turnover in personnel but not much. Insignificant. The district, school, and individual goals all remain the same: we want to foster natural readers and writers.

Can’t lay blame on our administration or librarians because they’re the same people who were with us over the last five years. They’ve been as supportive emotionally, professionally, and financially as anyone can expect.

What’s changed?

Well, this is where it all gets messy. Messy as heck, because who knows exactly? 

Possibly, students are buying more books at home, using the town library more, or passing on books they’re not likely to read again. Not that’d I wager on any of those instances as being the primary issues. Home life continues to evolve. We know many of our students have robust after-school lives, but that’s been true for many, many years. Home electronics present another possibility to why reading seems to be eroding, despite our efforts. There too, I wonder. Game systems, iPads, laptops, and personal phones have been in our community’s hands for years now. 

Though I may well be pilloried for this, I can really only point to one big change in our classrooms; and that is the introduction of iPads. We have had one-to-one (one iPad for each student) access for several years now at various grade levels, working from our high school down. This year was only our first year with each student having his or her own iPad for use throughout the school day. We did have them in sets for teams to access, but they were shared and not carried around all day by the students. The HS, depending on the grade level, has had them for 4 years now and some elementary grade levels for a year or two. Middle school has had them for 2-3, I believe.  In other words, there is some verifiable overlap between these devices and the circulation timeline presented in this article.

I know, I know. They’re a tool and not going anywhere anytime soon. Got it. And yes, every teacher set the tone for these tools. You can ask every student who enters your room to put them away to work with physical paper if you like. This does happen. It just...feels like a harder stance to maintain.

I’m not looking to debate the good or bad of the device. It does have some amazing capabilities and has allowed our students to do some terrific things because of them. It’s just that the downside, in this reading teacher’s opinion, is concerning. There’s no longer a barrier or distinction between home behaviors with devices and school behaviors because they're now ever present. The phone or iPad at home is for games, texting, researching, and reacting to it every time it chimes. While we watch strictly how students use them in school, their belief is that what they do at home is how to use them in school, and how to react to them in school. The iPad is sometimes more authoritative and commanding of attention than the teacher in the room. Think about that. If you doubt this, then think about that the next time you’re speaking with someone, your phone chimes, and you reach for it without thinking. 

Anyone who’s used an iPad for his or her reading knows the pitfalls. It truly is a challenge to remain lost in a book. Notifications intrude often and if there’s a moment of weakness while reading it becomes all too easy to decide to just “check on something”: email, FB, some Amazon product, etc.

This is not to blame the students. I’m no better at home sometimes, which is why I’ve moved back to physical copies of books exclusively the last two years. I can’t trust myself on an iPad to remain focused, to read and think deeply. 

Our response to this next year, as a department, will be an increase in sustained reading within the school day. We’re also planning to offer book-swaps and increased time for students to spend time investigating new, physical, copies of books.

Who knows, we may even have to explore the mindfulness of reading, the mental value that comes from focused, meditative-like engagement with a text.

Oh and please, before anyone tells me how people and kids are reading more than ever because of how much time they spend on their devices visiting sites and working on things, let me chuckle right now. 

It’s not true in my eyes and that’s for two reasons. One, I’m a self-admitted curmudgeon and skeptic. I say nay to things first and wait for proof to be convinced otherwise. Two, there’s a vast difference between glazing over swaths of words and actual, deep, even meditative, reading of words. It’s like saying that because kids are texting thousands of words a day, they’re writing more than ever. Nope, not sold. Besides, the trend appears to be moving to emojis only. Though I won’t use them (still -proudly- don’t own a phone), if I had to this article would end with a thumbs down, worried face, and giant question mark set of signs.

Why Graphic Novels Belong in Classrooms

From Amelia Earhart: This Broad Ocean

     As is practically always my way, I'm going to start off somewhere close to my mark before -eventually- getting to my mark.If you want to skip the preamble, read the bolded font paragraphs.
     There are many reasons which help to explain why watching something on TV or YouTube is chosen over reading. Among the more salient, I feel, is that watching is far less taxing on our focus than gathering meaning from long strings of words. Why try to wrestle with an author's words and conjure up a shared image of a field of wheat or heated argument between two characters, when moving images on a screen can quickly and easily do this for us?
     I get that.
     We all get that.
     And this is precisely the reason why graphic novels have a place in classrooms.
    
     I take great care to explain to my students how I believe graphic novels differ from TV and comic books.Comics are generally serialized and have no expected end. Comic book themes  tend to travel in similar circles -good beats bad, crime doesn't pay, and so forth. I inform my students that a graphic novel for the classroom is different from this, with all due respect to the noble efforts of Superman and Spider-Man.(* See my comics note below.)

     In class, I begin by harping on the second word, novel. Time is spent discussing the word novel, a surprisingly slippery word to pin down.  The general understanding we end up with is that a novel is a complete story which aims to deliver a thoughtful message and/or theme. A graphic novel is essentially just that, a novel. I show them several books we've read and point out that both graphic novels and novels have words of narration and dialogue. The graphic novel just happens to have a lot of carefully created art to go with it.  On the subject of graphics, we don't work from a definition so much as from some central questions: How does the artwork support the events or text? Why have these color tones been selected? Why has the artist broken down this scene into so many (or so few) panels? These work-in-progress definitions, genre attributes if you will, for the graphic novel form are important to our studies and discussions. Students can then put aside any misgivings or preconceived notions they hold about graphic novels and focus on reading for meaning -as well as enjoying some great stories.
     So, where's the support for graphic novels belonging in a classroom? Why, the next paragraph of course.

Harry Houdini: The Handcuff King

   
     Reading is a complex activity at any age. For young adults it's less about decoding the words and far more about making deeper meaning and connections; still no less complicated. As teachers, we begin to assume that because our students can decode and give us the literal information they read, we can toss them into the deep end of the Reading-For-Meaning Pool, offering little assistance. That end of the reading pool is oftentimes difficult to tred in for long, as the young mind get bogged down with challenges like unfamiliar vocabulary, following a flashback scene, following multiple characters, or hearing a character's tone. Sarcasm is and example of something tough to grasp in writing.
     With graphic novels, so many of the aforementioned difficulties are tempered. Like a movie, graphic novels are less taxing to one's focus. A story setting can be taken in visually and doesn't need to be built within the mind, the way character expressions are drawn can make a muttering tone easily understood, and multiple characters are distinguishable and effortlessly categorized. The net result is that young readers and their (we hope) helpful teachers can push students into the deep end of the reading comprehension pool for longer periods of time. Students can focus more on themes and symbolism because the art has removed so many of the other potentially dangerous pitfalls to understanding.
     Most recently, I've worked with a few groups to examine the graphic novel genre. We read Ghostopolis, Amelia Earhart: This Broad Ocean, and Harry Houdini: The Handcuff King. In each case, we were able focus our time on higher level concepts that might have proven far more difficult without the graphic element. Ghostopolis became the focus of how we determine author theme. We studied what the character problems were and how they were resolved. Symbolism also rose to the forefront of our discussions. With Amelia Earhart, we discussed parallel story structure. How the situation of one of the novel's young characters mirrored Earhart's. And with Houdini, the group worked at understanding characterization, a slice of life in the early 1900's, and what remains the same in our culture even 100 years later.
     Of course, all of these things can be and are tackled in traditionally thought of word-only novels, but there's always the risk of young minds getting sidetracked or lost in what we experienced readers consider the basics. Graphic novels help reduce the choppy waters to building meaning at let young readers look engage higher level thinking more easily. They belong in classrooms.

* NOTE I am a comic book enthusiast. So any remarks you see about them are not meant to be disparaging. I am also well aware that many graphic novels begin as comic books and that comics have matured in many ways from its humbler beginnings.

  

A Call to Arms (full of books)

A Call to Arms
(full of books)

I worked for several years in granite fabrication -this when I was much younger and better suited to the cold and heavy work. I get shivers just thinking about the water jets in mid-winter now. My time as a fabricator was fairly typical: I gawked at the many large machines, endless rows of granite slabs and half-formed mantles or tables, and wondered. "How will I ever learn this stuff?" 

As noted, my developed was not particularly unique. I learned my way around the workshop through watching more experienced men at work, asking questions, and practicing. There was a great deal of on the job practice and on demand performance, and I quickly learned not only about the machines, templates, and time frames for projects, but about the many materials I was asked to use. 

Marbles are far softer to granite, for example; and some marbles are particularly difficult to handle in wide spans as they have soft, fault lines in them. I learned which granites needed a heavy hand to make shine and which to avoid any contact with oils. Eventually, I knew much about the pluses, minuses, and plain oddities to the many materials I was expected to work with; and, having shown some semblance of mastery with them, I was allowed to complete large projects independently as well as form works on my own that I thought might turn a profit for the company.

So, how does this possibly connect with school and Language Arts? 

Simple.

No reader's & writer's workshop can be said to be complete without having a healthy, ever changing, classroom library. Classroom books are the marbles and granites of a workshop model. Books are the necessary material  for students to study the Language Arts craft and complete their own projects. The young and developing minds that amble, hop, saunter, and race into a room dedicated to learning the crafts of reading and writing in a workshop setting must see, read, and practice with as many books as possible -books, which are in reach, and not down the hall in stacked rows awaiting discovery. (If you're so interested, you may want to read a piece I wrote about turning our school library inside-out. School Libraries: The Blockbuster of Today?)

We need books, armfuls of books, today! If you have any reading materials that you're confident will not feel the warm embrace of curious minds and eager fingers anytime soon, then please put them in a bag and drop them off in the school office. Don't think that any book is too damaged, or easy, or difficult, because in a workshop classroom the breadth of desires to explore and levels of reading abilities is vast. Books as low as third grade are as welcome as are those for early high school. I am more than happy to sift through stacks and stacks of your donated books to see they get into the right classrooms for students. If something is deemed too hard or too low, it will find a place in another school. I promise. (I'm clutching a nearby book to my heart as I type this, the universal oath of a Reader.)

This is my call to arms (full of books, please.).