copyright © 2001 by the national council of teachers of … · 2013-06-27 · examples from...

Finding time for skills

instruction without

replacing literature

discussion and writers’

workshop requires a strong

organizational framework

for literacy instruction.

Sit in any teachers’ lounge in theUnited States and it’s likely you’llhear teachers talking about theurgent needs of their students andthe ever-increasing demands of thecurriculum. Teaching today seemsfar more complex than in the past,particularly in the area of literacyinstruction. From public debates tolegislative sessions in state and fed-eral congresses, from school boardmeetings to news articles, and fromparent-teacher meetings to conver-

sations in the teachers’ lounge, rec-ommendations abound for the ques-tion: “How can we teach all child-ren to read?” Experts from manyquarters offer teachers a veritablebazaar of solutions—guided reading,early intervention, literature-basedinstruction . . . the list continues.And yet, more than any otherstakeholders in education, teachersknow that no single approach, nosimple solution will lead all stu-dents to success as readers andwriters. However, they also recog-nize that defaulting to an eclecticpatchwork of approaches fails togive students or teachers a coher-ent, shared experience of literacy as a cultural tool for thought and communication.

Effective literacy instruction is com-plex. Practice must be planned yetadaptable, responsive to learners’diversity and changing needs, inte-grative across the curriculum, andaccountable to many—and these canbe competing goals. Given this viewof practice, teacher development inthe form of skills training and infor-mation updates does not affordpractitioners the opportunity tolearn as flexible, inventive problem-solvers (Spiro, Feltovich, Jacobson,& Coulson, 1992). Teachers andteacher educators need to makesense of a dizzying array of prob-lems and solutions. To do this they

need principled, conceptual frame-works to guide their thought andaction. Our article describes onesuch framework, Book Club Plus,designed by a practitioner inquirynetwork called the Teachers’ Learn-ing Collaborative.

WORKING TOGETHER TODESIGN BOOK CLUB PLUS

To learn to read well, all studentsneed to read thought-provoking,age-appropriate books. They alsoneed to respond thoughtfully tothese books in talk, writing, and asthey read other texts. Ensuring theseopportunities was the aim of theoriginal Book Club program(Raphael, Pardo, Highfield, &McMahon, 1997). That frameworkillustrated ways to organize curricu-lum and peer-led talk and writingabout text. Yet, as important as thislearning is, independent, self-regu-lated readers also must learn andpractice a myriad of skills andstrategies at their instructional level.

We know that the variation in class-rooms is wide, with students read-ing below, at, or beyond grade level.We also know that struggling read-ers need intensive instructional sup-port. A dilemma facing teachers ishow to engage their diverse readersin meaningful activities around age-appropriate text while also providing

Taffy E. Raphael, Susan Florio-Ruane,

and MariAnne George

Book Club Plus: A ConceptualFramework to Organize Literacy Instruction

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SElson

Copyright © 2001 by the National Council of Teachers of English. All rights reserved.

instruction appropriate to each stu-dent’s individual needs. Our goal indesigning the Book Club Plus frame-work was to manage this dilemma(Lampert, 1985) so that all young-sters read with teacher support attheir instructional level and practicecomprehension skills and strategiesin conversation and writing in re-sponse to age-appropriate literature.For three years and across social,economic, geographic, and grade-level borders, members of the Col-laborative (Dara Bacher, JenniferBerne, Karen Eisele, Susan Florio-Ruane, MariAnne George, KristinGrattan, Nina Hasty, Amy Heitman,Kathy Highfield, Jacquelyn Jones-Frederick, Marcella Kehus, TaffyRaphael, Molly Reed, EarleneRichardson, Jennifer Szlachta,Andy Topper, Jo Trumble, andLaToya Wilson) worked together todesign and field-test a user-friendlyliteracy curriculum frameworkmeeting three criteria: (1) it guidesrather than prescribes; (2) it ad-dresses a common problem but isopen to local adaptation; and (3) it reflects current theory and research on the teaching and learn-ing of literacy. In what follows,three members describe the con-ceptual background for Book ClubPlus, its organizational frameworkand its implementation in onethird-grade classroom.

CONCEPTUAL FOUNDATIONSOF BOOK CLUB PLUS

The Book Club program (Note: capitalized Book Club refers to theprogram, lower case book clubrefers to the student-led discussiongroups) grew out of two under-standings from educational theory.The first is that language use is fundamental to thinking, that whatis learned by any individual beginsin the social interactions in whichhe or she engages (Gavelek &Raphael, 1996; Vygotsky, 1978,

Wells, 1999). Thus in Book Club, itis important to provide multiplecontexts in which students engagein the language practices that sup-port their literacy work. In someteacher-led contexts, the teacherengages in explicit instruction,modeling and scaffolding. In others,the teacher’s role is as facilitator orparticipant (Au & Raphael, 1998).Some contexts involve studentsworking in student-led groups,from dyads and project teams tobook club discussion groups. Somerequire students to work indepen-dently. By means of interactionswith teachers and peers, thinkingagain “goes public,” and studentshave the opportunity to hear thelanguage of literacy and learning.In these interactions learners uselanguage to achieve collective andpersonal goals.The second understanding is theneed to increase the role of litera-ture in reading instruction. Usedhere, the term “literature” includestext genres of literary quality, ex-pository genres such as textbooksand brochures, and transactionalones such as Internet documents.

Scholars advocate using authentictext to teach a broad repertoire of reading abilities (Galda, 1998;Short, 1998). With this recommen-dation comes the proviso that weavoid “basalizing” texts, honoringtheir forms and functions ratherthan treating them simply as vehi-cles for instruction.Using literature invites instructionin literary response and literary ele-ments. Perhaps less obvious, litera-ture provides a vehicle for exploringculture and society, for it is the ac-cumulated understandings of hu-

manity. Literature’s content directlyrelates to a third understanding—foundational to the design of BookClub Plus—that school-based literacyeducation should prepare studentsto live and work in a diverse, democ-ratic society (Hiebert, 1991). Studiesof culture and its social, historical,personal, and political dimensionstend to be slighted in the texts andcontexts of both teacher educationand classroom learning (Florio-Ruane with deTar, 2001). Literaturestudy in the company of othersoffers a mirror reflecting our ownlives and a window into people,places, times, and cultures thatreaders might never have thechance to experience directly(Galda, 1998). As such, literaturecan become a powerful tool for critical thinking, helping studentsand teachers understand their ownperspectives as being cultural andtherefore limited and, in manyways, different from the experiencesof people in other times, places, andgroups (Dasenbrock, 1992).Some Collaborative members hadopportunities to experience this kindof learning about culture and iden-

tity as participants in graduatecourses and autobiography bookclubs sponsored by Raphael andFlorio-Ruane (Raphael, Florio-Ruane,Kehus, George, Hasty, & Highfield,K., 2001). These experiences are re-flected in a fourth fundamental un-derstanding of Book Club Plus—thatnarrative plays a central role in un-derstanding and in sharing our un-derstandings with others. Adaptingthe Book Club program to teachers’learning, for example, Florio-Ruanefound that response to text in bookclub discussions often took narrative

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We avoid “basalizing” texts, honoring their forms and functions rather than treating them

simply as vehicles for instruction.

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form. This narrative response to textcan be a powerful form of reading inwhich difficult ideas like culture areexplored by way of the literaryimagination (Florio-Ruane withdeTar, 2001).

A LOOK AT BOOK CLUB PLUS

Based on these four understandingsfrom research and theory, we de-signed Book Club Plus to promoteall students’ learning and incorpo-rate skills and strategies associatedwith reading acquisition and criticalthinking required for living in andcontributing to a democratic society.Its structure and thematic contentbuild from understanding self tounderstanding others, and promoteengagement through compellingand personally meaningful textsand activities. As the examplesbelow illustrate, both organizationalstructure and thematic content helpweave a meaningful fabric from di-verse activities, texts, and young-sters. The framework helps teachersmake literacy learning coherent forstudents across different instruc-tional contexts and activities.

Reflecting the diversity of the net-work, we designed the framework tobe used and adapted across class-room settings. Variations includedgrade level (piloted in grades 1–8);school community (affluent andmiddle-income suburbs, lower-income rural areas, and high-poverty city neighborhoods); andstudents (from a variety of ethnic,linguistic, social, and religiousbackgrounds) (Raphael, et al., 2001).We explored the framework’s use within different district andschool-wide conditions. In somecases, a textbook series for reading/ language arts was mandated, whilein others, teachers had more choice.Some schools had ample materials,books, and supplies. Others did not.Some classes had more than thirtystudents, others fewer than twenty.

Though the specifics differed acrossdistricts, all teachers needed to con-sider state and local standards forboth literacy and, given our theme,social studies learning. The Teach-ers Learning Collaborative tookthese local and shared constraintsas opportunities to identify theframework’s essential features andassess its usefulness to diverseteachers and students. Next, we describe framework features thatapplied across settings, then illus-trate their local adaptation with

examples from MariAnne George’sthird-grade classroom.

Organizing the YearTeachers organized Book Club Plusinstruction within three literacyunits, each of which could last from3 to 8 weeks. The overarching, year-long theme, “Our Storied Lives,”built from Unit 1: “Stories of Self,”to Unit 2: “Family Stories,” to Unit3: “Stories of Culture.” See Table 1for unit themes, resources, writingactivities, and related unit work.

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Unit

Theme

SelectedResources

Unit Work

ContentConnections

Stories of Self

Autobiography—Presenting and “representing” our lives

• Tarantula in My Purse (J. C. George, 1996)

• Tell Me Again about the Night I was Born (Curtis, 1998)

• 26 Fairmont Avenue (dePaola, 2000)

• My Life in Dog Years (Paulsen, 1999)

• The World of William Joyce Scrapbook (Joyce, 1997)

• Student timeline of his/her life with one event/year

• Personal narrative about critical life event

• “Snapshot” autobiography using school photo

Student & family roles within community

Family Stories

An individual’s identity is embedded in family stories

Books by Patricia Polacc, e.g.:• Meteor, 1978• Some Birthday,

1991• Picnic at Mudsock

Meadow, 1992• My Rotten Red-

headed Older Brother, 1994

• Interview family member from or about grandparents’ generation to identify a family story

• Learn a family story to share with class

• Oral presentations

Stories of Culture

Family stories are embedded within the narrative of our cultural heritage

• Molly’s Pilgrim (Cohen, 1983)

• From Miss Ida’s Porch (Belton, 1993)

• Grandmother’s Latkes (Drucker, 1992)

• Pueblo Storyteller (Hoyt-Goldsmith, 1991)

• A Birthday Basket for Tia (Mora, 1992)

• Journey to Ellis Island: How My Grandfather Came to America (Bierman, 1998)

• Compare/contrast family stories among texts and students’ lives

• Interview family about cultural heritage

• Create heritage quilt square for class quilt and present to class

• Essays on family’s journey to USA

Study native cultures and the immigrant experience

Table 1. Organizing for the Year


Organizing the Week and Day

During the three units, students par-ticipate in the two conceptuallylinked contexts for learning: BookClub and Literacy Block. In BookClub Plus, the two contexts occur intwo- or three-day cycles within agiven week. As Figure 1 illustrates,these thematically linked contextsprovide opportunities for teachingthe full range of language and liter-acy skills students need in order tobecome literacy users, criticalthinkers, and citizens in a democra-tic society. Each context is describedbriefly below.

Book Club. Within Book Club, fourcomponents—community share,reading, writing, and book club—interweave to support students who are learning to read, respondto, and discuss literature in student-led discussion groups (see Figure 1).

These components vary in length of time depending upon students’needs and teacher goals.

Opening “community share” is ateacher-led, whole-group activityintroducing students to elements ofliterature discussion and previewingspecific skills, strategies, and knowl-edge that will be useful as studentsread, write, and talk about theirbook club’s book. Closing commu-nity share reconvenes the smallgroups to share ideas and issuesthat emerged in their book clubsdiscussions. The “reading” compo-nent involves students’ gainingaccess to the book to be discussed.Their reading can be independent orsupported by adults, buddies, audio-tapes, and other resources. What iscrucial is that all class members, regardless of reading level, haveaccess to the literature to be dis-cussed in book clubs and that each

student writes in response to anddiscusses the book. (Note: in earlyprimary grades, book club books aregenerally read aloud by the teacher.It is rare to find substantive contentworthy of discussion and elicitingdepth of response at first or secondgraders’ reading level).

The “writing” component involvesdaily response in students’ readinglogs to help prepare for upcomingdiscussions, and sustained writingthat occurs when writers’ workshopactivities connect thematically (e.g., similar genre, theme, content,author craft) to the book club books.

“Book club” is the student-led dis-cussion group for which the pro-gram was named. Students aredivided into heterogeneous groupsof four to five, varying in readinglevel, gender, classroom status,verbal abilities, and so forth. Stu-dents remain in their book clubsthroughout a unit. On some occa-sions, all book clubs read and dis-cuss the same book. On others, eachclub reads different books encirclingthe shared theme. In all cases, thebooks are theme- and age-appropri-ate and sufficiently complex to war-rant and support in-depth discussionand a range of responses. Withinbook clubs, students discuss ideasthat emerged from their reading andlog responses, airing questions, con-fusions, and related personal experi-ences. Students are taught norms forappropriate behavior such as listen-ing with respect, building on others’ideas, debating and critiquing ideas,assuming leadership, and followinganother’s lead. Thus learning toread, write, and talk in book clubembodies democratic processes andlearning within community.

Literacy Block. Literacy Block is thesecond key site. Here, the focus isinstruction and practice of skills andstrategies. This occurs in guidedreading groups (Fountas & Pinnell,

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Teacher Daily Read-Aloud

Mon. Tues. Wed. Thurs. Fri.

Social Studies connection

• Opening community share[5–15 minutes]

• Reading [10–20 minutes]

• Writing [10–15 minutes]

• Book clubs [5–20 minutes]

• Closing community share [5–20 minutes]

Guided Reading Groups

Skills Centers

WWW searches

Journaling

Unit Work/ Writers Workshop

Book ClubBook Club

Book ClubLiteracy Block

Literacy Block

Figure 1. Organizing the Week


1996) where students are placed atone of three levels—at, above, andbelow grade—and read thematicallylinked literature at their instruc-tional level with extensive instruc-tional support.

When not meeting with the teacher,students work independently topractice subskills (e.g., spelling,grammar, handwriting) and work ontheme-related writing assignments.Some classrooms organize these different activities using “centers,”some have an area for guided read-ing while other students remain attheir desks, going to areas of theroom only to pick up needed mate-rials. Some use a combination.

BOOK CLUB PLUS IN ONETHIRD-GRADE CLASSROOM

In the remainder of this article wedraw on the “Family Stories” unitused by MariAnne, who organizedthe week to include a balance ofBook Club and Literacy Block days;a daily read-aloud from Polaccobooks students may not have theopportunity to read on their own;and writer’s workshop. In additionto the language arts contexts, Mari-Anne used social studies to furtherdevelop connections among history,family, and community.

Book Club activities (in contrast toLiteracy Block) centered on ChickenSunday (Polacco, 1992a). Mini-lessons during opening communityshare over a three-day period in-cluded dialogue use as a beginningfocus on authors’ craft, vocabularyconcepts related to family and tosensory words, and how to searchthe World Wide Web for informationon authors and illustrators (e.g., Po-lacco). Students read the book clubbook independently or in one of the support contexts, wrote individ-ual reading log entries, and met todiscuss the book. During students’book clubs, MariAnne observed one

group at a time, keeping notes onindividual students’ and the group’sprogress. She audiotaped groups she could not directly observe, tapesshe could listen to and assess later.MariAnne ended each day’s BookClub events with closing communityshare. She followed the pattern offirst asking students to share sub-stantive ideas from their book clubs.Students discussed Polacco’s craft(e.g., how her illustrations tell partof her story, how she builds sus-pense) as well as story content (e.g.,stories told from the two sides of herfamily—Russian immigrants andMichigan farmers). Following thebook discussion, MariAnne askedstudents what they thought hadgone well in their book clubs and,“What was hard for you today?”Thus, students began with a focuson content and discussion strengthsbefore examining problems.

On Literacy Block days, MariAnnespent approximately 15 minuteswith each of the three guided read-

ing groups, using a Polacco bookwritten at, above, or below thirdgrade, depending on the group level. She focused on areas of read-ing instruction from her district’sreading/language arts curriculumguide and the scope and sequencechart from the district adopted commercial reading program. WhileMariAnne met with the guided read-ing groups, students worked at theirdesks on a variety of tasks: (a) hand-writing practice sheet, (b) spelling,(c) journal entries, (d) dictionaryskill—using guide words, (e) writersworkshop and the family storypreparation, and (f) internet searchesrelated to authors and illustrators.

Writer’s workshop focused on de-veloping a family story. Studentsprepared for and interviewed afamily member from their grand-parents’ generation (or, if not available, someone with storiesfrom that generation). From the in-terview, they chose a family storyto share in class. They wrote notes,developed an oral presentation ofthe story, rehearsed, then presentedtheir family stories. The home con-nection involved parents in sharingfamily stories, facilitating con-nections to family members, andhelping to identify or—if needed—recreate an artifact around whichthe story was based.

Each week, under the umbrella ofFamily Stories, all students engagedin meaningful work with age-appropriate literature and had oppor-tunities to learn and practice skillswith text at their instructional level.Visiting the classroom, an observerwould be hard pressed to find therich getting richer and poor gettingpoorer. Each student met at leasttwice in a guided reading group, engaged with peers in two to threebook clubs, participated in wholeclass instruction two to three times.Daily, they read independently,

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http://coe.sdsu.edu/people/jmora/LiteracyFramework/

Organizing for Literacy Instruction

Dr. Jill Kerper Mora San Diego State University

http://learnweb.harvard.edu/2821/index.htm

28 Takes on 21st Century Literacy Instruction

Managing Literacy Activities with Technology

—Karen Smith

On the Web: Tips for Organizing for Literacy Instruction


engaged in whole-class book dis-cussion, engaged in a variety ofwriting, and practiced skills—somerelated directly to reading and dis-cussing books; others to reading,writing, spelling, and grammar sub-skills. Every student used literatepractices to learn and communicateabout the theme of family.

LEARNING IN BOOK CLUB PLUSTo illustrate how Book Club Plussupported diverse students’ learning,we close with sketches of three stu-dents in MariAnne’s class: Rikki,Patrick, and Nami. Rikki and Patrickrepresent two kinds of strugglingreaders, both poorly served by a dietof drill and practice or by a laissezfaire approach that slights instruc-tion. Rikki reads below grade level,so MariAnne’s challenge is to designa learning experience rich in bothskill instruction and opportunities touse literacy in meaningful practice.Patrick, on the other hand, whileable to read grade level materials, isdisengaged. He has not enjoyedreading during his first few years inschool. Re-engaging him in writtenlanguage is an essential problem tobe solved if he is to progress at hisgrade level. Nami is a high achiev-ing student exceeding grade levelgoals, functionally bilingual in En-glish and Japanese. She challengesthe teacher to support and extendher literacy development.

Rikki: A Struggling Reader Succeeds

Rikki, the youngest student in Mari-Anne’s third-grade class, enteredthird grade reading on a beginning2/2 level (using the Scholastic Place-ment Test, which accompanies thedistrict adopted reading program).Labeled as a “transitional reader,”she had worked with the school’slearning consultant since first grade.She had summer tutoring after firstand second grades. By the end of

third grade, Rikki scored 80 percenton the Expanding Level Scholastictest (70 percent is passing), so shewas reading on grade level when sheleft grade 3. Her writing showedsimilar growth, though—as writingsamples will reveal—she still strug-gles with language conventions suchas spelling and punctuation.

To see what she was learning inBook Club Plus, we analyzed sev-eral samples of Rikki’s writing. Thewriting samples come from Rikki’ssustained writing during LiteracyBlock’s writing workshops. Changesin content, structure, and conven-tions can be seen over the schoolyear and are linked to the BookClub Plus activities and themes. Inthe fall, Rikki typed the followingfinal draft (note that her typos havebeen preserved):

My BirdMy bird is friendly. He does not havea crown. His name is Aber. He likesto play with the next door neihbor’sbird.He is vary neat.he is good atwork, and heis a roben. He is king ofall the robens in city.But he is notthe king of all the robens in theworld. But he inangs it. & I love him.

MariAnne had read Paulsen’s (1999)My Life in Dog Years, conveying theauthor’s autobiography through his

relationship to his dogs. At this timesome students in the class were in-dependently reading J. C. George’s(1996) book, There’s a Tarantula inMy Purse and 172 Other Wild Pets,in which the author uses the sameconvention of telling her life storythrough her pets. Both books werevery much a part of whole-classdiscussions in community share,and thus may have influencedRikki’s writing about a pet bird.

The sample in Figure 2, written inFebruary, describes a car trip takenby Rikki’s family, during whicholder siblings, especially her brother,terrorize her.

Again we can see Rikki learning touse a literary device found in herstudy of literature. This time hertheme and text structure are influ-enced by her hearing Polacco’s (1994)My Rotten Redheaded Older Brother.A bit later, in March, Rikki writes ofa family ski trip, but this time she isvery much a part of her sibling’s funand games (see Figure 3).

Here she seems ready to step outsidethe literary models and develop herown family story theme.

Across these three pieces we see hertexts become longer and her sentences more complex. Further, applying the school district’s

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Figure 2. The Car Trip


benchmarks and standards to thesesamples revealed growth in Rikki’sknowledge and use of authors’ craft,including voice, theme, characterdevelopment, and elements of nar-rative structure.

Patrick: An UnenthusiasticReader Becomes Re-Engaged

Patrick entered third grade readingon grade level, though according tohis mother’s report at fall confer-ences, he showed little interest inreading in or out of school. Whilevery inquisitive, during the fall,Patrick was easily distracted. Heshowed difficulty focusing on read-ing and written work whether work-ing independently, in small groups,or in whole-class activities. By theend of the year, however, the pictureof Patrick’s learning and engage-ment had changed. In MariAnne’send-of-year reflections, she noted:

I saw a dramatic change in Patrickthroughout the year. He loved the au-tobiography literature and the group

discussions. I saw him become en-gaged in reading both during struc-tured reading time and independentreading time. He really blossomed inMarch with the culture focus—thisbrought in his deep interest in sci-ence and history.

For Patrick, success came through hisengagement with school literacy ac-tivities related to au-tobiography andculture, themes hefound compelling.

Patrick eagerly wrotestories about his ownlife and grew increas-ingly interested in his ancestry and incross-cultural con-nections within fami-lies and amongpeople. For example,as one of the culmi-nating activities of the year, studentswere asked to createa quilt square that

conveyed their cultural backgrounds.Patrick’s square, shown in Figure 4,captures his mixed ancestry—German(the autobahn, beer, and the peacesymbol reflecting the Berlin wall’sdemise), English, and Irish (sheep,mountains, and the potato faminethat led his ancestors to immigrateto the United States).

His opening line for his end-of-yearessay was “Hi! My Name is Patrick.I like culture and I’m German andEnglish mostly.”

When a visitor entered the class-room, Patrick proudly announcedthat the students represented overtwenty-seven different cultures andtheir classroom community showedhow cultures connect and change.His March 16th log entry conveyshis engagement with texts assources of cultural information, ashe contrasts his own cultural back-ground with those of the charactersin Chicken Sunday (Polacco, 1992a)(see Figure 5).

On another occasion, his interest inothers’ cultural backgrounds camethrough in his writing a story of abullfighter. During writers’ workshop,Patrick asked one of his Spanish-speaking peers for assistance. Hewanted his characters’ names and

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Figure 3. The Ski Trip

Figure 4. Patrick’s Quilt Square


important parts of their dialogue tobe written in Spanish and thus au-thentic to the language they actu-ally would speak.

Patrick’s end-of-year Scholastic Expanding Level reading test scorewas 93 percent. However, Patrick’ssuccess, as measured by his scores,conveys only part of the picture.More important is his growing in-terest and excitement over literacyand about culture. In his writing,his oral presentations, and hischoice of reading, he demonstratedthe power of the unit themes for re-engaging not only readers whostruggle with skills, but also thosewho may have turned away fromthe joy that literature and literacycan bring. He left third grade tellinghis teacher he was going to becomean anthropologist and study cul-tures. He told his young neighbor,Adam, that he was fortunate to beable to be in Book Club Plus thefollowing fall.

Nami: A Successful Reader Moves Beyond Classroom Literacy Practice

A good reading program for diverselearners addresses all students’

needs. Rikki illustrates the power ofsuch a program for struggling read-ers and Patrick reflects success forthose students who are able to readand write, but are not particularlyinterested in doing either. But whatof the already successful and en-gaged reader? Nami, our third focusstudent, suggests that when studentssee literacy as a powerful tool, theyseek to use literacy abilities beyondthe confines of the classroom andcurriculum. Nami was a high-achieving girl who, at three-and-a-half years old, had moved to the

United States from Japan with herfamily. Successful in her languageand literacy learning, she was in thetop reading group and ended theyear scoring 96 percent on theScholastic Expanding Level test. Inaddition to her academic work inpublic school, she also attendedJapanese school on Saturday andwas becoming literate in both languages. Nami could easily have

been bored in a conventional liter-acy program. Yet, as she read many published autobiographies, Namibegan to consider publishing herown story. She crafted a fictional account of the life of a short pencil, perhaps a metaphor for not being swayed by superficialphysical traits:

I AM COOL TOO!I am a short pencil. Everybody calls me short head and teases me.Grandpa said, “A short pencil canbe loved more than a long pencil.”But if I think hard, I’m just layingin a corner of a desk withoutanyone using me. When I was long and handsome, I was in abackpack and people took me toschool. But now nobody uses me.Why does everyone always use longand good pencils? I don’t mind if I get very short so, I want to be used more. “I am cool too”, even if I am short.

Using the Japanese she had beenlearning in Saturday School, shetranslated her story (see Figure 6)and submitted it to the JapaneseAmerican newspaper where it waspublished on April 16, 1999.

In school, Nami used the readingand writing opportunities within

the unit to explore both her ownimmigrant experience and her feelings about returning to Japan.In February, she heard Picnic atMudsock Meadow (Polacco, 1992b)in which the main character,William, suffers from constant teasing when he fails to win any of the contests at Mudsock Mea-dow’s annual Halloween picnic.Following this, she wrote of a

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Figure 5. Patrick’s Log Entry, 3/16/99

When students see literacy as a powerful tool, they seek to use literacy abilities beyond the confines

of the classroom and curriculum.


recent experience when her parentstook her back to Japan for a visit.She sees her friend who she de-scribes as “pretty mean” becauseshe “always teased me.” Sadly,Nami was unable to tease her backbecause “nothing popped into myhead.” Through her writing, she understands her natural desire—like William’s—to tease back, her frustration and, in the end, hersense of being special because “I had something that makes me be nice. My friend had none ofthat.” Like William, she gains self-esteem as she reflects back on the experience.

Not surprisingly, her end-of-yearwriting sample reflects some of herambivalence about returning to theland of her birth. In this essay firstdraft, she states that “I was born inJapan and I moved to America. Thatis my life.” She defines her life interms of place, an idea woventhroughout her essay. Through herliteracy activities within this unit,she was able to use literacy as a toolfor many different purposes: ex-tending her school activities intoher Japanese community by pub-lishing in the newspaper and be-coming a published writer in theprocess; exploring her feelings as animmigrant who, in some ways, hasbecome more familiar with heradopted country than her home-land; and coming to terms with thisexperience because “This place,Michigan, was so great . . . evenwhen I go back to Japan, I won’tforget about my life in Michigan.”

CONCLUDING COMMENTA framework is only as good as thelearning it affords. In Book ClubPlus, our goals for students’ learningincluded growth in literacy knowl-edge and skills that can be demon-strated on traditional tests, as well ason informal assessments (e.g., read-ing logs, process writing samples).

We were committed to promotingstudents’ engagement and ownershipof literacy processes. And, because ofthe nature of the unit content, weencouraged students to develop their“voice” and “identity” as shownthrough their family stories. Whilewe were particularly interested inhow this framework facilitated theliteracy learning of struggling read-ers, we believed that an effectivecurriculum should sustain the inter-est and promote the learning of stu-dents across all ability levels. Webelieve that our network’s develop-ment of the Book Club Plus frame-work gives us a new tool for workingon the pressing question, “How canwe teach all children to read?”

Author’s Note

This project was supported in part underthe Educational Research and Develop-ment Centers Program, PR/Awardnumber R305R70004 to the Center for the Improvement of Early ReadingAchievement (CIERA), as administeredby the Office of Educational Researchand Improvement, U.S. Department of Education.

Children’s Books CitedBelton, S. (1993). From Miss Ida’s porch. New

York: Aladdin.

Bierman, C. (1998). Journey to Ellis Island,How my grandfather came to America.New York: Hyperion/Madison.

Cohen, B. (1983). Molly’s Pilgrim. New York:Beech Tree.

Curtis, J. L. (1998). Tell me again about thenight I was born. Illustrated by Laura Cor-nell. New York: HarperCollins.

dePaola, T. (2000). 26 Fairmont Avenue. NewYork: Putnam.

Drucker, M. (1992). Grandma’s latkes. NewYork: Trumpet.

George, J. C. (1996). The tarantula in mypurse and 172 other wild pets. New York:HarperCollins.

Hoyt-Goldsmith, D. (1991). Pueblo story-teller. New York: Holiday House.

Joyce, W. (1997). The world of William Joycescrapbook. New York: HarperCollins.

Mora, P. (1992). A birthday basket for Tia.New York: Scholastic.

Paulsen, G. (1999). My life in dog years. NewYork: Yearling.

Polacco, P. (1978). Meteor! New York: Penguin.

Polacco, P. (1991). Some birthday! New York:Aladdin.

Polacco, P. (1992a). Chicken Sunday. NewYork: Philomel.

Polacco, P. (1992b). Picnic at MudsockMeadow. New York: Putnam.

Polacco, P. (1994). My rotten redheadedolder brother. New York: Aladdin.

References

Au, K. H., & Raphael, T. E. (1998). Curricu-lum and teaching in literature-based pro-grams. In T. E. Raphael & K. H. Au (Eds.),Literature-based instruction: Reshapingthe curriculum (pp. 123–148). Norwood,MA: Christopher Gordon.

Dasenbrock, R. W. (1992). Teaching multicul-tural literature. In J. Warnock, & T. Trim-mer (Eds.), Understanding others: Culturaland cross-cultural studies and the teach-ing of literature (pp. 35–46). Urbana, IL:National Council of Teachers of English.

Florio-Ruane, S. with deTar, J. (2001).Teacher education and the cultural imagination: Autobiography, conver-sation, and narrative. Mahwah, NJ:Lawrence Erlbaum.

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Galda, L. (1998). Mirrors and windows:Reading as transformation. In T. E.Raphael & K. H. Au (Eds.), Literature-based instruction: Reshaping the curriculum (pp. 1–11). Norwood, MA:Christopher-Gordon.

Gavelek, J. R., & Raphael, T. E. (1996).Changing talk about text: New roles forteachers and students. Language Arts,73(3), 182–192.

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a diverse teacher inquiry network. TheReading Teacher, 54(6), 506–607.

Raphael, T. E., Pardo, L. S., Highfield, K., &McMahon, S. I. (1997). Book Club: A literature-based curriculum. Littleton,MA: Small Planet Communications, Inc.

Short, K. (1998). The best and the worst oftimes. In T. E. Raphael & K. H. Au (Eds.),Literature-based instruction: Reshapingthe curriculum (pp. 343–348). Norwood,MA: Christopher Gordon.

Spiro, R. J., Feltovich, P. J., Jacobson, M. J., &Coulson, R. L. (1992). Knowledge repre-sentation, content specification, and thedevelopment of skill in situation-specificknowledge assembly: Some constructivistissues as they relate to cognitive flexibilitytheory and hypertext. In T. M. Duffy & D. J.Jonassen (Eds.), Constructivism and thetechnology of instruction: A conversation(pp. 57–75). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.

Vygotsky, L. S. (1978). Mind in society: Thedevelopment of higher psychological pro-cesses. (M. Cole, V. John-Steiner, S. Scrib-ner, E. Souberman, Trans.). Cambridge,MA: Harvard University Press.

Wells, G. (1999). Dialogic inquiry: Toward asociocultural practice and theory of edu-cation. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Uni-versity Press.

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Taffy E. Raphael, professor of literacyeducation at Oakland University, will bejoining the faculty of the University of Illinois–Chicago. She is Senior Researcherwith the Center for the Improvement ofEarly Reading Achievement (CIERA) and is the author of Book Club: A Literature-Based Curriculum (Small Planet Com-munications). Susan Florio-Ruane is aprofessor of teacher education at MichiganState University and Senior Researcher atCIERA. She is author of Teacher Educationand the Cultural Imagination (Erlbaum).MariAnne George is a learning consultantfor the Rochester Community Schools anda former classroom teacher and teacher researcher in CIERA.

Author Biographies

Figure 6. Nami’s Japanese Newspaper Story


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