Up Against the Wall!
Encouraging Reading, Promoting Young Adult Literature

I think that I missed my calling as a librarian (not media specialist, thank you very much--library = books).  I love being surrounded by books, the smell of lignin, the touch of paper and binding.  I love reading, I love the magic of storytelling, the crafting of other worlds, other lives:

          The poet's eye, in a fine frenzy rolling,

          Doth glance from heaven to earth, from earth to heaven,

          And as imagination bodies forth

          The forms of things unknown, the poet's pen

          Turns into shapes, and gives to airy nothing

          A local habitation and a name.

Or as Dunsany puts it:

          And little he knew of the things that ink may do, how it can mark a dead
          man's thought for the wonder of later years, and tell of happenings that
          are gone clean away, and be a voice for us out of the dark of time, and
          save many a fragile thing from the pounding of heavy ages; or carry to us,
          over the rolling centuries, even a song from lips long dead on forgotten
          hills. 

And most of all, I love sharing books with students, watching them discover those other worlds, other lives, discovering the pleasure of curling up with a well-told story full of compelling characters, appreciating the clever and artful use of language.  In a world suffused with easy entertainment and immediate gratification, it always surprises me that students, for the most part, still respond to the written word (ok, sometimes the spoken word, but I won't quibble too much over audio books).  I don't believe in reluctant readers, only readers who haven't met the right book yet.

I teach middle school, and I am keenly aware that the pressures and demands of high school (not just academics, but driving, dating, working, socializing) means little time available for analog activities like reading books.  I feel a tremendous urgency to spark a love of reading and lay down rails of habit that will remain throughout a lifetime.  I want to keep students reading, and that means holding them accountable, but the old-fashioned summary book report does nothing to encourage interaction with the text (it does, unfortunately, encourage cheating).  Instead, I challenge students to advertise their reading selection by creating posters and book jackets that I display on the walls around school: students are given a creative outlet for interacting with the text, authentically address audience and purpose, and promote literacy school-wide.  Win-Win!

Check out some samples from this year's crop of pleasure reading choices:

 

Visual Literacy is a Thing
Reading Images is as Important as Reading Words

Alternative literacies are becoming increasingly relevant in our image-driven, fast-paced media world.  Students are going to encounter texts that are heavily (perhaps entirely) graphic in nature, and they need the skills to accurately process the message of such tests.  We see this reflected to some extent now on state assessments and standardized tests in the form of the (occasional) chart or map; I think the trend of asking students to interpret graphic information is likely to increase in the near future.

Political cartoons are a great place to start for fun, thought-provoking lessons that can be accomplished in just a few minutes--perhaps as a bell-ringer.  Of course, you might want to stay away from hot current events, as there's a possibility, in these divided times, of angering some far-right or far-left parent, and who needs that kind of headache?  Perhaps stick to historical political cartoons--they might be safer:

Ask students to describe what they see--what does each element represent? What is the message the illustrator is trying to convey?  What persuasive techniques is she using?  A nifty resource on-line is History Skills --  definitely worth checking out.  Of course, our colleagues in the Social Studies department can be a tremendous help in instructing and practicing the interpretation of graphic information: maps, charts, graphs; by all means, enlist their help and offer to collaborate. 

But we're English teachers, and our hearts are set on fire not by politics but by great stories artfully told.  Well, there are some great ways to incorporate visual literacy into the literature curriculum.  The proliferation of graphic novels, not as substitutes for original written texts but as original narratives standing on their own literary merits, is widely available (although pretty pricey on an educator's budget).  Check out Compass South and its sequel Knife's Edge by Hope Larson and illustrated by Rebecca Mock (my former student 💖)--a wonderful story full of adventure and great story telling sure to engage the most reluctant reader (grades 5-8):

 

The Invention of Hugo Cabret is a sumptuously illustrated novel that I fell in love with--beautiful art, compelling narrative, and a gateway to a lost world of silent film making and automatons.  Just brilliant!!

 

 

Another great novel to share with students is Art Spiegelman's Maus, a Holocaust allegory that really humanizes the harrowing events that ordinary individuals lived through (grades 7-10).  This powerful narrative does much of its story telling through the use of visual elements, so it's a great way to help students develop their visual literacy.  I put together a study guide that focuses in on the graphic analysis skills that students need to master.  Check it out:

 

 

Gary Schmidt's Okay for Now is a wonderful hybrid: a great young adult novel which revolves around the amazing and awesome bird paintings of John Audubon.  Each chapter begins with one of Audubon's paintings and really focuses on the emotional quality of the painting; the action of the chapter mirrors the painting.  Unfortunately, the images in the book, at the beginning of each chapter, are pretty poor (and in black and white).  I wanted students to see them clearly, and to make the connections between painting and chapter, so I created an assignment that allows them to do just that.  But then, to take it further, I included several more Audubon paintings not in the novel and asked students to carefully analyze what they saw, describe it, and impart an emotional mood to the painting.  Students and I really enjoyed this (grades 5-8):