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A bingo card can tell teachers a lot about the people and genres that are represented in their class library-and the ones that are missing.

Aron Vellekoop León / Ikon Images

We know that representation matters, that in order for our classrooms to be spaces where everyone is affirmed and included, young people must see themselves and their lived experiences in our curricula. Do our classroom libraries reflect this knowledge? Bookshelves offer a powerful litmus test of the experiences and identities we honor and include in our classrooms.

Books as Windows and Mirrors

"She's from Pakistan, just like me."

"He has dark skin like mine."

"I'm adopted, too."

"Look, that main character uses a wheelchair like mine."

What happens to students' self-efficacy and self-concept when they see their lives positively reflected in the curriculum? Even very young children recognize the importance and delight in finding themselves in a book:

Books become transformative when they shift our perspectives, alter our worldviews, and deepen our relationships with others. Let's implement practices that make reading from many different experiences, worldviews, and cultures part of the social fabric of our schools.

To build on this idea, I created a simple bingo card that educators complete with book titles. I hoped it would challenge teacher groups to think more critically about representation and diversity in their classroom libraries and foster new conversations about reading. It did that and more.

The Bookshelf Equity Audit

A key objective of this exercise is to foster school conversations about the books we read and teach. I have used this activity in professional development workshops. I think it also has the potential to be used as a faculty or school-wide reading challenge.

Rules of the exercise: Everyone needs their own bingo card (there's a downloadable pdf below). While you may be tempted to start with the books you teach, resist that and start instead with the books you read. Like friendship, literature is a powerful entry point for exposure to diverse experiences. What and whom we read matters.

Round 1: Using a black pen, fill out the bingo card with books you have recently read, putting one title in each box. You can start with classic bingo, looking for five in a row, but consider eventually challenging yourself to complete the whole card. Filling it out will likely be more difficult than you expected.

Round 2: Using blue ink, continue filling out the bingo card with books you have recently taught. This means you could have two titles in each box: one for a book you have recently read and another for a book you have recently taught. It's very rare that someone can fill out the bingo card so completely.

Teachers often have one or two books in their curricula that fit several of the categories on the card, but each title can appear only once.

Round 3: Once we start listing titles, we can see more clearly what we're missing. Get up and talk to your peers about books. Write down new recommendations for the empty squares on your card in red ink, and make sure to read them.

The bingo exercise reveals some gaps in our reading and teaching, but it also shows us that collectively we have the resources and knowledge to start addressing these gaps. What if a copy of the book that might change your teaching practice is already waiting for you in the classroom down the hall?

Teachers have frequently told me that this activity taught them to pay attention to the lived experiences of the authors they read and teach. Considering background information and author positionality is a valuable close reading strategy that supports us in our work of showing students that their stories matter.

Many teachers have found that until they took a true audit of what they were reading and teaching, they tended to overestimate the number of books by and about people of color on their shelves.

As expected, the exercise reveals our reading preferences, as well as the fact that many of us don't read as much as we would like. While it's OK to have preferences, it's important to be aware of the gaps in our understanding and to actively try to address them. This requires reading outside of our cultural or genre comfort zone, which is why the third round is essential-it requires us to talk about books, to seek suggestions from our peers, to ask young children and folks two generations older than us for book recommendations. It affirms that reading can be a social journey, and I've found these conversations to be incredibly helpful.

The bingo card is a call to pay attention to who we are reading, who we are teaching, who is represented, who is missing, and why.

As we read more broadly and talk about books more intentionally, we're able to shine light on more experiences. We can begin to increase representation in our classrooms in ways that tell young people that many experiences matter, representation matters, and most importantly, they matter.

Here are four book lists to start expanding representation on your classroom bookshelf:

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How to Audit Your Classroom Library for Diversity

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A bingo card can tell teachers a lot about the people and genres that are represented in their class library-and the ones that are missing. Aron Vellekoop León / Ikon Images We know that representation matters, that in order for our classrooms to be spaces where everyone is affirmed and included, young people must see themselves and their lived experiences in our curricula.

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Beginning of the Year Reader Survey - Updated 2021 .pdf

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Google Forms - create and analyze surveys, for free.

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Getting Started With Classroom Libraries

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Research shows that students read 50-60% more in classrooms with adequate libraries (Catapano, 2009; Morrow, 2003; Kim, 2003; Neuman, 1999). This is in ADDITION to the school library, not as a replacement.

-Donalyn Miller

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Ensuring that all children have the books they need is more than an access issue - it’s an equity issue.

-Donalyn Miller & Colby Sharp, Game Changer: Book Access for all Kids (pg. 31)

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Literacy advocates with a deep passion for books-bestselling author Donalyn Miller and 5th grade teacher Colby Sharp-showcase the power of children"s access to books, providing teachers and administrators with the tools and information they need to increase children"s meaningful engagement with books and to launch or sustain book access initiatives in their communities.

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"Share Your Reading Life" School Challenge

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"Share Your Reading Life" School Challenge

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All students must be able to access, use, and evaluate information in order to meet the needs and challenges of the twenty-first century. These abilities are a necessary precursor to a sound education and healthy democracy. Reading in all its dimensions-informational, purposeful, and recreational-promotes students' overall academic success and well-being. Furthermore, when students possess the skills necessary to access, select, use, and effectively evaluate their reading materials, their ability to become engaged members of their communities and productive citizens is enhanced. A large body of research demonstrates that equitable access to books promotes reading achievement and motivation (Allington, 2002, 2009; Krashen, 2011; Nystrand, 2006; Wu & Samuels, 2004).

Classroom libraries-physical or virtual-play a key role in providing access to books and promoting literacy; they have the potential to increase student motivation, engagement, and achievement and help students become critical thinkers, analytical readers, and informed citizens As English language arts educators, we know that no book is right for every student, and classroom libraries offer ongoing opportunities for teachers to work with students as individuals to find books that will ignite their love for learning, calm their fears, answer their questions, and improve their lives in any of the multiple ways that only literature can.

For these reasons, we support student access to classroom libraries that 1) offer a wide range of materials to appeal to and support the needs of students with different interests and abilities; 2) provide access to multiple resources that reflect diverse perspectives and social identities; and 3) open up opportunities for students, teachers, and school librarians to collaborate on the selections available for student choice and reading.

Administrators, teachers, students, parents, and community leaders are all essential in promoting, building, and maintaining classroom libraries, but teachers play an especially critical role. They are uniquely qualified to select books that supplement and complement curricula and address the needs, interests, and concerns of their students. The National Council of Teachers of English supports efforts to provide teachers with the ability to exercise their professional judgment in developing and maintaining classroom libraries and to support them with financial resources to do so. The National Council of Teachers of English further strongly recommends that stakeholders do everything in their power to financially support teachers in their efforts to build classroom libraries.

Thus, as members of the National Council of Teachers of English, we recognize the specific educational benefits of classroom libraries to students because they

motivate students by encouraging voluntary and recreational reading

help young people develop an extensive array of literacy strategies and skills

provide access to a wide range of reading materials that reflect abilities and interests

enhance opportunities for both assigned and casual reading

provide choice in self-selecting reading materials for self-engagement

strengthen and encourage authentic literate exchanges among young people and adolescents

provide access to digitized reading materials that may help to foster the development of technological literacy skills

facilitate opportunities to validate and promote the acceptance and inclusion of diverse students' identities and experiences

create opportunities to cultivate an informed citizenry

Furthermore, because classroom libraries serve the overall goals of education, the National Council of Teachers of English encourages teachers and other education professionals to

recognize the importance of rich and diverse classroom libraries that offer students access to a wide and extensive repertoire of accessible reading materials

promote students' right to read while recognizing teachers as curriculum decision makers in promoting their students' repertoire of literacy skills and strategies

recognize that classroom libraries improve reading abilities for all students

increase literacy resources for teachers through access to diverse mentor texts and opportunities to differentiate literacy instruction

enlist other interested parties-administrators, support personnel, parents, and community leaders-to assist in the effort to financially support, build, and maintain diverse classroom libraries at all levels

Thus, the National Council Teachers of English supports, encourages, and defends the significance and preservation of classroom libraries in all disciplines in our nation's public schools and urges their continuation and implementation by classroom teachers, school administrators, and community leaders.

References

Allington, R. L. (2002). What I've learned about effective reading instruction from a decade of studying exemplary elementary classroom teachers. Phi Delta Kappan, 83(10), 740-747.

Allington, R. L. (2009). If they don't read much . . . 30 years later. In E. H. Hiebert (Ed.), Reading more, reading better (pp. 30-54). New York, NY: Guilford.

Allington, R. L. (2012). What really matters for struggling readers: Designing research-based programs (3rd ed.). Boston, MA: Allyn and Bacon.

Guthrie, J. T., & Wigfield, A. (2000). Engagement and motivation in reading. In M.L. Kamil, P.B. Mosenthal, P.D. Pearson, & R. Barr (Eds.), Reading research handbook (Vol. 3, pp. 403-424). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.

Guthrie, J. T., & Humenick, N. M. (2004). Motivating students to read: Evidence for classroom practices that increase motivation and achievement. In P. McCardle & V. Chhabra (Eds.), The voice of evidence in reading research (pp. 329-354). Baltimore, MD: Paul Brookes.

Jacobs, J. S., Morrison, T. G., & Swinyard, W. R. (2000). Reading aloud to students: A national probability study of classroom reading practices of elementary school teachers. Reading Psychology, 21(3), 171-193.

Krashen, S. (2011). Free voluntary reading. Santa Barbara, CA: Libraries Unlimited.

Nystrand, M. (2006). Research on the role of classroom discourse as it affects reading comprehension. Research in the Teaching of English, 40(4), 392-412.

Reis, S. M., McCoach, D. B., Coyne, M. Schreiber, F. J., Eckert, R. D., & Gubbins, E. J. (2007). Using planned enrichment strategies with direct instruction to improve reading fluency, comprehension, and attitude toward reading: An evidence-based study. Elementary School Journal, 108(1), 3-24.

Scholastic.com. (n.d.) Access to books: Family and community engagement research compendium. Retrieved from http://teacher.scholastic.com/products/face/pdf/research-compendium/access-to-books.pdf

Taylor, B. M., Pearson, P. D., Peterson, D. S., & Rodriguez, M. C. (2003). Reading growth in high-poverty classrooms: The influence of teacher practices that encourage cognitive engagement in literacy learning. Elementary School Journal, 104(1), 3-28.

Teresa, E. C. (2017). Kids and family reading report (6th ed.). Scholastic, Inc. & YouGov Parchilitam Kids and Family Reading Report 2017, Emily C. Teresa, Corporate Communications, January 30, 2017. Retrieved from http://www.scholastic.com/readingreport/files/Scholastic-KFRR-6ed-2017.pdf

Trelease, J. (2001). Read-aloud handbook (5th ed.). New York, NY: Viking-Penguin.

Wolpert-Gawron, H. (2015). The importance of a classroom library. Edutopia. Retrieved from https://www.edutopia.org/blog/classroom-library-importance-heather-wolpert-gawron

Wu, Y., & Samuels, S. J. (2004, May). How the amount of time spent on independent reading affects reading achievement. Paper presented at the annual convention of the International Reading Association, Reno, Nevada.

The NCTE Standing Committee Against Censorship, 2016-2017

Chair: Jeffrey Kaplan, University of Central Florida, Orlando
Christina Berchini, University of Wisconsin, Eau Claire
Joan Bertin, National Coalition Against Censorship, New York, NY
Jean Brown, Rhode Island College, Providence
Annamary Consalvo, University of Texas at Tyler
Brooke Boback Eisenbach, Lesley University, Cambridge, MA
Barry Gilmore, Hutchison School, Memphis, TN
Wendy Glenn, University of Connecticut, Storrs
Paula Greathouse, Tennessee Tech University, Cookeville
Yvette R. Hyde, Covington Education Center, Covington, LA
Sarah Willens Kass, Westland Middle School, Bethesda, MD
William D. Kemp, Albany, NY
ReLeah Lent, Morgantown, GA
Risha Leigh Mullins, Chandlersville, OH
Connie Nagel, Bettendorf, IA
Gretchen Oltman, Creighton University, Omaha, NE
Jonathan Rogers, Iowa City High School, IA
Kym Sheehan, Charlotte County Public Schools, FL
Approved by the NCTE Executive Committee, May 2017

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All students must be able to access, use, and evaluate information in order to meet the needs and challenges of the twenty-first century. These abilities are a necessary precursor to a sound education and healthy democracy. Reading in all its dimensions-informational, purposeful, and recreational-promotes students' overall academic success and well-being.

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How to Build a More Diverse Classroom Library

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If one of your professional goals this year is to add more diversity to your school or classroom library, we’re here with some inspiration to get you started. In the following blog post, orig…

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Research clearly demonstrates that a robust, high-quality classroom library impacts student achievement. Students who have access to an extensive, exemplary classroom library read more, read more widely for a variety of purposes, demonstrate more positive attitudes toward reading, and score higher on standardized tests of reading achievement. In this way, students are more likely to achieve the goals of college and career readiness.

Successful skill-building classroom libraries do the following:

Support literacy instruction.

Help students learn about books.

Provide a central location for classroom resources.

Provide opportunities for independent reading and curricular extensions.

Serve as a place for students to talk about and interact with books.

Here are the 11 essentials every classroom library must have to be effective:
1. A minimum of 750 books in good condition.

2. Thirty books per student.

3. 30% of the books in your classroom library have been published in the last 3-5 years (at a minimum).

4. 5 new books per student are added to your classroom library each year.

5. 50-70% of your classroom library consists of nonfiction books.

6. 10% of your classroom library consists of reference books (at a minimum).

7. 25% of your classroom library consists of multicultural books (at a minimum).

8. The reading level of your classroom library expands to cover two to three years above and below grade level. ( Here's a handy link to book lists for every guided reading level.)

9. Multiple copies of popular titles and text sets appear in your classroom library so multiple students can read these at the same time.

10. A rich variety of genres is included in your classroom library so children are exposed to: realistic fiction, historical fiction, fantasy and science fiction, biography and autobiography, stories, classics, myths and legends, picture books, reference, poetry, comic books and graphic novels, and more.

11. Digital texts, ebooks, and multimedia such as interactive whiteboard technology.

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11 Essentials for a Highly Effective Classroom Library

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Research clearly demonstrates that a robust, high-quality classroom library impacts student achievement. Students who have access to an extensive, exemplary classroom library read more, read more widely for a variety of purposes, demonstrate more positive attitudes toward reading, and score higher on standardized tests of reading achievement.

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The Commonsense Guide to Your Classroom Library

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Literacy champions Donalyn Miller and Colby Sharp provide teachers with the advice they need to transform the classroom library into a true instructional partner. They show how to procure and weed books based on quantity, diversity, currency and relevance, and organization and use.

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Pledge to be an advocate for every child, everywhere.

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What reading experiences have entertained you, provoked you, taught you, inspired you, helped you to see your own life more clearly, or connected you with others? As teachers, librarians, school administrators, and caregivers who love reading, we know what it feels like to fall into a book and let the world fall away. We have joyous reading memories, and we know how reading can sustain and inspire us.

Now consider: When talking with children about their reading lives at school, are you likely to hear about this transformative reading joy? Or are you more likely to hear about reading logs, book reports, and standardized tests? For too many young readers, reading is joyless. It is something that is required of them, but not something that they choose to do.
Here's the truth: It is possible to teach children how to read well without killing their love for reading in the process.
The Joy of Reading is a guide for teachers, librarians, administrators, and families to create the conditions for joyful reading. Donalyn Miller and Teri Lesesne draw from their decades of work with students, teachers, and librarians, providing practices that nurture joy while identifying factors that destroy joy, all with a clear understanding of the realities of today's classrooms and libraries.

There's more to life than school and work. There's more to reading than school-based value systems for it. We can aim higher than short-sighted measurements and, instead, become reading encouragers, supporters, and role models for lifelong, joyful reading.

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What reading experiences have entertained you, provoked you, taught you, inspired you, helped you to see your own life more clearly, or connected you with others? As teachers, librarians, school administrators, and caregivers who love reading, we know what it feels like to fall into a book and let the world fall away.

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Independent reading is the right of every student. It is an indispensable foundation for solid reading instruction yet, is too often viewed as a luxury. Overly prescriptive, culturally irrelevant curriculum does not provide spaces for students to develop a sense of agency as readers or for teachers to make decisions that reflect the needs of the students in front of them. When teachers trust themselves and trust their students to create reading experiences that matter, they positively impact student growth.

Trusting Readers puts the independence back into independent reading-and bolsters that independence with collaboration. Jen and Hannah offer a clear definition of independent reading. Their vision of conferring supports teachers as they support young readers. They help teachers craft reading experiences for students that are centered around their engagement, instructional needs, and identities as readers.

Trusting Readers is an essential and accessible guide that provides teachers with the inspiration, information, and tools needed to grow enthusiastic independent readers.

Jen and Hannah outline practical steps for teachers to implement independent reading time or to enrich their current practice with multiple entry points whether you've been teaching one year or twenty. In addition, they provide a model for reading conferences that support tailored instructional choices and keep students at the center.

In Part 1 of Trusting Readers, Jen and Hannah define independent reading as based on the principles of time, choice, talk, and teacher support. Each chapter keeps student independence and reading identity development at the forefront, while leading teachers through the process of setting up classroom routines that safeguard time and space for independent reading in any environment. Part 2 focuses on conferring during independent reading using The Cycle of Conferring, a framework that teachers can use to help students set meaningful reading goals that not only build their skills, but also support their growth into joyful, purposeful, engaged readers.

Dig into Trusting Readers and consider new possibilities for vibrant independent reading to thrive in your classroom in visible and invisible ways. What is the best that could happen when you trust yourself, your students, and the power of independent reading?

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Independent reading is the right of every student. It is an indispensable foundation for solid reading instruction yet, is too often viewed as a luxury. Overly prescriptive, culturally irrelevant curriculum does not provide spaces for students to develop a sense of agency as readers or for teachers to make decisions that reflect the needs of the students in front of them.

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NCTE's Position Statement on Independent Reading

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NCTE's Position Statement on Independent Reading

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Independent reading leads to an increased volume of reading. The more one reads, the better one reads. The more one reads, the more knowledge of words and language one acquires. The more one reads, the more fluent one becomes as a reader. The more one reads, the easier it becomes to sustain the mental effort necessary to comprehend complex texts. The more one reads, the more one learns about the people and happenings of our world.

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Creating Passionate Readers Through Independent Reading

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Creating Passionate Readers Through Independent Reading

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This brief from the International Literacy Association (ILA) describes recommended practices for independent reading.

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How do we inspire students to love reading and discovery? In Passionate Readers: The Art of Reaching and Engaging Every Child , classroom teacher, author, and speaker Pernille Ripp reveals the five keys to creating a passionate reading environment. You'll learn how to...

Use your own reading identity to create powerful reading experiences for all students

Empower your students and their reading experience by focusing on your physical classroom environment

Create and maintain an enticing, well-organized, easy-to-use classroom library;

Build a learning community filled with choice and student ownership; and

Guide students to further develop their own reading identity to cement them as life-long, invested readers.

Throughout the book, Pernille opens up about her own trials and errors as a teacher and what she's learned along the way. She also shares a wide variety of practical tools that you can use in your own classroom, including a reader profile sheet, conferring sheet, classroom library letter to parents, and much more. These tools are available in the book and as eResources to help you build your own classroom of passionate readers.

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Passionate Readers: The Art of Reaching and Engaging Every Child

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Passionate Readers: The Art of Reaching and Engaging Every Child

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Readicide: How Schools Are Killing Reading and What You Can Do About It

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Amazon.com: Readicide: How Schools Are Killing Reading and What You Can Do About It: 8601401089858: Gallagher, Mr. Kelly: Books

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This document from Scholastic provides a summary of recent research and expert opinion related to the joy and power of reading.

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Special Offer: We are dedicated to teachers. Use coupon code TAW23 to receive 30% off the list price and free shipping within the U.S. Valid only on online orders paid by credit card. Restrictions apply.

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Special Offer: We are dedicated to teachers. Use coupon code TAW23 to receive 30% off the list price and free shipping within the U.S. Valid only on online orders paid by credit card. Restrictions apply.

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Real Stories About the Joy and Power of Reading

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Real Stories About the Joy and Power of Reading

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This document is a compilation of short stories told by well-known authors and educators about the joy and power of reading.

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In this episode, Colby talks with writer, speaker, Nerdy Book Club co-founder, Book Whisperer, and former teacher Donalyn Miller about her book THE JOY OF READING, co-written with the late Teri Lesesne.
This episode is sponsored by READING TO MAKE A DIFFERENCE, written by Lester L. Laminack and Katie Kelly and published by Heinemann.
Heinemann Publisher of professional resources and a provider of educational services for teachers.

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#166 donalyn miller - the joy of reading unraveled

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‎The Yarn: #166 Donalyn Miller - THE JOY OF READING Unraveled on Apple Podcasts

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In this episode, Colby talks with writer, speaker, Nerdy Book Club co-founder, Book Whisperer, and former teacher Donalyn Miller about her book THE JOY OF READING, co-written with the late Teri Lesesne. This episode is sponsored by READING TO MAKE A DIFFERENCE, written by Lester L. Laminack and Kati...

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The Cult of Pedagogy Podcast, Episode 84 Transcript

See a shorter recap of this interview in the blog post.

See all podcast episodes.

This transcript contains Amazon Affiliate links. When you make a purchase through those links, Cult of Pedagogy receives a small percentage of the sale at no additional cost to you.

This is Jennifer Gonzalez welcoming you to Episode 84 of the Cult of Pedagogy Podcast. In this episode, I interview teacher Pernille Ripp about how we can change our classroom practices to stop killing the love of reading.

If I had to pick one thing that makes the biggest difference in the quality of any person's education, the quality of their life, really, it would be reading. And I'm not really talking about basic literacy-not about the ability to read-I'm talking about reading for pleasure, to satisfy curiosities, to understand how people work and find solace in knowing we are not the only ones who think and feel the way we do.

That kind of reading.

And I try pretty hard to help my three kids become the kind of people who read that way. I taught them all how to read before kindergarten, the house is full of books, we keep TVs and devices out of everyone's bedrooms, and they see me reading quite a bit. But all five of us have multiple devices and we're on them a lot. We can stream just about any TV show or movie we can think of, at any time. My 11-year old daughter is obsessed staring at people who poke slime on Instagram. My 10-year-old son spends way too much time watching a YouTuber named Logan Paul get in fights with stop signs and dance to car alarms. My 13-year-old daughter keeps up a running dialogue on Snapchat with dozens of her classmates. And my husband and I spend way too much time on Facebook, the "old people's social network."

So yeah, the reading culture in our house isn't quite where I'd like it to be, and I know that's on me. We're working on it.

But something else has happened in schools, too. When I see what my kids do in school for "reading," it doesn't really look like reading. I ask them what books they are reading in school, and a lot of times they give me a blank stare. What they do in reading, they tell me, is mostly worksheets about reading. Or computer programs that ask them to read passages, not books, and answer multiple-choice questions about those passages.

Knowing this has bothered me a lot, and it led me to Donalyn Miller's book, The Book Whisperer, and then to Kelly Gallagher's book, Readicide. Both of these books show us that the reading programs and activities schools are using don't work very well to raise students' reading proficiency, especially if they are there as substitutes for real interactions with real books. And they certainly don't do anything to turn our students into people who love to read.

The only thing that can do that is books. Reading actual books alongside other people reading actual books.

What baffles me is that the message still hasn't reached so many schools. Schools are still shelling out thousands of dollars on expensive programs, putting pages and pages of passages and comprehension questions in front of our kids every day, sending them through the system without ever having them read a real book. Just excerpts. Just passages. Just reading-related "activities," but little to no time with actual books.

So in this episode, I'm going to do what I can to get the message out there by having my friend Pernille Ripp on the podcast. Pernille is a seventh grade English language arts teacher in Wisconsin. She has been blogging for years, she speaks all over the country, and she has written several books about teaching. Her most recent one is called Passionate Readers, where she writes about her own journey from teaching reading through programs and activities to teaching in a way that honors books and develops a love of reading in every child. It's an awesome book. The best thing about it is how transparent Pernille is about her own doubts and struggles in this process. In our interview we're going to talk about why she made the change, what her classroom looks like now, and how other teachers can change their own practices. To find links to everything we talk about in the interview when you're done listening, come over to Cult of Pedagogy, click Podcast, and go to Episode 84.

Before we get started, I want to thank you for the reviews you've left on iTunes. I read these every week and I absolutely love them. I'd like to send out a special thanks to Pdubya tech for his detailed review, and Matthew Todd G and veglizzie83 for their enthusiasm. If you'd like to support the work I'm doing here and you think other teachers need to be listening, please recommend the podcast to a friend and take a minute to leave a review on iTunes-it really helps get it out in front of more people.

I'd also like to thank this episode's sponsor, Kiddom. Kiddom is a free platform that allows teachers to plan, assess, and analyze student work, and now, more teachers are using Kiddom to collaborate with each other. Using Kiddom's free curriculum planning tools, teachers can plan in the cloud, so you can put your heads together no matter where you are. And when we work together, our students reap the rewards. Visit cultofpedagogy.com/kiddom to learn more about co-planning and sharing your best work with each other.

Now let's talk to Pernille Ripp. In a few places you'll hear a kind of scratching sound - we couldn't figure out what was causing it, but ultimately decided to ignore it. This is good stuff, so hopefully you can get past the scratching, too. Okay, here we go.

GONZALEZ: So hi, Pernille.

RIPP: Hi, Jenn.

GONZALEZ: Hi. I am so excited to have you on. I mean, I really have waited for a while for just the right time, and now that Passionate Readers came out, it has just, it's just come at just the right time, and I read it quickly, and I loved everything you had to say, and so I feel like this is the time. And so our focus is going to be on how to stop killing the love of reading in schools, and you are the perfect person to talk to about that. So tell us a little bit about, let me start with your teaching life first, and then we'll talk about the writing.

RIPP: Well I've been teaching, I'm now about to round 10 years here in January, and it has been an amazing roller coaster of a journey, which I think many can attest to once they start teaching. You think you are doing pretty well and then as you get into your teaching further and further, you start realizing just how many things you still have to learn, and you also start looking back on all of the things that you shouldn't have done, and you hope you could go back and apologize to all of your former students as you grow. And I think that's the mark of a reflective teacher, right? Just always looking back and looking at what you're doing, and going, "How can I be better? How can this be better for students?" And I think that's just been my drive forward when I realized I wasn't going to quit teaching, but I needed to severely change the way I was teaching, because otherwise I was just going to be crushing the dreams of children, and that was going to fall on my shoulders, and I was not going to live with that for the rest of my life, all in the name of kind of protecting the system of teaching that I had been sucked into.

GONZALEZ: That is one of my favorite things about you is that you are so reflective. I mean I sometimes I think you're too hard on yourself, but I think it's such a good model for how I wish all teachers, if all teachers were this reflective, we would have just wonderful classrooms. You're currently teaching middle school language arts, but then before you moved to the middle school level, you were teaching, I think it was fourth and fifth grade for a couple of years?

RIPP: Yeah. I started as a math resource, and then moved into fourth grade and loved fourth-graders and kind of this just huge development they were a part of, and then when the chance opened up for fifth grade, I moved into fifth grade just to see what happened to these amazing fourth-graders and completely fell in love with fifth-graders, who are just in this amazing developmental stage of kind of trying on these new tween identities and getting ready for their teenage years but still in elementary.

And then I was ready for another change, and I took the terrifying leap to middle school, and it truly was terrifying. I did not think I was going to love being a middle school teacher, but I wanted a challenge, and I really wanted to see, you know, what was the buzz all about, because I had friends that were middle school teachers that just loved it. And it has been incredible. It has been terrifying and challenging and yet teaching my seventh-graders has been one of the biggest honors of my life, because they really come to you at times with their heart on their sleeve hoping that you'll just see them as a person, and then at other times their walls are completely up. And so I just think of all the truths that they have willingly shared with me over the years, and sort of my fourth-graders and my fifth-graders, but really my seventh-graders just so loudly wanting to be heard and so loudly wanting instruction that was about them and their journey and just how easy it was to start the conversation yet how hard it was to actually do. And so I love middle school. I totally, it's just, and my heart is there with these seventh-graders that turn into these big kids, and it's such a honor to be with them.

GONZALEZ: That's my background too. It's funny, because I have a seventh-grader at home with me now, and that was my grade level. And it is, it's such a special set of years, because they're shutting a lot of people out at that time, so if you can form a relationship with them as a teacher, you may be one of the only adults that they're willing to talk to.

RIPP: Yeah, and I think that's something to really protect, right, and to really nourish and cherish and not take for granted. I walked into seventh grade being so green and feeling like a completely brand new teacher, and I still feel that way every year when these seventh-graders show up and just remembering that the words that they entrust us with are really meaningful and can be really hard for them to share. And so the least we can do is listen, and then anything we can do beyond that is only going to cement the relationship that we may have with them throughout the years.

GONZALEZ: Yeah, yeah. And so you have been blogging for a number of years about your teaching, and you've also written a couple of books. And the one that we're going to focus on today is Passionate Readers, and that's your most recent book.

RIPP: Yeah. I started writing my blog in 2010, and it was my husband that kind of pushed me in the direction of getting my thoughts out there, and I think honestly it was just because he was kind of like, why do you keep talking to me about these things? But for me too, I needed to get the thoughts out of my head, and I think that's still the heart of my blog is just whatever I'm thinking of and that needs to be out of my head so that I can step back and reflect on it, and sometimes it's hard to write, sometimes it's really hard to hit "publish." But I think one of the things that I fell into was that I kept looking for the perfect teacher, and I kept looking at my colleagues thinking that they were the perfect teacher and they had everything figured out because that's what it looked like.

And I realized just how harmful that can be for new teachers, and veterans alike, because there's no such thing as a perfect teacher. And so I wanted to make sure that my blog was a representation of everything that happened within a classroom. Yes there are days where we are triumphantly driving home, going, "Oh my gosh, today was just such a great day," and then also the days where we go home and we're just upset with ourselves or something fell apart or blew up in our face or we need to go back and apologize to a kid the next day. I wanted to put that out there too, because it was so important for the reality of what teaching really is to be out there for others and also for myself. This is truly my way of reflecting, of writing it out, it's always a first draft that I publish, which is why there's sometimes grammar and spelling mistakes and stuff, and then going back and going, "OK. Now process it as if I'm an outsider, and then where's my solution? Where am I going with this?" I never expected anyone to read it, but the - I didn't. Like, why would you, right? It should be called Pernille's Random Thoughts, because that's really all it is.

But then when I realized that I felt so free having this way of getting the thoughts out of my head, I turned to my students, fourth-graders at the time, and just said, you know, what do you want to share with the world? And to hear these kids and these ideas that they have for education and how they were just waiting for someone to come around and ask them really motivated me to get them blogging and then that also is what turned into the books that I've written. I've written four different books, and all of them are just a way for me to say, listen to my students. Listen to what these kids have. And yes, here's all my practices and my mistakes and the research and all of that, but really just listen to my students, because they have shaped who I am as a teacher.

What's Wrong with the Way We Teach Reading Now?

GONZALEZ: So we are going to, we're going to focus this time, and I would urge anybody who has not read your blog to go and read it. It's going to be a breath of fresh air. But we're going to really hone in on how reading is typically taught in classrooms today, and what you discover, because you used to teach reading the way that a lot of people are still teaching it, and you have completely changed the way you teach it now. And so we're going to just sort of follow along that journey and talk about why you changed and what your successes have been now, and just then give people some sort of practical advice for how they can make the same change.

So let's start by talking about, you know, how reading is taught nowadays in our current-and we're basically talking about the United States, although I think unfortunately, a lot of countries are starting to model their reading instruction from what we're doing right now. But talk a little bit about what you're seeing right now in terms of trends in reading instruction.

RIPP: So what I've been seeing, and this is not anything new, is just this distancing ourselves from common sense reading instruction, and I get it. I think we are all kind of facing the pressure of our districts and our government and our testing and our parents and everybody's focus kind of on the data at the end of the day or the data at the end of the year to show that these children can comprehend and compete with this global market economy that we're a part of.

But unfortunately, what that has led to within our classrooms and you know is just this further step away from what we know works within reading instruction, and this is nothing new. We have so many years of really great reading research out there, and yet it seems to be forgotten. And so I think about what Louise Rosenblatt said so many years ago where she talked about the two types of reading that were needed for children to become readers, that we needed both aesthetic reading and we needed efferent reading. So one is reading for skill, and one is reading for pleasure, yet what are we doing in our classrooms? We're constantly reading for skill, we're constantly asking kids to do something with their reading, and then wondering why they're choosing to leave us and never picking up another book, or they can't wait to get out of school so that they don't have to read.

And so what I see is a lot of teachers actually standing up and going, excuse me, this is not going to work. Where is our time for independent reading? Where are my times for having conversations with kids? Where's the money for classroom libraries and school libraries and having actually certified librarians in our schools? And instead, we're buying all of these programs, and we're saying, well, these experts - and many of them are truly experts - have a program and you're going to teach it with fidelity, and that's going to bring every kid up, but within that program, we lose the very essence of the kids that we're teaching, and it becomes this race to teach the program in a perfect way.

But the thing is, none of us will ever be the masterminds behind those programs. None of us will ever sit with those kids that these programs were developed around, and so when districts rush out to buy programs, to buy computer programs or scripted curriculum so that we can all be on the same page, we're forgetting that that's not what education is about. Education, and especially with reading and writing, is about becoming even better as human beings. And where is that in the experience we're creating for our kids?

And so when I think of common sense reading instruction, it's nothing new that I write about. It's, again, time to read. If we're saying that we're valuing reading, then kids need to be doing it in our classrooms every single day. People ask me, "How do you know your students read?" I see them, every day, and I see the kids that aren't reading, and I see the kids that are struggling to find a good book, right? The kids that, you know, are kind of faking it through. That's how I know my students are reading. I don't need a reading log to show that.

We need to give them access to books, and we need incredible books in their hands at all times, and yes I spend a lot of money on books for my students, but I figure it's my contribution to the future of America, but it shouldn't be that way. I love technology, for example. I mean I created the Global Read Aloud, which really depends a lot on technology to be as big as it is, and yet I see so many schools go out and invest in incredible technology and not invest in classroom libraries, or they're cutting librarians, or they're cutting reading specialists or any of that, and it's like, I get that a book isn't as flashy as an iPad or a Chromebook or virtual reality or Sphero or whatever, insert whatever technology, right?

GONZALEZ: Yeah.

RIPP: But the thing is that book can change the life of a kid.

GONZALEZ: Yep.

RIPP: And those other things can too, but it's just like, we need that balance. And then of course choice. We know that choice matters. Whenever I ask kids, and I've been asking this for many years now, any kids that I can come across, what's the one thing you wish all teachers of reading would do? Choice. And yet, what do we do time and time again? We take away choice from kids, either because we're told to by programs or administration, and obviously, usually, it's because of well-meaning intentions. I've yet to meet a teacher that actually has set out to kill the love of reading, maybe they're out there. I don't think they are though. But we make these weird decisions, especially for kids who are vulnerable readers, so kids who might not be where we would hope they would be at this time. We end up with these limited choices for them, and then we wonder why they're the ones that distance themselves from reading the most, because they never get to develop their reading identity. They never get to go through the selection process. They never get to just read and struggle with text and have meaningful conversations and sometimes yes, make the wrong choice. We're so eager to go in and go, "Oh, here's your level," or "Here's your Lexile," or "Here's this pile of books." And so we need to give choice. We need to foster reading community. We need to be having conversations, real conversations about reading.

I think about what Teri Lesesne and Donalyn Miller talk about, how often we as readers don't want to do anything other than just sit in silence when we're done with a book. I think about the book experiences that I have. For example, after I read Long Way Down by Jason Reynolds, which just came out here in October, I just sat there, right, and soaked it in and just sat there with the book for a long time, and then I turned to a friend and said, "Oh my gosh, you have to read this book." I didn't go and write a one-page review. You know, I didn't go and make a wordsearch or a crossword puzzle or a book report on it.

And the thing is, I say those things because I've had kids do those things in the search of thinking that this is what real reading instruction looks like. And so I think for so long because of all the pressures of these kids becoming readers and apparently readers only means that we can take, you know, tests and do really well on comprehension, we've started looking for the quick and easy. And what else is easy than computer programs that make all the decisions for us? We don't even have to talk to kids about their books, right?

GONZALEZ: Yeah.

RIPP: We can just shove them in front of a computer, and then the computer will tell us whether they understood.

GONZALEZ: Yeah.

RIPP: We put them into short, chopped up programs, and we do scripted curriculum, and it kills me.

GONZALEZ: Yeah. The passages are what bother me so much is that I think we're now starting to push kids through the education system who never actually read an entire book. They only ever read passages, and sometimes they're not even passages that are excerpted from real books. They're sort of mediocre, not very well written, dry passages so that there's no wonder that they're not really loving reading, because they're reading fairly dry stuff. Where, you know, there's shelves and shelves of these really amazing books that are going to touch them emotionally that they never get a chance to read, because they're reading passages all the time.

RIPP: And we assume that they're reading these amazing books outside of class, and yet some of my kids, like, they had a really busy last week, and a lot of them were saying, "Mrs. Ripp, I barely got to read, because I had so much to do for school."

GONZALEZ: Yep, yep.

RIPP: Right? And then we're like, "Why aren't you reading?" Well, because you had me do all this work.

The Catalyst: What Prompted the Change

GONZALEZ: So let's go back, let's scroll back a little bit to when you used to teach this way. What made you start to change?

RIPP: My students. It always comes back to them, and there's, like, these moments now in retrospect, like, this is where it changed. It started with my students, but it also started with my own, you know, lacking qualities as a teacher. We were a balanced literacy curriculum district. I Googled, you know, I'd seen it in college, I knew what it was, but I didn't know what it was really.

And then I just kind of followed the components of what it meant to be balanced literacy, and balanced literacy is fantastic, except for how I was implementing it, which was all teacher-centered, and it was exhausting, right? When we did book clubs, it was all about me, and I was reading five different books and coming up with all of the questions and all the kids had to do was show up, read aloud. There was no discussion about which book we were going to read or anything like that. It was just all teacher-centered, teacher-centered all the time, book reports just to prove they had read rather than doing meaningful work after they had finished the book.

And so I just remember, and it's so clear to me, and I've written about it too, that moment when I was doing the "reading is magical" lesson that I think we all do at some point in the beginning of the year, and a kid in front of me whispered to his friends, "Reading sucks." And instead, you know, I just, I wanted to jump on him and be like, "Oh, you just haven't found the right book," because how often have we said that? But luckily I was like, "Tell me more about that. Like, what do you mean? Why does reading suck?" And he just sat there with complete, you know, deer in the headlights kind of expression, because he was like, "Oh my gosh my new teacher is now, like, she heard me," right?

GONZALEZ: Yeah, yeah.

RIPP: "This is not good. She's now not going to like me." But his friend had the courage to raise his hand, and he was like, "Well, I don't like sitting still." And then we created an anchor chart, and that's where the change really started. It was this, like, "Hang on. I've been dismissing their reading identities as they've been coming in. They tell me they're not readers, and I tell them they haven't found the right book yet."

GONZALEZ: Yeah.

RIPP: "They tell me they don't like reading, and I said, 'Oh just wait. I'm going to make you love reading.'" Well some of my kids, like, I'd say that, and they'd be like, "Ha. I'm going to prove you wrong just because you said that," right?

GONZALEZ: Yeah.

RIPP: Which makes sense. Like, that's how I would react if somebody said that to me. But I also didn't speak books with my kids, with my students. I read a lot. I was an avid reader, I've been for years, but I didn't read children's books, and so when kids would come to me and say, "What should I read next?" I would say, "Harry Potter." And when they'd say, "Well I've already read that," then I'd say, "Go ask your friends." And it became so obvious when they left my classroom in droves to go see our fantastic school librarian Mr. Powers during our independent reading time, and I'd say, "Why are you going there? We have a classroom library." And they'd say, "He speaks books." I didn't speak books. I couldn't, because I didn't take the time to actually read anything, so I'd never gone through our library and really looked at what I was telling kids to read.

GONZALEZ: Yeah.

RIPP: And so it was all these little things that just started going, "God, there's got to be more than this." Or the reading logs, I used to do the reading logs. Those kids that didn't have parent signatures? Well guess what, they didn't get the celebrations, they didn't get the rewards, and the kids that were getting the signatures were the ones that I already knew were reading, right?

GONZALEZ: Yeah.

RIPP: I mean, so it was just like, I just started just practicing this questioning of each practice, because I think of that so often in education, and in life too, how many of the things that we do are simply routine that we've never questioned because either we've picked it up somewhere or somebody passed it onto us, and I think that's what happens in school a lot. New teachers come in, whether they're veteran or completely brand new, and they have these new ideas and quickly they're kind of told, "Well, you can't do that, because this is how we've always done things." And I think that that's what's killing the education experience for a lot of kids, because we're not questioning, we're not sitting down and going, "Well, when was the last time we looked at these practices?" And when someone comes to us, which is the big thing now and say, "Well this is best practices, and it's research-based." Instead of going, "OK. We should be saying, 'Great. Show me the practices and show me the research, because then I'll show you mine.'"

GONZALEZ: Yeah. Some of the research that I've seen that comes from these companies, it's their own research, and it's based on their own data from their own tests that they give. I'm sort of quietly trying to fight that battle right now with the school that one of my children is going to, and it's, they said it's research-based, and I'm looking at it and I'm thinking, wait a second. This is a test you did with your own tests. You're showing that students made improvements on your tests after a year of doing your program. Well yeah. But does that mean that they're good, better readers? No, I don't know.

RIPP: Right. And I think often too what those programs, and I'm thinking of some specific computer programs as well, that where they've pushed the research and what they're not discussing is that besides their computer program being put and placed, is there was also given more time for independent reading, book selection, and bigger classroom libraries. Those are three research proven things that will improve kids' reading comprehension as well as their experiences with reading. And so then when you add on a computer program onto that and then say, "Look. They grew as readers."

GONZALEZ: Yeah.

RIPP: You can't really say that, because you have too many variables going on. And so that's why some of the research is being questioned, and rightfully so, because here's the thing too: How much money are we spending on these programs? You know, I think of some of these programs that are $10,000 a year.

GONZALEZ: My gosh.

RIPP: How many books could we be putting in the hands of kids instead?

GONZALEZ: Right.

RIPP: How many incredible reading experiences could we be putting in their hands, and I think about some of the programs, whether scripted or computer, and how many of them are not geared towards having more complex reading experiences. So when we think about, what do we need as a society? We need kids that become, that are or become critical thinkers, problem solvers, creative individuals and we also have, we need people that have stamina and have the internal drive to sit down and do things over a long period of time. None of these programs, or not many of them, are actually addressing that. Instead, it's, like you said with the passages, it's these short comprehensions, it's these short, kind of chopped up things all to see if they understood it. None of them are saying, "Oh, by the way, we're going to help you become more, you know, be better at critical thinking."

GONZALEZ: Right.

RIPP: And so it's interesting. We have this push for all these standards of how we need to grow as human beings, and yet then we bring in these curriculums that actually don't help us do that, but they'll help us maybe score higher on a test.

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Toward a More Common-Sense Approach

GONZALEZ: So let's talk a little bit about what your reading instruction looks like now. And one of the things I want to make sure that we really get at are the scary parts of it, because I think, you know, we can describe it and a teacher can hear it and say, "That sounds nice, but - " and I want to just nail every single objection or question that they might have about it, because I'm sure you met all of those as you developed this new way of teaching reading.

RIPP: Well I think the fantastic thing is that I'm not alone in this work. Like, I think back to the pioneers, all of those that came before me who were great, just amazing human beings and put their work out there. So I think of, like, Atwell and Allington and Stephen Krashen and Kylene Beers and Penny Kittle and Kelly Gallagher and Donalyn Miller and all of these people that said, "Here's what I'm doing. Take it. And then here's the research behind it and make it better and make it your own." And so I can tell you that stepping away from curriculum and stepping away from everything being teacher-centered is terrifying, especially if you are within a time confinement like I am. I teach 45-minute blocks of English, and that's what I did for three years. And so to say, "Okay. Every day we're going to have independent reading," I'm then taking about a quarter of my 45-minute time with students and giving that back to them, and that is really hard when we then look at, "Well, here are all the things that I'm supposed to also be doing with these kids during this year."

Time to Read

But I went back to the common sense approach. What do kids need to become readers? Well, first they need time. Okay. Every child, every day, 10 minutes at the beginning of class. And it is sacred time, it has been amazing. Yes, the first couple of days, etc., sometimes week, can be rough, but the big thing is just that habit every day, every child, and if I had more than 45 minutes, they would be getting more than 10 minutes, because that is when I see them reading. That is when we are planting the seed for outside reading as Allington has researched, it's when we're book-shopping, and it's when I'm doing reading check-ins with my kids. I'm sitting down and I'm simply saying, "What are you working on as a reader?" And it gives me that two-, three-minute connection with a child if they need to book shop, if they're not doing well, to see what their reading identity is, where are they on their journey, and then I kind of pull all this information to think about what I still need to teach them. That doesn't happen during those 10 minutes.

Choice

The next thing that I know they need is choice, and they need real choice, and they need choice that actually makes them want to read, and so we talk a lot about free book abandonment and how we should be celebrating in the beginning when we abandon a book because we know ourselves enough as a reader to know that this will not provide us with a reading experience that will matter to us. And we need to start, you know, building up that stamina, so we need books that work for us at that time, and that's really important for my students to remember, and to know and to recognize that what they need at this moment might be different than what they need in a month from now. And so they're constantly evaluating their book choices just either through conversation or self reflection or just their habits.

A Robust Classroom Library

And so choice and then of course access to books. So we have a beautiful school library that my students get to go to and many of them utilize, and then we also have several thousand books in my classroom, but I can tell you several thousand books, it didn't start out that way.

GONZALEZ: That's, yeah, I want to underscore that you just said "several thousand," and that is going to just make a few people's -

RIPP: Yeah...terrify most people...

GONZALEZ: Well, right. And then how did you build that up, and you're going to get the pushback here of, like, people say, "Well, why, why? Why several thousand?" Sounds amazing to me, but, you know, why?

RIPP: Well "Why?" Good question. There's a lot of reasons why, but the easiest one is simply I need a book for every reader, and I teach kids that read from about a second grade level to a college level. I teach kids with lives that share no similarities at times and others whose lives are very much like my own. And so I need to make sure that every child has a chance of finding a book that will speak to them. There is a lot of research out there, and it kind of always just depends on, like, where you go. But all I know from the research is just you need a lot of books, and you need them both in your classroom and in your school, because it's definitely not an either/or at all.

GONZALEZ: Okay.

RIPP: Yeah.

GONZALEZ: So why in both places? Because you cover that in the book, but I think you make such important points.

RIPP: I do.

GONZALEZ: Yeah. Why is it important to have both?

RIPP: Because the kids need to see the books staring at them at all times, and I think that has made the biggest difference for some of my kids who would go through the motions of going to the school library and they would even check some books out, but then when it came down to actually sitting down and read it, they didn't feel that same need or urge to read it. And I had a seventh-grader come back to me my first year at the end of the year, and he said, "You know what made the biggest difference? The books were always right there staring at me." And I think about that too and Donalyn Miller and Terry Lesesne have said this too when I saw them present at NCTE a couple of years ago, they said, "You know for some kids, even if the school library's right outside your classroom door, that's too far away." And I think about that with my own readers and their habits. Those kids that are reading okay-ish books, so not the fake readers, not the ones that can't find a book, but the ones that are like in the seven out of 10-star books, they need to know that there are better options kind of screaming their name visually all around them. And there's research on it too. Morrow and Neuman have both done research on it, and it says that students read 50 to 60 percent more in classrooms with libraries than classrooms without them. But like I also said, it didn't start that way. I inherited a classroom library, I was really excited, I had several bookshelves, but I didn't make the realization that when someone leaves their classroom library behind, they don't leave you all the good stuff. They take that with them.

GONZALEZ: Yeah.

RIPP: And so I didn't really know what fourth-graders would like, and I figured my titles were fine. But then, again, after about a year's worth of use, when the kids weren't really using it, I realized that I needed to do some really hard weeding, and actually I think it was even a couple years in. And I remember how scary it was to sit down and really go through the books and go, keep or toss. And I threw, I think, gosh, three quarters of my library out, because it was not anything that would entice the kids.

GONZALEZ: Wow.

RIPP: And I ended up with this short little bookshelf -

GONZALEZ: Yeah.

RIPP: - of books, and I was like, "Oh my gosh. What do I do now?" Like, I have three kids at home, you know, on a teacher's salary. I was like, I can't go out and spend thousands of dollars on books, and my school didn't have a lot of extra money, and I had to have this realization of, "OK. I would rather that a child can go up to this bookshelf and find a high-quality book pretty much any time they go there rather than have to dig through the junk and hope they find something." And so it just became my mission that instead of buying things to make our classroom prettier or anything like that, like, I bought books, and I used Scholastic, and I went to library sales and parents donated books, and I was always really picky. It was big for me that the books were good, and then I just purchased books. And so it has been an ongoing process, and it continues to be, and I continue to weed in my library too, books that I thought that maybe kids would connect with, they haven't. Well maybe it's not that they need to get tossed, maybe they just need to go to a different classroom where they'll access them. And so for me, that is one of the biggest things that I can give these kids is just to say, "Look at all these books. Look at all these choices that you have." And I want them to feel enticed to touch them, to pick them up. And we also have audio books, like Overdrive for the kids and whatnot, and I have a few kids that like to read on devices. But it's interesting to see how many kids gravitate towards that very tactile experience of sitting with a book in their hands, also so that they can hand it to a friend or hand it to me, and do that physical recommendation. And so that was this long-term commitment of, "I need better books and I need all sorts of books." And I think about that too, and my students constantly push me on this too about how we evaluate our classroom libraries. And for me there's kind of three questions that I always ask, and the first one is, you know, not just who is represented by how are they represented and who's not? And I think that that's so important. That came from a student too. Last year he looked at me and he said, "Mrs. Ripp, why are all the picture books featuring African Americans always about slavery or civil rights?" And I was looking around my classroom, I was like, "Yep. Where are all the picture books and the regular books about, you know, people of color or people anything other than, like, white cisgender, you know, whatever kind of core family doing anything?"

GONZALEZ: Yeah.

RIPP: And so that needs to come from us, because we're the ones purchasing these books, and so we need to go out and say, "We need better books."

GONZALEZ: Yeah.

RIPP: "We need more diverse books and we need own author's books, own voices books."

GONZALEZ: Right.

RIPP: And so that's the other question too: Am I purchasing books where own voices authors are writing them, and so own voices came out of the We Need Diverse Books movement, and it just was, you know, the marginally represented author writing about their marginally represented culture or set in that culture. And so I think about out our LBTQ students or our gender nonconforming students or our Hispanic, Latinx students or anything that is not the norm so that kids can find themselves within the book. And then of course I also think about what am I displaying? Because whatever we're displaying is what kids are going to gravitate towards. So when I was asked at one point what I was going to do for picture books for Black History Month, and I said I'm not going to do anything, because I've been displaying those books all year, right? And that's so important. Like, we can't do Black History Month displays, and then only show slavery and civil rights picture books. How is that just a celebration? And that shouldn't just be one month out of the year. That should be all the time.

GONZALEZ: Yeah.

RIPP: And so those are the things that I think about when I look at my own classroom library, but again, that took several years to kind of realize what my book gaps were, because my book gaps, the books I'm not reading, I'm passing those book gaps on to students.

GONZALEZ: Right. Was it in the book that you had talked about, like, sort of fantasy books that you just were never really into those, and kids would sort of ask about it, and it was like, "I don't really know"?

RIPP: Sports. I love fantasy. I hate sports.

GONZALEZ: Okay. It's sports books. Okay.

RIPP: Sports and dogs and mermaids, and those three, like, and those three books are like some of the most, maybe not mermaids, but like dogs and sports -

GONZALEZ: Yeah.

RIPP: - are massively popular in my classroom, but they weren't in my classroom library because I was like, "Why would anyone ever want to read about sports? That's so dumb." But again, that came from students, right?

GONZALEZ: Yeah.

RIPP: They were like, "Where are these books?" And that's because I ask them. I'm always asking them, "What books do I need?"

GONZALEZ: Right.

RIPP: "What book gaps do we have? What can't you find here?" And I also, to teachers who are like, "OK. Well I don't even have any money to go out and buy books," partner up with your librarian. Maybe you can become a satellite library where you can have 50 books on display from your school library, and then tell the kids, like, go down and see the school librarian. You can go check this out -

GONZALEZ: So you sort of just rotate them into your classroom for a while just to display them?

RIPP: Yeah.

GONZALEZ: That's a great idea. Yeah.

RIPP: Yeah. And then that way, you know, they need to go down and check them out. I have a friend who goes to the public library, and she brings in 50 books from the public library, and the kids know they have to sign them out.

GONZALEZ: Oh, yeah.

RIPP: But she's, you know, again, like I think about how can we get books in the hands of these kids?

GONZALEZ: Yeah.

RIPP: Or go to conferences like NCT or ILA where publishers will hand you books.

GONZALEZ: Right.

RIPP: My students are blown away. They're like, "What books are you going to bring back for us?"

Including Picture Books

GONZALEZ: Can we talk for a second about picture books? Because you mentioned that, and I know that that's a really important piece and people who are teaching, you know, middle and high school need to know what your stance is on picture books.

RIPP: Oh my gosh. I couldn't do my job without picture books, and I wish I had realized that a long time ago. I remember being really annoyed by students when they would ask to borrow my picture books, because they were behind my teacher desk, because I had them as mentor texts. And I finally started realizing, "Oh hang on. Okay. Picture books. The kids really like reading them." And then I started diving into it more myself, especially when I moved to seventh grade, and I was like, "Where are all the short stories?" And by "short stories," I mean like two- or three-page short stories that need to have, like, incredible, you know, character change or anything like that, and I all of a sudden looked over at my picture books, and I was like, "There they are."

And it's like, picture books have changed and transformed the way our reading community feels, because if you can imagine if you walk into our classroom, yes there's all those books, the chapter books and all of that, but then all around us are picture books. And it's just a vibe, right? You feel it when you walk in that this is a classroom where you can have fun and where you get to read and you can choose whatever you want, and it's so funny, because some of my kids come in and they're like, "Picture books are for babies." And then I pull out, you know, like picture books like Bird, which is about drug addiction, or you pull out a picture book like I Never Knew Your Name, which is about teen suicide, and they're just like, "Hang on." I'm like, "I know. Is this for a baby? Would you ever read this to a 4-year-old?" But it's also this community thread that brings us together.

And so for my students I think about, and this goes for any age, but especially with older kids, right, where there's so much stigma attached to what they can and cannot do as readers and how often some of our vulnerable readers come in, and they're just like already so defeated because, "Here I am in a classroom again filled with chapter books, and of course none of them are going to actually be available to what I can do, and now they're going to have to go and find special books, and I'm going to look like an idiot again." And I think about how picture books just become this great equalizer for all my students. No one cares what you're reading in our classroom, because you can pick up picture books at any time. And so it really removes a lot of the stigma that my kids come in as far as who they are as readers, and we read them and we laugh about them and we cry over them and we talk to picture book authors and illustrators because we quickly realize, like, it is hard to write a picture book that has to carry some sort of emotional value within such short amount of pages.

And so, and I think too of, like, the kids that come in who are not where they should be as readers for whatever reason, and you can pull something like a wordless picture book and put it in front of them and all of a sudden they're on the same playing field, right? They don't have to go through the decoding of language, and instead, sometimes they are some of the ones that have the best ideas, the most creative, abstract thinkers, and yet they haven't seen themselves in that.

And so I just think of all of the benefit I get from pulling picture books in, and just how they are such an untapped resource for middle school and high schools, and thankfully there are amazing people out there pushing picture books too, like, Paul Hankins and other people that are like, "This is why I use picture books." But, you know, we cannot tell kids that some books are for younger kids or are for babies when it's so far from the truth.

What About Grades?

GONZALEZ: Right, right. So 10 minutes at the beginning of every class is independent reading, and then I know the biggest question that people are going to have when they listen to it is how do you hold them accountable? How do you turn this into a grade? And so, and I know that there are a lot of philosophies out there about grading. The reality is that a lot of teachers are still in schools that will require them to give a grade of some sort. So how have you navigated that?

RIPP: And I'm in one of those schools where, I mean, I still, I have a system of grades and so on, and standardized testing. So what I've been on a big kick on for the last couple of years is that we can't actually grade their independent reading, because that's practice.

GONZALEZ: Okay.

RIPP: And so you wouldn't grade someone's practice. And so when I'm looking at what my kids can actually do as readers, it's the skill of reading. And so for me, the 10 minutes at the beginning of class is always with nothing to do except to read. I want them to fall into the pages. I want them to reach flow. I want them to be silent and in this moment of their book. When they come back to me, we then do a mini lesson on reading or writing or whatever it is we're doing, and it is truly a mini lesson, 10 to 15 minutes. And then they go and do something, and that's where I assess them. And so when I think about my students, for example, they just handed in this two-week long project they were doing on character development where they were just tracking a character throughout their own self-selected stories, and they were giving evidence and analyzing it, telling me all about this character. They were working on that after the mini lesson, after this protected reading, and that's when I can assess how are they growing as readers? The other thing I can assess too is when I sit down and actually pull small conversations with them or small groups, and I can see how they're progressing, and I can ask pointed questions about who they are and what they can do. And I think that that's really important, because we do have to be accountable in some way as teachers of readers, and we do have to know how are these kids progressing, and what do I need to support them? And so we just have to be careful that we're not constantly doing it. One of the things that my students say over and over and over, it's not that they hate reading, it's that they hate all the things they have to do once they've read.

GONZALEZ: Yeah.

RIPP: And I get that, like, as adults, and I've written about this too, like, the reading rules we would never follow as adults. Like, we would never want to sit down and write something after every single book we have read. Well, a couple of adults would maybe, but not all of us.

GONZALEZ: Yeah.

RIPP: You know. We would never want to do all these tasks, and if we did, we would probably start to read less and less and less, because we would be dreading the task after.

GONZALEZ: Right.

RIPP: And also the other thing that I have to be careful of particularly is that I'm not assessing their reading skills through their writing skills, because that's also really, really problematic. I have kids who can comprehend at a really high level, who can speak beautifully about it, but the minute you tell them to write it down, it becomes a mess. And so I need to get to know my students to know how I can assess them. And so sometimes I give the students an option of, "OK. You can either write about your understanding," let's say we're doing theme or something like that, "Or you can record it in, like, Flipgrid or some other video, and you can send it to me." And so once in awhile I'll say to kids, "OK. I do need you to write this, but I'm also assessing your written skills based on it." And other times, it's just like, I just need to see where you're at and because I have 29 students, I can't sit down with all of you within 45 minutes. We'd be doing this assessment for three days. So instead I'm going to send you over in this corner. You can record it. (My kids usually have their own phones.) And so you make it work, and it can be scary and sometimes like "Oh, I should have more."

GONZALEZ: Yeah.

RIPP: I should have more stuff to show how they're progressing. But then I turn it back to the kids, and because we just ended a quarter, I asked my students, "How have you grown as a reader?" And they struggled with that question, some of them, but then what they ended up writing, it was really remarkable to read. "I have grown as a reader, because I have tried new genres, and I now feel more comfortable picking books that I wouldn't have picked before." Or "I have grown as a reader now, because I notice that I'm not understanding vocabulary, and I know I'm supposed to reread, but instead, I'm doing these other things." And so it's like, all of a sudden, all of those words that I've been kind of spouting at them, they're taking on and taking ownership of, and I think that's the best type of reading instruction we have, and I think that's like what Nancie Atwell, right, has been talking about for years now.

GONZALEZ: Yeah.

RIPP: It's just like that ownership of learning, handing that back to students and saying, hang on. If I need accountability, that needs to come from the students. Where are they in their reading journey? Because we are so busy doing all the work for them. We're setting the goals. We're telling them where they are. We're telling them where they should go. And instead, we should be going, "Okay, this is what I see, but what do you see?" And get their voice as part of the conversation.

GONZALEZ: Now in the, in your book you definitely sort of dig into a lot more of the sort of practical aspects of it, because I mean, gosh, I would love to sort of keep asking you all of these different questions like, how do you manage, like, the 29 conversations? How do you even look at the Flipgrid and all of that? But I'm going to trust that people are going to go and read about all of those.

What about Accelerated Reader?

GONZALEZ: Let's talk for just a second about Accelerated Reader and what you're thinking about that. I know that you do not use it, and that you strongly advocate that people stop using it. So let's talk a little bit about that.

RIPP: I always get in trouble. People get so upset. Okay. So here's my main problem, right?

GONZALEZ: Yeah.

RIPP: And there's a couple. One, we tend to do programs like this for short term gain. We have completely lost sight of the end game, which is these creative, critical thinkers, problem solvers who actually want to read books. And for some kids, Accelerated Reader or programs like it works. They get really excited. I have a friend who's like, "I loved Accelerated Reader," because she was really good at it, so she would get all the points and she would get the reward. If those kids love it, by all means, let them do it. But the problem is we're taking programs like Accelerated Reader and shoving our most vulnerable readers in front of it, and then we're telling them, "You can't choose that book," or "That book is not at your level," or "You failed this test, and so now you're not going to be given these privileges that other kids are given."

And I think about how we take reading, and we turn it into a task, and that's exactly what a program like Accelerated Reader does: read a book, take a quiz. And yes, I know that they've changed their program, and now there's more critical thinking and deeper thinking, but the thing is, teaching reading is not supposed to be quick and easy. Teaching reading is supposed to be about human connection, and I think about how my students would feel once they're done with a book if I said to them instead of "Tell me about it" or "Tell a friend about it" or "Tell the world about it," I said, "Go tell this computer about it, and then I'll tell you whether you've really had a deep reading experience with it or not based on your score."

But I get it, right? We're always searching for data, and Accelerated Reader presents itself as a beautiful program that can give us tons of data. The thing is though, we can get that data in other ways. If we really want kids to have, you know, comprehension quizzes, then give them comprehension quizzes, but my god, that cannot be the heart of our reading program. And I think about teachers who are very adamant in their defense of Accelerated Reader because they've seen it improve kids' comprehension scores or even kids' reading lives. There's other things that don't cost thousands of dollars a year that will allow us to do that while also create the one-on-one experience that kids need and deserve in our reading classrooms.

And here's the thing too. I think about my own children. I want my kids, I have four of them, I want for all of my kids to have the best reading experience as possible, and you cannot tell me that that's going to come from a computer who pretends to know my child through the questions that it asks them. And then bottom line too: If authors are failing their own Accelerated Reader quizzes, that should tell us something about the program, right? I mean, I just did an Elephant and Piggie quiz because I was like, I don't know, this would be fun on an airplane, right? I failed it. I've read this picture book, like, nine times, because of course the questions were not deeper level. They were not, "What is the lesson you want to learn from this book?" or anything like that. It was, "What did Gerald say to Piggy when this happened?" Like when did sheer memorization become the skill that we value above all?

So before people are like, "Oh, there she goes again bashing other teachers," question it. Ask parents, ask students, ask is this really the best use of our money? Can we get these same results in other ways where we might not be killing the love of reading for some parents and some kids? I mean, I have parents that tell me that their kid hates reading because of these programs. Just like we have to question our own decisions, and we should be asking, you know, starting courageous conversations in our districts when we see programs being implemented or brought in that we know are going to do harm. We need to become the people that stand up and speak up, because often parents trust us. And so they're not going to question, unless we tell them, "Whoa. This is what's happening. How do you feel about it?"

Handling Large Groups of Students

GONZALEZ: So I guess, probably the only other question that I think is really pressing, because I know I've got a lot of middle and high school teachers listening, and I think they're probably thinking what I would have been thinking, which is, "I have 130 students," you know, up to, gosh, if you're in California, up to 40 in a class. And so they're thinking, okay. Two things. No. 1: What do I do with the kids who don't feel like reading or are being disruptive? And then the other question is, if I can't handle this through some sort of a computer system, how do I manage to have these conversations with so many of them? Is it a matter of just, just not as many as you would think, that you're sort of touching base maybe once a week with each kid or how are you actually managing the bulk of kids?

RIPP: Right, great question, because that's my reality too.

GONZALEZ: Yeah.

RIPP: I typically teach 130 kids, and like I said, 45 minutes. It's one conversation at a time, and you stop beating yourself up so much. I check in with my students, I would say on a good schedule, every three to four weeks is when I have that one-on-one conversation with kids, because that's how long it takes to get through 30 kids when you're doing two to three kids a day, because there's always an interruption, right? There's always that kid that's like definitely not reading, so you need to go check in with them. Or that kid that desperately needs to book shop but is completely lost and doesn't know how to book shop so that's where you start with them. And you just keep going, and I think about, especially moving to middle school from elementary where I felt like I knew my students really well. Like, man, by October, we were jiving, right? It was a community. I knew all those kids. And by middle school, I'm starting now, and now we're two months into the school year going, "Oh, okay. That's who you are."

GONZALEZ: Yeah.

RIPP: Like, it takes forever, and so I think sometimes we get this false sense of security when we do computer programs or other programs where we're like, "Oh, I know this kid is a reader." But I just wonder, like, do we know this kid as their data, or do we really know them as a reader? Because those are two different things. And while the data is definitely part of the conversation, I need data just like everybody else does, it can't be the whole conversation. So what it looks like in my classroom, like I said, is just check-ins, two to three kids, a day, every day during those 10 minutes of reading. I take very few notes, because I just, I just need the most important, and I always put it back to them, like "What is hard with reading?" And that kind of becomes my inspiration for any kind of mini lessons. And then, you know, the kids that aren't reading, you just keep having more patience. You keep having more hope than they do. I think of a kid last year, he fought me till the last day of school, and that's the thing too: We cannot go in there and expect every child to change, but we can go in there hoping that we can help. But the reality of it too is, and I tell my students this, I'm not here to make you love reading. I'm here to make you hate it less. And if you already love it, then I'm here to protect it with all of my might. But I think of sometimes we are just the tourniquet. We are just the person that comes in and stops it from growing even bigger, and hopefully we are passing on a child that the next year's teacher can maybe move further with.

GONZALEZ: Right.

RIPP: You know, maybe we are just planting seeds but we will not actually see them fully grow. And I think of this one kid, you know, it was like some days he flat out refused. Some days he was disruptive. Other days I could just slide a stack of picture books, and he would actually read a couple of picture books, and whenever he did, in my head I was like, "That is a victory right there."

GONZALEZ: Yeah, yeah.

RIPP: He read more than he would have if I didn't do anything.

GONZALEZ: Right.

RIPP: And I think, that's it with the programs, right? Like, kids can fake their way through it, or kids can kind of get through it, but then if they still leave us hating reading -

GONZALEZ: Yeah.

RIPP: - then we haven't changed them.

GONZALEZ: Right, right. And I'm thinking too, the super reluctant, lower level reader, they may, they could get through a full year of the programmed instruction and still not have had really any success. Before we wrap up, because I'm going to just keep urging people, because this is really 10 percent of what your book covers, is there anything that we sort of left out that you really wanted to make sure that we touched on?

RIPP: I think the biggest thing, and you can do this without anyone's permission or any kind of money is go back in your own classroom and ask kids, why does reading suck, you know? And when is reading amazing?

GONZALEZ: Yeah.

RIPP: And then finally ask them, how can I be a better teacher for you? because that bottom line is everything that has changed me as a teacher, has been the truth that my students have so graciously given to me, and said, "Here. I don't know what you're going to do with this, but maybe you can do something about it." Because that's the thing: We don't need better systems, necessarily. We just need to start listening to the kids that are sitting right in front of us -

GONZALEZ: Yeah.

RIPP: - going, "We can do better," and then we can work with them to figure this out.

GONZALEZ: Yeah.

RIPP: And the thing is, we have to bring those voices in.

GONZALEZ: Thank you so much. I'm just - there are times when I have people on this podcast for their ideas and then there are times when I just want amazing people to be heard and to serve as just great role models for the way we should all be looking at our jobs, and you are doing both, so that's just fantastic. People can find, so the book is Passionate Readers, and I'm going to provide links to everything on this site, and then they can find you at pernillesripp.com. Anything else you want in terms of how people can find you online?

RIPP: No. I think I'm the only Pernille Ripp in all of North America, so I'm fairly Google-able. And the thing is too, like I'm not at expert, and I know that sounds really self-deprecating, but it's like I'm just someone who's on a journey to make what I'm doing better. And so I think it's really important that people feel empowered by learning from others just like I feel empowered having learned from so many others. And if I can help anyone question their practices or move forward or try an idea, please reach out, because we only get better together. And I think that's what's so incredible with social media is just, like, how much we can learn from each other.

GONZALEZ: Yeah.

RIPP: And not to idolize people but just to say, hey, we're all in this journey, we're all trying to make it better for kids.

GONZALEZ: Thank you so much, Pernille.

RIPP: You're welcome. Thank you.

For links to all the resources mentioned in this episode, visit cultofpedagogy.com, go to Podcasts, and click on Episode 84. To get weekly updates on all my newest blog posts, podcast episodes, and products, sign up for my mailing list at cultofpedagogy.com/subscribe. Thanks so much for listening, and have a great day.

This podcast is a proud member of the Education Podcast Network: Podcasts for educators, podcasts by educators. To learn more, visit edupodcastnetwork.com.

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Episode 84: How to Stop Killing the Love of Reading

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The Cult of Pedagogy Podcast, Episode 84 Transcript See a shorter recap of this interview in the blog post. See all podcast episodes. This transcript contains Amazon Affiliate links. When you make a purchase through those links, Cult of Pedagogy receives a small percentage of the sale at no additional cost to you.

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What reading experiences have inspired you, helped you to see your own life more clearly, or connected you with others? How do we teach to those experiences?

Today on the Podcast we're joined by Donalyn Miller to tell us more about her newest book The Joy of Reading.

The Joy of Reading is a guide for teachers, librarians, administrators, and families to create the conditions for joyful reading. Co-authors Donalyn Miller and Teri Lesesne draw from their decades of work to provide practices that nurture joy while identifying factors that dissuade joy, all with a clear understanding of the realities of today's classrooms and libraries.
Below is a full transcript of this episode.
Steph: Today we are joined by Donalyn Miller. Donalyn is a new author to Heinemann, but she is not new to our listeners. I'm sure she has a long and robust teaching background, an award-winning teacher, author and staff developer. Donalyn has primarily taught fourth, fifth, and sixth grade language arts and social studies, and some of you may know her as the co-founder of the Nerdy Book Club and the founder of the annual summer #bookaday Challenge. Donalyn has also written The book whisperer and Reading in the Wild. So welcome Donalyn.

Donalyn: Thank you for inviting me to talk with you today, I'm excited to be here.

Steph: So as I mentioned, you have a couple if books out previously, but we are here to talk about your newest book that you co-authored with Teri Lesesne, The Joy of Reading. So can you tell me a little bit about The Joy of Reading?

Donalyn: Well, Teri Lesesne and I were dear colleagues and friends for many years, we often gave conference presentations to together. Some of our listeners may have seen us at a conference present together. We collaborated on articles together. Teri was a big supporter of Nerdy Book Club, and was often the pinch hitter that we would call if someone was not able to turn their post in on time, we had a gap in the calendar, we used out that she was the fifth nerd, we could always call on her. So we had a long relationship and we actually started working on this book in 2014. The first folder in my computer for the book is labeled 2014. The Engagement Manifesto is what it was titled at the time. That was Teri's title. And Teri and I really worked on this book, it was a whole journey of seven years of everything that we have learned as teachers, as people who work with adults, as readers ourselves, as parents, and as grandparents, everything that we knew that engaged kids with reading.

Teri and I believe, and many other teachers, of course believe that you can teach kids how to read without killing their love of reading in the process, and in fact, we feel that it's more successful when engagement is something that's a concern. Sadly, over the years, I've heard colleagues say, "It's not my responsibility to make my kids love reading. Am I supposed to teach them how to read? It's their parents' job," or various other read on why joy should not be a concern. But when I talk with young people of all ages, and if you will sit down and talk with them, they will tell you, that when teachers listen to them and engage with them about their interests and care about their reading lives, they feel seen. That when teachers give them time to read, they read more. That when teachers give them some choice in what they get to read, they like reading more.

There's an incredible amount of high stakes pressure on teachers, to make sure children perform on standardized tests. Although we can persuade colleagues that investing in students reading lives long-term will improve their test performing short-term, and let's be clear, it's a short-term concern, their reading lives are a long-term concern, that we can invest in their reading lives and their test scores will improve. And there's many studies that back that up, there are other researchers and teacher practitioners who talk about the link between engaged invested reading, and an increase in students reading performance. I just think there's a lot of pressure on teachers to make reading a performance, and kids aren't given time necessarily to cook reading lives.

And access means, I've talked about this with my friend Colby Sharp in our book, Game Changer!, and we were able to bring in other people who were sharing what they were doing about access in their communities too, because it is a pervasive issue. But it starts with that physical access piece. Do kids have books on hand to read? I don't care how motivational your summer reading program is, if kids don't have a book to read after that conversation, I don't the program's going to be a success.

So we have to make sure kids have the physical books. eBooks, audio books, paper books, and then if kids need assistive technology in order to access that book, that they have the technology too. And that access is inconsistent from community to community, and honestly, from family to family inside the same school.

So that's a system-wide conversation, that challenge is a challenge that's difficult for an individual teacher to overcome without, let's say, a classroom library resource. Many schools are losing their school librarians, which undermines access for children, but it also causes teachers to lose a valuable colleague that would help them locate the resources that they would need to support their students. So when you lose a school librarian, everyone in the school community suffers from that. So that access piece is a big piece that I think a lot of school districts, a lot of school leaders would benefit from an engaging with, with teachers and with community members. Talking to families. Public library is another aspect. And then that time piece, because there's so many demands on the school schedule, but if we don't set aside time during the school day for kids to read, then how can we say we prioritize reading, if we don't make time for it?

We know that kids read more when they see other people reading, which means that beyond just the time of... I mean, you and I would love it if we had 10 minutes to read every day, just set aside for us. But beyond that, the community piece, when that happens is important, we've found kids. So you may think, "Oh, 10 minutes isn't very much reading, it doesn't really matter." Well, yes, because if kids aren't reading at school, it's unlikely they're picking up the habit at home and going, "Oh, reading. I didn't do it all day, but I'm going to do it now." That doesn't happen.

We just open up the library door, throw kids into the library, "Be free, pick whatever you want." "You don't like to read, it's because you haven't met the right book yet." I've taught middle schoolers, they don't believe us anymore. When we say, "Oh, you haven't met the right book yet," they don't believe us. Where is this mystical book? Why is it so hard to find? It's like Atlantis, it might not really be there. But choice we know is so empowering. So what our students need are lots of opportunities to preview, share and talk about books they might read, because that's where their ability to choose comes from. We spend a lot of our conversations talking with kids, as teachers, I know, conferring with readers, "What are you reading right now? Talk to me about what you're reading right now." Or, "Oh, you just finished the book, talk to me about that book you just finished."

We prioritize or we lean into the books they're currently reading and the books they've recently finished. But there's benefit, real power in talking with kids about the books they might read in the future, because one, they can visualize themselves as readers in the future. But helping them learn how to choose their own books is one of the best ways we have to ensure that they will read in the future without us. Unfortunately, we complain if kids aren't reading the right things, sometimes adults often complain that kids don't read, and then we bemoan their choices when they do, "Oh, we want you to read Tom Sawyer, not The Lightning Thief." Actually a parent had a conversation with me about those two books one time, it was not a made up example.

So I think we have to value the reading lives of children, the books that are written for them are not written for us, it's a time in their lives where it's appropriate for them to read them. If a kid will read anything, I can challenge them to grow. If they won't read anything, we're kind of stuck there in that spot. Yes. So I think that's where we put our effort. Can we get them into anything they'd be interested in reading? We can take them from there.

Steph: In the spirit of modeling, reading joy, what is bringing you reading joy right now?

Donalyn: Oh my goodness. Okay. So I'm moving, and so many books are being packed, and it is so painful. But if you've gone through your books, what happens is, you find things. So I have a pile now of books I discovered that I need to read, that have been on my shelves all this time.

Steph: Oh yes. I have those piles too.

Donalyn: I'm also not a hoarder necessarily, but I am sentimental, and I hold on to things. So I found a book on organizing, that's called, Organize Your House, Keep Everything. So it's the exact opposite of all these books that tell you to get rid of your belongings. Basically, I think it's a coffee table book that shows you how to artfully design all of your collections into things. But, yes, that's what I'm reading right now. Books on organizing and the picture books I've discovered on my shelf. Oh, and I did just finish Kelly Barnhill, who won the Newbery award for her book, The Girl Who Drank the Moon. Her latest book, The Ogress and the Orphans just came out and it is so lovely. A Beautiful book about what it means to be a neighbor, what it means to be a good citizen, and what it means to be a family. It's really good.

Steph: Well, Donalyn, thank you so much for joining us. The Joy of Reading will be out next month, but listeners, I believe you can pre-order now, so head to heinemann.com and look for The Joy of Reading. Thank you so much.

Donalyn: Thank you.

Donalyn Miller's work champions self-selected independent reading, providing guidance and resources that foster children's love of reading and the development of positive reading identities. A national and international consultant and bestselling author, Donalyn's published works include T he Book Whisperer (Jossey-Bass, 2009), Reading in the Wild (Jossey-Bass, 2013), and Game Changer: Book Access for All Kids (co-written with Colby Sharp, Scholastic, 2018) as well as articles in Gifted Child International, Education Week Teacher, The Reading Teacher, Voices From the Middle, Educational Leadership, Horn Book, School Library Journal, and The Washington Post.

Donalyn is also a co-founder of The Nerdy Book Club, an online community which provides inspiration, book recommendations, resources, and advice about raising and teaching young readers. Donalyn and her husband, Don, live in Texas atop a dragon's hoard of books. You can connect with her on her website BookWhisperer.com, or on Twitter at @DonalynBooks

Teri Lesesne's long and influential career was devoted to readers. Author of several books, including Reading Ladders and The Joy of Reading (co-authored with Donalyn Miller), she was known for the passion she brought to connecting readers with books. Teri was a middle-school teacher, a Distinguished Professor the department of Library Science at Sam Houston State University, Executive Director of ALAN (the Assembly on Literature for Adolescents of the National Council of Teachers of English), a National Book Award judge, and recipient of the 2007 ALAN award for her significant contributions to the field. Known to many as "Professor Nana," Teri's legacy lives on in the librarians and teachers her work has nurtured.

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Podcast: Harnessing the Joy of Reading with Donalyn Miller

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What reading experiences have inspired you, helped you to see your own life more clearly, or connected you with others? How do we teach to those experiences? Today on the Podcast we're joined by Donalyn Miller to tell us more about her newest book The Joy of Reading.

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Hello everyone and welcome to part 2 of our season finale episode!If you missed part 1, check it out here.

If you have been a fan of this show for any amount of time, you know that I am a mega fan of Donalyn Miller. Not just because she is an amazing person and educator, but because her work changed how I taught.

In this episode we discuss:

The legacy of Teri Lesesne The importance of having diverse books in schools Fighting against programs and initiatives that are bad for readers Reclaiming book joy for students and ourselves

You DO NOT want to mis the season finale to season 6 of Teach Me, Teacher.

This episode is sponsored by Heinemann-the leading publisher of professional books and resources for educators-and their new book, The First Five: A Love Letter to TeachersBy Patrick Harris II.

We all have stories. We all have experiences to share. A memoir with a call-to-action, The First Five affirms the humanity of all teachers. Patrick inspires you to dream big about what you want for yourself, our students, our schools, and our educational system.

In The First Five, Patrick brings to light the realities of teaching, especially in the first five years. He immerses you in his world with personal stories that lead to lessons, questions, and exercises to help you reflect on your own journey. Each chapter includes interviews with a diverse group of educators.

Creating change in our education system is a process. It will happen from the ground up and the inside out. If we want to make a long-lasting impact we need to know more than just what to do; we need to start sharing our stories, not just our strategies. The work we do together throughout this book and beyond will leave you feeling hopeful, empowered, and challenged. No matter where you start, know that this work is ongoing. Give yourself grace. We are in this together, for the long haul. Here's to the next five years.

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#269 the joy of reading (season finale with donalyn miller pt.2)

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‎Teach Me, Teacher: #269 The Joy of Reading (Season Finale with Donalyn Miller pt.2) on Apple Podcasts

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Hello everyone and welcome to part 2 of our season finale episode!If you missed part 1, check it out here. If you have been a fan of this show for any amount of time, you know that I am a mega fan of Donalyn Miller.

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We've partnered with Downtown Bellefonte to host a variety of National Parks-themed activities during the first "Friday in the 'Fonte" celebration of 2022! Join us for trivia night or stop by Talleyrand Park on May 27th to engage in a variety of fun stations related to this year's theme!

National Parks Trivia Night Flyer.pdf

Check out our 2022 Bellefonte READS Bitmoji Classroom to access all activities related to this year's books!

Please see below for information about our 2022 program! We are so excited about this year's National Parks theme!

2022 One Book, One Bellefonte Flyer.pdf

Check out personalized videos made by the authors/illustrators of some of this year's titles!

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We've partnered with Downtown Bellefonte to host a variety of National Parks-themed activities during the first "Friday in the 'Fonte" celebration of 2022! Join us for trivia night or stop by Talleyrand Park on May 27th to engage in a variety of fun stations related to this year's theme!

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My family took a big plunge five years ago, and made the decision to move from our placid, beautiful Central Oregon to Amman, Jordan. So much about Jordan was wonderful, but part of our decision to move away from our home, from Oregon, was about traveling the world. So after four years in Amman, we decided to move away from Jordan, to Managua, Nicaragua.

Between making the decision in January to move to Nicaragua and actually arriving this July, Nicaragua's travel advisory from the US State Department went from level 2 to level 3 because of civil unrest, crime, and limited healthcare availability. Of course that travel advisory rating, combined with what we were reading in the news and hearing from people who lived in Managua gave us pause, and we carefully considered the choice we were making. Ultimately, we decided to move to Managua, and we are happy with our choice.

I share this background because I want to point out that while private schools often don't share exactly the same issues and concerns found in public schools, private schools are not always utopian. Our school is wonderful, students are eager, teachers are welcoming and caring, and our facilities are beautiful. But with the current situation in Nicaragua, some families have chosen to leave the country, which ultimately means revenue from student fees is down, and the budget reflects that situation.

Everywhere I have ever taught has had budget concerns, public or private. I'm sure all teachers can relate to budget issues, which is why I bring it up.
Even in a time of budget concerns, my classroom library grew from empty shelves to full shelves in a matter of weeks, and it didn't cost me an extra dime.
I walked into a nice, big, but empty classroom. The bookshelves were beautiful, but bare.

Within a day or two of being in my new space, at my new job, in my new city of residence, I was having conversations with administrators and coworkers about how to build classroom libraries.

Our first step was to visit the book room. I think most schools have a book room, and in my experience they are full of books that are rarely in the hands of students for any length of time. We decided to gather a copy of each book for each of our five classrooms, and if a teacher needed one of those copies for teaching a whole-class-novel, we would give it to that teacher to use during that particular unit.

There were also books in the book room that were not being taught as whole-class-texts, and that weren't available in high enough numbers to be used in that way. They might be titles that could be used in future book clubs, but we decided that getting these books in the hands of students sooner rather than later was the right choice, so they were distributed as well.

My classroom library was greatly improved by visiting the book room and reimagining the uses for all of the wonderful reads that could be found there.

I found some small white boards in the closet in my classroom and repurposed them as book displays so that I could highlight titles that might be especially interesting to my students. I think the same thing could be done using repurposed cardboard and printer paper, so I want to encourage others to use what's available in order to highlight high-interest books. There are many other ways to focus attention on desirable titles, but sometimes simple is easiest.

After raiding the book room, it was time for step two. We checked in with the main library at our school. The shelves in our library were packed tight, full of great titles, and because shelves were so full, we had the ability to pull books out of the library and redistribute them to our classroom libraries.

Our librarian has spent the last several days pulling titles from the shelves and delivering them to our classrooms. Every other day or so, a basket of books arrives, and we never know what we are going to get. What we do know is that we will have more and more books as this process progresses. There will be additional books in our classroom libraries and more room on our school library shelves. Reallocation of resources is working in a very positive way in our school.

Once I received the books from the book room and the library, I implemented step three. I organized the books. I don't think it matters how the books are organized, just that they are organized.

I categorized my books into the following sections, and used markers and printer paper to make my labels:

As you can see, I didn't spend a dime on any books. I didn't ask anyone else to spend any money, either. I used what was already in my school and simply helped to redistribute resources.

In some schools or districts, asking students to bring in books, applying for grants, and asking the parent-teacher groups to support classroom libraries will be great options. However, I wanted to share that sometimes, maybe often, classroom libraries can be built with what we already have.

What do you do to help build your classroom library? I'd love to see your ideas in the comments below.
Julie has been teaching secondary language arts for twenty years, spending the first fifteen in rural Central Oregon, and the last four in Amman, Jordan. She's thrilled to report that she and her family have moved across the world to Managua, Nicaragua this year, where a new adventure has begun. Follow her on twitter @SwinehartJulie

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My Classroom Library Shelves went from Empty to Full . . . and Yours Can, Too!

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My family took a big plunge five years ago, and made the decision to move from our placid, beautiful Central Oregon to Amman, Jordan. So much about Jordan was wonderful, but part of our decision to move away from our home, from Oregon, was about traveling the world.

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by Kimberly Tyson, learningunlimitedllc.com

If you've read previous posts in this series, you know I've shared about the importance of a classroom library as part of a literacy-rich environment. I've also shared strategies for growing your collection, as well as tools and tips for keeping it organized. As you build your collection of books and other media, you'll want it to best meet the needs of your students. This post will focus on research-based guidelines of an effective and well-balanced classroom library.

There are specific, research-based guidelines toward which you should aim when building your classroom library. As an integral part of a balanced literacy classroom, an effective classroom library includes:

a core collection of 300 to 600 books (10 -20 books per student) with new books added routinely to spark interest and old, worn, and tattered books discarded periodically;

a wide variety of formats: wordless books, big books, picture books, chapter books, graphic novels, series books, hardcover books, and paperbacks;

fiction books - about 40-50% including a wide variety of authors, illustrators, and varied themes;

nonfiction books - 40 to 60% of the collection should include informational and nonfiction books;

reference books - 5% of the collection should consist of current reference books, including, but not limited to, dictionaries, thesauruses, almanacs, atlases, and encyclopedias;

current books - 30% of the books should have been published within the last five years;

multicultural books;

multiple copies of popular titles;

text sets consisting of a set of books on a theme or topic and representing a variety of reading levels;

books spanning a range of complexity, including predictable, easy-to-read books, leveled books, books of a more challenging nature, and books for independent reading;

books spanning three grades above and three grades below the designated grade level; and

materials other than books that include magazines, newspapers, comic books, audio-tapes, CD-ROMs, and writing paper and art supplies to encourage children to respond to their reading.

In addition to a variety of books and formats, a classroom library should ideally be in a clearly defined area out of traffic flow, if possible (see images). Books should be labeled and organized in tubs, shelves, or bookracks and the space should accommodate about 4-5 students at a time. If possible, comfortable furniture or cushions for reading help make the space attractive and inviting for readers. For more ideas, you may want to notice book displays and comfortable seating arrangements the next time you are at your local bookstore.

As you can see, classroom libraries should include diverse materials from a variety of text types and formats to best meet the needs of students and their independent reading. From reading these guidelines, you likely know where your library needs additional resources and focus to come closer to the guidelines. It is important to note that I realize many teachers use out-of-pocket funds to build their classroom library. Keeping this in mind, I suggest developing short- and long-term goals for building your classroom library.

Most of us don't have the personal or school budget resources to build the type of library we know would best serve our students in one, two, or even three years. So, think about a specific part of your collection that needs the most attention and perhaps make that your goal for this year. Then think about goals that are reasonable over the next few years in order to build a diverse and rich collection to support independent reading and literacy enrichment for your students.

Going a step further, I suggest that classroom libraries not be dependent upon the resources and generosity of individual teachers and other organizations or grant funds. This type of funding and support ultimately results in inequities across classrooms in a school and across buildings in a district. I suggest that district-level funds be allocated to support the growth and maintenance of classroom libraries to support students equitably across classrooms.

In addition, while these guidelines could easily be printed on a stand-alone handout, I would not suggest simply copying this list and distributing to teachers. The classroom library guidelines are seated within a broader framework of a balanced literacy approach to reading and is designed to serve specific functions which I'll lay out in another post. At the school or district level, professional development for teachers may include the following topics specific to classroom libraries:

the importance of the classroom library and its relationship to reading achievement,

guidelines for a quality classroom library, and

how to use the classroom library effectively to increase independent reading.

I hope these posts have helped you think carefully about your classroom library, and how to organize and build your resources to meet the needs of your students. Over the past few years, I've had the privilege of helping many teachers and supported district-wide efforts to increase the size and diversity of classroom libraries. In these schools and districts, formal and informal measures show that students choose books more frequently from classroom libraries, have increased their interest in books and time spent in independent reading, and have increased their literacy achievement.

In addition to the pictures posted here, you can view more examples and photos of quality classroom libraries on our Pinterest page. Learning Unlimited has developed 40 boards and over 700 pins to support your balanced literacy instruction.
How To Create An Effective Classroom Library was first published on learningunlimitedllc.com; image attribution flickr user barbaraln

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How To Create An Effective Classroom Library

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by Kimberly Tyson, learningunlimitedllc.com If you've read previous posts in this series, you know I've shared about the importance of a classroom library as part of a literacy-rich environment. I've also shared strategies for growing your collection, as well as tools and tips for keeping it organized.

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1. Think beyond so-called reading level and aim for complexity and meaningfulness.

2. Diversify your collection to include authors and characters along a range of personal, social, and cultural identities.

3. Be intentional about getting books into circulation and about engaging readers.

Three ideas shape classrooms where reading engagement thrives.

1. Think beyond so-called reading level and aim for complexity and meaningfulness.

2. Diversify your collection to include authors and characters along a range of personal, social, and cultural identities.

3. Be intentional about getting books into circulation and about engaging readers.

I have seen firsthand, across K-12 settings, how classroom libraries change not just reading habits, dispositions, and achievement but also the culture of classrooms, relationships inside and outside of school, and the personal and social lives of children and young adults. If that seems like a stretch, consider the research behind these claims.

In a meta-analysis of studies about engagement, Guthrie and Humenick (2004) found that choice and interest texts-variables linked to excellent classroom libraries-have extraordinarily powerful effects on reading motivation and comprehension. When Peter Johnston and I analyzed the reading experiences of 8th graders whose teachers prioritized engagement through access to top-notch classroom libraries (in and ), we found that not only did students develop their reading competence and motivation, but they also reported and demonstrated shifts in their social-emotional, relational, intellectual, and moral development.

For these students, reading involved not just choosing interesting books and reading silently, but also constantly talking to each other about what they read-in and between classes, in the cafeteria, on the bus ride home, and on the phone in the evenings and on weekends. It is perhaps no coincidence that social interaction was identified by Guthrie and Humenick as another variable with strong effects on reading motivation and comprehension.

How can we maximize the potential of classroom libraries to fuel reading engagement that produces a range of positive consequences? The following principles lead us in the right direction:

1. Think beyond so-called reading level and aim for complexity and meaningfulness.

The appeal of classroom libraries guided by reading level is easy to understand. We want children to have access to books that make sense to them. But there are substantial downsides to leveling libraries: assigning fixed labels to children as readers; damaging students' sense of competence; and limiting children to certain books, which all lessen children's exposure to rich ideas and vocabulary and reduce possibilities for students to pursue topics of interest.

Every classroom, kindergarten through high school, includes students representing a broad spectrum of experiences with reading. We need an equally expansive collection of books in each class that reflects the varied degrees of difficulty. Be strategic in ensuring that children find books that are not only readable but also highly engaging. Particularly with less-experienced readers in mind, collect books that seem approachable at the word level but sophisticated in terms of illustration and content. For example, Orange Pear Apple Bear by Emily Gravett contains just those four words arranged in different order throughout the book, with brilliant illustrations accompanying each configuration (e.g., "Apple Bear" appears beneath a bear with a multihued apple superimposed on its bottom half).

Some emergent readers in a multiage classroom I visited spent extended time with this book, studying illustrations and the accompanying labels but also noticing other interesting decisions made by the author/illustrator, such as the copyright information written in the shape of a pear. And, book series allow readers to revisit favorite characters in a range of situations. Such engagements, in turn, help to accelerate reading and writing development. Children are more likely to reread, share, and emulate engaging books in their writing, rather than those distinguished mainly by word level readability.

For older inexperienced readers, verse novels-such as Moo by Sharon Creech for upper elementary grades and Long Way Down by Jason Reynolds for the middle grades and beyond-are a good point of entry. In these books, words are used sparingly, but authors make use of figurative language and rich images that help create complex experiences even for novice readers. Attempting to level books like these, along with contemporary multimodal picture books, is not only tricky, but more importantly, misses the point that reading experiences should be thought provoking and provide opportunities to interpret, not just read words correctly.

Another reason to loosen up the parameters on what we make available for children to read: When children are highly interested, they are not so bothered by text complexity . In fact, when engaged readers encounter difficulty, they persist and do whatever it takes to make sense of a text, which is the goal of most reading comprehension instruction.

2. Diversify your collection to include authors and characters along a range of personal, social, and cultural identities.

Make sure that your collection features many books that represent the lives of your students. Recently, I helped an elementary school stock classrooms with books reflecting the school's primary population-African American students. In one classroom where students are massively engaged in reading, you have to look hard to find a book with white characters on the cover rather than black or brown characters. Imagine if all children, upon entering kindergarten, encounter books in which they could envision themselves, their friends, and family alongside the characters and could envision themselves as authors and subjects of stories they might create.

At the same time, do not expect to accurately predict the books that students will find meaningful. Once children figure out that through reading it is sometimes possible to get a better understanding of someone else through characters who are unlike themselves, they do this intentionally. A group of 8th graders I know decided to read a book featuring a gay character with an unaccepting family because a classmate was experiencing this same thing. A reader might find a character interesting not because of shared identity but due to shared human emotions or life experiences, such as having an incarcerated parent, struggling with envy, or worrying over moving to a new school. A diverse collection makes engagement more possible in countless ways.

3. Be intentional about getting books into circulation and about engaging readers.

Amassing a diverse collection of meaningful books is a necessary, but not fully sufficient, strategy if you want a classroom where every student is an engaged reader. I recommend three simple, but powerful, tips for ensuring that classroom libraries are tools for building and sustaining vigorous literacy communities.

First, commit to a daily period for student-selected reading. Many educators have advocated for a certain amount of time set aside each day for student reading, but often with the idea that practice makes perfect. I would suggest a different frame: Engagement takes time. Children, like all of us, need time when starting a book to become engrossed in the social world of the narrative and invested in the characters enough to want to get back to them as soon as possible.

Second, regularly introduce new books to children-three to four every day-by reading short, powerful passages aloud or sharing dynamic illustrations. Once children become engaged readers, you invite them to do the same by asking the class questions such as, "Is anybody just itching to tell us something about their book?" You will also find that peers have a big influence on student reading choices. Create opportunities for students to recruit others to read. Even simple strategies such as asking a child, "Who else in here would love that book?" followed by "Go over and tell them about it right now" can spark peer reading networks.

Third, and related, engaged reading is heavily social , so arranging for students to talk to each other through and about books is essential for success. Children want to talk through interesting things in books that are also a bit confusing, and they want other children's perspectives on those ideas. In addition, talking about books with peers helps to expand relationships with them, and once children figure that out, they want the conversations to keep going . Reading more and more books, including the books their peers have read, is a way to make that happen.

Finally, a word of caution. By attaching your own requirements to children's reading experiences, you could easily cancel out the work of making the classroom library a primary tool for reading engagement. Put bluntly, requiring students to answer to you about their reading choices and experiences-from checking their comprehension to assigning a response log or creative project-undermines students' sense of autonomy. When children are engaged in reading, you will know it, and you will not need them to offer you proof. If you have reason to suspect that students are not reading or are not comprehending what they read, you simply do not have engaged readers. The fix for that is not holding kids accountable, a phrase I often hear, but instead attending more closely to the suggestions outlined here for building a vibrant classroom library that is a reading engagement hub.

ASCD is a community dedicated to educators' professional growth and well-being.

Let us help you put your vision into action.

ASCD empowers educators to achieve excellence in learning, teaching, and leading so that every child is healthy, safe, engaged, supported, and challenged.

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Making Classroom Libraries the Hubs of Reading Engagement - ASCD

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1. Think beyond so-called reading level and aim for complexity and meaningfulness. 2. Diversify your collection to include authors and characters along a range of personal, social, and cultural identities. 3. Be intentional about getting books into circulation and about engaging readers. Three ideas shape classrooms where reading engagement thrives.

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At a school in Oakland, California, students see themselves—and the broader world—in the books they read.

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Everyone should have a classroom library, whether you teach English or another content area. Classroom libraries offer all kinds of benefits: increased student reading achievement, greater access to print material, greater levels of volume of student reading, and more. But starting a classroom library is a daunting task. How do you afford it? Organize it? Maintain it?

In this comprehensive post, I hope to give you everything you need to get started with a classroom library. I'll also include links to resources where you can find or receive additional information when you're ready to up your classroom library game.

I'm sharing these tips and strategies from my own experiences. I floundered with my library a lot in the beginning and spent a significant amount of time getting it going.

I'm also including some information I've picked up from listening to speakers, attending professional development seminars, and reading professional books around reading achievement.

Disclosure: This post may contain affiliate links that earn me a small commission, at no additional cost to you. I only recommend products that I personally use and love, or think my readers will find useful.

I hope to save you some of the time, money, and resources, by distilling all that I've learned into one comprehensive guide.
In this post, I'll cover:

Why Have A Classroom Library?

This is a legitimate question. Classroom libraries can be expensive. They require maintenance, and they take up valuable classroom space.

And don't the kids have access to school libraries? Surely the librarian can serve their needs better than classroom teachers.

While creating, building, maintaining, and organizing a classroom library can be additional work, the benefits for students far outweigh the negatives. I would argue that a solid classroom library is one of the most important resources teachers can provide.
The National Council of English Teachers notes many ways that classroom libraries promote literacy, foster community, and encourage an informed citizenry.
The data and research that supports classroom libraries to too widespread and plentiful for me to list every study, article, or key point. I will, however, discuss a few benefits of a classroom library that may be immediately relevant for you.

Not Every School has a Library

Right now, 2.5 million students attend school in a district without school libraries.

Maybe you're reading this because you're in one of those schools. Kudos. You recognize what a tragedy this is for our young people.

In these cases, classroom libraries are essential. For many students, your classroom library may be the only place they have access to free reading materials.

In order for students to become adults that are able to fully function in the twenty-first century, they must be able to access, use, and critically think about a variety of sources, perspectives, and texts.

Your classroom library allows reading choice for students. That's important. Reading choice promotes reading engagement-and that's what our students need.

Not Every Student is Comfortable in a Library

Even if your school has the best library in the state, odds are that some of your students are not going in there.

Maybe they were raised in a culture-in school, at home, or in society-where reading was not celebrated, but discouraged. The idea of the reading nerd being uncool and being a target of bullying is oftentimes still alive and well.
Whatever the reason, we will have non-readers, and they are not spending their time in the library.
Many of our students don't even know how to use a library when they go in. Even my seniors often don't understand how books are categorized and shelves in libraries. They don't know what the Dewey Decimal system is or that fiction is alphabetical by author's last name.

And if they do know this, they don't know how to access the card catalog.

And don't tell me you've never run across an odd or unhelpful librarian.

Even if students want to learn how to access books and explore the library, they may have anxiety around reaching high school (or whatever their age) without knowing. This anxiety can prevent them from asking the librarian. If the librarian has a cold demeanor (or is more focused on policing library rules than helping), this could also turn off students.

Create Positive Associations with Books

While those of us who grew up loving books often think of libraries as magical places (a la Matilda), those that were punished or mocked for reading may find them completely foreign.

By high school, many of our students have begun to identify themselves as non-readers.

Often, this is because of trauma they have associated with reading. Maybe they were bullied while struggling to read aloud. Perhaps a teacher told them they were bad readers and would never be good.

Maybe our non-reading students have just never found a book, genre, or author that "clicked" with them.

We can't assume that our students have a positive association with books, libraries, or even librarians. We have to create and nurture those associations within our classrooms.

Once students have developed positive associations with books and libraries in the comfort of a trusted classroom, they can spread their wings and explore "real" libraries. For a child, your classroom library could be the needed stepping stone that allows them to access books in the future.

Classroom Libraries Promote Literacy

Unlike the library, students will step foot into your classroom every day. That means that we have the power to shape and redefine students' relationships with reading.

Nothing promotes literacy like putting good books in front of students. It can't be plainer: students need easy access to text.

According to the U. S. Department of Education, 61% of low-income families have no books in their home. While that statistic is from 1996, I don't think much has changed.

At the same time, the most successful way to increase reading achievement of low-income students is to increase their access to print. (Scholastic has compiled a ton of useful information here.)

Classroom libraries help to do that. But even students who aren't from a low-income family benefit from more readily available books.

Classroom Libraries Enhance Reading Opportunities

Many students aren't surrounded by readers at home. They don't have access to books at home. And no one is going to regularly fulfill their Amazon wishlist.

Through poverty, lack of education, or, sadly, sometimes just apathy, a lot of our students' parents are unable to provide the amount of reading material that students should be consuming.

The NCTE's official position on classroom libraries states that "classroom libraries offer ongoing opportunities for teachers to work with students as individuals to find books that will ignite their love for learning, calm their fears, answer their questions, and improve their lives in any of the multiple ways that only literature can." That's powerful stuff.

Even if students have supportive, reading parents at home, we see over and over again that the greater access to books, the greater to reading success. There are very few things in education that are a sure bet-classroom libraries are one of them.

If you'd like to learn more about the pedagogy around classroom libraries or independent reading, any of these books would be a great place to start:

Where Do You Get Books for Your Classroom Library-for Cheap?

I think the most intimidating part of the classroom library is getting started.

Some experts say that a classroom library should have at least 500 books. Others say that a library needs 20 titles per student. Another formula says seven books per child plus two new books per student a year. (You can see more about some of these numbers here.)

And then you're responsible for continuing to grow your library indefinitely. Plus, you'll need to be on top of all the young adult literature trends. Oh, and don't forget-you'll need to supply a variety of genres and diverse authors.

No wonder people don't start classroom libraries. That's a lot of pressure!

When you have zero books, getting to five hundred is A LOT. (Heck, getting to 50 is a lot!)

If you start thinking about money, it becomes even more intimidating. After all, even if you scored books for $5 each (a deal!) that's $2,500 to have a bare minimum library.

It's easy to wonder if it's even worth it to start.

But it is. It is so worth it. I believe hosting a classroom library is one of the best things we can do for our students.

I don't, however, want you to go out and start spending your hard-earned money! Teachers already do too much of that. Instead, I'm going to share some tips for figuring out how to acquire books for your classroom library on the cheap.

"There's no magical formula for the accumulation: you start reading and begging and spending money. With luck you'll find some sources of funds other than your own checkbook, like school and district monies, but don't neglect used-book stores, friends, and former students...." -

Ask Your Principal, Building, Administration, District, or Budget Overlord for the Funds
Look, it never hurts to ask.
I was pretty shy my first few years teaching when it came to asking for money or resources for my classroom. Since then, I have since learned to be shameless. (I might be the teacher stealing pencils when the supply closet is left unsupervised....)

Now, I beg for money any chance I get.

You don't have to be brazen about it, but it's worth talking to your principal about your mission. There is so much research out there about how classroom libraries positively affect learning. You won't sound ridiculous, silly, or selfish for asking.

Explain your vision and your "why". Then ask. The worst that can happen is you're told no.

Even if you're told no, you're only told no for now. Next year means a whole new budget! Put that ask out there every year. Eventually, they'll cave, if only to get you off of their backs.

One good thing to note is that Title I money is sometimes difficult to spend. I work at a school with a pretty small budget, but there are so many restraints on how Title I money can be spent, that there's almost always some leftover.

As the school year is wrapping up, our English department will send an ambassador to seek leftover Title I funds. Because books are one thing that are always easy to justify in the budget.
Hey, got some leftover Title I money? Boy, do I have a great way for you to spend it!
Beg for Book Donations from Friends, Family, and Former Students

For once, the commonly accepted truth of teacher poverty may play into your favor here. People know teachers are broke. They know that we provide a lot of supplies for our students.
But people also want to help.
It can feel... awkward, and maybe desperate, to ask people for donations to your library. I struggled with this feeling my first few years of building up my library. Asking people to just give you things does not feel good.

If this is you, let's change your mindset.

One thing that helps me is to remember that the focus is the kids. It's not like I'm asking for free books for myself. I'm trying to start a free library for underserved youth over here! Noble indeed.

I'll occasionally put the ask out on Facebook. For many years, my summer gig involved working with a lot of teens. I always shook them down for their spare reads at the end of the summer. I've even had former students offer to bring in and drop off their old books.
People want to help. Let them.
Donors Choose

I think almost everyone has heard of DonorsChoose.com by now. It's like a Go Fund Me for teachers and their passion projects.

I kind of hate Donors Choose, to be honest-I'm just lazy and hate typing up project proposals.

But it is a great way to get a bunch of free books for nothing. It's kind of like writing a letter to Santa Claus and then waiting to see if he decides you're nice or naughty.

I've received a handful of great books thanks to Donors Choose. One of my coworkers has pretty much created her massive classroom library solely on Donors Choose projects. With Donors Choose, you'll get what you put into it.

You'll have to create an account first and share some information about your classroom and students. Donors want to know that they're helping students and teachers with a real need.

Then, you'll create the project. For a book list, you'll essentially create a shopping cart on Amazon through the Donor's Choose website and submit your list.

Betsy Potash has a great Donor's Choose article with all kinds of tips and tricks. I'm just scratching the surface here.

I do recommend, however, to keep your first list to around $200 (that will be $150 in books, plus a $50 Donor's Choose donation). Donors like to know that they're contributing a project that will actually be funded; anything over $200 gets a little hairy.

One thing to note about Donor's Choose that I didn't realize is that they expect you to send thank you notes to the donors once your project is fulfilled. I recommend setting time aside in class for a quick letter writing minilesson. Then, have students write thank-you notes.

I printed out blank thank you notes for students to write in and then color. But you will need to find time to get those letters written and sent out to the donors. Otherwise, you may be blacklisted from using Donors Choose in the future.

Hit Local Sales

In my town, there are always book sales going on. You just have to look for them.

Check out your local Goodwill or Salvation Army. You can find great young adult books here for under a dollar, depending on your local thrift shop.

Library sales are also a thing. Many libraries will often sell off their used books quarterly or annually to make room for new books on their shelves. These are a treasure trove of books that were once curated by actual librarians.

Then, of course, there are garage sales, Facebook marketplace, and even charity sales. Our local humane society has a book sale a couple of times a year to raise money. Maybe your church does the same.

When you start to look, you'll see that there are cheap books everywhere.

Scholastic Book Fairs

I work in a high school, so book fairs are not my area of expertise. I have, however, purchased a handful of books from said book fairs.

Often, there will be a few titles at these events that are specially priced. I only grab titles that are marked down to $1.99 or are buy one get one free.

In my experience, any other titles are usually cheaper on Amazon.

First Book Marketplace

Even with all of these methods for acquiring free or cheap books, you'll probably be craving some of the newest and freshest titles for your classroom library. And new usually means expensive.
Enter my secret weapon: First Book Marketplace.
First Book is a charity organization that works to supply educators with high-quality texts at reasonable prices. In order to qualify, you'll have to create an account. You'll need an educator's email and potentially your school's tax-exempt code.

(It's worth checking to see if your school has its own account. Mine does, but our secretary didn't even know until I asked!)
Once you have an account, you'll have access to some of the hottest titles in young adult literature at the lowest prices!
The price discounts are seriously steep. For example, as I'm writing this, a copy of The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas is retailing for around $1 3 on Amazon. On First Book Marketplace, it's less than $6.

When you're talking about tens or even hundreds of books, that is a huge difference.

I place a First Book order a couple of times a year. This is mostly selfish-they offer so many titles I want to read!

When First Book sells out of a title, it's gone, and they move on to the next hot title. So don't expect the deal you're eyeing to still be there in six months.

Amazon

And, of course, there's always Amazon. Don't get me wrong, I love me some Amazon! I am a full-fledged member of the Amazon cult-I have Prime, use their card, and send my readers to them all the time for new books.
Sometimes, Amazon is just the only place to get what you need.
But, it should be your last resort. Funds for us teachers are precious. You should explore every avenue of acquiring a book for free or at a severe discount before paying Amazon prices. Save your money for boxed wine.

That being said, Amazon prices are going to beat prices at big box stores like Barnes and Noble. They just are. Plus, Amazon will get those books into your students' hands fast.

So if there's a book that you really, really want, and you can't find it anywhere else, order it from Amazon.

How do you know if you should just suck it up and order?

Well, your criteria is going to be different from mine, but my personal rule of them is this: would I buy this book for myself to read, even if I didn't have a classroom library?

If the answer is yes, then I go ahead. I know that I will read it, so the money won't be wasted. If I would buy a book regardless of my classroom, I'm ok ordering from Amazon and paying Amazon prices for a book I really want to read.

If not, I wait. I can keep an eye for that book at garage sales, First Book, or wait until there is money in the school budget.

If I wouldn't buy it for myself, however, then I skip it or save it for a future book request. If I'm ordering it just for the classroom library, then I'm spending my hard-earned money on the job I do to earn money. And that's just backward.

And-I can't say it enough-don't be afraid to ask your administrator! Your school has an Amazon account. Maybe they can add a title or two to their next office supply order?

How Do You Choose Books for Your Classroom Library?

Ok, ok. You know how to get books, but which books do you need?

It's true that just having books isn't enough. You need a wide variety of high-quality books that will be enjoyed by a wide variety of readers.

While some books are classics, your students are probably also not going to love the same books you love when you went to high school.

(Trust me, you won't need three copies of Harry Potter and as much as I love The Hunger Games, no one has ever touched my trilogy. They're old now in the young adult world.)

The idea of having to choose hundreds of books that will be beloved by angsty teens sends a lot of teachers into a tailspin. This is especially terrifying if you yourself are not an avid consumer of young adult literature.
So, how do you choose?
Read Young Adult Literature

You can put a few classics on your shelves if you want, but a classroom library full of them is not going to get used. #sorrynotsorry

You need to have some contemporary teen lit in your classroom library. The only way you'll be able to talk about the books, recommend them, and connect books to readers is if you yourself have first-hand knowledge of the texts.
So start reading.
You don't, however, have to have read every book in your classroom library.

I have plenty of books in my room that I haven't gotten to it. And it's great! Students can recommend my own books to me, and I always know that I have something new to read at my fingertips.

(Having a classroom library works for you that way, too!)

You should be aware of your school and community. For example, if you work at a religious institution, what you put on your shelves may be more strict than at a public school. If you're on the fence about including a book in your library, google it.

Beyond examples like that, however, most young adult reads are going to be okay for your library. They're meant for teens, after all. You can always bring a list of potential purchases to your school librarian to double-check, too.

Back to you.

If you do independent reading in your class (and I highly recommend it!), read with your students. Spend a little bit of time outside of class reading some young adult literature.

You don't have to consume hundreds of pages every week, but you should find a few books that you genuinely like to put on your shelves. After all, students are going to look to you and your expertise for their next read.

I have always found that the books I talk about are the books that get read.

If you have some time restrictions, maybe now is the time to pursue audiobooks. Audible is a great deal and will allow you to consume young adult novels while driving, working out, buying groceries, or doing whatever else you need to do.

Get My Recommendations
The best way to get recommendations for classroom library books is-and maybe I'm biased here-to subscribe to my newsletter and follow my blog.
Ok, I know this sounds self-serving, but this is also what I'm passionate about.

When you sign up for my newsletter, I'll send you a few pages with some must-have classroom library books. I categorize them broadly according to reader type to make it a little easier for you to match the book to the reader.

Each title in that downloadable is also linked to a complete classroom library review that I've written for that novel. So if you need more information before purchasing, you can see my review, my tips for matching the book to a reader, and book stats like Lexile score.
It's all free.
Then, once you're subscribed, you'll get my regular emails. I blog about a new book once a month, so you'll get my new recommendations first!

It's a win-win for you.

Instagram

Maybe this seems odd, but I have gotten so many great book recommendations from Instagram.

At the time of writing this, I'm Not Dying With You Tonight is next in my To Be Read pile. I saw a review of it by another English teacher on Instagram and purchased it immediately.

Some of my absolute favorites-like Children of Blood and Bone -have been Instagram finds.

There are a ton of book reviewing accounts, but you might find it more helpful to follow teachers who also review books.

I'm going to do a little more self-promoting here and suggest that you follow me on Instagram (@itslitteaching), where I review even more books than I do on the blog. When I come across a book that's not great for students or general reading, I mention that too.
I really don't want you to waste your time or money on mediocre literature.
You can also follow hashtags like #weneeddiversebooks and #projectlit for great recommendations. I hate following broad hashtags, but I follow both of these.
Oh, and if you'd like to combine your students' love of Instagram with the books in your classroom, try this #Bookstagram activity as a follow-up to some independent reading!
Subscribe to Epic Reads

Epic Reads is a digital community created by Harper Collins. Its goal is to connect readers and HarperTeen young adult authors and books.

They always have up-to-date news on book releases, sequel announcements, author tours, and book-film deals. Their content is entertaining and useful.

I am subscribed to their newsletter and regularly follow their suggestions. They're also usually the first place I see new releases announced from my favorite authors.

Better yet, they are great for getting diverse books out there. They have great curated lists of authors of color, as well as LGBTQ novels.

How Do You Organize Your Classroom Library?

From what I've seen, there are typically two ways to organize your classroom library: alphabetical by author's last name (the traditional way), and by genre. There are, alternatively, some ways not to organize your libraries. Lastly, there are some tools you can use to help get organized.

Organizing Your Classroom Library Alphabetically

When you're just starting out, alphabetically might be the easiest method of organizing your shelves.

It doesn't require any fancy labels or much explanation for students. By secondary, students are probably familiar with this traditional way of finding novels.

This doesn't, however, help students find new books that might interest them.

You won't (probably) have a quick and easy to use book catalog in your classroom. With the traditional route, students' only way of finding books is to know what they're looking for.

Organizing Your Classroom Library By Genre

More and more, I'm seeing teachers organize their classroom libraries by genre.

This requires some more set up and labor. You'll need to label each book individually with its genre and label the sections of your library. Suddenly, each new addition requires a few more minutes of work to get it on the shelves.

There is a payoff, however. That student that only reads manga? She'll know just where to go for her next read! That student that can't get enough horror? He'll know where his books live.

Organizing your classroom library by genre helps readers find their next book. As long as they have a vague idea of what they're in the mood for, they can find something.

In addition to labeling your books and shelves or sections, you'll have to determine how to classify each book. Some are easier than others. is easily fantasy. The Hate U Give is realistic fiction.

But what about books that span multiple genres? Is Internment realistic fiction or sci-fi? Do you lump sci-fi and fantasy into one section? What about The Gentlemen's Guide to Vice and Virtue? Is it historical fiction? Romance? Do you create an LGBTQ section?

These should be questions you think about as you set out to organize your library. Consider how broad and how narrow you want to organize your books. Leave you and your classroom library room to grow.

Classifying a Book's Genre

And what if you don't know a book's genre? What if you haven't read it?

If you can, ask students who have read the book how they would classify it.

If not, you can look up the book's genre online.

One way is to look up the book on Amazon. If you scroll down, you can see the categories in which the book is classified. I like this because I can see a few genres and subsections in which the book can be found.

Another way is to use a classroom library management system like BookSource (more on this below!). When you scan the book in, it will tell you how the system categorizes that genre.

What do you do if you already have a large library and decide to switch from the traditional alphabetical to the genre method?

This is the boat I'm in. It can be a daunting task to completely redo and relabel your classroom library.

You can do it a little at a time though. At the end of the day, label a few books. You don't have to rearrange them until it's done.

The best way though? Make students do it! Find your book worms and your OCD students, and ask them to help.

If you can, see if you can offer them community service hours. A lot of high schools require a certain amount of community service hours for graduation. An hour or two of community service in exchange for labeling some books sounds like a great trade to me!

DO NOT Organize by Reading Level

I think this is less of an issue at the secondary level, but sometimes people do ask about leveling books.

As much as we'd love for students to incrementally increase the Lexile scores they read and slowly challenge themselves in a nice, linear way, it's not going to happen. It's unnatural for readers.

When have you ever looked at a book's Lexile score before buying it? Never. When have you ever put a book back on a shelf because you noticed the Lexile was too hight? Never.

Readers don't naturally examine Lexile scores. So why would we train our students to do it?

We want them to become lifelong readers. We want them to be confident in libraries and book stores. No adult reader judges a book on reading level. Training our students to do so is a disservice.

More importantly, it can discourage reading. Think about it.

A student may gravitate towards books that are below his or her reading level, but if he or she loves them, he or she will read more. That helps to increase their fluency and general volume of reading. Those numbers matter.

If, however, a student really wants to read a book that's a little above his or her reading level, that student will rise to the occasion. If a student is determined, he or she will use all those reading skills to devour that story they love. Readers challenge themselves naturally.

Either way, as long as a student is reading a book that he or she enjoys, skills are being practiced. It's when we limit students' access to books that reading plummets.

Utilize BookSource for Managing Your Classroom Library's Organization

As you're adding books to your classroom library, you'll begin to realize that you'll need a way of keeping track of these books. You'll want to know what titles you own, how many of each you own, and who has each checked out.

I have managed with a simple Google spreadsheet for years, but my students rarely take books home. (I have a special shelf in my room where students can put their independent reading books if they don't want anyone else to take them.)

This becomes difficult to manage after a few hundred books, however. And it relies on you, the teacher, to manage every book check out and check-in. There's a better way.

A colleague though has recently introduced me to BookSource. It is an online platform and mobile app for keeping track of your classroom library. Plus, it's free!

My coworker has a little scanner (I think you can get one for free, but she bought a cutesy one for her room). When she gets a new book, she scans it into her free BookSource account.

BookSource logs the book's information (including the genre, which is helpful if that's how you're organizing your library) and adds it to your catalog.

When a student wants to check out a book, you can scan it out to him or her. When they bring it back, scan the novel in. For free, you can manage your classroom library just like a real one.

If you can get an extra iPad for your classroom, you can even set it up so that it's entirely student-run. Students will be able to use the scanner to check books out and then back in themselves!

Regardless of whether you're just starting your classroom library or your hundreds of books deep, I recommend looking into BookSource as a free management platform for your library.

Displaying and Spotlighting Books In and Around Your Classroom Library

Just having the books in your room isn't enough. You have to get students to actually pick them up and read them.

Students are going to be a lot more willing to grab a book if the shelves are appealing. Your classroom library should be easy-to-use, easy-to-access, and-maybe I'm vain-should look attractive.

Here are some of my tips for keeping your classroom library updated and refreshed regularly.

Utilize Face Outs

Fun fact: I worked at Waldenbooks in college. Waldenbooks was a bookstore chain owned by the now out-of-business book chain Borders. (I hope I'm not aging myself here.) So, alas, Waldenbooks is no more.

While I worked there, I learned a few things about displaying books. The most hand and relevant to me today is the "face out."

While most books are shelved in such a way that only their spines are visible to the browser, every now and then a book would be "faced out," revealing the front cover to the viewer. When a book is faced out, it naturally commands more attention.

Adding a few face outs to your classroom library is a super easy and free way to promote or spotlight a book. Every week or two, switch your face outs. A book can sit on the shelf all year and suddenly, by making it face outward, it's suddenly alluring.

You can even do face outs seasonally. If you have a few horror novels, face them out during the Halloween season. Maybe your teens are a little dreamy in the spring, and a few romance titles can be more prominently displayed.

If you're doing a dystopian unit, perhaps you can face out other books in that genre to command some attention.

Another benefit of the face out? Books facing out usually take up more space, so you can play with them to fill up awkwardly half-empty shelves if you have any.

See the wire picture frame holders? $1 or less and they show off these books so well!

Picture Frame Displays

Ok, I'm pretty proud of myself for this #teachinghack! You can create simple and cheap displays using picture frame holders from the dollar store.

I found some at my local dollar store and bought a few in a variety of sizes. (You could get something like this, but check your dollar store first!)

I place them on top of my bookshelves and put books in each one. This creates a fast, simple, and, most importantly, cheap display for spotlighting books.

I try to rotate the books out every week or two. When I book talk a couple of titles, I make sure that they are displayed and easily accessible.

These displays can be placed anywhere in your room-shelves, windowsills, etc. They're versatile for getting books in the faces of your students, which is ultimately the goal.

Make What You're Reading Obvious

My students can always see what I'm reading.

My classroom whiteboard-students can see my last, current, and next read at all times.

I display my last read, my current read, and my next read on a whiteboard shelf. You've probably seen something similar on Instagram.

Every now and then a student will remark about my reading list, ask me a question about a book I've just finished, or suggest books for me to add to my reading list. This has made my reading list interactive and gives students an easy "in" for discussing books with me.

I think they also love to see their recommendations end up on my whiteboard #TBR.

This sign hangs outside of my classroom so everyone-not just my students-can see what I'm reading. Every staff member has one of these outside of their classroom or office!

I also have a sign outside of my room that displays what I'm currently reading. Every teacher in my school has one. These signs were created by our school librarian, but you don't need someone else to make one.

You can print a sign yourself and then laminate it to make a dry erase marker friendly sign. I read faster than I can update that sign, so I started printing a taping up pictures of the cover. If I know the next few titles on my To Be Read list, I can batch print them so they're ready to go.

How to Use Your Classroom Library to Promote Reading

Ok, your library has some books in it. It's beautifully organized. Now what?

Independent Reading

I highly recommend incorporating independent reading into your classroom regularly. It's important for students to have choice when it comes to reading.

Most secondary students, especially high school, are not going home and reading for fun. If they don't learn how fun and stress-relieving independent reading can be at school, where will they?

I do independent reading once a week for thirty minutes. Some teachers do ten to fifteen minutes every class period. Do what works for you and your students. You can tweak the schedule later, but starting is what's important.

"Students will read if we give them the books, the time, and the enthusiastic encouragement to do so. If we make them wait for the one unit a year in which they are allowed to choose their own books and become readers, they may never read at all. To keep our students reading, we have to let them."
― Donalyn Miller, The Book Whisperer: Awakening the Inner Reader in Every Child

Book Talks

Now that there are books in your room, you need to get them into the hands of students. While some may gravitate towards the library readily, many are going to need a little push.

Decide how often you're going to give a book talk. I do this once a week, right before we independently read, and I talk about two books.

Other teachers do it every class.

I think start where you can and work to improve and add.

In a book talk, you should include the basics-title, author, basic premise. I like to add why I personally liked the book. This could be anything from the setting, a character I connected with, or an interesting storytelling technique that was used throughout.

In her book , Penny Kittle breaks down the book talk into a few must-haves. If you want more information on book talks, getting kids to read, or maintaining a classroom library, is a great place to start.

According to Penny Kittle, for a successful book talk you must:

1. Hold the book

2. Know the book

3. Read a short passage

4. Keep Records (know what you've book talked and what passages you've read)

5. Accept Help (invite others to book talk)

I hope it goes without saying, but you don't want to give away the ending.
First Chapter Fridays

Another fun way to introduce students to books is First Chapter Fridays. This idea has been making the rounds on social media lately.

The idea is exactly what it sounds like: every Friday, you read the first chapter (or a few pages of the beginning) of a book. You could think of it as a very-extended book talk.

This is a great way to hook students into a book, especially students who may not identify themselves as readers.

It may sound baby-ish at first to read out loud to high school students, but don't we all love hearing stories at every age? Really, if you choose the right books, even your teenage students will beg you to keep going.

If you implement First Chapter Fridays, make sure you pick title with compelling beginnings. You want to leave students on a cliff hanger. They should be begging for more.

It is not the time to pick up a long-winded book that takes a while to get good. Pick books that start in the middle of an action scene or conflict.

Involve Your Classroom Library in Your Lesson Plans

Make your classroom library an interactive part of your lesson.

One of the stations in this back-to-school station resource includes having students create a To Be Read listing using a class library. This station is how I begin talking to students about their reading choices.

During the first week of school, I have my students create a To Be Read list and explore the library. This is one station of my back to school station activity. I like knowing that exploring the classroom library is part of every class's list of lessons.

You could also try an activity like spine poetry. Students can create poems out of the book titles on the spine. This gets them touching, looking at, and interacting with books without doing something intimidating like, I don't know, actually reading them.

If you do something like an author study project or a book club, you might pull resources and titles from your library.

A Final Word on Creating Your Classroom Library

I hope that this has been helpful in getting your classroom library off the ground. Adding to and nurturing my collection is fulfilling for me. Adding each new book is weirdly satisfying.

My library makes my classroom welcoming and cozy. It's inviting. Visitors always remark on it.

My colleagues have begun to send students my way for books and adults my way for recommendations. A classroom library can become a focal point, a hub, and a place for community for you as well.

Classroom libraries are always a work in progress. Don't let the lack of a finish line stop you from starting. If you need support in your journey, make sure to sign up for my newsletter, so I can send some your way.

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How to Create the Classroom Library of Your Dreams ﻿ - It's Lit Teaching

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Everyone should have a classroom library, whether you teach English or another content area. Classroom libraries offer all kinds of benefits: increased student reading achievement, greater access to print material, greater levels of volume of student reading, and more. But starting a classroom library is a daunting task.

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Don't Plan the Budget, Budget the Plan | Donalyn Miller and Colby Sharp |Game Changer!

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I Don't Need Another Koozie...I Need Money for Books | Donalyn Miller and Colby Sharp |Game Changer!

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Surface-level Diversity

by Debbi Michiko Florence, Middle grade: The Only Black Girls in Town by Brandy Colbert, Jasmine Toguchi, Mochi Queen A Dash of Trouble by Anna Meriano

Ignoring Intersectionality

Three decades ago, legal scholar and civil rights activist Kimberlé Williams Crenshaw coined the term " intersectionality " as a way of examining how courts failed to account for the overlapping forms of discrimination faced by Black women. Today, the term is used more broadly to refer to the way race, class, gender, sexuality and other characteristics overlap and shape individuals' experiences. "We like to think about people being one thing or the other when you can be Asian and queer and an immigrant," said Martin, the University of Washington professor. While a decade ago it may have been hard to find books by and about people whose identities sit at those types of intersections, that's increasingly less true, Martin said. "You can find those books if you are looking."

Sidekick Syndrome

: Picture books Maybe Something Beautiful by F. Isabel Campoy and Theresa Howell, illustrated by Rafael López, The Patchwork Bike by Maxine Beneba Clarke and illustrated by Van T. Rudd, Niño Wrestles the World by Yuyi Morales

Middle grade: Sal and Gabi Break the Universe by Carlos Hernandez, Tristan Strong Punches a Hole in the Sky by Kwame Mbalia, Dactyl Hill Squad by Daniel José Older

Treating Groups as Monoliths

by Jewell Parker Rhodes, Young adult: Black Brother, Black Brother The Henna Wars by Adiba Jaigirdar, Black Enough: Stories of Being Young & Black in America edited by Ibi Zoboi

Excluding #OwnVoices

by Traci Sorell and illustrated by Frané Lessac, Picture books: by Matthew A. Cherry and illustrated by Vashti Harrison, We Are Grateful: Otsaliheliga Saturday by Oge Mora

Stopping at the Text

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Diversifying Your Classroom Book Collections? Avoid these 7 Pitfalls | KQED

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Keeping your book selection relevant means making sure it includes meaningful experiences of different kinds of people, especially from marginalized communities. Here are some strategies and book titles that can help students grow from what they read.

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Young people need a book flood -- continuous access to a wide variety of engaging and relevant texts. When they have it, they are more likely to take advantage of opportunities to read and spend more time reading.

-Neuman & Knapczyk (2018)

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How to Build an Engaging Classroom Library

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Teachers can provide meaningful texts for their students that reflect their interests and facilitate deep connections to what they’re reading.

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Too often in our classrooms, Native stories are only presented from historical perspectives. When the only books kids read about indigenous people take place long ago, students may think these communities don't exist in contemporary society. That's just one of the many important reasons why it's important to share books written by indigenous authors. The following "Own Voices" books provide authentic narratives written by authors telling the tales they have inherited, lived, or created specifically for children who also identify as indigenous.
Just a heads up, WeAreTeachers may collect a share of sales from the links on this page. We only recommend items our team loves!
Indigenous Stories in Picture Books

A picture book featuring Cree terminology and a classic recipe! Follow a young girl who needs assistance from woodland friends.

A Native American family carries on with their daily duties while waiting for a beloved family member to return home from deployment during WWII.

Award-winning author and illustrator Julie Flett's latest book explores intergenerational friendship. Also, accepting the loss of the elders in our lives.

This true story follows a memorable meeting between a French explorer and an Indigenous fisherman. The book is narrated by observant animals that are more aware of the similarities, rather than the differences, between the two men.

This 2020 American Indian Youth Literature Picture Book Honor winner provides a joy-filled glimpse into a modern family's love for-and uses of-a traditional food.

A black snake threatens to destroy the Earth and poison the water. One young water protector takes a stand to protect this precious resource.

Middle Grade Indigenous Stories

A tween embarks on a search to learn about the Native grandmother who shares her name. They never met, and she only has one photograph as an initial clue.

A 12-year old boy must attend a boarding school for Native Americans in Oklahoma after his family loses their farm during the Great Depression.

A young girl convinces her Choctaw Nation community to help a friend and his family escape the plantation they are slaves on in Mississippi.

A historical book about a son's desire to become a Chickasaw warrior and seek revenge against the enemy who killed his father.

Young Adult Indigenous Stories

An award-winning tale about a biracial teen coming to terms with being both Caucasian and Native in the eyes of others-and herself.

This collection of essays describes contemporary life within settler nations. Written by activists Jasilyn Charger, Marian Naranjo, and more.

This 2018 National Book Award Fiction finalist is a poignant tale about the bond two teenagers form in foster care while also trying to retain a connection to their culture and each other.

Three teens try to forge paths toward a life off the reservation. Follow as they grapple with racism, musical aspirations, and young love.

The real story about the woman who helped get the Alaska Anti-Discrimination Act (America's first civil rights law) passed in 1945 is recounted in a nonfiction book for teens.
What are your favorite indigenous stories? Share in the comments below. Plus,20 #OwnVoices Nonfiction Books for the Classroom.

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15 Books By Indigenous Authors for the Classroom

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Too often in our classrooms, Native stories are only presented from historical perspectives. When the only books kids read about indigenous people take place long ago, students may think these communities don't exist in contemporary society. That's just one of the many important reasons why it's important to share books written by indigenous authors.

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An Introduction to Booksource’s Inclusive Classroom Library Checklist

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Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie: The danger of a single story | TED

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Diverse BookFinder | Identify & Explore Multicultural Picture Books

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Are you looking for multicultural children’s books? We’ve got you covered! You can search our circulating collection of picture books (2002-present), explore our quick lists, then borrow our books from your own library through interlibrary loan. We believe that too many children are left out of main…

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Where can you find diverse books? Right here! We've compiled the following list of sites that offer recommendations for diverse titles. Our list is not exhaustive, and we welcome suggestions ...

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Our students live in a global world. The opportunities we offer through literature in our classrooms can invite them into the richness of cultural diversity and global communities. To globalize the text exemplar lists included in standards documents that guide instruction in many states and countries, we developed global book lists of recommended fiction and nonfiction books organized by themes within K-12 grade level bands. Plot descriptions and complexity information are provided for each book. We update these lists on an annual basis to include new books and to remove books that are out of print. Our goal is to provide a valuable resource for educators searching for books they can access to globalize their classrooms and libraries.

Updated July 2022.
Worlds of Words created this project with funding from CERCLL.
Table of Contents
A Brief User's Guide: Global Reading Lists for K-12 Classrooms and Libraries
Globalizing Reading and Standards in K-12 Classrooms and Libraries
Grade K-1 Global Lists
Grade 2-3 Global Lists
Grade 4-5 Global Lists
Grade 6-8 Global Lists
Grade 9-10 Global Lists
Grade 11-12 Global Lists
Other Global Lists

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Globalizing K-12 Reading Lists of Children's and Young Adult Literature * Worlds of Words

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Our students live in a global world. The opportunities we offer through literature in our classrooms can invite them into the richness of cultural diversity and global communities. To globalize the text exemplar lists included in standards documents that guide instruction in many states and countries, we developed global book lists of recommended fiction and nonfiction books organized by themes within K-12 grade level bands.

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When there are enough books available that can act as both mirrors and windows for all children, they will see that we can celebrate both our differences and our similarities.

-Dr. Rudine Sims Bishop

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Unite for Literacy provides free digital access to picture books, narrated in many languages. Literacy is at the core of a healthy community, so we unite with partners to enable all families to read with their young children.

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By: Jamie Gregory

When I was a classroom English teacher, I would try to find cheap books for young adults or buy books I'd read that I loved. My classroom library was more or less a hodge-podge of often-discarded selections, which wasn't something I worried about because I could rely on the school library's collection. I also didn't have the money to purchase hundreds of books, didn't have a place in the room to store all of them even if I did, and I certainly didn't have the time to keep up with book reviews and what was new, etc. I knew that was my school librarian's job.

Thanks to the popularity of educators such as Penny Kittle and Donalyn Miller, the concept of classroom libraries has gone through a major resurgence. Literacy powerhouses like Scholastic and Follett are even marketing items to classroom teachers who need help establishing and managing classroom collections. Teachers can buy pre-packaged classroom bundles of books, library management software, and labels.

But what about the more nuanced aspects of librarianship that don't easily transfer to the classroom?

In part, what differentiates school librarians from classroom teachers is explicit training in anti-censorship ethics. Indeed, every one of the seven major tenets of librarianship as set forth in the Library Bill of Rights relate to censorship in some way. In a democracy, the freedom of information and the rights of all viewpoints to be shared equally and freely are essential. Furthermore, the third tenet specifically calls on us to actively prevent censorship:

"III. Libraries should challenge censorship in the fulfillment of their responsibility to provide information and enlightenment."

This is especially true in education, in which young people are exploring the world and developing a sense of self-identity. Those in charge of educating them should be open-minded and help students exercise their First Amendment rights, including the freedom to read.

Classroom teachers experience censorship and book challenges but without the training necessary to defend book selections and reasons why choice and representation matter. Since they teach in a smaller, more intimate setting than a school library, it's understandable that parents may file more complaints about what they find in their child's classroom library than in the school library.

Not surprisingly, censorship advocates focus on diverse books as being inappropriate for younger readers ( 9 of the top 10 challenged books in 2019 featured diverse content). For example, consider examples from Loudoun County, VA, and Kalamazoo Public Schools in MI. Loudoun County's website briefly explains the diverse classroom libraries initiative, along with a helpful FAQ page. Parents and advocacy groups argued against including books depicting rape, violence, and LGBTQ characters. The Washington Post reported in January that 2 books will remain in elementary classrooms: Prince & Knight by Daniel Haack and Heather Has Two Mommies by Lesléa Newman. Some books were reassigned from elementary schools to middle and high schools, which of course is its own form of censorship. The article quotes familiar arguments, describing LGBTQ books as "unsafe, 'leftist propaganda,' and 'morally corrupt.'"

Kalamazoo Public Schools at first attempted to use a diverse books classroom initiative to solely focus on racial and ethnic diversity, which left out diversity issues related to disabilities, socioeconomics, and sexuality. It quickly reversed course, realizing after parent input that the diversity initiative itself needed to be more inclusive and, well, diverse.

Yet explicitly and implicitly teaching LGBTQ children through the removal of books that they do not matter, their life experiences are immoral, they are merely political pawns, and they do not deserve equal representation in literature can lead to emotional trauma, harmful self-identity, bullying, physical harm, and suicide (read the National Coalition Against Censorship's report). The books are not unsafe; banning them is.

As we celebrate School Library Month and National Library Week, here are some steps classroom teachers can take to prevent censorship of classroom libraries and protect their students' right to read freely:

1. Use this important guide from the American Association of School Librarians, Defending Intellectual Freedom: LGBTQ+ Materials in School Libraries, to help guide LGBTQ book selections, challenges, and censorship.

2. Be sure to read and incorporate the National Council of Teachers of English's statement on classroom libraries and the right to read.

3. Ask your school librarian to help evaluate any book donations. People often have good intentions when they clean out their closets, but avoid accepting old books which might promote stereotypes and misinformation. It is okay to recycle books which no longer have a place in society.

4. Collaborate with your school librarian to learn how to conduct a diversity audit. Do you know if the books in your classroom accurately and fairly represent all of your students? School librarians are dedicated to staying updated about new publications.

5. Enlist your school librarian to help you start a wishlist for donations. This should reflect the diversity of the students in your classroom.

6. Clearly state a policy for accepting used books and tell students how you select books for your classroom library. As any school librarian can tell you, the most important document to have is a selection policy for your collection. Ask that the school develop a classroom library selection policy, and be sure the school librarian is at the helm.

7. Do not label books. Labeling promotes censorship. Use general topics/genres as a way to organize books. Use concepts such as "Self-Discovery," "Family Struggles," or "Friend Drama," and be sure the book selections within those concepts are diverse. Make sure your method of organization is inclusive.

8. Have an open mind. Realize that you are not a student's moral guardian, and your personal beliefs do not guide a student's reading selections.

is a National Board Certified Teacher in Library Media working as the Upper School Librarian and journalism teacher at Christ Church Episcopal School in Greenville, SC.

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Classroom Libraries Are For Reading, Not Censorship

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By: Jamie Gregory When I was a classroom English teacher, I would try to find cheap books for young adults or buy books I'd read that I loved. My classroom library was more or less a hodge-podge of often-discarded selections, which wasn't something I worried about because I could rely on the school library's collection.

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Banning Books from the Classroom: How to Handle Cries for Censorship

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This guide on dealing with demands to ban books from the classroom will help you with any such encounters.

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As classroom censorship bills sweep state legislatures, schools are removing books by and about LGBTQ people, BIPOC, and other marginalized groups from curriculums and libraries at an unprecedented rate. This year, more than 111 bills aiming to limit discussions about race and gender in the classroom have been passed or introduced in state legislatures. These efforts effectively erase voices, histories and lived experiences from students' K-12 education.

In honor of Pride month, three LGBTQ rights advocates share how the recent surge of book bans and classroom censorship bills impact their work, and how they affect the students and teachers whose identities are under attack.

Jared Fox (he/him)
Director, Strategic Projects at Cleveland School District in Ohio and Founder at Iris Solutions
Books are incredibly powerful, and the fact that people are trying to ban them just speaks to that. Through books, we can see ourselves and the world around us - as Rudine Sims Bishop mentions, as a mirror, a window, or a sliding glass door allowing us to step into a different world.

As an English teacher, I tried to find books for the classroom that reflected the lived experiences of my students, whether they're queer or not. I want them to see that they matter, not just in my eyes but in the words on the page. There's something meaningful about seeing your experience published and bound in a spine.

There's a fear that reading books with LGBTQ characters will make students gay. But I grew up reading about straight characters, with heterosexual parents, and somehow I ended up gay in this world. So if reading books is supposed to determine your sexual orientation, that woefully failed in my case.

Reading books with LGBTQ characters is important for everybody. Students are going to be better off in the world because of it. Books can expose readers to identities beyond the scope of people they know in their immediate lives - queer people with disabilities, queer people who are immigrants, queer people who wear a hijab - thereby building empathy and understanding of experiences different from their own.

When queer students are denied access to these stories, they lose a piece of their humanity.

For queer students, it validates their existence. When a community says a book is being banned from the library because of its LGBTQ themes, it's telling students "there's something wrong with you, there's something that needs to be legislated or challenged, there's something about you that is up for debate, that shouldn't even be in a book." It tells LGBTQ students they don't even deserve to be on the shelf - literally and metaphorically. That can be very harmful to students' self-esteem and the way they see themselves in the world. When queer students are denied access to these stories, they lose a piece of their humanity.

It's also important to note that many of the books that are banned are also by authors of color, which shows our desire as a society to silence the voices of people of color. It's yet another example of white supremacy at work. We cannot separate the work of LGBTQ equality from the work of anti-racism because the struggles are so closely intertwined. When we are working towards a better future for LGBTQ folks, we're working towards a better future for people of color, too. And I think that's important.

Tiffany Wright (she/her)
Graduate Program Coordinator, Leadership for Teaching and Learning & Interim Chair of the Department of Educational Foundations at Millersville University in Pennsylvania
As a mother to a seventh-grader and a member of university faculty, I've seen firsthand how classroom censorship affects students and educators alike, particularly those who are LGBTQ. Teachers are worried they could lose their jobs if they teach books about race and gender, which shortcuts their efficacy as educators as well as their sense of personal well-being. And I can't imagine it's easy for young people to witness their own identity and existence being erased from school curricula.

Representation is so, so important. I know what it's like to grow up unable to see yourself reflected in books or other parts of society and culture. During my childhood in the 1980s, I never saw a book reflecting experiences and identities like my own. It wasn't until college that I found LGBTQ voices in literature - and even then, I had to seek it out. I think I would have had a very different experience growing up if I had been exposed to LGBTQ voices earlier in my education. For example, maybe I wouldn't have had to go through adolescence twice - before and after coming out.

I've seen firsthand how classroom censorship affects students and educators alike, particularly those who are LGBTQ.

Exposure to diverse perspectives sets students up for success as future leaders in the world. It shows them how to treat and interact with people whose experiences are different from their own. It's especially important at the elementary age. Kids should be able to read books that portray LGBTQ people and families as part of the fabric of our communities, not marginalized or erased.

Today, I'm amazed at how well LGBTQ kids are learning to navigate the world at such an early age - far younger than I was when I finally started figuring it out. I have a 14-year-old nephew who recently transitioned, and another child in the family came out as non-binary at age 12. Increasing representation of diverse voices in our books and classrooms helps build students' confidence as they discover who they are.

As educators and students confront a continuing spate of classroom and library censorship efforts, it's important to remain open and be kind to one another - even as parents keep showing up at school board meetings to yell about books. Instead of attacking others and pointing fingers, we should approach this issue from the base assumption that everybody wants the best for their kids. We must come together and try to find a middle ground that doesn't shortchange a student's education or harm LGBTQ students and educators.

The reason that I do the work that I do is because of what I learned in school. I grew up in New York and I was fortunate enough to have a program in junior high school called Council for Unity. It was a group of civically engaged young people learning about racism, conflict resolution, how to be vulnerable and share their life experience with their peers. We had a school field trip to the GMHC, an organization that taught me about the work of ACT UP - an activist group that was started in the 1980s to address the AIDS crisis. And I just fell in love with the idea that someone could use their individual power to change society. It was a profound realization for me - a moment of light that inspired me to continue a career in advocacy and volunteer work helping the LGBTQ community. That's what led me to Equality Texas.

It's not surprising that the majority of the books lawmakers are trying to ban and remove from libraries are books that center the voices of LGBTQ people or Black and Brown people.

Over the course of the 2021 legislative year, we had the most anti-LGBTQ pieces of legislation filed in Texas in the history of the United States. Although only one of those bills passed, the harmful narratives and manufactured moral panics that came with them are living on in school board meetings, where LGBTQ students are seeing their very humanity up for debate by those who are charged with their safety and education and in schools where books and symbols of support are being removed from classrooms - creating hostile school climates for young people. As a direct result, we started getting calls from all over Texas about escalating bullying, increased harassment and violence, and even the removal of safe space stickers and flags or posters. Since January 1, 2021, the Trevor Project has received close to 25,000 calls, texts or emails from young Texans in crisis.

Over the course of the 2021 legislative year, we had the most anti-LGBTQ pieces of legislation filed in Texas in the history of the United States.

It's not surprising that the majority of the books lawmakers are trying to ban and remove from libraries are books that center the voices of LGBTQ people or Black and Brown people. I remember what it's like to not see people like you in your textbooks, and to see homophobia from teachers, administrators, and peers. It added to a sense of fear about coming out, even though I already knew who I was by junior high. Going to the library was a joyous experience because I could find those stories I didn't always have access to in the classroom - stories of LGBTQ people, of first or second generation immigrants like myself and my family. Seeing positive representations of people who looked like me thriving and creating families let me know that there was hope.

Inclusivity in the classroom is good for all students. It allows students to put themselves in the shoes of somebody with a different experience, fostering empathy and compassion. It gives LGBTQ students a sense of power and worthiness. Most importantly, it tells them that their stories matter.
Read more about students and teachers fighting classroom censorship.

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How LGBTQ Voices are Being Erased in Classrooms | News & Commentary | American Civil Liberties Union

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As classroom censorship bills sweep state legislatures, schools are removing books by and about LGBTQ people, BIPOC, and other marginalized groups from curriculums and libraries at an unprecedented rate. This year, more than 111 bills aiming to limit discussions about race and gender in the classroom have been passed or introduced in state legislatures.

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In the wake of ever-increasing book challenges, legislature meant to silence educators, and hostile board meetings for schools and libraries, what's gone unsaid is the means by which professionals within these institutions have had to radically alter the ways they select material.

"They're asking 'who's going to complain?'," explains Anna*, "not 'who needs this?'"

Anna, who works as a school librarian in suburban Wisconsin, is in an ideal situation when it comes to potential book challenges. Her school, already targeted this year by right-wing censors, has a robust collection development policy and an administration that supports the decisions made by its educators and library staff.

Still, what's happening inside the school reflects an even-bigger censorship issue: quiet censorship.

Quiet censorship - also known as soft censorship or self-censorship, terms used interchangeably - is when materials are purposefully removed, limited, or never purchased at all despite it being a title that would serve a community. It's always been an issue with intellectual freedom, but now, with more "parental rights" groups demanding curricular and collection oversight, even the best professionals who don't believe in censorship are falling victim to choosing the path of considering the people who may complain over those who may need the material.

In Anna's school, this plays out in several ways.

"I was working with a really bright, innovative teacher who was rethinking how to teach To Kill a Mockingbird in class. We were building a reading list that could supplement the text for her honors class, and based on the teacher's criteria, I suggested Out Of Darkness by Ashley Hope Perez," Anna said. "The instructor said to me 'I can't afford to add it because of the attention it'd bring.'"

That cost-conscious language is chilling, especially knowing that one of the big goals of the groups pushing for censorship is to create a cascade of time- and dollar-heavy distractions within schools and libraries. This is now not only part of the equation those working in these institutions are considering, but it's also what makes soft censorship appealing. If the book's never included, then it can't create the situation of a challenge or pushback from parents, community members, or those who simply enjoy being part of the disruption of public education.

Anna notes another piece of soft censorship emerging within her school - again, one with all of the supports and structures in place to be a space where any and all choices of material by professionals are respected and regarded as appropriate - is where books are being shelved.

"None of our libraries have purchased Too Bright to See by Kyle Lukoff, despite it being a multi-award-winning middle grade book. If we do buy it, we'll have a copy in the middle school library, but none in the elementary schools," she said. "We have a single copy of Melissa by Alex Gino, again in the middle school and not the elementary school. Books about gender or sexuality are put in the middle school and don't make it to the elementary schools."

Middle grade books, appropriate for readers from 3rd to 7th or 8th grade, would fit into the elementary school libraries by age and content appropriateness, be it Lexile level, award accolades, and/or critical acclaim. The books haven't been pulled, per se. But they've never had the chance to reach their intended readership. Considering who is going to complain before who needs to see themselves in these books is dangerous and it's the line of thought those working to ban books seek to create in the minds of those within public institutions.

They're asking "who's going to complain," not "who needs this?"

That pressure becomes a challenge for educators and library workers who wrestle with just how far they can put themselves on the line for a book. Where all parents claim they desire a diverse collection and educational material for their children, the feedback is far less thankful and much more likely to elicit calls of but not like this or this. They game the system, demanding that both sides are played, and the power of censor-friendly groups is much larger than any individual within a library or school, even in supportive environments.

Anna explained: "One teacher told me they couldn't use Here To Stay by Sara Farizan as a class read because it was about a Muslim person. 'Someone would yell about that,' the teacher said. Books like these fit perfect for the curriculum or unit, but now we're too focused on who might be mad about it and not the value it has."

Making collection-appropriate choices to serve a diverse world shouldn't be radical, and yet, thanks to the fears and costs associated with those choices, it is. While educational institutions are short staffed, with fewer people eager to enter these fields because of their politically charged realities and historically low pay, teachers and librarians worry they'll lose their jobs, healthcare, and entire lives by fighting these battles. This is precisely what's at stake across the country as more states institute educational gag orders and introduce legislation aimed to create a culture of fear within public institutions like schools and libraries.

An individual's ethics are unable to withstand the realities of capitalism, and more, by choosing to battle, any individual knows their name will be all over the internet. Their reputation may be smeared by those seeking censorship in ways that impact their ability to even be employed again.

And in many cases, individuals aren't safe to be whistleblowers inside the institutions where they're seeing such soft censorship. Middle school librarian Gavin Downing is still employed by Cedar Heights Middle School as a librarian, despite calling out the soft censorship in which his principal engaged. Librarian Brooky Parks, on the other hand, lost her job with High Plains Library District for bringing light to their censorship-friendly programming policy.

If no one speaks up, though, the true breadth of quiet censorship remains unknown.

Ronna Dewey is a parent of three living in the Downingtown Area School District (DASD) in Pennsylvania. Downingtown is about 30 minutes from Lower Merion, the epicenter for one of the largest parental censorship groups in the country, No Left Turn. Moms for Liberty has an active chapter in the area, too.

Beginning in October of 2021, school districts in the Philadelphia suburbs began to see book challenges at their meetings. Among the most notable for Dewey included a challenge at North Penn school district. At the meeting, a challenger wore a Moms for Liberty shirt and read passages from All Boys Aren't Blue, creating a viral moment for the group as it was shared on Moms for Liberty's social media.

A board meeting at West Chester Area School District four days later brought a challenge to Gender Queer. It was no normal challenge. The meeting was so disruptive that it made national news and word spread across local social media as well.

Downingtown had been spared so far, but that changed October 27, when the Uwchlan Township Republican Committee shared a blog post on Facebook calling out materials in DASD they believed were sexually explicit and "pornographic." Four seats on the DASD school board were up in the election that would happen a week later, November 2.

No formal complaint was filed by any individuals associated with the Republican Committee, nor by a parent.

A Facebook post on DASD's page on October 29, 2021, though, indicated that three books were removed from Downingtown West High School.

Due to "allegedly-inappropriate language and images," and their appearance on a "nationally-circulating book list," All Boys Aren't Blue, Gender Queer, and Me, Earl, and The Dying Girl were immediately removed from the library. That nationally circulating list was either from No Left Turn or Moms for Liberty - these groups operate from using the same lists, scanning pages and creating shareable content on social media that national and local censorship groups use in their complaints.

DASD removed the books without a formal complaint, and Dewey said they never once informed the parents or school community beyond a social media post. Parents would have needed to tune into the November 3 virtual school board meeting to hear about the initial decision to pull the books for review.

The transparency here is far more than in many schools practicing this quiet or soft censorship. But the school has a formal review process, following a formal complaint about material, and these books were pulled because of a circulating list and pressure from groups outside the school. Not because any individual or group followed the proper channels. Notably, the school has an informal complaint policy, too, to which the superintendent is to resolve the matter informally as well.

Of note in the review process in either case is that books will remain accessible for students. Likewise, the policy spells out under its guiding principles that "No parent/guardian has the right to determine instructional reading, viewing, or listening material for students other than his/her own children."

At the November 3 meeting of the school board, Dr. Emelie Lonardi, Superintendent of DASD updated the board and attendees about the decision to pull the books for review. It's a disturbing response, particularly for its condescending, anti-intellectual language about what the superintendent wishes she could do to these books, as well as for the clear disregard for the professional judgment of her own staff: She wished she could rip pages out of All Boys Aren't Blue and that the art in Gender Queer was graphic, like caricatures.

Librarians will need the full support of District administration. Will they get it?

It's clear that by attempting to pull the books, the school wanted to get ahead of potential social media blowback, especially in the wake of the posts by the local Republican committee. But the school also failed to follow in its own reconsideration policies, removing the books and keeping them off shelves for months - they were not returned to Downingtown West High School until after the January 12 school board meeting.

In the interim between the November and January meetings, the DASD administration formed a committee to reevaluate their reevaluation policies. Further, despite attempts to hide what was going on by addressing it in a circumvent way via Facebook, DASD drew significantly more attention to what they were doing, as seen in the comments section and subsequent update to the initial post. Notably, the update mentions their work on reevaluating the selection policy and that "while we do believe that varied perspectives help to create a more inclusive, well-rounded understanding of our community, we are also sensitive to the age-appropriateness of materials and a parent's right to decide what is suitable for their child."

DASD also has a policy for selection of materials, including that selected titles showcase a range of beliefs, experiences, and backgrounds, and that decisions are made with "principle above personal opinion and reason above prejudice in selecting materials."

Policies and procedures are but paper when not followed, and without question, the superintendent's personal opinion not only clouds this situation but will impact future decisions made by qualified staff.

The books may be back on shelves while this process is underway, but what concerns Dewey and what should concern any parent in this district is the blatant disregard for their own policy, not just in removing the books without reason, but in their disregard for parental notification beyond the Facebook post. More, the superintendent's own perspective shades the process, something they pride themselves in not allowing to happen.

"I am concerned that silent censorship will continue. For example, school librarians may be afraid of ordering potentially controversial materials in the future for fear of retribution. I've seen several local librarians put on blast on social media and have their jobs threatened. Librarians will need the full support of the District administration. Will they get it?," asked Dewey.

Dewey's concern is warranted. Among the proposed changes for DASD book selection for its libraries include each item in the collection being labeled as to its content in the catalog, as well as a recommended age and reading level. Those descriptions might include noting sexual content or graphic violence and new language in the proposed policy gives leeway for personal judgment to make those determinations. Of special concern is this: "Titles that are determined to be pervasively vulgar with respect to language or images and/or contain content that is determined to be morbid, degrading, or excessively interested in sexual matters or work that is not educationally suitable which taken as a whole, lacks serious literary, artistic, historical/political, or scientific value will be excluded from the library."

This is a slippery slope and opens wide the door to soft censorship. Who determines what those standards are within the context of providing a wide and necessary collection of material? If it's the library staff, what value system do they use to determine appropriate titles? In this particular district, it's clear where the superintendent stands - she made her feelings well known at a board meeting - and knowing that, library and school workers rightfully fear that their superiors won't support their decisions.

Instead of fighting for books like Gender Quer or All Boys Aren't Blue in the future, it might be easier to simply not purchase them at all, as these professionals weigh the choice between who might get mad and who might need the material.

"In the proposed new guidelines," Dewey explained, "parents will have the opportunity to opt their children out of books, but with no requirement that they need to read a book prior to opting out. Maybe if parents who protested books took the time to actually read them in their entirety, rather than just cherry-picking words, phrases or pictures, they might see how valuable these resources can be.

Passages from Gender Queer have empowered censors. They've pulled pages out of context, showing them off at board meetings, sharing them across their groups, marking out talking points to use when they complain.

None of the pages they're using or citing are the most dangerous.

The most dangerous pages are the final three in the book. Kobabe, invited to teach a comics class at a high school, never once mentions eir gender. E doesn't note eir pronouns. When the class ends and e erases the chalkboard, e wonders about this choice.

"I wonder if any of these kids are trans or nonbinary, but don't have words for it yet. How many of them have never seen a nonbinary adult?" the thought bubble reads. "Is my silence actually a disservice to them all?"

E continues to consider this in the following two pages. Seeing a trans or nonbinary teacher growing up would have meant the world to em. But e didn't stand up and say something.

"Every time I fail to give my pronouns I feel like a failure. But coming out can still be really scary, even after all this time."

As e recycles the papers from the class, e looks out.

"Could a parent complain and get me fired?"

E erases the board and thinks about how the kids will never see em again. Thinks the administration would support em, especially since e's just there a day.

"I think I'm carrying...more fear than I need."

The following panel simply reads erase as Maia continues cleanup.

"Next time. Next time I will come out."

Self-censorship is this promise, again and again and again. It is the impossible decision between who might get mad and who needs to be seen or heard.

*Not her real name.

For more ways to take action against censorship, use this toolkit for how to fight book bans and challenges, as well as this guide to identifying fake news. Then learn how and why you may want to use FOIA to uncover book challenges.

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Soft and Quiet: Self-Censorship In An Era of Book Challenges | Book Riot

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In the wake of ever-increasing book challenges, legislature meant to silence educators, and hostile board meetings for schools and libraries, what's gone unsaid is the means by which professionals within these institutions have had to radically alter the ways they select material.

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Author

Recently, I was sitting at dinner next to one of my favorite authors and surrounded by colleagues. The conversation turned to what makes a book controversial. One teacher mentioned a book about a character with a family member who is dealing with drug addiction. He quickly said that he read and appreciated the book, but would never put it on the shelf in his classroom because he anticipated (and feared) parent complaints. Maybe it was prompted by a desire to protect the author's ears from any form of censorship, but I immediately spoke up. Although this teacher's concern is valid, I believe we have responsibilities that supersede our own need to feel safe and comfortable as educators.

I believe that as teachers, our responsibility extends beyond students to their parents. I most certainly do not want a student of mine reading something against his parents' wishes, whether I agree with those wishes or not. So, I send a parent permission slip for my classroom library at the beginning of the year, inviting parents to contact me with specific concerns about their children's reading choices. Sometimes this results in awkward conversations when parents want to challenge books I make available to students other than their own children. However, it is my responsibility to work through these conversations, which (in my experience) always end in a new level of understanding.

For example, Elizabeth's mother wrote a note on her classroom library permission slip that simply read, "No sex." When I noticed Elizabeth had chosen to check out Everything, Everything by Nicola Yoon, I immediately thought of how much she was going to love this story about a girl who has a disease that compromises her immune system and prevents her from interacting with the outside world. My next thought was what a shame it was going to be to have to redirect her to another book because the protagonist in the book has sex. Although there are no graphic scenes and the subject matter is handled in a manner that is much more responsible than many television programs these days, I remembered the note from Elizabeth's mother and wanted to respect her wishes.

I approached Elizabeth and said I wasn't sure this was a book her mother would approve of her reading. Elizabeth responded by requesting that we ask her mother for special permission, because she really wanted to read the book. It wasn't a conversation I was looking forward to, but I forced myself to be as open to the challenge as Elizabeth herself seemed to be. The result of that conversation was that her mother decided to read the book herself before making a decision, and eventually chose to allow Elizabeth to read the book. In fact, she repeated the process with a couple of other books that had previously been "taboo" for Elizabeth.

I suspect Elizabeth's willingness to talk to her mother about what she wanted stemmed from one of the ways I ward off confrontations with parents: by speaking directly and openly with students about which books contain content that may be controversial-such as strong language, mature romantic situations, and graphic violence. Students learn how to self-censor by choosing the books that fit who they are as readers and humans. I find that if a student has an immature response to content (most often giggling and sharing a passage with a friend), a quick conversation where I address the student by getting as real as possible to find out if he or she is appropriately matched with the book usually corrects the behavior.

Thinking About Students

Parents aren't my primary concern when I stock the classroom library. My number one consideration in choosing books to purchase, read, and share is my students. Most often, I am thinking of the students in front of me, or my most recent class.

I am thinking about the book Sarah needs next to feed her hunger for romantic stories while pushing her to grow-a book like by Marie Lu. is told in chapters that alternate between two points of view. It is the story of a girl who is a prodigal fighter for the government and a boy who is a criminal mastermind. Amidst the taut romance is a story filled with depth that raises questions about whom we trust and why.

I am thinking about Elias and wondering if reading the graphic novel by Doug TenNapel might allow him to see himself as a reader for the first time. is a very accessible story that contains multiple layers and complex characters. A down-on-his-luck father ends up giving his son cardboard as a gift. When shaped into a robotlike being, the cardboard comes to life. The cardboard man changes the son's relationship with a neighborhood bully and with his father.

I am thinking about a book like by Lynne Ewing that will give William a sense of confidence because it is skinny and simple to read, but will also allow him to sink his teeth into a complex story. In this case, it's the story of a young boy named Tito whose older brother is shot in a drive-by while they are walking home together. At first, Tito believes his brother is an innocent victim, but then gang members begin approaching him. He realizes that there are a lot of things he did not know about his brother.

By thinking about the individual students in whose hands I might place a book, I ensure that my collection will be diverse in terms of culture, level, genre, and format. However, I must not limit myself to thinking about the students I see in my classroom. I also have to consider the topics and experiences my students are not yet seeking to experience through reading.

I have to consider books like October Mourning: A Song for Matthew Shepard by Leslea Newman. None of my eighth-grade students are openly homosexual. Yet I want to live in a world filled with allies of all populations. I share this beautiful, moving book of poetry that tells the story of the night Matthew Shepard, an openly homosexual college student, was left for dead, tied to a fence post after having been brutally beaten.

I have to consider books about a range of disabilities with which none of my students have to cope-books such as Out of My Mind by Sharon Draper and Stuck in Neutral by Terry Trueman, which are both told from the point of view of a character with cerebral palsy, and books such as The Running Dream by Wendelin Van Draanen and by Kelly Bingham, which are each about a character who loses a limb in a terrible accident.

I have to consider both selecting a wide range of stories for my classroom library and sharing the books that tell these stories with a wide range of students. I have to be careful not to hand every tough reader a story about violence and every sensitive reader a story about loss. Students need a large menu of choices from which to make their own selections of stories that have the potential to shape who they are. My job is to craft that menu responsibly.

Years ago a parent called me to complain that I had allowed her seventh grader to read "A Brief Moment in the Life of Angus Bethune" from Chris Crutcher's Athletic Shorts: Six Short Stories. The story contains curse words. The parent was appalled that I had, in fact, suggested the text to students.

I was mortified. It seemed as if the parent was implying that I had somehow set out to harm her child. However, I had to remember that this parent had only her son in mind when she was speaking to me. I apologized for the mismatch between the book and her son. I went on to explain that I had shared the text with her son's class-a class in which I had several students who had recently been involved in fights with one another. I revealed my intention in sharing this anthology, and the story over which she was so upset in particular: The characters in the story work through issues students in her son's class had been facing-specifically bullying and dealing with gay parents. It was not an easy conversation. The parent still did not want her own son to read texts with strong language, but after our talk, she was no longer on the warpath. She understood that although Athletic Shorts was not the right text for her son, it was just the right text for someone else's child.

Ultimately, I am willing to defend each of the selections I have chosen for my classroom library. Although I take steps like the parent letter and warning students about potentially controversial content, sometimes I end up having to discuss a choice I have made with a parent or administrator. Knowing I have made every selection in my classroom library thoughtfully and intentionally, I am able to face these uncomfortable conversations. If my choices as an educator building a classroom library can potentially shape the future, I see no option other than embracing these tough conversations.

Having a classroom library filled with books that allow my students to see themselves and see others inside the pages is the best way I know to shape them as readers and as people.

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Beyond the Comfort Zone: Books for Our Times

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Author Recently, I was sitting at dinner next to one of my favorite authors and surrounded by colleagues. The conversation turned to what makes a book controversial. One teacher mentioned a book about a character with a family member who is dealing with drug addiction.

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Education for Today and Tomorrow | L'Education Aujourd'hui et Demain

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How Educators Can Respond to Book Banning

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Originally published in TEACH Magazine, July/August 2022 Issue
By Adam Stone
The tide of intolerance is rising, and once again the reactionary camp wants to throw literature on the pyre, at least metaphorically.
As director of library services ...

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https://ncte.org/book-rationales/

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Author

I will be honest with you. I am not a shopper. I do not like strolling through malls, hunting for bargains at outlet shops, or spending extended time under the fluorescent lights of department stores or chain boutiques. Yet I can hold my own at the supermarket, the pet store, or my local garden center. Why? I enjoy cooking, so the organized layout of the grocery store helps me quickly find what I need for weekly meals with room for seasonal extras. I am checking out with groceries in less than 30 minutes. When I visit the garden center, I know just where to look to find the right plants for my home's sunny outdoor gardens or indoor houseplants that can thrive in my classroom or home. I visit the pet store at least once a week because I have more pets than I care to name. I have a mental store map that I follow so I can swoop in, gather feeding supplies for the critters, and get out before my daughter discovers one more animal that needs a home with us.

What have I learned from my retail reflections? I discovered why certain stores appeal to me, and certain stores make me want to rush to the nearest exit and go home. The elements of personal interests, my shopping needs and purposes, and the organization of certain stores help me locate what I want and what I really need. I need shopping to be easy, fun, and fast on my terms. These same three design principles used in such crafty ways by retailers can also be applied to classroom libraries. My shopping attitude has helped me design a user-friendly classroom library that supports developing readers.

The design elements of organization, purpose, and interest help children as they search for books. More specifically, these design elements can organize the nonfiction section of a classroom library, supporting students' book selections, while sustaining their interests as they explore new areas of informational reading. Reflecting on my shopping life showed me how my classroom library can make a tremendous difference in how students select books, especially when they are exploring new nonfiction options.

Inequities in Classroom Libraries

I have been lucky enough to tour many classrooms during my 20+ years of teaching. I often quietly notice the design inequities of many classroom libraries. Teachers spend a great deal of time organizing and labeling the fiction and poetry sections of their classroom libraries, creating areas of interest with clear organizational elements in place.

However, when you look at the nonfiction offerings in the same classrooms, it is as if the teachers ran out of time and energy and placed all of the nonfiction books on a shelf or shelves without any organization or interest factors in mind. Searching for a particular book on these nonfiction shelves is like sifting through a one-acre site while hunting for fossils. Paleontologists have reasons to scrape away bits of dirt looking for fossils and other prehistoric treasures. They know what they hope to find and they have a reason to persevere.

Can we ask kids to be as patient as a paleontologist? For many children, they are just beginning to consider nonfiction resources as possible choices in their reading lives. They may not have experienced many informational reading opportunities in the primary grades. Intermediate children often have strong areas of interests such as soccer heroes, horses, or extreme weather events. Young nonfiction shoppers are often looking for "just the right resource." Sifting and sorting through a bookshelf, as if they are visiting a flea market, can lead to frustration.

I know how kids feel when faced with a packed shelf of nonfiction books lacking organization and areas of interest. When I stand at the entrance of a trendy boutique with loud club music and a perfume overload drifting over shoppers, peering inside the fashion cavern of darkness mixed with black lights and strobe lights, lots of glitter and a tornado design of clothing racks, the overload makes me stop . . . and walk away. I just do not know where to begin my shopping experience in a store like that. Kids viewing a disorganized nonfiction library face the same challenges, and retreating to the familiar side of the classroom's fiction library is a viable option for kids.

Yet retreat is not an option. Teachers want to support students' informational reading lives, so paying attention to organization, purpose, and interests is critical. Nonfiction deserves the same design time as fiction and poetry. Teachers can also capitalize on these elements of classroom design to simplify and expedite setting up and maintaining an organized, appealing, and inspiring classroom library.

Getting Organized with an Assist from Students

Visiting teachers and new students often ask me why and how I created my nonfiction library's format. They notice the four distinct areas of our nonfiction library, and I emphasize how the library's organization helps me as I efficiently plan units of study. The clearly labeled book tubs are evident, and I note how the labels focus my work with students as we search for special books during reading workshop and research projects. I point out that sturdy book tubs, library signs and book tub labels are helpful tools my students use as they independently find their favorite topics. I finally confess that I cannot take credit for the library's format. The highly specific book labels were happily created during an unexpected, unplanned teaching discovery as students helped me react to a teacher-nightmare moment. Here's what happened.

The year that I changed jobs and moved from my former school to my current school was hectic. I moved from a primary to an intermediate classroom. I moved from an urban to a suburban school. In addition to the job changes, my family and I moved into a new house. It was the summer of boxes.

Materials were moved for me by custodial staff between the schools. In the process, all of my nonfiction books were lost for a few weeks during the move, and finally showed up in the district warehouse. When they were located at last, I had only one day to organize the 40 boxes of books. I made a few quick calls to my new students that I'd met during our "Meet the Teacher" event earlier in the week. I was able to recruit five available kids, and they arrived the next day at 9 a.m. willing to help me get the nonfiction library arranged with the promise of pizza at lunch and the power to control the music on the radio. With pop music bouncing through the room, we got to work.

The kids studied the mountain of 40 boxes and we formed a plan. Two of us would unpack boxes, and another two would sort them into major science categories. The fifth student would work with me to divide books into smaller categories, such as placing the pile of life science books into subcategories. Within the four major categories of Life Science, Physical Science, Earth Science, and Our World, we would figure out a way to sort and label books into book tubs complete with helpful topic labels.

The boxes were jumbled in the middle of the room, and we sorted them into four different corners of the room, one for each category. Once the mass of books were broken into four groups, kids worked in teams to sort the categories into waiting book tubs and the kids wrote labels on post-it notes, marking each bin with temporary labels. We made tremendous progress by noon.

As we ate lunch, chatting about life, books, and our summers, the kids started flipping through the piles, calling out ideas for book tub categories. The major sorting was over, and now it was time to get picky. With renewed energy, the kids and I rifled through the four categories and developed book tubs and labels.

Here are some snippets of conversations we had that afternoon. As we looked at a pile of biographies, I chatted with a serious boy. "I don't like an alphabetized shelf of biographies," said Ryan. "I like to know how these people are important to us. The names don't always mean that much to me until after I read a book. I would read more biographies if I could easily find books about famous scientists." I agreed with Ryan and he got to work, sorting biographies into categories such as Famous Athletes, Famous Scientists, Famous Artists and Important Leaders.

Faced with a monstrous pile of animal and habitat books, two girls developed a plan. "I love animals, but especially farm animals," commented Heather as she sorted through animal books with Danielle. "Really? I like rainforest animals better . . . hey Mrs. Smith, why don't we put rainforest and rainforest animals together in one tub? This big tub would hold the pile of books perfectly," explained Danielle. "Why don't we sort all of the animal books by habitats and animals . . . it sure would make it easier to find what we like to read," added Heather as she counted out the number of tubs they would need.

"Don't you think Seymour Simon is the coolest writer? He should get his own tub," said Owen, flipping through a beautifully photographed book about wolves. I gave him a stack of my favorite Steve Jenkins books and watched Owen's eyes light up. "Cool Science Writers!" exclaimed Owen. We happily sorted piles of favorite nonfiction writers into an Outstanding Science Writers tub.

And so went our book conversations that afternoon. What started as an emergency unpacking session with a few kids turned into a teaching moment, and I was the learner. Designing the library with students gave me a priceless opportunity to listen to children. Our conversations resulted in a new, powerful, and productive view of our nonfiction library. I started with four major nonfiction categories and we refined the sorting process together, creating a system that meant something to children. Often our adult point of view is limited, and we need kids' ideas to ground us in the fact that a classroom library is for children who are shopping for books. I now had a library that matches the way kids would go about looking for books. I wanted an enticing library that would be noticed, and made sense to children and the way they viewed books. The kids' library ideas were the bridge connecting my goals to a functioning library that would encourage kids to read nonfiction.

I keep this experience with me each year as I plan, organize, and introduce our classroom library to students. I remember the thrill of discovering favorite topics, writers, and ways of sorting books on that emergency library day. I take that same energy with me as I explore our library on the very first day of school.

Sample Classroom Library Signs and Book Tub Labels
Life Science
The Life Science section of our library is broken into major categories. The biggest section of our Life Science library is organized by different habitats and animal categories. Here are the major sections:

* North America: Habitats on Land

* North America: Fresh Water Habitats

* North American Animals: Two bookshelves are dedicated to the kinds of animals kids would encounter in their local or North American lives.

* Local Animals in our Backyards

* Domestic Animals: Pets and Farm Animals

* Classroom Pets

* North American Mammals

* Bears and Wolves

* Insects

* Arachnids

* Turtles

* Birds: General Information

* Birds: Local Birds of Interest

* Birds: Birds of Prey

* Animal Babies

* Big Cats

* Animal Homes

* Endangered Animals

* Animal Adaptations: Camouflage, Body Design, and Senses

* Animal Adaptations: Behaviors, Migration, and Hibernation

* Body Parts, Camouflage, Special Features

* Animal Tracks and Signs

* The Animals of Oceania (Australia, New Zealand, and Neighbors): Marsupials

* Africa: African Habitats and African Animals

* South America: Rainforest Habitats and Rainforest Animals

* Deserts: Desert Habitats and Desert Animals

* Arctic Habitats

* Arctic Animals

* The Ocean: Habitats on the Shore and In The Sea

* Ocean Life: Fish and Sharks

* Ocean Life: Other Ocean Creatures

* Ocean Life: Ocean Mammals

Plants:

* Trees

* Plants and Seeds

* Flowers

* Gardening

The Human Body:

* Body Systems And How They Work

* The Five Senses And How They Help Us

* Germs and Illness

* Wonder Questions About The Human Body
Physical Science
* Energy

* Forces

* Inventions

* Experiments

Transportation:

* Vehicles Around Town (cars, trucks and motorcycles)

* Trains

* Airplanes

* Boats
Earth Sciences
* Our Earth: Rocks and Minerals

* Our Living Earth: Land Forms and Geologic Events

* The Solar System

* Stars

* Earth and Its Moon

* Space Travel and Astronauts

* Weather: Weather Forecasting and Extreme Weather

* Seasons

* Water: The Water Cycle and Water Changes The Earth

* Dinosaurs
Our World
The section of our library marked "Our World" is filled with books about people, where they live, and what we might discover about their daily lives. The purpose of this library section is to study our own lives, and learn about the lives of our global neighbors.

* Maps

* Ohio History

* United States History

* Cultures From Around The World

* Food From Around the World

* Languages and Translating Dictionaries

* Folk Tales From Around the World

* Immigration

* Special Buildings and Special Places

* Biographies: Leaders Who Changed Our Lives

* Biographies: Scientists

* Biographies: Artists, Writers, and Musicians

* Biographies: Athletes

* Important Issues and Challenges (Oil Spills, Pollution, Recycling)
Nonfiction Series
Even though many titles could be integrated into our topic tubs, I like to store some books as a series whenever it is possible. These series create familiar structures for developing readers, and they like to find nonfiction books with predictable elements. These are some of our favorite series.

* Life Cycles series by David Schwartz

* How and Why series

* Look Once - Look Again series by David Schwartz

* Exploring Habitats

* Exploring Animals and Plants

* Magic School Bus series

* Magic Tree House series

* Adventures of Riley series

* One Small Square series
Nonfiction Author Tubs
I group these talented authors together so students and I can explore the craft of these writers, or use their books for research and pleasure reading. Here are some of our favorite nonfiction authors and illustrators.

* Seymour Simon

* April Pulley-Sayre

* Steve Jenkins

* Anthony Fredericks

* Christopher Canyon

* Jeanette Canyon

* Lynne Cherry

* Chad Wallace

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Organizing a Classroom Nonfiction Library with Students

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Author I will be honest with you. I am not a shopper. I do not like strolling through malls, hunting for bargains at outlet shops, or spending extended time under the fluorescent lights of department stores or chain boutiques. Yet I can hold my own at the supermarket, the pet store, or my local garden center.

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Illustration by James Steinberg

A child enters the library, looking for something to read. She wanders the aisles, glancing at book spines, running her finger along the shelf, and lingering at a display of new titles. "Can I help you?" asks the librarian, following with more questions about her tastes: What was the last book you read? What was your favorite part? What TV shows or movies do you enjoy?

The librarian is engaging in readers' advisory-matching readers to books. Effective readers' advisers understand that their success depends on familiarity with a range of books, as well as with their patrons. The librarian may spend several minutes talking with a child, observing body language for clues, and walking together through the stacks while offering suggestions. Professionals know that readers' advisory doesn't end when a patron walks out with books in hand. The next time this librarian sees the child, she'll inquire about the selections, which titles the student enjoyed (or didn't), further refining understanding of the reader.

That process is often different from the hunt for "just right" books in classrooms and collections in which books are organized by reading level. Rather than having a conversation about interests, children in leveled classrooms and school libraries are often directed to color-coded bins or shelves labeled by level. "Your books have a green sticker on the cover," a student may be told.

In classrooms across the country, reading instruction, assessment, and labeling of material have impacted how people search for and engage with books, sometimes resulting in restricted reading choices-even for independent reading. That, as Betty Carter, professor emerita of children's and young adult literature at Texas Woman's University, noted in a July 2000 SLJ article, is a "formula for failure."

What's wrong with "just right" books?

The move toward leveled or "just right" books stems from research showing that children's reading comprehension improves when they read texts at-or slightly above-their reading level. What that level is, how it's determined, and how reading instruction is implemented varies from school to school, district to district, and state to state. Two of the most common methods for leveling books are Lexile and the "A to Z" gradient found in Fountas and Pinnell's Guided Reading system.

"Research says that students should spend most of their time in 'just right' or 'at their level' books, but that research does not say to limit students and what they would like to read," says Pernille Ripp, creator of the Global Read Aloud and author of Passionate Learners: How to Engage and Empower Your Students (Routledge, 2015).

Most educators and researchers agree that student choice is a huge part of reading motivation. Does restricting kids to a prescribed level do more harm than good? Yes, according to Ripp. "Those levels, to quote Fountas and Pinnell, are 'a teacher's tool, not a child's label.' But that's exactly what levels have become-labels that restrict our readers and tell them that their reading identity needs to be based on an outside influence-the teacher-and not their own intuition," she says.

Donalyn Miller, author of Reading in the Wild: The Book Whisperer's Keys to Cultivating Lifelong Reading Habits (Jossey-Bass, 2013), has called leveling "educational malpractice." Schools have gone too far, she believes. "There is a lack of fundamental understanding by many educators about the limitations of leveling systems and their role in children's reading development," she says. "Matching children with books solely by reading level removes the teacher's responsibility for knowing much about children's literature or teaching children meaningful strategies for self-selecting books beyond level."

Helping youth develop the skills needed to find interesting, appropriate reading material, without leveling, was the focus of Linda Wedwick Haling's doctoral research and led her and coauthor Jessica Ann Wutz to write Bookmatch: How to Scaffold Student Book Selection for Independent Reading (IRA, 2008). Now an assistant professor at the Center for Reading and Literacy at the College of Education at Illinois State University, Haling believes that "the readability formulas have some usefulness. But ultimately, they never account for...what the reader brings to the experience. A reader's 'match' to a book is going to change with what prior knowledge the individual brings to that specific topic. What's most important is teaching kids how to match themselves to 'just right' books. In the real world, books are not leveled."

Bookmatch focuses on teaching children nine key criteria-collectively forming the acronym BOOKMATCH-to consider when selecting a title for independent reading: book length, ordinary language, organization, knowledge prior to book, manageable text, appeal to genre, topic appropriateness, connection, and high interest. It's a process that involves asking questions, interacting with the text, considering personal preferences, and allowing room for trial and error as kids strengthen their skills.

Carter agrees that more attention is needed on teaching children how to find books rather than relying on prescriptive reading systems. "If we are trying to help kids become independent learners, then they need to develop skills for finding their own books," she says.

Leveling the books, or the child?

In a 2012 article for Reading.org, "Guided Reading: the Romance and the Reality", Fountas and Pinnell cautioned that they "never recommended that the school library or classroom libraries be leveled or that levels be reported to parents." Using leveled texts in classrooms following the "A to Z" matrix, Lexile, or other systems, however, seems to contradict this advice, as educators report that more schools are leveling, with some districts mandating it. Teachers often discuss individual reading levels with their students, and some let students know one another's levels.

Miller says that this can be very damaging. "While children are learning the skills of reading, they must also develop a positive reading identity or they will not become lifelong readers," she says. "Removing, defining, limiting, or rejecting children's reading choices disempowers them and creates negative attitudes toward reading-and most likely, school."

Ripp agrees. "I think a few kids will be empowered by it, mostly if they are above grade level," she says. However, those with lower levels "would not be motivated," feeling so behind that they might never catch up.

Fountas and Pinnell advise against making reading levels known to individual students: "We level books, not children." Still, many lament leveling's overuse, to the detriment of literacy and considering the whole child. "Painting kids into a level can...break their desire to read," says Eric Neuman, a school librarian in New York City. "I have witnessed kids with low reading levels working their way through difficult texts because of how interested they are in the subject matter. I've also witnessed proficient readers mess up on passages that they're not interested in."

Supporters, however, view leveling as a motivator. It provides clear goals for improvement that can offer encouragement and structure. "[L]evels were instrumental in helping my eight-year-old overcome her reading struggles," says Jacqueline Miller of Darien, CT. "She could not read the [higher level] books that her friends were reading, and that was far more shame-inducing than knowing what level books were her 'just right' books," Miller says. "The leveled books didn't matter as much for my non-struggling reader. And they both read a huge variety of non-leveled books outside of school."

At the school library

Many school librarians have leveled collections to support curriculum and in response to mandates from district literacy specialists. Michael Bento, a school librarian in Burien, WA, labeled his books according to Fountas and Pinnell's "A to Z" gradient. It's a slow, time-consuming process, Bento notes, but he is pleased with the results. "Students and teachers now refer to this leveling system when looking for appropriate [material]," he says. "It makes it easier for us to help them if we are on board as well."

Neuman says that several years ago, he felt pressure from teachers to level the school library. He resisted and presented a compromise solution. Neuman installed Level It Books, an app for iOS that allows users to scan an ISBN and look up Lexile numbers for most texts. "If a student absolutely had to read something on their specific level, I could make that happen," he says. The New York City Department of Education also provides Follett's Destiny to school libraries to manage circulation, and Destiny includes reading levels for most titles, he adds. "So when kids check books in and out, I can see a level."

The American Association of School Librarians (AASL), a division of the American Library Association (ALA), strongly discourages school librarians from labeling, according to the ALA Position Statement on Labeling Books with Reading Levels. "It is the responsibility of school librarians to promote free access for students and not to aid in restricting their library materials," reads the statement. It also notes that labeling by level can compromise student privacy and First Amendment rights as well as negatively affect browsing and motivational reading.

An ALA document clarifying the Library Bill of Rights states "While some parents and teachers may find housing books by grade or reading levels helpful in guiding developing young readers, a library should not use such labels as a classification system, or to promote any restrictive or prejudicial practice."

Public librarians have also reported requests from parents and teachers to adapt their collections to match classroom reading systems. Amy Martin, a children's librarian at Oakland (CA) Public Library, notes a scenario in which "a teacher brings [in] a class of 25 students, tells me a number or letter range for each one, and asks me to help each find one book at their level...in the space of a 30-minute class visit," she says. "This would not be difficult in a leveled collection....But in a public library, where books are categorized by type (picture book, easy reader, etc.), it's extremely difficult."

What's a librarian to do?

Martin focuses on creating a teachable moment-even for teachers-and doing her best to have her patrons leave satisfied. "When a parent or teacher asks me for books at a certain level, I start by explaining a little about how the public library organizes books and say something along the lines of 'Your school library may organize books by reading level; at this library, we organize them by book type,' and then give them a quick tour of the collection," she says. "I ask what kind of books they like, what other books they've read lately, and show them a couple samples and ask if they look too hard/too easy/just right. I get them to focus on one or two books, and then say, 'OK, let's see what level those are.' "

For school librarians in districts where leveling is the norm, supporting school practices and empowering student choice can be tricky. "The librarian ends up in a hard situation because they see kids who want to check out books that are above or below their perceived level," says Ripp. "Are they then supposed to go behind the teacher's back in allowing the students to check that book out?"

Haling says that it comes down to investing time in helping kids develop skills to select books independently. "We should trust kids when it comes to selecting their own books," she says. "They do have opinions and preferences, even if they're in first grade. They are capable of learning to match themselves to 'just right' books-without the teacher directing them to a labeled bin."

The key is more choice, not less, Carter believes. "Let them take out a lot of books so that somewhere in that pile they find something that satisfies them," she says. "But we have to keep that process going....When they come into the library the next time, talk about their choices: what worked; what didn't. They have to learn their own processes for selecting books, and if we keep narrowing the choices by artificial constraints, we aren't giving them that chance."

Pat Scales, past president of the Association for Library Service to Children (ALSC) and author of SLJ's "Scales on Censorship" column, denounced labeling library books by reading level in a March 2015 interview on the ALSC Blog. She advises public librarians to communicate with their school counterparts about reading lists, selection, and student privacy issues.

It's essential, Ripp adds, that librarians and educators step up as advocates for the freedom to read-even if that choice extends below or above a student's reading level. "If a child wants to check out a book, let them....Students are telling us in droves they don't like to read anymore because of these rules. So as school communities, we need to start listening to the students and let them read the books they want to read."

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Thinking Outside the Bin: Why labeling books by reading level disempowers young readers

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Illustration by James Steinberg A child enters the library, looking for something to read. She wanders the aisles, glancing at book spines, running her finger along the shelf, and lingering at a display of new titles. "Can I help you?" asks the librarian, following with more questions about her tastes: What was the last book you read?

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My job as an English teacher is to empower my students to discover, identify, locate, rediscover, find, and fall in love with the books that speak to their souls and their hearts.

In order to make that happen, I have to have a dynamic classroom library. A year and a half ago, I didn't have anything on my shelves in my classroom, but because my school, my family, and my colleagues are on board with the vision of robust classroom libraries, my library looks a whole lot better than it did then.

We've raided the school book room, collected our main library's discards, purchased books off of facebook and other "garage" sale type of venues, and we bring back hundreds of pounds of second hand books in our suitcases at every opportunity. (I live in Nicaragua, which complicates the book buying at times.) We spent our entire English department budget on classroom libraries last year, so this fall we felt like kids in a candy store when we were setting up our new classroom libraries.

Each time we are blessed a new influx of books, we have to think about storage, and more importantly, organization. It's essential that we store and organize our books so that students will be drawn to the shelves and compelled to read new books.

I haven't had any experience that tells me that labeling and micro-leveling books is what makes my students want to read. Quite the opposite. What I read also tells me that labels aren't for public display on the spines of books or on the front of organizational book baskets. They are tools for teachers to use, which may help them with a cursory understanding of texts before they can get to know them better.

My job as an English teacher is to empower my students to discover, identify, locate, rediscover, find, and fall in love with the books that speak to their souls and their hearts.

My experience and observations tell me that organizing my books by general level and genre is what works best for my classroom library. That rotating book displays pique student interest in titles they might not have noticed or cared about in the past. That topic, passion, and enthusiasm can sell a book to a student a whole lot more convincingly than a level or a label can.

My classroom library is split into four basic sections:

1. middle school fiction

2. young adult fiction

3. contemporary fiction

4. nonfiction

I do this out of necessity: I teach three sections of seventh grade English and two sections of AP Language and Composition. It's important to have some distinct sections for these students so they at least have a starting place when they browse for books. They do tend to meet each other in the young adult fiction shelves, and there isn't much that stops them from "shopping" on all of the shelves.

Within those four sections I have subsections, however.

I have grouped some middle school fiction into some general categories: magic/fantasy, mystery/scary, realistic fiction, historical fiction, books in a series, sports, and shorter/easy reads.

In the young adult fiction section I caved to a student who really wanted a romance section ( why not? I thought). I've also grouped some of these books into a "books in a series" section, a mystery/horror section, dystopian, and a sci-fi/fantasy section. The section on World War Two shelf was created because I have a number of students who are gravitating towards that topic right now. It's not comprehensive, and it mixes middle level, young adult, contemporary fiction, and nonfiction, but it is what's working for my students right now, so it will stay for at least a while.

That's the whole point. Our classroom library organization is based on what works for my students. It wasn't prescribed by any "experts" or mandated by anyone outside of my classroom. It's authentic, preserves student emotions and privacy, and the shelves are open to whomever would like to browse them.

There is a tiny bit of leveling - three levels plus nonfiction, but this leveling is more about maturity and content than text leveling. It's certainly not the microlevels of Lexiles, A-Z, or AR that some libraries employ. It's helpful rather than restrictive.

Because the books are organized into these smaller topic or genre sections, students have a helpful place to start looking that isn't rigid. I feel like it's the best of both worlds because it gives students a direction and a guide, but not rules or rails they have to live between.

Simply because of the space and shelves that I have in my room, I've added a subgroup of poetry, plays, and picture books section in the nonfiction corner.

This is a corner that needs some work. As I add titles to my classroom library, I will deliberately look for poetry and drama, as well as relevant picture books to add to these shelves.

While I have these semi-permanent organizational ideas, I also have some rotating book displays.

Right now, my AP Lang class is starting a research project. One of their sources needs to be a book with either endnotes or footnotes, so I've collected many of my classroom library books that meet that requirement and put them on display.

This display changes about every week or so, sometime with deliberate purpose like this one, and other times it's just whatever comes to mind. Some recent displays have been around the topics of time travel, aviation, The Great Depression, and sports. Anything goes when it comes to displaying a collection of books.

Another way of displaying and organizing books is by what is popular with students, what the teacher is currently reading, and what's been book talked in the last day or so.

These are all examples of rotating book displays, and they rotate between every other day, and every couple of weeks. It's a matter of doing what makes sense for the type of display it is, and what the current needs of the classes are.

So once the books are organized and on display, students actually start to look at them! It's a miracle, and a wonderful feeling when they get interested and excited when they haven't been in the past.

At that point, a check out and return system becomes key.

Mine is old-fashioned and easy to navigate. It's a spiral bound notebook and a pen. Pretty simple.

Just because it's low-tech doesn't mean it doesn't work. Quite the opposite. Students know to check out books and put them in the return basket when they are done. Sometimes they cross out the original entry of their returned book, but mostly all they have to do is put the book in the return basket and I'll find their name and cross it off and then re-shelve the book.

The return basket is right next to the check out notebook and this sign which reminds students that the honor system is what makes this whole thing work.

The classroom libraries in our hall are open to all of our students, so often students from other classes wander in to my classroom looking for books. The system is the same for them as it is for the students I currently have in my classes. All of the students at our school are our students; all of the students have access to all of our classroom libraries.

If some students have books out for a long time, and we don't see those students on the regular because they aren't in our own classes, we rely on each other to ask those students about those titles, which means we often get books returned promptly with that simple system. Our department has a shared google doc and we list the students' names and titles that are checked out, so we all have that information at our fingertips.

Our organizational and check-out systems are thoughtful and simple, and can be adopted by almost anyone. There may be other better, different, or more complicated ideas and systems out there that work for people, but I wanted to share ours because of its simplicity and effectiveness.

How do you organize your classroom library, and what philosophical beliefs to you hold that are behind these practices? I'd love to read your thoughts in the comments.
Julie has been teaching secondary language arts for more than twenty years, spending the first fifteen in rural Central Oregon, four in Amman, Jordan, and the most recent school years in Managua, Nicaragua. Follow her on twitter @SwinehartJulie

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Organizing Classroom Libraries - One Teacher's Answers

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My job as an English teacher is to empower my students to discover, identify, locate, rediscover, find, and fall in love with the books that speak to their souls and their hearts. In order to make that happen, I have to have a dynamic classroom library.

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Thanks to teacher Ashleigh Rose for sharing her classroom library refresh with us! Keep reading to see WHY she decided her classroom library organization wasn't working, and then read the rest of the posts in this series to learn what changes she made and how you can make similar changes in your classroom.

"Ms. Rose, you don't have any good books."

Despite the whirlwind that was my first year teaching sixth grade at my current middle school, it was these eight words-more than any other-from any given student that irked me to my core.

Thus would commence a sophisticated back and forth argument in which I showcased my robust vocabulary and excellent command of argumentation skill:

(Figure 1: Me and students debating the merits of my old classroom library.)

The reason that I found these words the most rage-inducing was that I was well aware that there were plenty of things I was not getting right in my first year at my school. However, I was confident that the books I was putting into my classroom library was not one of those wrong things. I was buying, Donors Choosing, and coaxing my assistant principal into purchasing books that I knew were pure gold that my students needed and loved.

After these exchanges, I would walk over to my library to prove them wrong. But time and time again, I couldn't even quickly access the books I was looking for. Even when kids knew a title they wanted, which R or S or T bin did it even live in? Had one of my 92 students moved the books into a different bin? Or maybe it was actually a U book...

And here is my moment of vulnerability.

I'm saying it out loud: I used to organize my classroom library book bins with Fountas and Pinnell level labels.

My kids couldn't find the amazing books in my classroom library, because they were scattered and shoved into Fountas and Pinnell-leveled bins. That is what the teacher before me had done. That is what all teachers just did, right?

I quickly realized that what my students meant when they hurled those most-jarring words at me, was that they couldn't locate appealing books that were in my library. They didn't know- physically- where to start. I love my kids and I will tell you that impressively and intuitively, they did NOT spend any time entertaining the notions of restricting themselves to leveled bins. Because they were smarter than me, they rightfully felt that they had full reign over and access to all of the classroom library.

So instead, when it came time to book shop for a new independent reading book, they stared at the classroom library-shelves and shelves of bins and bins of books with seemingly random letters on the front of each bin. They had no idea where to go. They would pick a random bin, look at some covers, read some backs, toss books back into a different bin, and eventually after three to five bins, they would throw their hands up with exhausted rage and march to me:

But when they grumbled, "Ms. Rose, you don't have any good books."

"Ms. Rose, your obtuse way of organizing these books by levels is preventing me from locating an enjoyable text and developing the habit and agency of self-selecting reading materials which will ultimately support me in developing a reading identity that will last me through the remainder of my school and adult life."

Even before Fountas and Pinnell got so horrified at how us teachers were using their levels in our classrooms and reminded us to use their levels only as teacher tools, rather than student levels , I realized that organizing my library by levels had to go.

I needed a new system.

So I found one. And I found it WITH my students. And I'm proud of what we created. It turned a chaotic classroom library into OUR classroom library.

If you too have ever felt frustrated that your amazing books are somehow not making their way into kids hands, backpacks, homes, and ultimately hearts and minds, I hope this process might ignite some ideas for your classroom.

In my next three posts I will share:

How We Reconfigured Our Library:

1. Brainstormed mood/theme they wanted to see.

2. Used kid-created names for the bins.

3. Initially placed many books in the bins. (And got rid of some MUSTIE books in the process!)

How We Re-Introduced Our Library:

1. Had students share the process we implemented with the class.

2. Continued to place books into bins after book talks and conversations in class.

3. Let kids suggest new bin ideas.

4. I modeled using the library as a resource when kids asked for book suggestions.

What Happened After We Re-Claimed our Library:

1. Less time looking in the library = more time reading!

2. Less ME in the book finding process-the library became a built-in book recommender.

3. More conversations about books.

4. Kids recommended and located books for each other.

5. Students began to push outside of favorite genres because they got hooked on favorite bin themes.

6. Library stayed cleaner!

7. Solidified my place as THAT teacher kids come to for books.

Read the rest of this series at the links below!

Ashleigh has been teaching middle school literacy in Washington, DC for the last eight years. She currently teaches 7th and 8th grade Writing in Southeast DC and leads her school's Project LIT chapter. She is lifelong learner and book nerd who is always trying to up her educator game. Ashleigh is a fierce advocate for giving kids voice, choice, and access to books that are both culturally affirming and representative as well as books and learning experiences that create a culture of curiosity and disruption of the status quo. You can most often find her nerding out on Twitter (@betweenmargins) and from time to time on Instagram (@betweenmargins).

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Why My Kids "Couldn't Find Any Good Books" In Our Classroom Library (and How We Flipped the Script Together)

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Thanks to teacher Ashleigh Rose for sharing her classroom library refresh with us! Keep reading to see WHY she decided her classroom library organization wasn't working, and then read the rest of the posts in this series to learn what changes she made and how you can make similar

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This is the second post in a series on classroom library organization by middle school literacy teacher, Ashleigh Rose. If you missed it, be sure to read her first post, Why My Kids "Couldn't Find Any Good Books" In Our Classroom Library and How We Flipped the Script Together.
After finally deciding my classroom library needed a drastic overhaul, I realized that the smartest way to make sure our Classroom Library 2.0 was a success was to enlist the people who I wanted to best serve-my students.

I gathered a group of volunteers-avid book nerds, as well as kids who just wanted to help make the library a better place for our classroom. Because I teach multiple periods of different homerooms and it always feels like we never have enough time to do everything in class, I decided to do this work on a Saturday that my building was open. This way, we could dedicate a few hours of brain space to getting this done that wouldn't interrupt kids' in-class access to the library for independent reading. Looking back, this could very well have made an excellent class project over the course of a few class periods.

We kind of made it up as we went, but (spoiler alert) it worked!
Step 1: Brainstorm mood/theme options that kids want to be able to find.
On chart paper, we brainstormed the kinds of books we want to be able to easily locate. Our aim was to make these universal. For example, we specifically avoided bins that only applied to a slice of society-whether by gender/racial/sexual/cultural identity. I call this our mood/theme brainstorming because I know it wasn't genre-naming, but I don't know that a specific term applies to it all. I gave kids a few examples and provided some thinking frames:

Kids came up with some amazing and hilarious stuff...

Step 2: Create short, catchy, kid-created titles for the bins.

One of my students wrote, "...reminds me of things I liked when I was younger."

Me: "Oh, cool, maybe we call that bin 'nostalgic?'"

Student: "Huh?"

Me: "You know what, we'll just go with your words."

After kids created the groupings of books that they wanted to be able to quickly locate in our library, I asked students to come up with catchy, short bin titles that would encapsulate the ideas from our brainstormed list. Some bins came from kids combining several items on the list they realized were similar, and sometimes they realized gaps we needed titles for.

My students loved this process and still, three years later, are quick to point out the titles they came up with.

Step 3: Place the books we know.

With bins made, students started placing the books they knew well. Students felt that sometimes books could straddle multiple bins which brought great conversation. Ultimately we realized we had to zoom in on these questions:

It also never hurt to read the book jacket or the back to see what professionals had said that might help us distill what was most important about this book, but we always opted to go with what we felt.

During this process we also came across some books that just needed to go. We abided by Donalyn Miller's MUSTIE criteria for culling book collections below:

Read my next post, How We Re-Introduced Our Classroom Library After the Refresh, to see how we rolled this out to the rest of my students who were not yet involved in this process.
About the Author:
Ashleigh has been teaching middle school literacy in Washington, DC for the last eight years. She currently teaches 7th and 8th grade Writing in Southeast DC and leads her school's Project LIT chapter. She is lifelong learner and book nerd who is always trying to up her educator game. Ashleigh is a fierce advocate for giving kids voice, choice, and access to books that are both culturally affirming and representative as well as books and learning experiences that create a culture of curiosity and disruption of the status quo. You can most often find her nerding out on Twitter (@betweenmargins) and from time to time on Instagram (@betweenmargins).

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How to Renovate Your Classroom Library So Kids Can Find Books They Will Love

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This is the second post in a series on classroom library organization by middle school literacy teacher, Ashleigh Rose. If you missed it, be sure to read her first post, Why My Kids "Couldn't Find Any Good Books" In Our Classroom Library and How We

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Thanks to teacher, Ashleigh Rose, for sharing her classroom library refresh with us! This is third post in her series. To see how and why she got started, be sure to read her first two posts, Part 1: Why My Kids "Couldn't" Find Any Good Books in Our Classroom Library and Part 2: How to Renovate Your Classroom Library So Kids Can Find Books They Will Love.

On Monday, it was time to share our process with the rest of the classes. For this to work for everyone, everyone needed to know about it. I also hoped this would be a living and breathing library that other students would continue to improve.
1. Students explained our library revitalization process to their peers.
Students who volunteered to reshape the library briefly explained the process to whichever homeroom they were in. In hindsight, I wish my students had taken pictures to explain the process to their peers-could be a cool student opportunity!

The students in the class then discussed a few questions we had for them, like:

Which bins sounded most interesting to them?

Which bins might be good for them to try to push themselves to read outside of their usual book selections?

2. We book talked new titles and chose where to place them as a class, not just on that day, but moving forward.

In class that day, we book talked a few books and collectively decided where it sounded like that book should best fit in the library. I told students that if most of us didn't have knowledge of a book we could place it in the bin that seemed most appropriate, but down the line we could always argue for a location swap if it turned out the heart of the book aligned better with a different bin.

Moving forward, daily book talks ended only when we'd briefly discussed where this book should end up in the library. Sometimes the student book talker had a preset notion about a bin home and they explained a little about why. On the other hand, sometimes I book talked a book and let kids talk through where they most thought it should end up.

3. I put up our brainstorming poster by the door in the class so kids could add more bin suggestions.

For kids who were unable to help reshape the library that Saturday, I left a door open for them to be involved and continue to improve our library. I made it very clear that this was an experiment with our library that could constantly evolve with their input. I put up our brainstorming poster by the door so that kids could, as inspiration struck, add other mood/theme categories that were lacking from our classroom library. Several students recognized gaps in their library as the next month or two went on and added ideas that we could add to our list. (For example, there was a great outcry for books that were just all romance, all the time. That became our "Heart Eyes Emoji" bin.)

4. I modeled using the classroom library as a resource any time a kid asked for a book recommendation.

Out of habit and sometimes necessity, some students still came up and asked for a book recommendation for independent reading. I modeled asking them questions I hoped they could begin to ask themselves when they went to the library:

We would then locate one or a few bins that seemed to align with their interests and together we would quickly create a preview stack they could peruse. Fewer and fewer students came to me for recommendations as they realized that they didn't really need me as the middle-man to do that work in the book selection process. You know what they say: give a sixth grader a book and they read for a day, teach a sixth grader to use their resources to book select independently...

Thanks for reading! My next post, The Results: What Happened After We Re-Claimed Our Classroom Library, reflects on the positive results of this massive shift in our classroom library.
About the Author:
Ashleigh has been teaching middle school literacy in Washington, DC for the last eight years. She currently teaches 7th and 8th grade Writing in Southeast DC and leads her school's Project LIT chapter. She is lifelong learner and book nerd who is always trying to up her educator game. Ashleigh is a fierce advocate for giving kids voice, choice, and access to books that are both culturally affirming and representative as well as books and learning experiences that create a culture of curiosity and disruption of the status quo. You can most often find her nerding out on Twitter (@betweenmargins) and from time to time on Instagram (@betweenmargins).

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How We Reintroduced Our Classroom Library After the Refresh

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Thanks to teacher, Ashleigh Rose, for sharing her classroom library refresh with us! This is third post in her series. To see how and why she got started, be sure to read her first two posts, Part 1: Why My Kids "Couldn't" Find Any Good

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Thanks to teacher Ashleigh Rose for sharing her classroom library refresh with us! This is the fourth and final post in her series. Start reading the first three here !

The results to the change we made in our library were overwhelmingly positive. Below, I will share a few major outcomes.

1. The library became a built-in book recommendation system: way less TEACHER in the book selection process.

Because I modeled using the library to find books when kids asked me for a recommendation, they quickly realized they could instead ask themselves the questions that the library could answer. Most of my sixth graders recognized they didn't really need me to find a book. Instead they began to ask themselves, What am I in the mood for? How do I want to feel while I'm reading? What kind of theme am I looking for? It was easy to find the bins that answered those questions for them. I also could easily say, "Oh you like scary books? Let me connect you with student x that I have seen in that bin a lot. I bet they'll have a great rec!"

2. Kids recommended and located books for each other.

I'm happy to report that most of my middle schoolers grumble about sacrificing any of their independent reading time. Before our library was set up this way, if a kid wanted to help a peer locate a book, it might take them forever to find it because our library was so haphazard and difficult to navigate. Kids were less likely to embark on that uncertain journey.

After our revamp, however, kids seemed to be able to heat-seeking-missile their way to the book they wanted to recommend in our library. As a result, students were way more likely to help each other find a loved book or to recommend a few books to a friend in their favorite bin because it was so much easier.

3. Students spent less time looking in the library and more time reading books!

As mentioned above, kids found books faster! That means that kids spent more time reading! Let's say our library only saved students 5 minutes a week (though I would argue, especially for those kids who are in the library every 2-3 days, that it saved them much more!) My students spend about 48 weeks in school.

48 weeks x 5 minutes saved per week = 240 minutes a year kids could spend READING instead of looking for a book.

240 minutes x 93 kids = 372 hours.

My highly scientific calculations 😁 show that in one year with my 93 6th graders, they got back a bare minimum of 372 hours of independent reading time IN CLASS because of our library re-configuration. It's no surprise kids read far more books this year than any of my kids before.

4. We had more authentic and higher-quality (and *cough* Common Core Aligned *cough*) class conversations about books.

Post book talk discussions about which bin this book should live in were fascinating.

Sometimes it was hard to say where the book should go without spoiling it. ("Just trust and believe it goes here." "You should read and find out why.")

Sometimes students who had both read a book disagreed about where it should go and we prodded them with questions ("But what do you think the author would say it is really about?" "How did you feel most of the time you read it?" "What do you think the character would tell us to do?")

Kids were sneakily getting tons of at-bats identifying theme and central idea and justifying claims with evidence. Would you look at that, Common Core standards...

And because WE had created this system, there was freedom in knowing we knew we could always adjust a book's home down the line. Though these discussions were quick, they served as powerful modeling and opportunities to engage in group discussions about texts.

5. Students pushed outside of their go-to genres and formats of books because they got hooked on themes/moods that resonated with them.

When my library was a hot mess, many students who felt overwhelmed or some of my more risk-averse readers were doing a lot of rereading. But it wasn't the good kind of rereading-the kind that comes with reflection or looking for new insite or appreciation of a text. Rereading was happening because it was easier to just grab a book they knew wasn't going to be a total bomb. It was low-stakes rereading without love, because that was safer than trying to locate anything in the mass of leveled bins.

Now, I could say, "What does this book make you feel that you enjoy about it?" Or I could push when a kid asked where the graphic novels bin was (it was nowhere - graphic novels are a format!) I would respond, "I love graphic novels too, but they're a format, not a specific mood or theme. Tell me some of your favorite graphic novels and let's think about what you loved about them, and I bet we can find a bin you'll love."

It's hard to take reading risks in a classroom library when you have no idea what you'll get from one of the three level V bins. It's natural and, honestly, smart that many of my kids were just sticking with what they knew in our old disaster of a classroom library. Our new library gave them a taste of what they were getting into. It made it less scary for them to read outside of their typical genre or format to grow as more well-rounded readers. Our bins contained a variety of formats (graphic novels, chapter books, novels in verse) and genres (fantasy, realistic fiction, mystery) because our bins were thematic. Moods and themes of friendship, or not fitting in, or adults ruining everything are not exclusive to one type of format or genre. This new system had kids in love with themes and they would read widely in genre and format of that theme.

6. The library stayed cleaner.

I know it seems like our previous letter system would make it easy to keep things sorted but it never did. I suspect this more had to do with kids valuing the library and being invested in maintaining its usefulness.

Kids knew where to return books, and if they didn't, they would drop them off in the return bin. Myself or another student who had read the book could easily place them in the proper bin when they saw it needing to be returned or ask someone who had read it. I often observed kids stumble across a book in and out of place bin and they would put it to the side to fix it or ask me where it should go.

7. I solidified my place as THAT teacher kids come to for books.

Word got out and 7th, 8th, and 5th graders would come into class, sticky note pass in-hand to get a book. My old kids continued to come back the next year and the next. They could easily locate what they were looking for even when I was teaching or working with a class.

Their new complaint? "My teacher doesn't have any good books." I often pointed out to my old kids that they used to say the exact same the same thing about this very library they were coming to visit. "Yeah but like, that's because you couldn't find anything." Yep, and probably because I was harmfully tying your reading identity to a level, I would think to myself.

I don't know if I found the best system for organizing a classroom library, but I know I found one that I and my students love. I don't doubt that it is mostly because we created it alongside one another.

About the Author:

Ashleigh has been teaching middle school literacy in Washington, DC for the last eight years. She currently teaches 7th and 8th grade Writing in Southeast DC and leads her school's Project LIT chapter. She is lifelong learner and book nerd who is always trying to up her educator game. Ashleigh is a fierce advocate for giving kids voice, choice, and access to books that are both culturally affirming and representative as well as books and learning experiences that create a culture of curiosity and disruption of the status quo. You can most often find her nerding out on Twitter (@betweenmargins) and from time to time on Instagram (@betweenmargins).

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The Results: What Happened After We Reclaimed our Classroom Library

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Thanks to teacher Ashleigh Rose for sharing her classroom library refresh with us! This is the fourth and final post in her series. Start reading the first three here ! The results to the change we made in our library were overwhelmingly positive. Below, I will share a few major outcomes.

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Small Ideas for a Better Organized Classroom Library

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With 12 days left of the school year, they trickle in. Some worn and tattered, others still as crisp as the day they entered our room. Found in lockers, backpacks, discovered under beds and pulle…

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Author

It may sound like such a minor coaching experience, and yet it was so powerful. I was asked by a second-grade teacher to help reorganize her classroom library, so it would be easier for the teacher and students to use. This teacher, Miss Winter, had been teaching three years. She had an organization to her classroom library that was based on trade books set up alphabetically by the author's last name, picture books set up alphabetically by title, and nonfiction books grouped in a science section, but not by any topics.

At the beginning of the year, I had given out a needs assessment with questions that asked about different literacy concepts (i.e. guided reading, read aloud, writing workshop, classroom library organization). Teachers indicated any areas they felt they would like to know more about, would like to have help with understanding, or have me model in their classroom. Miss Winter realized after three years of teaching that the way her books were organized confused children, rather than helping them gain independence in finding "just right" books or books of interest.

Miss Winter came to my classroom (I coach in the morning and teach the language arts curriculum in the afternoon to my primary multiage class) and noticed how the many books were organized, labeled, and accessed by my students. She hoped I could help reorganize her classroom library to be more like mine, targeting authors, themes, and titles in a way that was more accessible to students. Being asked to spend extended time in her classroom, with and without students in the room, gave me lots of opportunities for professional (and personal) conversations with this colleague. Building a personal relationship with this teacher helped to create a strong connection where she felt safe coming to me throughout the year with many different questions and inquires about teaching.

Miss Winter and I spent time before school looking around her room and discussing other options for organizing the books. She told me the way she had the books organized was based on a mentor teacher's style from her first year of teaching. She knew she needed to make the books easier to find and put away. She was willing to go to a store and get many different size tubs to store the books and labels for marking them. We were able to empty a shelf that did not house books so that the books could be spread out more and allow for certain groups of books to be together in a similar location. I was able to see and hear exactly what went on with the students during the periods of time I was organizing the books. The organization of the books led to conversations with the teacher about reading instruction, grouping students, just-right books, books that serve as great examples for writing, and classroom design.

Timeframe and Categories

I spent about a week start to finish working in Miss Winter's room. I changed the trade books into sections of series books and into tubs that had gradients of levels (easier, medium and harder).

I changed the picture books into tubs of:

math books

ABC books

fairy tales

author studies

poetry

literary nonfiction

funny books

favorites (these usually are asked to be read again and again and often include great examples of writer's craft)

fiction books

We took the science books and changed them into books grouped by topics:

At some point during each of the days I was working in her room, we would talk about what was the value of changing the organization and how certain books could be used. She learned about doing author studies, using books for read alouds to serve as models of a writer's craft, the importance of students finding "just right" books for independent reading time, how to use more nonfiction literature across the day, and how to "eyeball" the level of a trade book (this would allow her to continue to buy and add more books to her collection independently). We even discussed some titles, authors, and books that she really needed to add to her collection as she gained points in the book clubs, applied for PTO grants, had classroom money to spend, or would purchase with her own money.

On the last day, we walked the students around the book area and described the books they could find there. They were oohing and aahing over getting the chance to read books that had been there, but had gone unnoticed because of the way they were organized. We made sure they understood the colored labels that marked the gradients of difficulty for the trade books. We made sure they understood the series books and where they would go if they read one of them. The students learned to know where to find a "just-right" book, how to find books that interested them, and how to put books back where they belonged.

Miss Winter shared that the class was so excited about the books now. It was like they had a whole new classroom library that was not only purposefully organized but more inviting to use. Other teachers heard Miss Winter bragging about her new set-up and how valuable it was to her and her students. She actually worked with another teacher on her team to reorganize that teacher's classroom library. This positive response had other teachers looking at and thinking about their own classroom libraries. Several other teachers had me come in their room and look around at their organization or they came to see my room to get ideas. This also led to me going into teacher's rooms and doing several "just-right" book talks with the students as the teacher would listen in and take notes for themselves.

What seemed like a minor coaching interaction turned into many coaching moments that had a direct impact on the way the teacher taught, the way the teacher stepped up to lead others, the physical set-up of her room, and student learning.

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Coaching Moment: Reorganizing a Classroom Library

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Author It may sound like such a minor coaching experience, and yet it was so powerful. I was asked by a second-grade teacher to help reorganize her classroom library, so it would be easier for the teacher and students to use. This teacher, Miss Winter, had been teaching three years.

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Like many educators in the United States, we have fond memories of watching the television series Reading Rainbow, hosted by LeVar Burton. Originally aired in 1983 on PBS, Reading Rainbow helped viewers like ourselves explore a variety of books and imagine a world with endless possibilities beyond our lived experiences. Decades later, both of us still remember how each book took us on a journey exploring who we are as individuals without interference, judgment, or prejudice. The show introduced us to books that deeply enriched our lives as we developed vocabularies, learned about ourselves and the world around us, and fostered compassion and empathy.

An advocate of children's literacy, Burton has recently voiced his opposition to banning books in the U.S. He has pointed out that many communities are sharply divided over books that teach students about race, gender, and sexuality. As covered in the media, opponents of such content have passed legislation and implemented policies to ban from school reading lists and libraries books with narratives that speak to some students' identities and curiosity about the world.

In our own content analysis of media reports on educational book ban policies (currently under peer review), we found that books written by and about women and people of color are disproportionately targeted for complaints and removal, restricting students' access to the perspectives of an important segment of America's population. Due to mounting political pressures, harassment, and even death threats, some teachers and administrators have had to recalibrate their curriculum plans and determine if such texts will be viewed as unpatriotic, anti-police, pornographic, or anti-white.

In 2021, the American Library Association's Office for Intellectual Freedom (2022) counted 729 book challenges against 1,597 books in U.S. public schools and libraries. That same year, PEN America noted that 54 bills were proposed in 22 states aimed at banning books in the classroom. Before the end of 2022, legislators in 36 states had proposed 137 additional book-restriction bills. For example, Texas State Representative Matt Kraus brought forth a list of 850 " questionable" books that was subsequently utilized by school administrators across the state to ban these books. Meanwhile, Florida's "Don't Say Gay" law imposed a ban on teaching content and curriculum related to gender and sexuality from kindergarten through 3rd grade. States including Idaho, Iowa, and Tennessee have introduced bills to criminalize educators and librarians for using books that some consider offensive and developmentally inappropriate (Harris, 2022; Hytrek, 2022; Jones, 2022). In Wyoming, law enforcement has considered charging librarians with disseminating "obscene" material, in violation of local child-sex laws (Riley, 2021).

The depth and intensity of book-restricting practices have created barriers to rich content and curricular availability, impacting students' opportunities to explore their lives, their histories, and their communities. When students' lived experiences are erased from the books they read, it can cause racial trauma (Jones, 2020). When students' learning isn't contextualized in ways that help them make sense of their actual experiences outside of school, they can feel confusion and disassociation from the classroom (Gay, 2018). When students aren't able to comprehend the lived experiences of others, it can increase racial tension, bullying, and other forms of physical and psychological marginalization, harming the learning environment (Lewis & Diamond, 2015). Book banning can keep students from developing a critical understanding of their sociopolitical context and preparing to engage civically in a democracy.

The Critical Inclusivity Framework

Education leaders play a fundamental role in shaping curricular expectations and students' access to books. They can counteract the current political context to advance critical and inclusive student- and community-centered curriculum. Through our research on book-banning policies, we developed a critical inclusivity framework with five concurrent leadership practices to reclaim contested curriculum materials: (1) research student and community voices, (2) read the books, (3) reinforce formal reviews and the law, (4) reemphasize relevancy, and (5) reaffirm expectations for inclusivity. This framework aims to prepare education leaders to handle ongoing book challenges and navigate the constant political pressures forcing schools to put curriculum about diversity, equity, inclusivity, and social justice on the back burner. The leadership practices of this framework are intended to serve as tools for strategic and navigational consideration. The framework is by no means intended to dismiss or ignore the complexities of changing political contexts that can vary by community.

1. Research Student and Community Perceptions

Time and again we have seen book-banning advocates disrupt school board meetings, asserting their agenda despite not having children attending in the district. And yet, according to a 2022 survey conducted on behalf of the American Library Association, 71 percent of Americans are not in favor of banning books and believe libraries do a good job offering diverse viewpoints. There are also many examples of students pushing back against book restrictions that they see as censoring their identities (Park, 2022).

Student and community voices can be a strong source of evidence regarding whether calls for book censorship are representative of and consistent with the perspectives of the community. As former administrators ourselves, we believe school and district leaders should utilize an annual family needs assessment survey as a starting point to learn about families' expectations of the school and the extent to which families support or oppose each school's reading list and instructional goals. These surveys can also help leaders counteract rumors about the alleged usage of certain books. Some districts have curriculum nights at the beginning of the school year where families are invited to learn and ask questions about the books each teacher will be covering.

Another key finding from our research is that students' voices have largely been excluded from public debate about banned books. We believe schools should proactively elicit students' voices as a regular practice, prior to book challenges. In English language arts classrooms, teachers can engage in participatory action research with their students to elicit open dialogue about the book-banning political climate and collectively conduct investigations about the educational value of district-approved books and their impact on learning. This type of activity can be made accessible even to young elementary students. A teacher we know in Iowa implemented an age-appropriate survey with a range of smiley and sad faces as a rating scale to capture 1st-graders' perceptions of the district's approved curriculum and their school. Research has shown such activities can empower students to be a part of the fact-finding and decision-making process in their schools (González et al., 2019). After collecting multiple data points, leaders can share their findings with the community and use this evidence when responding to complaints about books.

2. Read the Books

School and district leaders must make informed decisions by reading targeted or controversial books in their entirety prior to taking action. In our research on book bans, we have found that the challenged books have often not even been read by the complainants or district personnel. In Florida, the Walton County superintendent banned a cluster of "inappropriate books" based solely on a complaint and booklist from a conservative organization, without personally reading any of the books or investigating the legitimacy of the complaint.

Our research also found that parents and political interest groups are adept at decontextualizing selected passages to create public misperceptions about books' overall narratives. These passages then become political talking points to create cases for banning specific books from schools and libraries. For example, the children's picture book Something Happened in Our Town (Magination, 2018) was weaponized by the Minnesota Police and Peace Officers Association when the book's passages about a Black man being shot by the police were misconstrued as "promoting anti-police views." The complaint concealed the fact that the book was written by three child psychologists who emphasized that, "There are many cops, Black and white, who make good choices" and "most police officers never fire their guns during their whole careers because they try to solve problems without violence."

As part of the evaluation process, challenged books must be assessed in their entirety. Education leaders must be familiar with the books so that their interpretations can corroborate or dispute claims. These complaints should be treated as opinions-not facts-until further corroborated by critical readings of the texts. School leaders also need to lean into these opportunities as ways to reaffirm their instructional and curricular goals. We need education leaders to reposition themselves from reacting on the fly to book-banning hostilities to making evidence-based curricular decisions.

3. Reinforce Formal Reviews and Legal Precedent

Much of the proposed state legislation and book-restriction bills are intentionally vague, casting a wide net and causing confusion, leading educators to doubt their own instructional expertise and curricular knowledge. To better support teachers and school librarians, school and district leaders must clearly align their formal review processes and decision making with longstanding federal law on the role of public education. Specifically, common law and case law in the U.S. has protected education's role in supporting children's rights to become independently thinking members of society (Schneider & Berkshire, 2021). Conversely, parents hold the right to review their children's education and can opt out of the system to seek private alternatives.

Moreover, reading books in public schools and libraries is a broadly accepted right protected by the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, which safeguards individuals' freedom to pursue knowledge and limits local school boards' authority to dictate access to books. And the U.S. Supreme Court has consistently ruled against banning books in public schools (Board of Education v. Pico, 1982).

When education leaders engage in the processes of evaluating books based on formal complaints, they must uphold constitutional rights and legal precedence. To ensure due process, a review committee consisting of families, students, teachers, community leaders, school counselors, and administrators should investigate the concerns about and merits of challenged books. The committee members should work together to ensure that the formal review process results in sound educational decisions without catering to individual demands.

Such processes are also a way for parents to hold districts accountable when considering book bans. In Pennsylvania, parent and teacher Ann Parham called on the school board to uphold their own policies on reviewing and censoring books. She pointed to the district's failure to formally review 27 books removed from the school libraries, prompting the school board to reverse course and follow their own guidelines for review (Porter, 2022). The National Coalition Against Censorship (2019) has a recommended review process that we consider detailed and rigorous, offering clear and actionable guidelines.

4. Reemphasize Relevancy

School and district leaders must also revisit state curricular standards to inform how students will ultimately be supported in their ability to connect content knowledge to their understanding of their world. Book banners have consistently argued that books covering sensitive issues around race, gender, and sexuality are forms of indoctrination, but such propaganda often undermines teachers' abilities to connect the standards to students' identities and lived experiences. For example, book bans could restrict or even eliminate teachers' capacity to implement the K-12 ethnic studies requirements in nine states. Further, bans could theoretically implicate 60 high schools across the U.S. that offer Advanced Placement African American Studies (Bellamy, 2022).

Our research finds that curricular standards, which are often broadly defined, can be tools to rebuff book challenges. As such, education leaders can emphasize their adherence to the standards, which require students to develop critical and analytical thinking skills, to substantiate their district's choices of books that are culturally relevant to their students. Ideally, educators should have the curricular flexibility to utilize selected books to contextualize both the content and the standards, all while appealing to students' interests, identities, and real-world knowledge. Without this flexibility, opportunities for students to be academically challenged can be drastically constrained.

5. Reaffirm Expectations for Inclusivity

Education leaders need to work alongside their community to reflect on and reevaluate their collective curricular expectations, as a means of advancing inclusivity and an equitable school climate. This process requires leaders to ask hard questions about the extent to which their curricula has been inclusive, equitable, and representative of the rich histories and communities of this country and beyond.

Consider reflecting on the following questions as a part of an annual audit with your school community:

Are the selection and review of content and curriculum consistent with national and state standards and laws?

How does the current selection of books and curriculum help the school community leverage and expand on students' analytical, critical-thinking, and problem-solving skills?

How do these skills help advance students' understanding of their lived experiences related to diversity, equity, inclusivity, and social justice across core content areas?

How can the school further center critical inclusivity to establish curricular conditions that support students in performing toward higher expectations?

Audit results should bring to light whether the district's curricular offerings are consistent with the aforementioned internal research to account for student and community voices and the extent to which these curricular expectations emphasize standards and relevancy. Education leaders should use these findings to take the following actions: (1) collaborate with members of their school community to realign expectations, and (2) facilitate curricular and instructional changes with all relevant partners.

Centering Critical Inclusivity in Curriculum

As a heterogeneous society, America will continue to evolve and transform. Leaders in school systems have the responsibility to help their communities understand that banning certain books will not keep students from understanding the relevance of race, gender, and sexuality in society. They must also work with their community to reject the idea that book selection can be fair and balanced if the education system stops teaching topics from the perspectives of those who are disproportionately impacted. From an equity perspective, book banning targeting specific populations can induce a sense of superiority and inferiority and affect students' standing in the school community.

Most of all, education leaders must support the critical engagement of knowledge through all forms of identities, lived experiences, expressions, and contributions. Reading Rainbow's LeVar Burton puts it best: "Read the books they don't want you to. That's where the good stuff is. ... Read banned books!"

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Like many educators in the United States, we have fond memories of watching the television series Reading Rainbow, hosted by LeVar Burton. Originally aired in 1983 on PBS, Reading Rainbow helped viewers like ourselves explore a variety of books and imagine a world with endless possibilities beyond our lived experiences.

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"Weeding Your Classroom Library" webinar with Donalyn Miller & Colby Sharp

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"Weeding Your Classroom Library" webinar with Donalyn Miller & Colby Sharp

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Video Conferencing, Web Conferencing, Webinars, Screen Sharing

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Zoom is the leader in modern enterprise video communications, with an easy, reliable cloud platform for video and audio conferencing, chat, and webinars across mobile, desktop, and room systems. Zoom Rooms is the original software-based conference room solution used around the world in board, conference, huddle, and training rooms, as well as executive offices and classrooms. Founded in 2011, Zoom helps businesses and organizations bring their teams together in a frictionless environment to get more done.

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Hi, friends! Recently Jessica Jevanord posted a terrific idea for weeding library books in our Learning Librarians Facebook group. I asked her to share allllll the details, and she graciously wrote this guest blog post!

Giving Students the Gardening Gloves for Weeding Books

Ever walked into a bookstore and just breathed in the smell of new books? Then looked around at the crisp pages and stories just waiting to be read? You don't know where to go first or what book to pick, but you want to read them all.

This year I took over the library position at a small K-8 private school. The school's library did not give me that glorious bookstore experience. In fact, it was more or less the opposite. The library, though recently remodeled, felt neglected. I had no desire to rush to the shelves and grab the first book I could get my hands on. The books were yellowing, falling apart, and so very old. Very few books had been purchased for the library since the school opened twenty-three years ago, and even then, most of those were donated or withdrawn from the local public libraries. I didn't want to read any of them and I knew the students wouldn't want to either. It was clear I needed a plan to update the books and weed out the outdated ones.

The Update

I stalked thrift stores, garage sales, eBay, and marketplace to bring new, relevant books to the students without breaking the bank. I added those books as quickly as possible into the system. For the first time, the students became eager and excited about library time. I had teachers and parents stopping and thanking me every chance they got. In just a few months' time, I added over 1000 books to the library.

However, after adding all those books, I am facing a new challenge: Where do I put all those books? This past school year (2020-21) had me distributing books to classrooms from a cart that lived in a hallway. It was easy to simply place those new books aside and not worry about where they needed to live permanently. Yet, this school year is nearing an end and we are looking forward to students returning to the library in the fall. Furthermore, I have no desire to spend my entire summer going through thousands of outdated, damaged, and yucky books.

Forming my Plan

While surfing Facebook one afternoon, I came across a post from a fellow librarian seeking guidance on weeding her collection. Looking through the comments, I saw one that mentioned having the students point out any false/outdated facts they came across while perusing books in the library. Taking that idea one step further, I thought, " why can't the students help decide which books are weeded out? " That idea lit a fire within me that only those of us that teach can truly understand. I shared the idea with anyone who would listen. I was simply so excited about implementing it I could barely wait a week to have the older students take part in it.

I spent a lot of time looking for a simple weeding rubric I could have the students use to determine whether a book should stay or go. I couldn't find anything. Disappointed, but not discouraged, I created my own. I looked through various library websites to find criteria for weeding books. I used that information to compile a simple rubric the students could use as they "judged" a book's age, condition, interest/readability, and visual appeal. At the end of the rubric, they give their own personal thoughts as to whether the book should stay in the library or be weeded.

I asked the classroom teachers what the students were currently learning about in science/social studies. I pulled the entire section on those topics (even the books I knew should stay), threw them into a giant bin, and proceeded to the classroom with the rubrics in hand. I then taught a lesson on what weeding is and why it is important. I explained our weeding project and watched the students get to work.

The Weed

Library class transformed from reading a book and completing a worksheet to an interactive project incorporating multiple subjects. Students felt pride that I would place my trust in their opinions and they truly focused on each book they had the opportunity to grade. They asked meaningful questions about what they were reading and truly let their critical thinking skills get to work. They shared the outdated pictures with other students, they giggled at misinformation, commented on books they thought should be replaced, and, best of all, requested to do it again.

I had them form two piles: books that should go and books that should stay. During our first class, we had the opportunity to go through about thirty books. The students decided that three were worth keeping. I was completely OK with this. Quality over quantity. I am now more aware of what our needs are for the library and can request funds (or donations) to purchase books to fit those needs.

The Reception

Now, you may be asking how administration feels about the weeding of 75% of the books in the library. I hear you there and completely understand. Here is another instance where those rubrics are great. Each rubric is placed inside the front cover of the book before being deleted from the system. I have kept the rubrics inside the books before setting them out for teachers or students to take. A member of administration (or teacher, parent, board member) can pick up a discarded book and see clear reasons for getting rid of each one. Better yet, the students can explain the reasons as well.

Overall, the reception by the entire staff has been great. I have even had fellow staff members offer to help. Everyone is quite thankful the library is finally getting an update.

Looking Ahead

We're three weeks into this project and it's going phenomenally well. So well in fact, I had students request to take books home to weed over spring break. Another teacher suggested we take a couple hours one morning to include the entire school in a "gift of time" weeding project (I am currently working on creating additional rubrics for fiction and picture books).

I am excited for the future of this library as a place where students will want to come. A place where they can take in that wonderful book smell, run to the shelves, and eagerly open the first book they find. And, after this massive project is complete, I'll know that what they are reading is current, relevant, factual, visually appealing, and, of course, interesting.

Our Guest Blogger

Jessica fell in love with children's literature while studying special education in college. She loves the challenge of finding the perfect book for every student. For the past 8 years, Jessica stayed home with her four children and ran a small business making and selling dog collars in her Etsy boutique. In 2020, she returned to the classroom in the library position. Jessica couldn't be more excited to have her dream job.

In case you missed it, here's the link to download the PDF rubric that Jessica created!

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Weeding Library Books: A Brilliant Strategy - Library Learners

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Hi, friends! Recently Jessica Jevanord posted a terrific idea for weeding library books in our Learning Librarians Facebook group. I asked her to share allllll the details, and she graciously wrote this guest blog post! Ever walked into a bookstore and just breathed in the smell of new books?

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If you had told me 15 years ago when I began teaching that I would get rid of at least 200 books in my classroom library each year, I would have thought you were crazy. I worked so hard to accumulate books, why would I ever willingly part with any? However, I have since learned that every good library needs to be analyzed annually.

The classroom library is the heart of the room. I am a big believer in having a diverse collection of books in your library. At first, I used Dr. Richard Allington's recommendation of 1,500 books in a classroom library as my goal. Then I worked to broaden the genres, authors, diverse characters, and formats. Finally, I had a library with the depth and breadth I was happy with. Looking around the room after many years, I noticed that there were dozens of books the students weren't checking out. I began to wonder if I needed to organize my library better. What was it that needed to be done? The answer, I found, was in how I was curating my collection. I was participating in only one part of library curation: the addition of books. I wasn't weeding any out.

My friend John Schumacher pointed me in the direction of a method that librarians might be very familiar with, The Crew Method. It asks librarians to examine their collection regularly. They need to look at their collection with the following recommendations from The Crew Method in mind:

They need to regularly add books, weed books, and reorganize to fit the students they are teaching.

Books need to be examined for being dated.

Books need to be examined if they aren't been checked out year after year.

They recommend the acronym MUSTIE to weed collections:

M - misleading

U - ugly

S - Superseded by newer editions

T - Trivial

I - Irrelevant to the interests of my students

E - Easily obtained elsewhere

Although I don't feel compelled to have the newest edition of every book, or even the newest cover, I do keep these recommendations in mind as I weed.

Involve Your Students

I typically weed my classroom library during the final weeks of the school year. I open up the discussion in reading class and explain to the students that I need their assistance. We need to look for books that are falling apart, which will go in one stack at the front of the classroom. We also need to look for books that don't seem to have been checked out. Those will go in another stack. Finally, we need to look for books that are truly too young or too old for our classroom-that is the final stack. The kids get to work.

I begin examining the books as they bring them over. The ones that are falling apart I examine to see if they can easily be repaired or are beyond repair. If they are beyond repair, they go to a three-tiered cart I have against the wall in my room. Then I begin looking at the ones they don't think have been checked out this year. If I notice that they are books that weren't circulating last year either, I put them on the cart. Finally, I look at the stack of books they think are not age appropriate. If I agree, those join the others on the cart.

When my students are finished weeding on their own, and I have analyzed the stacks they have created, I do one pass through the library with those same guidelines in mind. I pull more books until I have reached at least about 200 books. My cart by that point is full.

Spreading the Wealth

The next day at school our minilesson focuses on the classroom library. I ask students to reflect on what worked for them in the layout of the library and what suggestions they have for improvement for next year. Last year's class asked me to sort nonfiction books differently-by author, series, and topic. Another year the students suggested that I create some shelves where I have books organized by series and with the spines facing out instead of in baskets. This year's class asked that I create a shelf just for advanced copy books for review. I take notes on what the students suggest so I can make sure to implement their suggestions.

Then the fun begins.

I share with the students that I need some kids willing to be the new owners for all of the books we spent the previous day weeding out of our classroom. Just because they don't fit the needs of our classroom collection anymore doesn't mean they won't be wonderful for a home library. We also look at the books that have been "well loved" and are falling apart. I tell them that I didn't throw them away because sometimes they are someone's favorite book. Oftentimes they are a graphic novel; students love to take them apart and hang favorite illustrations on the walls of their bedroom. So those books are on the cart as well.

To be fair, we go through in waves. You may take one book, and then you wait until everyone sits down. Then, when everyone has one, I allow the last group to go first and get their second book and we reverse the order of the kids. We pull books from the cart until everyone has at least two (which is why I always weed out around 200). Some years we have more books weeded and kids can have three; it just varies.

When we are finally finished, my classroom has been weeded and every student has some books of their own to take home and keep. I can look at the library objectively and see if there are gaps in my collection that I need to add to over the summer. It is only by making sure I do both parts of library curation-the addition of new books and the deletion of old-that my library can stay current.

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Author If you had told me 15 years ago when I began teaching that I would get rid of at least 200 books in my classroom library each year, I would have thought you were crazy. I worked so hard to accumulate books, why would I ever willingly part with any?

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I am a lover and collector of books. I still have some treasured books from my childhood that I refuse to part with. When I was getting my Master's in School Librarianship at Longwood University, I shuddered when I discovered that I would have to actually throw books away. Weeding was an impossible task that went against every book-loving impulse I had. As a 6th-grade English teacher who had spent nine years painstakingly growing my classroom library with Scholastic bonus points, yard sale finds, and library discards, I could not imagine throwing books away.

Then I became an elementary librarian and saw firsthand the havoc that K-5 students could wreak on their library books. Students have returned torn, wet, moldy, and stained books. Those books were all easy to discard.

But what about the books that were in pretty good shape but hadn't been checked out in years? No worries, I continued the tradition of the school librarian before me and let students and staff take my discards at the end of the year. The leftovers went to a parent who delivered them to a school in need during her mission trip.
Problems
Like insidious phantoms, these menacing books continued to haunt my library. Students and teachers returned them with their regular library books. One year, I found a whole box of discarded library books from a classroom library in the "yard sale pile" at our school. These books were to stay in the classroom. Where else have those books, with my library name still stamped on them, ended up?

Then there were the children from the mission trip who were so grateful for our ratty, outdated library books. I felt horrible. Didn't those children deserve new books? Not to mention the obvious, but handing out discards does not follow my county discard policy.
Solutions
After two years, I got over my weeding qualms. The next time the parent asked for my discards, I said, "The books are too damaged and old to give away, but I will hold a book drive for you during my two book fairs." She was very pleased with her six boxes of NEW books.

When students ask me about getting discards at the end of the year, I explain that they are too nasty; however, our Little Free Library has been restocked with new books from our book fair.

When teachers or parents ask what I do with our discards, I reply, "Our county policy does not allow us to give out our discards. You wouldn't want them anyway, they really are disgusting."
What about old books in good condition?
I scan old books that are in fairly good condition to see when the book was last checked out. If it hasn't been checked out in two or more years, I look up the last borrower. Sometimes the borrower is a teacher. If the teacher is no longer at our school, I discard the book.

For a teacher still at our school, I discard it and give it to that teacher. BUT, before I do, I remove the cover and wipe the book down. I write the teacher's name in black sharpie on a mailing label and place the label where the bar code used to be so the book no longer looks like a library book.

I place any books that haven't been checked out for a few years in a display and book-talk them. If they remain on the shelves after my book talk, then they get weeded the following year.
Reflection
I find that after extensive weeding, I love how clean and neat my shelves are. It took me two years of working with my collection and my community to truly understand the benefits of weeding, but now it is one of my favorite end-of-year activities. If you would like more details about the benefits of weeding, The Weeding Handbook: A Shelf-by-Shelf Guide and CREW: A Weeding Manual for Modern Libraries are excellent resources.

Categories: Blog Topics, Collection Development

Tags: collection development, weeding

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I am a lover and collector of books. I still have some treasured books from my childhood that I refuse to part with. When I was getting my Master's in School Librarianship at Longwood University, I shuddered when I discovered that I would have to actually throw books away.

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Classroom Library Organization Made Easy | Booksource Classroom

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You can easily add your classroom library books by importing titles from a Booksource invoice, using a barcode scanner or entering ISBNs.

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You created a Booksource Classroom account to help organize your classroom library. Whether you're excited about analyzing your books for diversity with the LibraryLens ™ feature or you're just looking for a digital way to facilitate student checkout, there are a few things you'll have to set up first.

It can be overwhelming ... we understand, and we are here to help! Below, we've listed the first five things to do after creating an account.

1. Get acquainted with your Teacher Dashboard

Login to your account and once you've arrived at the following screen, click "Teacher" and enter your Teacher Password to get started.

An important note: There are two passwords for your Booksource Classroom account. Your general Classroom Password will be used by both you, as the teacher, and your students to access the account. Your Teacher Password, however, allows access to settings, editing and private student information.

You will then see your Teacher Dashboard, which will be your home base. Here, you can see an overview of your library: how many books are checked out, your fiction/nonfiction blend, guided reading level distribution, etc.

Click around on the left toolbar, where you can select various pages.

Library: Access all the books in your library! Import titles, edit title information and manage checkouts and returns.

Students: Get an overview of all your students, what group they're in, how many books they've read and if they have anything checked out.

LibraryLens: E valuate the books in your classroom library, identify gaps and find the titles to fill those gaps.

Reports: Generate and print various reports to better understand your students' progress.

Settings: Enable/disable preferences, edit custom fields, select what information your students can see and update account information.

Help Center: Search help articles by topic or browse through the various articles complete with screenshots. If you cannot find the answer to your question in the Help Center, feel free to contact us at classroom@booksource.com and our experts will help!

2. Add books to your library

Your Library page may be looking a bit empty since you've just started. Of course, you'll want to populate it with all the amazing books on your shelf.

There are several ways to add books to your Booksource Classroom account. Click a method below for step-by-step instructions:

It's important to know that Booksource Classroom was built to work best with the books we offer and recommend. We have spent decades reading and cultivating custom lists of books that fit every classroom need imaginable, from fiction to STEM, fresh new reads to classroom-proven favorites, read alouds to independent reading. Our warehouses are stocked with book collections carefully curated by our experts and waiting to be shipped to eager young readers!
9 Resources for Building a Classroom Library that Will Change Your Life

When you import  to your Booksource Classroom account, you can be sure that you're getting the best quality literature as well as extensive information for each title. You won't have to manually edit fields like "Title Details," "Genre" or "Interest Level." Plus,  all your books will be considered when you perform an analysis using our LibraryLens feature.

If your title information isn't automatically populating, however, you can select any book and click the pencil icon to manually edit the available information.

3. Add students and/or classes to your account

Now that you have books in your library, you want to set up profiles for your students. You can import a student list from Microsoft Excel or manually enter student information. This will populate on the Student page.

You can also create student groups if you have more than one group of students checking books out of your library.

4. Try checking out a book

Now that all the pieces are there, let's see how this works. There are two ways to do so: 1) You can check out a book for a student from your Teacher Dashboard, or 2) You can pretend to be a student and check out from the Student Dashboard.

When returning books, students can rate and review. This will not only provide insight into what they're reading and enjoying, but it can help start a dialogue with the next reader who comes across the title in your digital library.

How to Quarantine Your Classroom Library for Student Safety

5. Tell your students

It's about time to put that library to good use! Now that you're all set up, the only thing left to do is teach your students how to use this exciting new tool. We've created a helpful downloadable that you can send home with students to give them all the details.

There are so many reasons Booksource Classroom will make your life easier: from keeping track of inventory to increasing student engagement and more. We hope this helps you get off to the right start!

Do you have any unanswered Booksource Classroom questions? Email classroom@booksource.com, and we'll be happy to help!

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5 Steps to Set Up Your Booksource Classroom Account

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You created a Booksource Classroom account to help organize your classroom library. Whether you're excited about analyzing your books for diversity with the LibraryLens™ feature or you're just looking for a digital way to facilitate student checkout, there are a few things you'll have to set up first.