Making Reading a Matter of the Heart
I used to LOATH reading-logs as an ELA teacher. They were way too left-brained for me. I never remembered to check them and the students hated them. I knew they were sucking the joy out of independent reading - one entry at a time.
I had become passionate about embedding empathy into my ELA curriculum for awhile, but for some reason, I hadn’t transitioned this concept over to independent reading. Last year, that changed. I stepped out on a limb and made a decision: I was done with reading logs. Those tedious entries (book title, page numbers read, date, etc.) were retiring! Now what to do instead…
I thought about my own life - the type of reading I enjoy. Every once in a while, I like a good nonfiction education book , but most of the time, I enjoy historical fiction. I reflected a little on why that is. Well, I love to travel and I love to escape with a good story with great characters. Historical fiction usually fits that bill. I started asking other readers I knew why they read. One of my co-workers, a coach for that matter, said that his passion was reading about US presidents and learning about their lives. His goal is to read a biography about every US president and visit their historic home/memorial/library. Wow! THAT is a real life reading goal. My epiphany: it’s not about HOW MANY books we read…it’s about what they mean to us, how we can grow from them, and how they change our hearts.
Next I reflected on what I really wanted my students to get out of literature. Here is what I came up with…
I want them to truly connect with the characters and learn alongside them - to walk in their shoes.
I want them to learn about the world and all the diversity that makes it so amazing
I want them to grow in who they are and what they want to become
I want them to be inspired by the powerful words of those who came before us
I want them to connect with the message of a book to the point in which it changes their hearts
I know this is a lofty order. So I took it one step at a time. First, reading logs were replaced with reading REFLECTIONS. I posted 4 questions on the wall of my classroom library. Students were to choose one to guide their reflection after finishing a book. On Fridays for warm up, they shared any reflections from that week with their table groups. They encouraged each other to keep reading. Here are the questions I used:
How did this book…
change your heart?
grow your empathy?
build your understanding of the world?
call you to action?
Next came the reading goal renovation. I truly believe that growing as a reader is not about numbers of books or pages - it’s about something much deeper. Instead of a number goal, each student chose a reading LIFE goal. How do you want reading to impact your life this year? What do you want to learn more about? In what area do you want to grow…friendships? Self-esteem? What other cultures of parts of the world do you want to experience? These are some of the questions I used to get them thinking. Some students simply wanted to read more high-interest books so they could develop a love for reading. That’s goal I can definitely support! (Added bonus: this depth of reading - for the purpose of becoming inspired and changed - is the HIGHEST form of reading comprehension.)
Do I believe that students will become better readers by reading MORE books? Of course. But I wanted to switch my focus from quantity to quality. I thought that if I show them that I value impactful reading over page numbers, the numbers would take care of themselves. And for the most part, they did! Most of my students reported at the end of the school year that they read more books that year than the year before. But even more important, almost every student reported that they grew in their empathy for others. I call that a win! The fact that I don’t have to keep up with pages of reading logs anymore is just a bonus.
Active empathy (the kind that is so powerful, we want to take action) actually utilizes all 5 competencies of social-emotional learning (self-awareness, self-management, social-awareness, relationships, and responsible decisions). That’s a lot of bang for your SEL buck! How are you embedding empathy into reading? I would love to hear your thoughts and I am always looking for new ideas!
And thanks for reading all the way to the end of my first blog post as an SEL coach! I’m looking forward to this blogging adventure and I hope you’ll join me!
For the love of SEL,
Julie
