Chapter+25


 * Chapter 25**

**#1 Intentions**

//Speak to our good intentions with our readers that have resulted in less than ideal interpretations of personal response. You may choose to elaborate on any of the examples illustrated on p. 514-516 or you may describe an authentic time in your history with readers when good intentions sent the wrong message.//

Assigning students to jot a sticky note making a connection about that day’s reading was an assignment with good intentions, but one that was just as able to backfire. My goal was to have students thinking deeply about the text, and this worked well for several students. They were able to find a point in the text they could relate to and use knowledge from their lives to better understand the feelings and thoughts of a character. For some, however, the books they were reading didn’t lend themselves well to connections and so the students forced a connection, which did nothing to deepen their understanding of the text. Still other students didn’t progress far enough into their text to make a connection just yet so they recorded trivial information that was loosely related to their own lives, but had no significance to the text. The intentions were there, but the method was flawed…another aspect to improve upon this year. Stephanie Cooper

Wow—this is a major issue in our schools. I found Stephanie’s comment honest and very helpful my for to think. Connections re hard for my students—because making a generalization there prior knowledge can limit their ability to make connection. Just this summer I was doing a small group and 3 boys did not know what a “pond” was. Kindergartens/? No 2nd going into 3 rd. So this goes back to if they had picked a book that spoke to them—hobbies, etc—they could have made a connection but not in a book where basic things are a mystery to the readers. KDN

I found myself nodding along with Calkins description of how kids collect connections “as if they had been collecting trinkets on a charm bracelet” (page 514). So often students will make a surface-level connection (like, “My mom’s name is Lisa, too!”) and some teachers (like the piano teacher Calkins describes in the following chapter, page 532) simply smile and nod, somehow indicating that this is enough to expect from a child. I have found myself in that scenario and simply glossing over the discussion with the thought, “Well at least they are making some sort of a connection.” It was as if it was good enough that kids were at least matching some things, like how Calkins explained it as a workbook exercise (page 514). I see how it is much more effective to “ask one reader to share his or her connections to a text in some detail” rather than eliciting a quick response from everyone (page 515). I think, too, about how it’s unfair when the kids who are dying to share a meaningful connection are told it’s not time to stop and discuss it. Stephanie, I agree about the fact that some books (especially those early readers) don’t lend themselves to meaningful connections. I’m sure this has been part of my acceptance of any connection from a student is fine because at least I knew they understand the idea to some degree! I know though more meaningful connections are going to have to come from read-alouds. Sara Sabourin Chapter 25 from Bobbi Friend #1 – I had to chuckle at some of the examples of good intentions gone awry in the book because I have experience several of these types of responses with my students when they are making connections to the texts. Our students who have had some experience with teachers who think it is vital for students to make text to text and text to self connections sometimes tend to find very shallow connections such as, “I have an Uncle George” like the student who said in the book, “My uncle also has a green hat.” We need to teach our student to respond in deep, life changing ways when making personal responses to reading. When I required that students use two Post-its to find two connections in their reading on a specific day, I found that the responses were shallow and often less than thoughtful. To solve the problem, I began to give students various suggestions for using post-its on any given day so that they were not forcing connections when there may not be connections to be made. When reading Captain Underpants books, for example, it is much more difficult to make text to self connections than it is when a student is reading a Little House on the Prairie book with deep characters with strong lives. The solution was giving other options for post-its rather than just making connections.

Oh boy...I certainly saw the errors of my ways in many of the examples given in this chapter. NOT GOOD! Oops!!! Well, I made a connection with the text...but now I have to look at the text and my real-life examples and see where they are different and how I can use what I know to make changes for the better! One thing I can do is take the questioning a step further as explained on page 516, "If a story is called //The Lost Cat//, it probably helps to think, 'Have I ever lost //my// cat?' because the follow-up question is, 'What happened when I lost my cat that might happen in this story?'" It's the follow-up question that takes it a step further and adds another layer of understanding, which helps students with predictions. So important. Keri Cooper

Like Keri, I have also seen the error of my ways. // For example, I have always prefaced a story with little questions in hopes of helping students make a connection with the text. My intentions were good but, as Lucy puts it on page 515, “What they (students) are doing in the name of personal response is filling in the blanks in our sentences with a phrase or a sentence that connects the book to their lives. //

// A new strategy that I will try this year will be to have a student read aloud and stop in a place where it seems to relate to his/her life in any way. When the reader stops to talk about a personal response, then I he/she may see if the memory can help him/her make a prediction of what might happen next. //

// M.J. //

Like Keri and MJ I am also guilty of asking shallow questions before and during a story. I was okay with the bite-sized personal responses. I know the difference between how I stated the questions and what they are recommending us to say. I like the term "life to text" and know it is "link one's prior experience to a text in a first encounter so it is inextricably linked not only to envisionment but also to a prediction." Ronda

I am glad to see that I'm not the only one who has seen the "error of my ways". Like Keri, MJ, and Ronda, I thought I was helping my students by asking little questions before, during, and after a read aloud. I also have been guilty of asking one child after another, asking too many children (because they all want to share!), for their bite sized responses, but not giving them time to further expand on their answers. This year, I will also do as the book suggested and have one studetns share his or her connections in detail, and then continue reading. I really liked how using just one student's response "we can grow theories about what good readers do based on this demonstration of one reader" (p. 516). Kari Bonnema

**#2 A personal response**

//Um… wow. How do I post about this gorgeous chapter? Unlike the others, I wake up from the intense dream of reading it and look back through to find little marginalia and very few stripes underlining significance. This is not at all because there is not significance. Rather (to me) it is t////he exact opposite. This chapter made me wish that every person who teaches, writes about or reads about students could know this book inside and out. I wish I could upload the experience of living through this text this summer onto an external hard drive. I would offer it for sharing and insert it into the minds of all of my colleagues and friends and they would experience this thinking to its fullest. I guess this post fits. I guess I’m like Miles, responding to the prose of the work outlined in these pages. What about you? What is your personal response to this chapter? This book?//

//This was an emotional chapter for me. I didn't know until the end. Reading has always been a way for me to make sense of my life. Books were guiding lights. They were a way for me to get away from hurt, away for me to laugh, away to recreate who I have become. I so want to create the literate community that use reading as a way to make a life. I want my children to talk, write and live differently because of my intellectual journey this summer.//

//Margaret Fox ﻿//

Grateful is the word I would use to describe this feeling I have now in the book.

It makes me grateful that there is a guidebook for the ones following us. It makes me thrilled I was doing some things right—especially the non-old fashion things, It makes thankful ahead of time this year that I will be able to assist other in their journey through teaching. KDN

I’ll just focus on one point that Calkins made in this chapter. I love the image that she created when she pointed out that a reader’s personal response to a text is in itself like a second text (pages 518, 522). For example, when Hu Ming offered her written response that Calkins shared with the class it became another layer running parallel with the original text (page 522). This is such a rich picture for me and one that I want to convey to my students, the image that their personal stories become another text in which to make meaning of the original. I liked the question Calkins asked, “Can we talk //between the parallel texts//?” (page 522). Simply put to young ones, “How are the texts similar and different? How does understanding one help us understand the other?” Sara Sabourin

Chapter 25 from Bobbi Friend #2 – This chapter was very rich and deep for me as well. I think that as teachers we are always trying to use best practices, but sometimes we slip by doing something that we think is good for our students, see that it is not working well, but then fail to adjust the way we approach what we are doing because we know that it was based on best practices. The examples of personal response being turned into a trinket were valuable for me to reflect on. Students sometimes miss the big picture of what we are trying to teach, and when that happens we need to change our method as well as our attitude. I like the list of features of personal response found in an adult reading group that included the statement, “Personal response deepens our understanding of a text when we think, “How was my experience the same? How was my experience different?” I think it is so important that we deal with insights as connections, feelings and emotions as connections, settings and dates as connections, as well as connections with characters. There is so much more to learn to be a better teacher of reading, and this chapter was powerful for me.

This was a fabulous chapter. I have enjoyed every chapter in the book for one reason or another. And, for me, the chapters were nicely scaffolded and there was a lot of reiterating so we are hearing/reading the same big ideas over and over. This chapter, in particular, hit home the fact that the connections we have with the stories we read should effect our thoughts and even our lives. If we are making those connections on a very real level, and we will know it because our thoughts and reactions will be emotional. It's one of the reasons I love to read...to get lost in a story...to run away from "real life" for awhile...I need to make more time for this kind of escape. Keri Cooper

I was so moved by this chapter. Reading the student's responses to Journey and the poetry actually brought tears to my eyes. I hope that I will be able to teach my students to think in such deep ways thinking of the connections from their lives and not just giving those trinket responses that are such a huge stress but do not provide an actual connection to the text. That type of response seems to take us further from the text. I thought that the features of personal response bulleted on page 518 gave me the criteria to look for in student responses. After reading this chapter I realized I feel a personal connection to the last line of the poem on page 524: "Never to waken in that world again." I too have been changed by this book. My thoughts about reading, teaching, and my students have changed forever and I will never wake up without the knowledge I have gotten from this book and my colleagues who have shared on the wiki. --Jodee Tuttle

My personal response to this book: Like Keri and Jodee I also agree that this book really helps us teachers understand the importance of good reading, personal responses and connections, and how it affects our lives. With that said, I now feel a whole lot better about teaching and supporting our readers in my classroom. This book has given me the confidence to get out of my comfort zone and fill those gaps for my non-readers and readers alike. The many strategies and examples given are a very necessary blueprint for all teachers. Thank You Lucy Calkins! M.J.

I think this chapter was full of emotional examples. The students like Hu Ming made very deep connections to their personal lives. My wish for my students is that they can make connections to some of the stories I pick to read this year. I want to be able to ask the key questions that make the story bigger and help guide them to make "life to text" connections. This book has introduced many different ways to approach teaching reading. Some of the ideas were eye openers and the examples Lucy gives us to read helped me to understand the concepts and ways real students responded to them. Ronda

This was another good chapter! I especially liked the prompts given on the bottom of p. 517 and the top of 518. They are going to be very useful this coming year. And on p. 518 I loved this quote from the adult reading group, "The point is that what we see in a text is a result of all that we think, remember, know, and yearn for. " We are all on a journey and each of us will have our own unique connections. It is our job as teachers to help students make those connections. And about the book? This book has totally changed my thinking. But my favorite quote was from the bottom of p. 526, "For many of us reading is not a way to kill time; instead reading is a way to make a life." And then the whole point of helping our students realize that they can "talk, write, and live differently as a result".... how great is that?? Kari Bonnema


 * //Here is a place to post other ideas and burning questions from chapter twenty five if any. (Remember, a high-quality comment in this bottom section does still count toward your total comments. So anytime the posts for a certain chapter don't speak to you and your thinking, feel free to share your own ideas from the text here...)//**