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I’m a big fan of Donalyn Miller.
Do you know her? As classroom teacher, Donalyn made a splash with her book, The Book Whisperer. I met Donalyn during a trip to a reading conference in Dublin, Ohio, where I had the opportunity to hear her present to a large audience.
If you are an educator, you should read this book.
Long story short: Donalyn has made a deep impact bringing books and young readers together, and she does it without ego or self-aggrandising motive. There’s nothing phony about Donalyn. She’s simply a positive force in the world of children’s reading. A tsunami of inspiration. My kind of people.
Several years back she started The Nerdy Book Club with, I believe, Colby Sharp. It’s an active, inspirational resource/blog for teachers and librarians who care about children’s literature. I recommend it. Over the past couple of years, Donalyn has allowed me to contribute a few essays to it, and I’m always grateful to reach that specific audience, and participate in that grand conversation.
I’m quite happy with my recent essay and I invite you please check it out (link below). The idea came as the result of a few things going on in my life, particularly the end of my coaching career. I reflected on what I had learned from those experiences with young people, and I connected those lessons to what I believe about teaching and writing. But don’t go by me. Judge for yourself.
Here’s the opening:
I’m at loose ends.
For the first time in 16 years, I find myself not coaching a baseball team. During those seasons, I’ve coached a men’s hardball team, and all three of my children at various stages of Little League, including All-Stars and competitive Travel teams.
Now it’s over.
All I’m left with are memories, some friendships, and my accumulated wisdom, which can be reduced to a single, short sentence. So I’m passing this along to the readers of the Nerdy Book Club because I think it connects to teaching. And writing. And maybe to everything else under the sun.
When I started coaching, my head was exploding with knowledge. I knew all this great stuff! Boy, was I eager to share it. I had an almost mystical awareness of the game: tips and strategies, insights and helpful hints. Baseball-wise, I knew about the hip turn and burying the shoulder, how to straddle the bag and slap down a tag. The proper way to run the bases, turn a double play, and line up a relay throw. As coach, I simply had to pour this information into my players –- empty vessels all –- and watch them thrive.
But something happened across the years. I found myself talking less and less about how to play. Fewer tips, less advice. It seemed like I mostly confused them. The learning was in the doing.
I became convinced that the most important thing I could do was believe.
< snip >
Please click here to read the whole enchilada.
But before you go, here’s a nice quote from Donalyn that I figured I’d share.
Truth!
I met Donalyn Miller at a Literacy Conference in Ohio. She was the keynote speaker and I came away impressed, inspired, and determined to read her book, THE BOOK WHISPERER: Awakening the Inner Reader in Every Child.
I started reading it yesterday, frustrated over my own 9th-grade son’s brutal, book-hating experience in advanced, 9th-grade English.
I underlined this passage from Donalyn’s book, page 18:
Reading changes your life. Reading unlocks worlds unknown or forgotten, taking travelers around the world and through time. Reading helps you escape the confines of school and pursue your own education. Through characters — the saints and sinners, real or imagined — reading shows you how to be a better human being.
The book is filled with passages that make you want to stand up and cheer.
Anyway, this morning Donalyn Miller shared her enthusiasm over this fun bit of pop culture stardom:
Good for Donalyn Miller, good for Jeopardy.
It’s funny, isn’t it? That’s a real touchstone in America today. An undeniable sign that you’ve arrived and made your mark. You become a clue on Jeopardy!
Donalyn is also a founding member of the Nerdy Book Club, which you should definitely follow. Seriously, I insist.
I had the privilege of interviewing author/teacher Donalyn Miller last month for the Spellbinders Newsletter. I had so much to ask her, the interview became an unwieldy eighteen questions long. Donalyn answered every one. I've broken the interview into four parts that will first run at Spellbinders and then over here.
Many of you know I was a teacher before becoming an author. Of all the things I did in the classroom, the most satisfying (and, I believe, farthest reaching,) was getting kids excited about reading. If you are a teacher, parent, author, homeschooler, or book lover with young people in your life, I highly recommend this book.
I'd describe your beautiful book, THE BOOK WHISPERER, as a reading teacher's manifesto for free-choice reading. You state "students in free-reading programs perform better than or equal to students in any other type of reading program" and that students' "motivation and interest in reading is higher when they get the opportunity to read in school." Could you briefly walk us through the changes you experienced as a teacher that led you to embracing this mindset?
When I first began teaching, I followed the other teachers in my department. I passed
out reading logs, taught whole class novel units, and assigned book reports. I didn't know any other way. I knew that there was a disconnect between what readers do away from school and what I asked my students to do, but I wasn't sure what I could do about it. School reading and the reading I did on my own never overlapped when I was a kid. When I began questioning why this was still true for my students, I began to read and study reading workshop and look for ways to make school reading mirror what readers do "in the wild" as I call it.
I gut check everything we do against these questions:
Does this help my students become more independent readers?
Do readers actually do this (or something similar)?
If I can say, "No," then what's the point?
Students in your class are expected to read forty books from a variety of genres in their year with you. How do your students first respond when hearing this? How does this compare to what they feel about their reading at the end of the year?
I am known as the teacher who expects students to read a lot, so I think my reputation precedes me now. In the past, my students (and their parents) were shocked and worried about my reading expectations. I urge my students to try reading more at school and home. In turn, I promise them that I will do everything I can to teach them how to read and enjoy it more. We start with these mutual commitments. After a few months, students are amazed at how much they have read and feel more confident. By the end of the year, most of them have read substantially more than 40 books. For the past four years, our class average is 56.
My students also discover that I don't really care about the number of books they read. I just want them to find books that mean something to them. I want them to enjoy reading and find personal value in it. The children who read 20 books matter just as much to our class reading community as those who read 100.
One of the things I love about your classroom is the way you read alongside your students. In giving your students choice, you have shifted the power from the all-knowing teacher to a place where readers meet and learn together. While your young "apprentices hone a craft under the tutelage of a master, " you feel strongly that "meaning from a text should not flow from my perceptions... [but] from my students' own understandings, under my guidance."
This is a huge shift for children. How do you teach them to take the reins and trust their ideas?
It takes time to build a classroom community where everyone feels valued. The children don't trust me at first because they think I don't mean it when I say they can choose their own books, writing topics, and methods for responding. I work hard to encourage every student. I try to listen to them as a person before I respond as a teacher. When a student tells me he cried reading LOVE THAT DOG, he deserves to get an authentic reaction to his emotions before I ask him to evaluate how Sharon Creech crafted the story. I cannot tell you how many students tell me that they think adults don't really listen to them or see them.
Through feedback during conferences and one-on-one conversations, I encourage students to set their own learning goals and evaluate their work against standards and class-developed rubrics. Teaching students to critically look at their own work before turning it in for my evaluation is hard for many of them who seek my approval as indication that they are successful.
I love how you play book matchmaker for your kids throughout the year. Can you explain how you learn of their interests and pair books with readers?
I learn about my students because I talk to them constantly-about their life experiences as well as school assignments. I know who plays sports and who likes origami. I know who has a new baby brother and who is an only child. I also keep an endless database of books and authors in my head (and use Goodreads), and I read several books a week. If I see that a book is popular with my students and I haven't read it, I get a copy and read it immediately. When I can't find a book that matches to a student's specific interests, I fall back on titles that have wide appeal to most kids like HOLES or NUMBER THE STARS. I also ask students about the other books they have read and enjoyed.
I read a lot of book reviews, reading blogs, and book lists, too. Remaining current on the newer books helps me provide titles that are relevant to my students. I also talk to a lot of teachers and librarians on Twitter who recommend books to my students and me.
Knowing my students and knowing books-there's no shortcut. I often joke that I spend my life introducing my shelf children to my classroom children and facilitating friendships between them.
Learn more about Donalyn and her book at www.thebookwhisperer.com. Stay turned for the second part of the interview, coming soon.
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Great interview - thank you! I want to shadow Donalyn for a week. Can you arrange that? Ha.
Me, too! Tell me what you come up with, Holly. I'm leaving it all to you!
Enjoyed your interview with Donalyn! I just finished rereading The Book Whisperer last week for a class I'm taking so it was great to hear her current thoughts on the topics raised in the book. Choice and making reading relevant is more important than ever! Looking forward to Part 2 ...
I love that teachers are reading this book individually and in classrooms. For me, it was deeply satisfying to interact with Donalyn after reading. It was like getting an expanded version of the book.