How to use this Page

Jill Eisenberg, our Resident Literacy Expert, began her career teaching English as a Foreign Language to second through sixth graders in Yilan, Taiwan as a Fulbright Fellow. She went on to become a literacy teacher for third grade in San Jose, CA as a Teach for America corps member. She is certified in Project Glad instruction to promote English language acquisition and academic achievement. In her column she offers teaching and literacy tips for educators.

1. Teaching Students About Narrator Bias

Etched In Clay is a compelling case study for narrator bias and trustworthiness. The text structure with 13 narrators and its economy of words make Dave’s story captivating, especially to middle grade students who are beginning to engage with primary sources from the period of American slavery. Students can analyze how each speaker’s social experiences, status, motivations, and values influence his/her point of view, such as evaluating the poems of the slave-owners who would have had a vested interest in popularizing a particular narrative of slavery.

Using multiple perspectives to tell the story of one life is a striking display of how events can be interpreted and portrayed by different positions in the community. Students face the task of examining the meaning and nuance of each narrator (13 in total!) and what they choose to convey (or don’t).

Discussion questions include:

• Why might the author choose to share Dave’s story using multiple speakers? How do multiple narrations develop or affirm the central idea?
• How do the author’s choices of telling a historical story in present tense and first person narration affect our sympathy toward the narrators and events in the book?
• Select a poem, such as “Nat Turner,” and defend why the author chose a particular narrator to tell that event or moment. How would the event and poem be different if another, like Reuben Drake, had told it?
• Are there narrators the readers can trust more than others? Why or why not? What makes a narrator (un)trustworthy? How is each narrator (un)reliable? Why might one of these narrators not tell readers the “whole” truth? Does having more than one narrator make the story overall more reliable? Why or why not?
• How does a narrator’s position in society or in Dave’s life affect what he/she knows? How does the historical context affect what a narrator may or may not know and his/her reliability? How can readers check a narrator’s knowledge of facts?
• What is the motivation of each narrator to share?
• Does this alternation between narrators build compassion or detachment for Dave in readers? How so?
• Why is it important to learn the history of slavery from slaves themselves?
• Compare and contrast the conditions of slavery from Dave’s point of view and Lewis Miles.
• How do the slaveholders depict the relationships with their slaves? How do the slaves depict their relationships with the slaveholders?
• Compare Dave and Lewis Miles’ perceptions of the Civil War.
• Consider whether Dave and David Drake should be considered one perspective or two.
• Contrast how each narrator feels about antebellum South Carolina.
• Who might be the audience the narrators are telling their version of events to (themselves, God, a news reporter, etc.)? Are they the same? Why is intended audience important to consider?
• Argue whether 13 points of view flesh out this figure or make Dave and his life even more elusive.

2. Poetry Month and Primary Sources

As “Primary Sources + Found Poetry = Celebrate Poetry Month” suggests, the Library of Congress proposes an innovative way to combine poetry and nonfiction. Teaching With The Library of Congress recently re-posted the Found Poetry Primary Source Set that “supports students in honing their reading and historical comprehension skills by creating poetry based upon informational text and images.” Students will study primary source documents, pull words and phrases that show the central idea, and then use those pieces to create their own poems.

This project not only enables teachers to identify whether a student grasps a central idea of a text, but also encourages students to interact with primary sources in much the same way as Etched In Clay’s Andrea Cheng. When researching Dave’s life and drawing inspiration for her verses, Andrea Cheng integrated the small pieces of evidence of Dave’s life, including poems on his pots and the bills of sale.

3. Common Core and the Appendix B Document

Many middle school educators are currently using Henrietta Buckmaster’s “Underground Railroad,” a recommended text exemplar for grades 4-5, and Ann Petry’s Harriet Tubman: Conductor on the Underground Railroad and Frederick Douglass’s Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass An American Slave, Written by Himself, recommended text exemplars for grades 6-8 in the Common Core State Standards’ Appendix B document.

Educators can couple Etched In Clay with those texts to involve reluctant or struggling readers, prepare incoming middle school students, and scaffold content and language for English Language Learners. Additionally, Andrea Cheng’s biography offers educators an inquiry-based project for ready and advanced readers to analyze “how two texts address similar themes or topics in order to build knowledge or to compare the approaches the authors take” (CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.CCRA.R.9).

For a more inclusive, diversity-themed collection of contemporary authors and characters of color, check out our Appendix B Diversity Supplement.

Further reading:

Andrea Cheng on Writing Biography in Verse

A Poem from Etched in Clay

Jaclyn DeForge, our Resident Literacy Expert, began her career teaching first and second grade in the South Bronx, and went on to become a literacy coach and earn her Masters of Science in Teaching. In her column she offers teaching and literacy tips for educators.

Earlier this week, I had the pleasure of meeting with a literacy expert who was SUPER involved with the creation of the Common Core Standards (!!!!!), and she gave me some important feedback about the Appendix B supplement  I posted last week. To refresh your memory, what we’ve done is compiled a supplement to Appendix B that includes both contemporary literature and authors/characters of color, and that also meets the criteria (complexity, quality, range) used by the authors of the Common Core. We were lucky enough to have this literacy expert take a look at our supplement, and she gave some great suggestions:

1. The texts selected for Read Aloud can be outside the text complexity bands for each grade cluster.
2. Texts that are Read Aloud in lower grades can be read as Independent Reading in upper grades.

We’ve incorporated these ideas into our Appendix B supplement. So, without further ado, click here for a PDF of our new and improved multicultural supplement to the Common Core’s Appendix B.

Know who else is excited about the updated Appendix B list? This guy:

“Smiling Dog” by Benjamin Liew

Further Reading:

What’s in your classroom? Rethinking Common Core recommended texts

Why Window and Mirror Books are Important for All Readers

Jaclyn DeForge, our Resident Literacy Expert, began her career teaching first and second grade in the South Bronx, and went on to become a literacy coach and earn her Masters of Science in Teaching. In her column she offers teaching and literacy tips for educators.

When the Common Core Standards were created, the authors included a list of titles in Appendix B that exemplified the level of text complexity (found in Appendix A) and inherent quality for reading materials at each grade level.  This list was intended as a comparative tool, as a way for teachers and administrators to measure current libraries against country-wide expectations for rigorous literature and informational text.  Since its publication, this list, and the titles included and omitted, have created quite a bit of controversy.

Two things are fairly obvious when considering the texts included in Appendix B:

1. Most of the titles were first published ages ago.
2. Most of the titles are by white people.  Or about white people.  It’s a pretty white list.

Two things are also fairly important when constructing a classroom library and when selecting texts for instruction:

1. Students should have the opportunity to be exposed to both classic and contemporary literature as well as  nonfiction texts.
2. All students should have the opportunity to see themselves reflected back, as well as to be exposed to cultures and experiences that may differ from their own, in the literature and nonfiction texts we study.

Education Professor Katie Cunningham discussed diversity in Appendix B here on the blog a few weeks ago in her guest post, “What’s in your classroom library? Rethinking Common Core Recommended Texts.” Adding on to her recommendations, I’ve compiled a supplement to Appendix B that includes both contemporary literature and authors/characters of color, but also meets the criteria (complexity, quality, range) used by the authors of the Common Core. Download it here.

If you’re interested in ordering some or all of these titles to supplement your classroom library, please feel free to drop me an email at [email protected]!

from The Storyteller’s Candle / La velita de los cuentos by Lucia Gonzalez

What books would you add to Appendix B?  

Further Reading:

What’s in your classroom library? Rethinking Common Core Recommended Texts

What is Close Reading?