For many years, I have greatly admired educator, author, and life-long learner Penny Kittle. I have enjoyed reading many of her publications and even attending Kittle workshops, IN PERSON; who would have ever thought that this would become an anomaly in our world. Given the present circumstances, I truly relish those pre-Covid world opportunities. I always walked away from her sessions and books, inspired and more knowledgeable about getting better at my teaching craft. When I heard that she had written a book with Kelly Gallagher ( I wasn’t familiar with his work) called 180 Days -Two Teachers and the Quest to Engage and Empower Adolescents,  I was excited because I knew it would be a powerhouse learning opportunity. It has invigorated me to deeply change how I plan and implement the curriculum in my classroom. I will devote several blog posts to this text because I see it as a transformative teaching-craft experience, and I want to reflect on several aspects of this publication. I believe 180 Days highlights the importance of instructional purpose (which I have always believed is key) and its impact on learning in the classroom.

My first key reading takeaway from 180 Days is establishing a culture that fosters life-long readers in a high school classroom, which I have always aspired to do but have fallen short many, many, many times. Kittle and Gallagher (2018) identify three cornerstones that need to be tackled in a sequenced manner: 

Engagement: 

• We need to find texts that are relevant, interesting, and intriguing for each student. We can’t assume that ,we, know what texts will excite and consume our students. 
• We need to get inside EACH student’s head and answer the following questions:
  • a) what is the student interested and passionate about?
  • b) what is their self-concept as a reader?
  • c) what are the barriers and/or challenges that make them turn away from reading? This is critical information to acquire because once we have this information in our toolbox, we can suggest and tailor an array of possible options that a student can choose from 

Spoiler alert:

• English teachers HAVE TO BE VORACIOUS READERS OF YOUNG ADULT (YA) FICTION and NONFICTION. We have to experience all ALL GENRES, and not just the ones we prefer to read. Even more powerful is that ALL high schools are teachers of literacy. We, all teachers and not just the English department, need to post what we are reading on our classroom walls and not just during I Love to Read Month to develop a literacy culture from shore-to-shore. I always chuckle when I hear students chatting about their math, physical education or chemistry teachers reading choices. It is shocking that teachers, who do not teach English, would read for pleasure. Students are very interested in looking up what types of books non-English department teachers are reading from my experiences. 

VOLUME: 

• Once a student develops genres preferences, we can then build reading volume. We need to schedule reading time during class, which then filters into home reading by choice and not necessarily by compliance.

COMPLEXITY:

• Once students are engaged and possess reading stamina, then we can introduce complexity. Most often, in my personal experience, the opposite occurred in my reading journey. At the beginning of the semester, I was assigned books that were off the Richter scale regarding complexity and size – Tess of the d’Ubervilles, Wuthering Heights, Fifth Business, Glass Menagerie, Julius Caesar, and the list goes on. I had a) no personal connection or background knowledge to any of the texts, and b) I certainly had zero stamina built to tackle a text that, when placed on my desk, made a massive “thud.” From the first week of school, I was intimidated and defeated by the book’s size, writing style, and content that I had no connection to. There aren’t any moors on the bald Canadian Prairies, and nor had I crossed any Roman emperors or southern belles in my farm girl context. 

This leads to the aspect of designing reading opportunities in the classroom. Kittle and Gallagher (2018) advocate that we need to start our semester focusing on independent novels for at least the first 5-6 weeks to build engagement and then sequence to book clubs, which are not a Lit Circle format, and then introduce a core text. The sequence of these reading opportunities reflects the pattern of engagement, volume, and complexity.  

In my continuous improvement coach role, I have not devoted the time to keep up with YA reading. Notice, I made a choice not to keep up. I could have said I didn’t have time, which isn’t 100% false, but if I am 100% honest with myself, I have dropped the ball in this area, and I need to do some deep reflection on WHY.  I love looking at books online and making wish lists, but I haven’t followed through to complete the reading.  

During COVID, I have had the privilege of working with many Grade 9, 10, and 11 English teachers. I recognize that my YA fiction and nonfiction repertoire has many gaps given the massive volume of YA being published, which has hurt my nimbleness in supporting students and teachers with independent reading selections and establishing book club options. I do not propose that I read every book in my library in a year or even two, for that matter. Still, I do highly recognize that my excitement for literature impacts student selection, and the more I knowledge I have about our collection, the greater my circle of influence will be in reaching all students in my my school.

Thus, I have devoted an entire section of my site to Literacy- 180 Days Approach, which will house reading and writing resources and specific units that I have designed. Please check it out. I would appreciate any feedback you are willing to provide to improve the strength of my tools and teaching moves that I will be sharing.

I look forward to this learning journey with you.

Have a great day and wonderful weekend.  Stay safe!!

All the best,

Ingrid