Graphic Novel Reporter Interview

In August, I had the great fortune of being interviewed by John Hogan from the website Graphic Novel Reporter. He was interested to know how I use graphic novels in my classroom. 

The article, "Ghost of a Chance: How One Teacher Explores Comics in the Classroom", has been out for several months, and I am only now getting around to posting links to it. 

The interview is located on two sites -each of which are listed below. Select either image to read the article.

Common Core Strategies

I'm going to do something I struggle to do all the time. I'm going to try, try, try to be brief with this post.

The skinny: Attached is a PowerPoint presentation I've shared with colleagues at the school where I work. I expect it will make the most sense to those who are in the profession of teaching, but anyone who is interested in learning what one reading teacher's take is on the Common Core standards and what kinds of activities would do well to support it, are more than welcome to view it too.

Goal: My aim in putting this together was to use the ideas within the presentation to begin a short series of round table discussions with colleagues as what we can do cross-discipline to begin meeting the Common Core standards coming our way very soon.

Several notes to know:

• There is no narration. I've been using the slides as the backdrop to my talks with colleagues. So, I expect some of the threads in the video may be confusing.
• There are numerous links and attachments that come with the PowerPoint which won't be available in this video. If you want a copy of the PP, email me or post here and I will figure out how to get it to you. 
• I do not profess to be the guy when it comes to, well... anything. I think I have a decent handle on the Common Core standards and approaches (mainly from a Language Arts angle, of course) and I do know something about reading and writing strategies. Still, there are far smarter people at work on these things than I. So take what I've slapped together with that in mind. 
• Finally, like anything in teaching, there's really nothing new here. I borrowed from many sources to put this together and it's far from all inclusive either. Again, the aim was to put something together quickly for my colleagues and I to begin the process of discovering what we want to do collectively to meet those Common Core standards. I'm sure this video will go through several alterations before I finally put it to bed.

OK, I'm running off at the keyboard again. Enjoy.

Common Core State Standards -Reading & Writing from RLagana

The Rule of 10,000 Hours Meets 40 minutes

Malcolm Gladwell, author of several books, referred often to the 10,000-Hour-Rule in his 2008 book Outliers: The Story of Success. The general principal, which caused some stirring debate, was that a significant part of what makes one an expert at practically anything is devoting a lot of time to it -i.e. 10,000 hours. I'm not going to join the debate. What I am going to do is share my initial thought on this concept.

Here is comes...........

Well duuuuuhhhh!

This is one of those claims that drives me bonkers when I see it splashed throughout the news. It's the same as when medical associations come together to share their year-long studies studies on how people who exercise tend to be healthier, or how eating too much sugar is bad for you. I repeat. Well duuuuuhhhh! Sorry, no studies needed to prove these things.

It only makes sense -preposterous sense- that spending hours and hours of your time doing or learning something will make you rather adept at it. No, shooting hoops for 10,000 hours isn't going to guarantee you an NBA spot. But... it certainly can make you better than most.

Where does this fit into reading? I'm kinda hoping you're about to have a well duuuuuhhhh! episode of your own here. 

Imagine logging 10,000 hours of your time reading. I'd bet big money that 10,000 hours of reading would make you very much an expert reader. Now, for the sake of perspective, that's a lot of time. According my crazy computations it would take a person over 40 years, reading 40 minutes a night, to hit 10,000 hours. (See my math below. And please, email me if I'm way off with my numbers.)

OK. So. You're maybe still not convinced (really?) so I'll drop this into place. Here's a breakdown from the National Assessment of Educational Progress on the relationship between minutes of daily reading and words acquired by a student. This comes from a from a 2005 report.

Achievement Percentile                       Amount of Outside                      Word Gain/Year                                                                                               Reading by Minutes/Day
__________________________________________________________________________________

90th percentile                                                 40+ minutes/day                        2.3 million

50th percentile                                                 < 13 minutes/day                       600,000

10th percentile                                                 < 2 minutes/day                         51,000

Those are EYE-POPPING numbers. Reading only 38 minutes more a night will result in a word gain 45 times greater than a mere two minutes. If that's not registering for you, then think of it as money. Imagine earning 2.3 million dollars during the course of your schools years for working at something 40 minutes a night versus earning 51,000 dollars for putting in only 2 minutes a night. 

 

I'd say those extra 38 minutes are well worth the investment.

Now, git reading, please.

* My math: 10,000 hours equals 600,000 minutes. 600,000 minutes divided by 40 minutes equals 15,000 units of 40 minutes. Take those 15,000 40-minute units and divide them by 365 and you get 41 years, roughly.

Touching a Touchy Subject: Banned Books

Remember when you were a kid and your mom would yell, "Don't touch!" Well, like any kid warned not touch something, I'm going to go right ahead and do it anyway -one of the better ways to learn, I guess.

I have a strong disposition against the banning of books.

That's my personal opinion; one which I very much live up to in my house with my children. I have never forbidden them from reading a particular book. Read that sentence well, now. This doesn't mean I trot all kinds of age-inappropriate materials out for them to read, because I do not. I merely respect their curiosities when it comes to books -books which might be too mature for them- and try not to play mom, yelling, "Don't touch!" I stick to providing a father's opinion. "I'd probably be interested in this too when I was your age, but you should know that it has some rough words and scenes to it. Are you sure you don't want to wait until you're a little older?" Again, this is my opinion as a father of three and lover of the printed word.

 

As a teacher, of course, my stance on books and their availability to students differs. And, if one wants to stretch the imagination a bit, one could say I nearly participate in the banning of books all the time, because as a teacher of reading, I make decisions everyday on which books are best suited for a particular level and type of reader; thus removing certain titles from my student's hands because I have to consider their content and  age-appropriateness. I am very much okay and respectful of this as a professional. I'll wager that not a week goes by when I don't say, "You know, you may not be ready for this book just yet. Let's search some more." Or, "Hmm... I'm glad you're interested in reading this book, but this is one you need to have your mom or dad approve of first." Such is the job of any educator. We put aside our opinions to serve the whole, seeking to respect everyone in the process. And, it generally works.

                 

Generally.

Enfield schools recently made waves when banning a book from its summer reading list because one parent objected to it.

One.

               
Enfield High School removed Matthew Loux's graphic novel SideScrollers because one parent found the language too profane. This despite the fact that the book, which has anti-drinking and anti-bullying themes, received the honor of being rated a Top Ten Graphic Novel for Teens by the American Library Association.

Personally, I have difficulty understanding Enfield School's choice. One parent should not be able to overturn a reading list vetted by professional teachers. I write this because it goes against the entire idea of serving the whole and -most importantly- respecting everyone in the process. The decision to pull the book from the list because of one voice ignored the collective voices of teachers, as well as, the larger community that tacitly accepted the title in not speaking against it.

Thankfully, there are others -many others- willing to come to the table to fairly and thoughtfully try to ascertain how the greater community feels about having this particular title on its high school reading list. The Comic Book Legal Defense Fund has joined together with the Kids Right to Read Project to see that Enfield schools at least reconsiders its initial decision. 

I applaud this. Me, personally. Maybe you feel differently? 

Either way you can and should read the details of this book banning decision as it is presented on the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund website. Mr. Charles Brownstein, Executive Director of the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund, has posted an excellent account of the matter, including a superbly crafted letter which was sent to the Enfield School District this month.

Additional note: I do make chartable donations each year to the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund. I am incredibly fond of graphic novels (as evidenced by some of my posts) and I believe the work they carry out benefits everyone who likes to read.

A Solid Case AGAINST the Old Ways

     I speak with many colleagues and parents during the course of a school year and it's not atypical to hear many of them lament about how "the olds ways were better". PowerPoint works well as an example. PowerPoint is fine and well in the right hands, but students, especially younger students, typically spend more time making their slides look cool than making them instructional.
     Citation is another area I sometimes hear the refrain "the old ways were better". You'll pardon me if I try to hold my gag reflex in check. What!?! It's like they've completely forgotten what it was like to assemble those 3x5 note cards listing author (last name first, first name last), title, date of publication, publisher, origin of publication, etc. only to learn that they missed a comma along the way and most likely a point off their final score. Citing research as a youth was the PowerPoint of my day, without all the fun because I spent as much time looking up MLA, APA, and Chicago styles of citation than I did writing my reports.
     Today, there are a bevy of ways to cite your work with next to no fuss or muss. One of my favorites is Son of Citation Machine, which uses all of the standards listed above plus Turabin style. (I'm not sure what that is either. Don't sweat it.)
     So, say you recently read and researched Seasbiscuit by Laura Hillenbrand. (She's also the author of Unbroken, an amazing story of survival.) Using the "old ways were better" approach, you need to pull and properly put together a list of details regarding the book (see list above); and then everything must be correctly ordered and separated with commas. That process takes time and is, frankly, boring. Using Son of Citation Machine, one need only type in the ISBN number of the book and the nifty on-site tool then spits out the following: 

Hillenbrand, Laura, Seabiscuit: An American Legend. New York: Random House, 2001.

     Who knew citing something could be so exciting? Son of Citation machine works for almost any conceivable form of researchable material. Want to cite your reading from a magazine article? No problem.  A newspaper article? Same. How about an on-line journal article? Easy-peazy. A blog article? OK, not as easy as the previous sources, but doable. By inputting my name (which I can proudly announce I've been spelling well for years), the title of my blog article, the blog site, a date, and then pasting in the URL, you get this:

 Lagana, Ralph. "A Solid Case AGAINST the Old Ways ". Reading Teacher (CT).,  June 12 2012.,  http://readingteacherct.blogspot.com/2012/06/solid-case-against-old-ways.html.

     It's not pretty to look at but it's properly MLA cited. Son of Citation does the really heavy lifting for those who can locate an ISBN number. It's far superior to any of the "old ways" for sure. The website even provides a wonderful rationale for citing -Someday the information that someone else wants to use...will be yours!