Falling in Love…with Reading: Bringing Readers of All Ages Back to What They Love by Danielle Thompson

Falling in Love…with Reading: Bringing Readers of All Ages Back to What They Love

by Danielle Thompson

Confetti flashes across my screen, Goodreads displays 50/50 for my 2024 Reading Challenge. Completing this challenge is an accomplishment I should be proud of, since it’s only May and I  have finished my goal. I check my friends on Goodreads and denote their progress… almost everyone has 100+ books so far; instantly my sails deflate. 

It’s not a competition, but I have the same reaction to reading as playing a game of bowling; I have to get at least one hundred points, or I feel like I failed myself. Due to my own intrinsic motivation, I smile, square my shoulders, and go browse my TBR (To Be Read) pile for what’s next on the menu.  

A friend recently asked me to reflect on my journey as a reader, and I hadn’t really given it much thought other than I read WAY more now that I used to. Even as I write this, I stare at the shelves now ornately decorated in my room of some timeless tales that I have found solace in. Three years ago none of these tomes called my house their home; reading was the least of my worries or interests.  

During and immediately following the pandemic I was struggling, like the majority of society, with ways to bide my time. Being able to read filled the void of losing several parts of my life in 2020. I grieved for things that wouldn’t happen, missed opportunities, and struggling friendships.  Life has a funny way of distracting us from the things we love most because of a terribly valuable word…time. Once I had time sequestered and waiting for me, I threw myself into my hobbies, one of which being reading, and enjoyed re-kindle-ing new and old parts of myself.  

How to Find Time to Read:

I would venture to say around middle school and high school I fell out of love with reading, not because I didn’t have the opportunity, but because I didn’t have the time. Being a high achieving student, juggling sports, and trying to have a social life took a toll on my reading journey. I am thankful that I read some outstanding novels during those years that kept the flame stoked, some of which were in the curriculum while others were recommended by my knowledgeable teachers:  

• The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton 
• Animal Farm by George Orwell 
• The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd 
• To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee 
• The Poisonwood Bible by Barba Kingsolver 

When we get beyond elementary school, we lose the time built into our day to read “for fun”. As educators we know that students leaving primary school are no longer learning to read but are instead reading to learn. The academic demand of reading often smothers the joy we experience as readers. Some novels, like those I mentioned above, are able to bridge the gap between amazement and assessment; however this isn’t always the case. Many schools have initiatives in place to promote independent reading, such as National Reading Day (January 23rd), Read Across America Day (March 2nd), Drop Everything and Read Day (D.E.A.R, April 12th), and Freedom to Read Day (October 19th). These initiatives and incentives are effective in small spurts but generally do not encourage perseverance and priority for reading.  

Moving on in a student’s life, the struggle to find time to read only becomes more dire. Ushering into high school and college, students are inundated with texts they have to read, annotate, comprehend, and oftentimes memorize in order to find success. Academic literacy, while vital, does not produce the desired effect that reading for enjoyment does. In many cases students feel guilty reading something they enjoy when they could be studying, re-reading an assigned text, or working. As those students transition into adulthood, many people do not have time or the funds to do something as trivial as read.  How do we as a society prioritize reading and not kill the love of it? 

How to Read on a Budget:

A startling realization occurred to me several months ago when I made the connection that my Netflix was cheaper than my Kindle Unlimited. Reading a book, regardless of the format, takes a great deal of brain power and comprehension. Personally, regardless of the genre, reading calms my mind and settles my nerves. I enjoy the clarity of opening a book and being pulled from my present life to exist in something entirely else within the pages. That luxury is not for everyone, but if it is, I have compiled a list or reading sources that help maximize your book budget.  

Ways to read on a budget:

• Local Library Card 
• Libby (Digital Library Access for Digital Books and Audio Books) 
• Amazon Products (often in a subscription) Audible and KindleUnlimited 
• WEBTOON (Graphic Novel/Comic Strips for various ages) 
• Libro.FM (Teachers can keep several titles each month free) 
• Little Free Library (registered libraries can be located on the site)
• Public Library Book Sales 

How to Model a “Love for Reading”:

Additionally, in order to break this trend where reading is a chore and encourage people, regardless of age, to want to read again, we need to normalize falling in love with books and essentially romanticize reading as a daily activity.  

As an educator I become so excited when I see my students carrying books in the hallway; almost always we end up having a chat about the plot, and I ask them to give me a synopsis of what they have read so far or predictions for the future. Other times, I have read the book already and I check in from time to time just to see if they are making sense of the story. Something as easy as asking about a book can really make someone's day. Simultaneously, a conversation about a non-academic text helps improve so many foundational skills for students including: summarizing, recall, analysis, etc.  

Often my students don’t initially get excited about reading. However, texts from authors like Edgar Allan Poe, “The Tell-Tale Heart” and “The Raven”, have helped improve some perspectives on literature. Despite the level of difficulty of the text, we explore gothic writing and the macabre. In class we decorate to showcase some of the themes, simultaneously this fits with our study of the Salem Witch Trials and Halloween. While not every student initially invests in the story, by the end they are making connections to modern day works like Netflix’s Wednesday, rewriting parts of the story, and asking for similar story recommendations.   

Reading has been further romanticized with the use of popular social media apps including Tik-Tok and Instagram. Particularly “Booktok” has exploded with popularity in the past few years as a sub-community for books and literature. The idea of a “Blind Date with a Book” where readers can choose a genre and be surprised with a random book and various goodies (book marks, scents, annotation materials, coffee/hot chocolate, book merch, and more) have also increased as a way for readers and non-readers to dive into a story they might not normally choose. These “blind dates” are a great idea for adults and kids for any special occasion, or just because, especially when you don’t know what to read, or where to start. Who knows, you might just end up falling in love with reading again!

Ultimately, knowing your students and having a vast classroom library or school library will help encourage school age kids to read more. Representation is also a critical piece of a good library with cultural representation, multiple levels of reading (offer works a few grades above or below to meet everyone's needs), and choice of format. Some textbook and curriculum companies offer an E-Reading library for teacher and student benefit alike.  

Ironically, several of the stories I love the most are actually characterized as YA (Young Adult) or Children’s Literature. I teach in a middle school, and these are some of my favorite authors and series to kickstart a young adult’s reading journey: 

• The Inheritance Games Series by Jennifer Lynn Barnes (Mystery/ Thriller) 
• The Wings of Fire Series by Tui T. Sutherland (Adventure/Dragons) 
• The Hunger Games Series by Suzanne Collins (Dystopian/ Post-Apocalyptic Fiction) 
• Natasha Preston’s Young Adult (Psychological Thrillers/Murder Mystery) 
• Arc of a Scythe Trilogy by Neal Schustermann (Dystopian Fiction) 
• They Both Die at the End by Adam Silvera (LGBT)  
• The Cursebreaker Series by Brigid Kemmerer (Romance/ Fantasy) 
• Powerless Trilogy by Lauren Roberts (Dystopian/Fantasy) 
• Shadow and Bone Trilogy (The Grishaverse) by Leigh Bardugo (Epic  Fantasy) 

Apps for tracking your reading progress, finding reviews,  connecting with readers, etc.: 

• GoodReads
• Fable
• Storygraph
• Libby

While my shift back to reading was more circumstantial than planned, I encourage anyone who is thinking about picking up a book to start in a manageable way. It does not have to take a great deal of time for teachers or students to make a habit of reading daily. My suggestion, start by reading for 15 minutes a night or use a page or chapter requirement (the more you read or enjoy a story you will definitely move past this). You can gamify reading by participating in a “challenge” or trying to keep a reading “streak”, which can be done on your own or with friends/family. For example, simply holding everyone accountable to 15 minutes of silent reading post dinner could help improve literacy. Imagine the example parents and educators could set by putting down their devices and turning off all of the noise that consumes our existence every day in favor of a book. 

Whether you are finding joy in reading for pleasure, trying to accomplish a quantifiable reading goal, participating in a reading challenge, finding joy in a community book club, listening to an audiobook on your drive to to work, or replacing social media scrolling with digital graphic novels, “Welcome back to falling in love with reading!”

Author’s Bio: 

Danielle Thompson is the Social Media Coordinator of WPCTE. Her role includes creating a majority of the content displayed on the WPCTE Facebook and X accounts. In 2020 Danielle completed her Bachelors of Science in Secondary Education at California University of Pennsylvania, in addition to also completing her M.Ed. in Special Education in 2021 at the university. She has been teaching for six years, mainly as a Middle School Integrated Language Arts teacher at Elizabeth Forward Middle School. At Elizabeth Forward Danielle co-sponsors the school Newsletter and is the 8th grade student council sponsor. Her favorite thing about teaching is seeing students take ownership of their learning and invest in their own educational opportunities. She encourages her students to share their creativity through written forms, read extensively, and always ask questions!

Just Right or Just Write? Separating Grammar from Content to Inspire Students’ Love for Writing by Emily Malovich

Just Right or Just Write? Separating Grammar from Content to Inspire Students’ Love for Writing 

by Emily Malovich

If there is one thing I vividly remember about writing in school, it’s the red pen. Pages and pages of handwritten or typed work, all of it decorated with red ink to point out the missing comma, the dangling modifier, the unclear antecedent. In classes with one of my favorite college professors, it was a badge of honor to receive a paper back with an entire page free from corrections.

As a student who loved writing, I saw this feedback as an opportunity to grow as a writer. It didn’t take long into my teaching career for me to realize that most of my tenth grade students did not feel the same way. Over time, I began to understand the unintended message I was sending with my red pen, and later, with my Google Classroom comments: your ideas don’t matter if you can’t express them with perfect grammar.

Research about authentic writing instruction supports this perspective: students are more engaged with writing when they feel that expression is valued over conventions. When our feedback predominantly consists of grammatical corrections, it signals that we value mechanics more than our students’ ideas. This introduces a dilemma for writing teachers. We might accept that overemphasizing grammar makes writing less authentic, but we also know that our students need to write clearly and correctly so that others will understand their ideas and take them seriously. How do we strike a balance?

This year, I experimented with strategies to separate grammar assessment from content assessment. Here are some of the methods that I used to make writing experiences more authentic without neglecting grammar instruction:

The Writing Non-Negotiables List

Inspired by this blog post from Dave Stuart, Jr., during the first week of school, I created a “Writing Non-Negotiables List” with my students. The list functions as a grammatical minimum bar for students’ writing. Any submissions that do not meet that bar will be returned without a grade until students make corrections. The list establishes the minimum writing expectations that are acceptable in my class.

Importantly, the list must be generated based on the writing abilities and needs of the students in your class. While I review my students’ first writing task, I identify about five frequent errors that are within their capacity to fix. These are grammatical concepts that they know, but just tend to ignore when they write. The next day, we work together to populate our list and correct mistakes in anonymous student samples. I post the list for students to reference and update it as they progress. At the beginning of tenth grade, our list looked like this:

On my writing rubrics, the criteria for Mechanics reads simply, “There are no errors from the Writing Non-Negotiables list.” If I see these errors, I return the submission so the writer can make corrections and resubmit. With this approach, students know that when I give feedback on their writing, it’s about their ideas and expression, not grammatical perfection. There is a concrete, accessible list of errors for them to correct during proofreading rather than an endless list of possible mistakes to worry about.

However, while the Writing Non-Negotiables List might increase the authenticity of the writing experience and create a very basic level of quality control, it doesn’t really help my students become more grammatically correct writers. To this end, I implement a second strategy.

Writing in Context Quizzes

During each major writing assessment, I assign a Writing in Context Quiz. These quizzes ask students to demonstrate skills from recent grammar units within the writing task. Writing in Context quizzes don’t appear on the rubric and are entered as a completely separate grade. 

I introduce the Writing in Context Quiz early in the writing process, but students have permission to completely ignore it while writing their draft. Then, during the editing process, we revisit the task. Students who completed the quiz tasks as they drafted simply add comments or other annotations to show where they demonstrated the skill; students who needed to focus on their content during drafting can edit their work to complete each task. This strategy challenges students to stretch their abilities and take grammatical risks with their writing, but within a targeted, supported context.

A Work in Progress

As someone whose education took place in the era of the ubiquitous red pen, it has been a process for me to let go of extensive grammatical corrections. I’m still searching for innovative ways to strike a balance between authenticity and mechanics (next year’s experiment: grammar journals!). But despite the effort and trial and error process, I have experienced how separating grammar from content evaluation makes writing more accessible and enjoyable for my students. During the 2024-2025 school year, my students expressed that they felt less like they would be "caught" making a mistake and more capable of exploring their ideas in their writing. For me, that is reason enough to surrender my metaphorical red pen and try a new approach.

Author Bio:

Emily Malovich (she/her) is the new WPCTE blog coordinator. She teaches sophomore English and AP Literature at Sharpsville Area High School in Mercer County. Currently, she is pursuing her D.Ed. in Curriculum and Instruction at IUP. Outside of teaching, her hobbies include the “three B’s”: books, birding, and sourdough bread. Contact her at emalovich@sasdpride.org.

PowerPoints to Purpose: Pioneering AI with Pedagogical Purpose by Jason M. Kosmiski

 PowerPoints to Purpose: Pioneering AI with Pedagogical Purpose
by Jason M. Kosmiski, M.Ed.

Back in My Day: We Thought PowerPoint Was High-Tech

I began my teaching career in 1998, long before educational technology was a thing – when having a computer lab was a luxury and AI was more associated with Terminator 2 than classrooms. Back then, integrating technology often meant typing papers in Microsoft Word or having students create a PowerPoint presentation, which rarely enhanced student understanding in meaningful ways. These early attempts were more about adding technology as an afterthought than using it with purpose. Today, the idea of “intentional use” has become a common buzzword in education, but it really does carry weight when it is clearly defined. Simply assigning tech-based projects, like PowerPoints, didn’t achieve that; students reorganized existing information without deepening their comprehension. Making a presentation about Abraham Lincoln, for instance, didn’t further students’ understanding of Abraham Lincoln beyond what the textbook already said.

The Great Handbag Heist: Teaching Character Through Clutter

At Cranberry High School (Venango County), we get to choose the lesson for our yearly state evaluation. With a new, younger admin team – and me turning 50 – I felt like I had something to prove, especially to my evaluator, our new assistant principal. After all, I did start teaching back when Will Smith was still “Gettin’ Jiggy wit It.”

One of my favorite lessons was developed in conjunction with a block student from Clarion University a few years back. She told me about a creative writing exercise one of her classmates designed for a class, where the prompt included items from a purse. The writing exercise consisted of telling a story about a fictional character using the items from the purse. I was teaching characterization at the time and thought that, with modifications, this prompt could effectively be used to teach indirect characterization to 9th graders. 

I ransacked my basement for items: broken glasses, an old cell phone, a circuit board from an old PlayStation, among other things. I grabbed an old purse from my wife’s stash and went into school early. I pulled a student desk to the front of the room and laid out the purse and all five of the items I pilfered from the junk in my basement. I found an article online called “What the Inside of Your Purse Says About You,” by Sam Escobar, and added it to the assignment. I also developed a Google Form where students could create a character profile. I told my students that this “lost purse” was discovered. The assignment:  describe a character who would have these items in his/her purse. Students were permitted to work in groups and were encouraged to go up to the desk and look at the physical items displayed there. Group discussions during this project are always interesting, and students really get into developing their characters using indirect characterization and the random items I choose to display.

The Lost Purse Project: five items discovered in the “lost purse.” Groups of students use these items along with methods of indirect characterization to develop their own fictional characters. 

 

Lost Purse 2.0: Leveling Up Character Creation with AI

I have been actively using artificial intelligence in my classroom since 2023, but I haven’t integrated it directly into lessons that would allow students to use it. After much thought, I decided to add an AI component to this year’s version of the “Lost Purse” assignment. I used a very targeted approach to dip my toe into the proverbial waters of AI in the classroom. 

There was no way that I was going to allow students unfettered access to artificial intelligence in my classroom. Besides, most AI companies have policies that state that users must be 18 or older to use their products. Artificial Intelligence is also subject to the same old pedagogical missteps of using technology for the sake of the technology, and not adding to student learning. I wanted my use of AI to be “intentional.” I wanted to use AI as a vital part of the assignment, not as a novelty divorced from the objectives of the lesson. I didn’t want a PowerPoint assignment for the sake of “using technology” in my class.

I was familiar with Magic School AI and knew it was compliant with COPPA, GDPR, SOC 2, FERPA, and state privacy laws. The platform has a feature that allows educators to customize AI tools for students and deploy them in a very controlled environment called “student rooms.” My initial idea for this year’s lesson was to allow students to use their character information to train their own, unique chatbots who would take on the personas of their fictional characters. Because of the educational nature of Magic School AI, this was not possible. They weren’t able to ask their chatbots personal questions, and I received alerts that students were misusing the platform in the teacher dashboard. 

Fail Forward: When the Chatbot Chat Fell Flat

That iteration of AI integration failed; I needed to pivot (the fancy buzzword is “fail forward”). I piloted this activity in my sixth-period academic English class (the one that was being observed by the assistant principal for my evaluation), but I had four more sections of English to introduce this lesson to the next day. Magic School AI also contains an AI image generator in partnership with Adobe Express. Instead of a chatbot, I created a Magic School room where students could use this image generator to produce portraits of the characters they created during the assignment. 

Student Example: Ninth-grade students used the image generator tool in Magic School AI to supplement their character profiles by creating photorealistic portraits of the characters they thought up in the “Lost Purse” project. 

Student's Character Sketch: Stephanie Moon is a very recognizable person but her skill of stealth makes her seem invisible. She has red hair and a face full of freckles. She always wears her classic gold hoops. If you want to be her friend, good luck, because she is very rude and distant. When she was a kid, she was orphaned because her parents died in an electrical fire. She was adopted by her parents. As she got older, she was always quiet and had a knack for computer things. She was so good she was offered a job as a hacker. To keep this from her parents she said she wanted to be a yoga instructor at her friends studio. They strongly resent her for this. By day, she is a yoga instructor, by night, she is a hacker that protects the world from an organization called "THE LETTERS". She lost her purse after a mission. She purposely left it so hopefully another hacker would find it, follow the clues, find Stephanie, and help her stop LETTERS.

So, AI Art – Hot or Not? Students Spill the Tea

I gave my student an opportunity to evaluate the Magic School’s application of the image generator tool through a survey I conducted after the assignment was completed. Eighty-four students out of ninety took part in the survey. Overall, 69.1% of the students who used the Magic School student room and the image generation tool rated these tools as easy to use and understand (see Fig. 1).

Figure 1: Ease of Use

69.1% of the students surveyed felt that using the Magic School AI image generator tool and student rooms were very easy.

Figure 2: Ease of Use Challenges

While 17.8% of students found Magic School’s execution of their image generation tool difficult to navigate, 34.5% didn’t experience any challenges while utilizing the AI tool.

    My goal in designing this AI experience was to integrate it as an important part of the assignment – to use the AI “intentionally.” I asked students if using the image generator helped them to visualize and develop their characters better. The results here were mixed. 45.2% of the students stated that the AI image of their character made them feel more real. On the other hand, 44% said that they already had a preconceived idea of what their character looked like in their heads, and using the AI only somewhat influenced the design of their characters. Furthermore, 10.7% felt that using the AI had absolutely no influence on their character design at all (see Fig. 3). 

Figure 3: The Influence of AI Images on Character Design

The percentage of students who felt that the image generator had an impact on the design of their characters was almost equal to those who felt satisfied with the preconceived character concepts they envisioned.

Do I consider this experiment a failure? Not at all. I consider this attempt at intentional AI integration a BETA test. I actually began this learning experience trying to incorporate an AI chatbot into the assignment, but ended up with a lesson in AI image generation. I learned several things, some unrelated to my English class, and a lesson in characterization. The experience taught me more about my students and their experience with using AI. As noted in Fig. 2 above, 40.5% of the students said that their initial prompt didn’t generate the results that they intended, causing them to have to tweak their prompts and eventually run out of the free credits they were initially provided (One of the drawbacks to using the “freemium” version of Magic School; unfortunately, students were only able to revise their image prompts ten times before they ran out of “credits.”). One student noted, “Maybe it [the image generator] could give you a better description of what you are looking for when you are generating your AI.” Another student wished, “For the AI to be able to understand the prompts better, so it takes less time to find an image.” These challenges stem from a lack of experience writing prompts for AI, not any deficiency on the part of the AI. I feel like there is another lesson somewhere in these findings. One that would familiarize students with the basics of effective AI prompting. A lesson I would incorporate before setting off to use AI in my classroom for the first time.   

The Final Byte: What I Learned About AI and Imagination

My early use of AI in the classroom, like those “groundbreaking” PowerPoint lessons of the past, showed that having tech isn’t the same as using it well. The Magic School image generator hinted at AI’s potential, but nearly half the students still preferred their own mental images – proof that AI won’t completely kill creativity just yet. This experience highlights the need for thoughtful tech use. Moving forward, we must teach students how to prompt effectively and understand AI’s limits – like bias and hallucinations – so it truly enhances learning, rather than becoming another flashy tool we use without purpose. Otherwise, we risk merely going through the motions, much like those early PowerPoint days, without truly leveling up our pedagogical practices.

Author Bio: Jason M. Kosmiski is a seasoned English teacher with over 25 years of experience. He recently earned his M.Ed. in Educational Technology and Online Instruction from Penn West University. He's an expert in Google Classroom and a Magic School AI Pioneer. A member of PAECT and a Keystone Technology Innovator, he's passionate about leveraging AI in education. He's presented on AI at various professional development sessions and has used it extensively in his classroom to enhance teaching and save time.

Who Will Teach the Children? A Concern Raised from My Upcoming Retirement… By Carol Frow

Who Will Teach the Children? A Concern Raised from My Upcoming Retirement…

By Carol Frow

I have always hated the teacher t-shirt that says the three best things about teaching are June, July, and August. What a terrible image to portray about teaching! 

Just recently someone commented innocently on my retirement social media post that I could now do all the things I wanted to do, and a former teacher lashed back that the comment insinuated that I hadn’t enjoyed doing what I have done for the last thirty-four years. Nothing could be farther from the truth. I have loved working with my students. I have loved developing lessons, creating units of study, working with talented educators, seeing students grow and change, discovering who they were – and years later seeing them reaching all of their potential. For more than half of my life, I have been an English teacher and proud of it. 

Retirement. Ever since I announced that this would be my last year in the classroom, I have been inundated with comments from fellow educators. Most have been congratulatory, but others have left me wondering about the current state of education. So many comments indicate envy. Many tell me that they wish they were retiring too. They tell me that they have X number of years left, if they can make it that long. I never counted years until recently, which was an indication that it was time for me to move on. However, these people telling me that they’re longing for their turn to retire are young. 

Many comments are about longevity. One colleague referred to me as an angel to have been an educator this long while still smiling and staying positive about teaching. Others exclaim that they will never last as long as I did. These are also young teachers. 

That there is going to be a teacher shortage is a fact. Collegiate friends tell me that the number of education majors drops annually. Who will teach the children in the future? Will those currently teaching in schools have longevity? What can be done to keep them there?

I don’t think these questions are hard to figure out.

• Educators need to be respected by their administrators, colleagues, students, students’ parents, and community. 

• Educators need to have autonomy and be trusted to make the best decisions for the students in front of them.

• Educators need to be creative and allowed to do what is best for the children in their care.

• Educators need to work in a supportive environment where morale is high and positive energy fills the work space.

• Educators need to be appreciated for their hard work and extra efforts.

• Educators need to be surrounded by those who challenge them to be their best selves so they can provide the best for their students.

• Educators need to be encouraged to keep learning so that their students will have the best learning experiences possible. 

And the biggest one of all…

• Educators need colleagues who will encourage them, support them, help them, and work with them to build a community of learning full of positive energy and respect. It is more important than ever to find your professional home, and I hope WPCTE can be that for you.

I have been fortunate in my years of teaching to have been a small part of thousands of students’ lives. I have been blessed to work with many incredible educators, mentor so many skilled college students who now have classrooms of their own, and work under the guidance of administrators whose hearts have been in the right place – doing all they could to better the lives of the students. 

Happily, my educational journey is far from over. I may be leaving my classroom – and the checking of thousands of essays behind – but I am not leaving education. As the Executive Director of WPCTE, I am so fortunate to be connected to educators throughout our area and to further education through our conference, online professional development, and networking with NCTE and its affiliates. I also recently completed graduate studies to earn my Letter of Endorsement for Instructional Coaching and have begun my new business, Carol Frow Coaching. Soon, I will be working with teachers to help them better instruct their students. So, I’ll not be leaving working with students either as I intend to run book clubs and writing groups for students through my local library. 

Retirement. I think I may be busier than ever while staying positive about education. And still smiling.

Author’s Bio: Carol Aten Frow is the Executive Director of WPCTE and a thirty-four year public school educator. Currently a seventh and eighth grade ELA teacher at Belle Vernon Area Middle School, Carol enjoys reading, quilting, traveling, and curling up on a cold evening with a hot cup of tea and her cats - (John) Milton, Leo (Tolstoy), (John) Keats, and the newest addition, Harper (Lee).

Amplifying Student Engagement and Voice through Slam and Spoken Word Poetry By: Katie Katkich

 Amplifying Student Engagement and Voice through Slam and Spoken Word Poetry

By: Katie Katkich

Imagine this: You flip open your teacher planner.  You scan the pages and notice that today you will begin a new unit within your classes.  Poetry.  Excited to get your kids inspired and engaged, you prepare for the week to come.  Organizing activities and texts, you know that this unit will be one where voices are heard, students find their power, and even the quietest of students find themselves dancing with the words on the page in front of them. 

On the first day, there is an undeniable energy buzzing within the room.  As the week progresses, you find your desk scattered with poetry collections and sticky notes from students covered in ideas – each one a spark ready to catch fire and to be explored.  Poets ready to emerge from the ashes and take flight.  As students explore the likes of Langston Hughes and Maya Angelou, their eyes sparkle and they are entranced by the power of the spoken word, eager to shape their own words in just the same way.

Does this sound like your classroom, or are you smirking yet?  Far too often this is anything but the reality English teachers find themselves in when introducing poetry to students.  Simply utter the word, and students dramatically throw themselves to the ground kicking and screaming.  The word is more often than not met with skepticism, boredom, and panic.  Students can be seen visibly sinking in their seats, bracing for what they assume will be weeks of forced rhyming and the dissection of poems they “just don’t get.”  Groans will be heard as a few optimists gleefully sit quietly amongst their peers, individuals burying their excitement beneath the collective dread.  

For many students, poetry feels abstract, intimidating, or worse, irrelevant.  They cringe at the slightest mention of it and drag themselves through the readings, assignments, and activities with heavy sighs and reluctant groans. That’s where slam and spoken word poetry come in – poetry that isn’t just locked away in some dusty textbook or written in a language that appears to be from another century or world for its young readers. Slam is intense and jarring.  It is alive and pulsing with emotion. It is raw and relevant.  It engages with an audience, evoking energy and passion, pushing limits, and demanding a response. Because slam and spoken word poetry combine the elements of writing, performance, and audience participation, these elements bring new life to an artform students consider to be dead.  When students hear individuals sharing their stories, their struggles, their feats, and their lives, something shifts.  There is a seismic jolt in how poetry is viewed, consumed, and respected.  Students quickly realize that poetry is much more than just identifying rhyme schemes and a poet’s use of metaphor.  It is about expression.  It is about shared stories.  It is about sucking the marrow out of life and sharing it with others to consume.  

Introducing slam and spoken word poetry into the classroom creates a bridge to the poetic world.  It allows poetry to become palatable for students, and to close the initial gap of resistance. It promotes engagement, turning poetry into something that they have to study and into something that they then get to experience.  With each line written or explored, a classroom becomes a place where voices matter, words carry weight, and where poetry becomes a tool for connection. Slam and spoken word poetry serves as a window and a door, allowing students to see themselves, to see others, and to immerse themselves into worlds they have yet to explore.  In order to create these connections, slam poetry and spoken word’s power can be tapped into through the fostering of  self-discovery, prioritizing individual stories, and building an environment that is supportive and encouraging. These aspects create a powerhouse that allows for students to interact with poetry on a relevant, meaningful, and engaging level.  More importantly, it serves the needs of each student in developing an understanding and respect for the world and others around them. Curating and implementing activities that foster these skills is the cornerstone of effective slam and spoken word integration.

Developing Unique Voices &  Fostering Self Discovery Activities

• “This I Believe” Poem: Adapted from NPR’s “This I Believe” essays, students  craft and perform a spoken word piece about a core belief that shapes their worldview.
• "Dear Future Me" or "Dear Past Me" Letters to Spoken Word: Students write letters to their past or future selves, turning them into spoken word pieces that explore growth, change, and self-discovery.
• The Unfinished Sentence: Students are provided with sentence starters and then expand their response into a spoken word piece that explores personal truths.
• Snapshot of My Life Photo Response:  Students explore personal photos and choose a single moment from their life that represents a larger theme and tell it as a spoken word piece.  The implementation of vivid sensory details and strong emotions are encouraged to bring the moment to life.

Prioritizing Individual Stories Activities

• My Name, My Story: Inspired by Sandra Cisneros’ The House on Mango Street, students explore the meaning of their name, its history, how they feel about it, and how it reflects their identity. They then transform their reflections into a spoken word performance.
• Portrait Poem: Students create a portrait of their culture that includes insight and exploration of their traditions and deeply held beliefs through the use of descriptive language. This writing exercise can be paired with the creation of a physical portrait they create.
• Soundtrack of my Life: Students think about the soundtrack of their life, choosing sounds (not just music, but laughter, sirens, whispers, arguments) that have shaped them.  They then build a spoken word piece incorporating these sounds to tell their personal story.
• Six Word Memoirs: Students start with a six-word memoir, expand it into a free-write, and transform it into a spoken word performance that delves into personal experiences and emotions.

Supportive and Encouraging Environment Activities

• Community Agreements Brainstorm: Before diving into performances, students co-create a list of guidelines for a respectful, supportive space. This can include active listening, snapping instead of clapping, giving constructive feedback, and respecting different perspectives.
• Affirmation Graffiti Wall: After performances, students write positive words or phrases on a large sheet of paper about what they connected with in their classmates' pieces. This creates a visual reminder of support and appreciation.

• Story Swap Pair Writing: Students pair up, share a personal story verbally, and then write a poem inspired by their partner’s experience. This can build empathy and help students see the power of different perspectives.
• In House Slam or Poetry Cafe: Hold your own in house slam or cafe reading!  Throw on some smooth jazz, bring the hot tea and delicious treats, and enjoy each others’ stories and insights!

So, imagine this:  You flip open your teacher planner once more, but this time, something has shifted.  Poetry is no longer met with groans and rolling eyes.  Instead, it is alive, buzzing, and deeply personal.  Your classroom hums with a newfound energy.  Students are engaged and on-task.  They are feverishly typing or writing.  They are even fluttering around the room, eagerly sharing their work and their stories.  They are providing support to one another and driving each other towards success as they provide feedback and insight into each other's observations, descriptions, and ideas.  The sticky notes, once tentatively sparks, are now ablaze in the heat of collective creativity and passion.  

Poetry is a force of nature.  It strikes cords and prompts individuals to move and for others to be moved.  It holds a power that once tapped into, can become a catalyst for personal growth, community building, and much more.  This transformation happens when the study of poetry steps outside of the dusty textbooks, and becomes a lived experience.  An experience, where poetry provides a platform for students to explore their emotions, build empathy, and amplify their voices.  Slam and spoken word poetry is a tool that bridges the gap between literature and life.  By doing so, it allows for self-expression, social-emotional learning, and cultural awareness to be fostered and spread.  It ultimately redefines what poetry can be.  More importantly, it redefines ways in which individuals can connect, empower, and create change.  So, the next time you turn to that poetry unit in your planner, try not to brainstorm ways in which you can teach poetry to your students, but rather brainstorm ways in which how you can ignite poetry for them – turning your classroom and their time spent with it into a place where they can warm their souls and light the world around them.

Finding Support for Opposing Censorship: Resources from the National Council of Teachers of English By Sarah Miller

Finding Support for Opposing Censorship: Resources from the National Council of Teachers of English

By Sarah Miller,

Senior Coordinator of Book Initiatives, NCTE 

The National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) has long devoted attention to intellectual freedom in education. With the volume of work that NCTE does and the multiple demands on educators, it is not always possible to remain up to date on all that is available. This post aims to inform you about how we provide support and to connect you to the resources that are most useful to you.

The Intellectual Freedom Center is NCTE’s support hub for teachers facing censorship and advocating for intellectual freedom in education. Its guiding principle is that all students have the right to materials and education experiences that promote open inquiry, critical thinking, diversity in thought and expression, and respect for others. The work has long been grounded also in The Students’ Right to Read position statement. Our resources bring these ideals to fruition by supporting educators and students to fulfil the goals of access to education as foundational to a democratic society.

NCTE uses four methods to support intellectual freedom:

Advocate: Position statements and resolutions are created and updated by NCTE members, reviewed extensively, and voted on by NCTE leaders to become solidified. They are publicly available and indicate NCTE’s official positions on various issues. Censorship is just one theme among many for these documents, but it is one that is requested and used widely. Our position statements and resolutions are referenced by teachers, libraries, districts, news outlets, and more. We encourage you to become familiar with those most relevant to you and use excerpts anywhere they may be useful.

 

Support: In addition to leading the way with advocacy documents, NCTE also proactively provides resources to educators. The most important of which is the first of its kind book rationale database. There are more than 1,400 rationales available – a number that continues to grow – and all are created and reviewed by other teachers. Titles include classics such as To Kill a Mockingbird and The Bluest Eye as well as newer titles like The Hate U Give and Milo Imagines the World. There are books for readers grades Pre-K through 12+. Sections of the rationale include book information like plot summaries and Lexile levels, what standards the text meets, suggested teaching approaches, potential for censorship challenge, settings teachers recommend using the text for, and additional resources that expand educators’ options for deepening understanding of the text and related subject matters.  

 

Respond: The Intellectual Freedom Center receives and responds to censorship reports. Anyone is welcome to fill out a school censorship report. The concerns and challenges are reviewed and cataloged. If needed or requested, NCTE will curate appropriate resources. We also document the types of challenges and escalate as needed. Escalation looks different depending on the circumstances of the report and membership status, but all the information is useful for helping us to continue to evolve the work of intellectual freedom in education. 

 

Partner: NCTE has a formal partnership with the National Coalition Against Censorship (NCAC). We collaboratively to create resources and consult on individual cases with permission. We also sign dozens of letters annually that are sent to schools and districts to express concern or support for best practices for book selection, book reviews, and policy updates. NCTE is also a long-time member of the Banned Books Week Coalition, has a long working relationship with the American Library Association and their Office for Intellectual Freedom, and is a close partner in the Unite Against Book Bans campaign. PEN America is another close partner in the fight against censorship, sharing resources, expertise, and opportunities. NCTE works closely with state and regional affiliates, like WPCTE, to further this cause. And we have close relationships with publishers, authors, and many other organizations doing intellectual freedom work.

For those of you attending the WPCTE conference next month, I will share additional information there about NCTE’s resources, including at breakout sessions focusing on rationale creation and use. I am also happy to answer any questions or provide additional support. You can reach me at IntellectualFreedom@ncte.org. 

Thank you for the work you do to support students and literacy every day. It is seen, honored, and appreciated.