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Oge Mora is a storyteller residing in Providence, RI.
Her picture book, Thank You, Omu!, was a Caldecott Honor, Coretta Scott King/John Steptoe New Talent Award winner, Ezra Jack Keats Book Award recipient, and a New York Times Notable Book and Editors' Choice. Her second book, Saturday was a Parent's Magazine, Publishers' Weekly, Kirkus Reviews, Horn Book, and School & Library Journal Best Book of 2019.

Oge's artwork has been applauded by The Washington Post, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and The Boston Globe. She grew up in Columbus, Ohio and graduated from the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) with a degree in Illustration. Oge is a fan of all things colorful, patterned, or collaged, and enjoys creating warm stories that celebrate people coming together.

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Oge Mora is a storyteller residing in Providence, RI. Her picture book, Thank You, Omu!, was a Caldecott Honor, Coretta Scott King/John Steptoe New Talent Award winner, Ezra Jack Keats Book Award recipient, and a New York Times Notable Book and Editors' Choice.

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The official site of Lauren Castillo, author and illustrator of children's literature.

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The official site of Lauren Castillo, author and illustrator of children's literature.

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Full Biography Aisha Saeed is a New York Times bestselling author. She wrote WRITTEN IN THE STARS (Penguin/Nancy Paulsen Books, 2015) which was listed as a best book of 2015 by Bank Street Books an…

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Bio

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Sara K. Ahmed is currently a literacy coach at NIST International School in Bangkok, Thailand. She has taught in urban, suburban, public, independent, and international schools, where her classrooms were designed to help students consider their own identities and see the humanity in others. Sara is the author of Being the Change: Lessons and Strategies to Teach Social Comprehension and coauthor with Harvey "Smokey" Daniels of Upstanders: How to Engage Middle School Hearts and Minds with Inquiry. She has served on the teacher leadership team for Facing History and Ourselves, an international organization devoted to developing critical thinking and empathy for others. You can find her on Twitter @SaraKAhmed.

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Sara K. Ahmed is currently a literacy coach at NIST International School in Bangkok, Thailand. She has taught in urban, suburban, public, independent, and international schools, where her classrooms were designed to help students consider their own identities and see the humanity in others.

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Foreword by Terrence J. Roberts, PhD.

A Letter to Readers

Acknowledgments

An Introduction to Social Comprehension and Strategies to Prepare You for the Work Ahead
Chapter 1: Exploring Our Identities
Lesson: Affirming Our Identities: Identity Webs
We introduce the elements of our own identities (such as sister, athlete, bilingual, reader) and look for connections to or wonders about the identities of others.

Lesson: Placing Ourselves in the World: Stories of Our Names
Using a mentor text, we write the stories of how we got our names, how our names make us feel, and our experiences with our names.

Lesson: Journeying into Our Family Histories: "Where I'm From" Poems
We use the structure of a "Where I'm From" poem to share our family histories, storied objects, and moments.

Synthesis: Making Thinking Visible
Chapter 2: Listening with Love
Synthesis: Making Thinking Visible
Chapter 3: Being Candid
Lesson: Seeing Our Own Bias: Drawing Activity
We learn about how bias works, and we use an activity to help us see some of our own bias and brainstorm how we can confront it.

Lesson: Understanding Microaggressions: Poem Analysis
We analyze examples of microaggressions to understand what they are and how they affect people, and we look for microaggressions in our own lives.

Lesson: Refusing to Let Others' Biases Define Us: Identity Statements
We assert who we are with confidence. We recall labels others have tried to put on us, reject those labels, and choose how we define who we are.

Synthesis: Making Thinking Visible
Chapter 4: Becoming Better Informed
Lesson: Understanding How Our Identity Affects Us: Our News
We identify what is happening in our world-personal events, news stories, media-and consider how our identity shapes what we give our attention to.

Lesson: Moving Beyond Our Initial Thinking: Mini-Inquiries
We use a mini-inquiry to learn more about a topic and examine how new information changes our perspective.

Synthesis: Making Thinking Visible
Chapter 5: Finding Humanity in Ourselves and in Others
Lesson: Broadening Our Ideas About Who We Are Responsible To and For: Our Universe of Obligation
We consider who we feel responsibility to and why. We also consider how that responsibility can change in certain situations.

Lesson: Understanding Others' Perspectives: Intent Versus Impact
We work to understand two sides of a divisive issue by listening to both perspectives.
Chapter 6: Facing Crisis Together
Suggested Resource Stacks

References and Inspiration

This book is based on the idea that we can develop skills and habits to help us comprehend social issues and participate in relevant, transparent conversations. Social comprehension, like academic comprehension, is how we make meaning from and mediate our relationship with the world. We understand that the meaning making, or socialization, is learned, not inherited. Each chapter in this book includes lessons and/or practical help for students to learn and engage in a targeted social comprehension concept. Our thinking will change often as we practice being more socially literate citizens of the world, so we allow for and model the same for our students as we construct comprehension and cultivate our empathy together. The "At First I Thought . . . Now I Think" journal page in this introduction gives you and your students a tool to reflect on how the experiences in the lessons are affecting your outlook. In the work of social comprehension, we want to be as transparent as possible and make our thinking visible.

The final chapter of the book addresses how we, as educators, can continually refine our own approach to this work. If we are going to be on the front lines of helping children make sense of the news they bring to school and the curriculum the world keeps handing them, we must have a strong foundation of social comprehension in place. If we can commit to approaching this work as the lead learner, teaching with curiosity and modeling vulnerability rather than rigid certainty, we can build habitats of trust where kids (and adults) participate in a learning discussion, and where expression, identity, and social literacy matter.

- Introduction

A sense of urgency for pedagogy rooted in empathy and humanity is palpable in communities around the world. But how can teachers actualize such instruction and make it accessible to students? Where is the professional development teachers yearn for to facilitate important, and at times, challenging conversations? Being the Change is the resource every educator needs right now! Against a socio-politically charged backdrop where tensions run high, Sara is a beacon of light who offers practical, compassionate guidance that makes it possible to do the work of social comprehension. The journey to accomplishing this isn't linear; it is messy, tangled, circuitous. But Sara provides a pathway for teachers and our students. She offers a sustained, clear voice that reminds us of why this work is necessary and how it can look in our classrooms. Being the Change is invaluable to all educators as we work to empower our students as change-makers who positively influence the world.

- Sonja Cherry-Paul

****

Sara Ahmed is the ultimate upstander; she cares enough to confront. Her gentle and wise voice is a model for how to be in this tumultuous age. She shares text sets that ask big questions and resist simplistic answers. She invites teachers and students to address tensions in today's classrooms and examine bias in their thinking. Being the Change offers practical tools for building a classroom community that is inclusive, candid, and caring. This book is a treasure.

- Penny Kittle

****

What an incredibly powerful, practical, beautiful book. As I read I could not help but think how this book has the potential to radically change conversations in classrooms (and larger communities) around compassion, listening, empathy, and knowing. It is books like these that heal. It is hope and possibility and humanity within these covers.

Perhaps the greatest compliment I could give is that as I read, the teacher in me itched to get out of this room and into the presence of kids- to experience these lessons in real time, to hear children's stories, to dig into this work because for the first time I feel capable. This book is a roadmap with an entry point all of us can access and guidance through the most challenging places we could go. I don't feel afraid of what could happen, I feel energized about what Sara has taught me I can help happen.

I could not help but think of the million and one ways I could use Sara's thinking and teaching, to engage in this work whole heartedly from the moment children step through the doors.

- Kristi Mraz

****

In her book, Being the Change, Sara K. Ahmed offers us not only the roadmap of how to create and maintain components of meaningful social change within our instruction but also the necessary tools for us to navigate the hard conversations we invite in and those we have not had the courage to have...yet. By centering her book on developing the identity of the very children we teach, she gives us invaluable tools to navigate the hard topics that are constantly surrounding our learning community. While she writes in her book that there is no magical formula for making the world a better place, within the pages of this book and in her willingness to help us grow not just as educators but as human beings with her impactful lesson ideas, she has given us something near magic. A resource to be used in every school, this book will leave a trail of change for a better world in its wake if we let it.

- Pernille Ripp

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Being the Change is based on the idea that people can develop skills and habits to serve them in the comprehension of social issues. Sara K. Ahmed identifies

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How to Engage Middle School Hearts and Minds with Inquiry

Special Offer: Save 30% off our list price automatically when you buy 15 or more.

"Upstanders is about helping young people question the world, build knowledge, become skilled researchers, and communicate thoughtfully-in the service of humanity, not just themselves."Harvey "Smokey" Daniels and Sara Ahmed
How can we meet today's elevated academic goals and engage middle school kids-but not simply replicate our competitive, winner-take-all society? How can our students achieve an even higher standard-demonstrating the capacity and the commitment to bend the world toward justice?

In a word, inquiry.

Welcome to the classroom of Sara Ahmed. With Smokey Daniels as your guide you'll see exactly how Sara uses inquiry to turn required curricular topics into questions so fascinating that young adolescents can't resist investigating them. Units so engaging that they provide all the complexity the standards could ever expect, while helping students grow from bystanders to Upstanders.

Smokey and Sara describe precisely how to create, manage, and sustain a classroom built around choice, small-group collaboration, and critical thinking. You'll be inspired by what Sara's students accomplish, but you'll also come away from Upstanders with a can-do plan for teaching your own classes thanks to:

a developmental look at what makes middle school kids special, challenging, and fun

specific lessons that develop collaboration, self-awareness, and compassion

a toolbox filled with teaching strategies, structures, tools, and handouts

"Point-Outs" from Smokey that highlight key teaching moves

"Game-Time Decisions" from Sara that reveal in-the-moment instructional choices

narratives that document the incredible work that inquiry allows kids to do

ambitious, engaging, and important units on commonly taught middle school themes.

What kind of classroom do we want for our middle schoolers? How about one that develops the skills the standards demand and prepares kids to take action in the world right now? We can do it-if we help kids become Upstanders.

(click any section below to continue reading)

Contents

Part 1 Welcome
A Core Curriculum of Heart and Mind

Hard Work, Heart Work

Introducing Ourselves

Teaching Middle School Today

Passing Periods

How the Book Works

Part 2 Our School as Our Homeplace

The Kids

Reframing Stereotypes

Working with (Not Against) Adolescent Development

The Teacher

Starting with Ourselves: A Teaching Identity

Yourself as a Learner

Yourself as a Human Being

How to Respond to the Common Core and the Corporate Reform Movement

The Space

Sara's Classrooms

Classroom Environment Reflection (for You and the Kids)

The Toolbox

Anchor Charts

Backchanneling

Blogging

Gradual Release of Responsibility

Hot Seat

Identity Webs

Inquiry Journal

Mind Maps/Concept Maps

Notetaking Forms

Online Collaboration

Read-Aloud

Silent Dialogue/Written Conversation

Standing Discussions: Mingle, Gallery Walk, and Human Continuum

Text Annotation

Turn and Talk

Part 3 Open Hearts and Inquiring Minds
Lessons in Identity and Empathy

Exploring Identity

Empathy/Bullying

Risk-Taking: Home Court Advantage

Working in Groups: Team Behavior

Disagreeing Agreeably: Framing Friendly Challenges

Responsibility: Building (and Protecting) Your Brand

Part 4 A Compassionate and Challenging Curriculum

Mini-Inquiries

Types of Inquiry Projects

Exploring Mini-Inquiries

What Did This Mini-Inquiry Accomplish

What About the Required Curriculum?

Curricular Inquiry

Building Background from the Textbook (I do use it sometimes)

Written Conversation

Read-Aloud

Think-Aloud with Annotation

Guided and Independent Practice

Choice Articles

Synthesizing Learning Online

History in the Hot Seat

Literature Circle Inquiries

Book Club Basics

Training Students for Literature Circles

Going Public

Open Inquiries

What Do You Wonder

Jumping into Research with a Reading Frenzy

More Research and Group Formation

Further Investigation

Extending the Research: Scanning and Assessing Website Information

Refocusing Topics and Supporting Each Other as Researchers

Interviewing and Expert

Co-Creating our Inquiry Project Rubric

Deciding How to Go Public

Preparation for Sharing Learning

Celebration Day

Final Assessment

So Worth It

Companion Resources

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Special Offer: Save 30% off our list price automatically when you buy 15 or more. "Upstanders is about helping young people question the world, build knowledge, become skilled researchers, and communicate thoughtfully-in the service of humanity, not just themselves."

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Rebecca Bellingham is equal parts educator and artist. She began her career as a teaching artist working at elementary schools in the South Bronx with Dreamyard, a nationally recognized community arts organization. She went on to teach at The Berkeley Carroll School in Park Slope, where she was a 4th grade teacher and Literacy Coach. After receiving a master's degree in Literacy Specialization at Columbia University Teachers College, Rebecca began working at Teachers College Reading and Writing Project as a staff developer and later as a full time instructor in the Literacy Specialist Program. Rebecca is also an actress and has performed in numerous off-broadway and regional theaters around the country. Her new musical play, The Raft, written with acclaimed singer-songwriter Catie Curtis, will have its premiere at Club Passim in Cambridge, MA on March 29, 2020.

Rebecca's work centers on the intersection between teaching and artistry. She gives educators tools for teaching in both deeply engaging and instructional ways. After living in NYC for 17 years, Rebecca finally agreed to move to her husband's beloved home-state of California. Currently, Rebecca leads professional development with the San Diego Unified School District and hosts the podcast Learning Together San Diego.She is also the Director of Writing and Storytelling for transcenDANCE, a nationally recognized Creative Youth Development organization, and the author of The Artful Read Aloud. Rebecca returns frequently to New York City to teach courses on artful literacy instruction at Teachers College, present and partner with arts-based organizations, ride the subway, see theater, and walk the streets of the city!

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Rebecca Bellingham is equal parts educator and artist. She began her career as a teaching artist working at elementary schools in the South Bronx with Dreamyard, a nationally recognized community arts organization. She went on to teach at The Berkeley Carroll School in Park Slope, where she was a 4th grade teacher and Literacy Coach.

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10 Principles to Inspire, Engage, and Transform Learning

Special Offer: Save 30% off our list price automatically when you buy 15 or more.

"After reading this book, anyone would feel rejuvenated, inspired, more hopeful again. Rebecca brings us back to our better selves!"

It's no secret that reading aloud to children every single day is one of the most important things any teacher, parent, or grown up can do to help children become better readers, thinkers, and frankly, better human beings. There are many resources available-scores of books, articles, web sites, videos, podcasts, and more that highlight the research on why reading aloud to kids is so vital, how to incorporate it into the day, and lists of texts to choose from for each grade level.

The Artful Read-Aloud is a user-friendly guide that builds a bridge between the artistic world and the classroom, providing a deeper dive into the artistry of reading aloud. Rebecca Bellingham draws on her experience as a performer, teaching artist, classroom teacher, and literacy coach to make explicit connections between the arts and reading aloud, providing dozens of easy moves teachers can make that can enhance, elevate, and deepen the impact of interactive read-alouds.

Each chapter focuses on a specific guiding principle that is drawn from the arts and is meant to spark engagement, provoke inquiry, and inspire deep thinking. She includes practical tips for how to bring each principle to life in the classroom, including:

how to embody the text by making small shifts with your body and voice to bring the words to life, helping kids envision different characters and their actions more completely

learning when to slow down, pause, and read in an deliberate and careful way to give kids time to think, feel, process, and connect

when and how to create opportunities for talk, giving kids the space to ask questions and reflect on what they notice, wonder, and predict

how to give kids a chance to move around as they try on characters, recreate scenes, learn about new concepts, and live inside the book

prioritizing read alouds that give students practice listening to and learning from diverse voices while creating space for meaningful conversation about important issues relating to injustice, identity, inequality, and more

ways to be intentional in your choices, from matching books to the students in front of you to choosing passages that support instructional goals and teaching points.

Reading aloud to your students supports a balanced, rigorous, and joyful literacy curriculum that not only feeds the souls and minds of your students but your own as well. Dip into The Artful Read-Aloud and see what's possible inside your daily read-alouds. By learning to make simple moves that model what real reading looks and sounds like you can help your students become the kind of readers all of us hope they will become: engaged, thoughtful, lifelong ones.

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Special Offer: Save 30% off our list price automatically when you buy 15 or more. "After reading this book, anyone would feel rejuvenated, inspired, more hopeful again. Rebecca brings us back to our better selves!"