Category Archives: IS445

Susan Kuklin Book Study and Author Visit

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This spring graduate students in IS445: Information Books and Resources are engaged in the Guided Inquiry Design (GID) framework (Kuhlthau, Maniotes, and Caspari 2012) as they explore nonfiction and informational books and resources in the context of inquiry learning. This is our essential question for this inquiry: Is it important that students interact with global (multicultural and international) nonfiction and informational books and resources when they investigate prejudice and discrimination as it impacts the lives of young people today?

Immerse Phase of the GID
Immerse, the second phase of the GID, invites learners to explore resources to build their background knowledge, consider various perspectives on the inquiry question, and further their motivation to pursue the inquiry process. These are some possible Immerse Phase experiences: “reading a book, story, or article together; viewing a video; or visiting a museum” (Kuhlthau, Maniotes, and Caspari 2012, 3).

Last week in the Immerse Phase of the GID, students participated in a book study of Susan Kuklin’s work and participated in an author visit with her.

Preparation for Ms. Kuklin’s Visit
In addition to reading her books, students were asked to explore Ms. Kuklin’s website and read an interview with her found on the Worlds of Words website: Authors’ Corner.

Students participated in literature circles during the first hour of class. They used the BHH (Book Head Heart) strategy for literature circle discussions centered on the titles in the above collage (see my review of Beers and Probst’s book Disrupting Thinking on my blog).

After the class session in an email to me, graduate student Kristin Somers shared her experience of using this discussion strategy. “The BHH was helpful. As far as guides go, the questions posed using BHH method were incredibly personal. Our group had a great conversation because of how much information was shared and how intimate the information was. We’re closer as a result-for sure!”

Then Ms. Kuklin joined our online class for a one-hour conversation related to her work. Students came to the author visit with two prepared questions. They were asked to listen to their classmates’ questions and Ms. Kuklin’s responses in order to forward our conversation with her.

Students’ Questions for Ms. Kuklin
Although their questions may have changed during their literature circle discussions and there wasn’t time for everyone to ask their questions, these are three examples from three different literature circle groups that offer a window into students’ thinking and responses to Ms. Kuklin books.

“How has writing We Are Here to Stay: Voices of Undocumented Youth affected how you think about the idea of an ‘American’ identity?” (Abbigail McWilliams) Ms. Kuklin responded from the perspective of DACA youth who have gone to school in the U.S. and have friends and (some) family here. She noted they are American in every way but for papers. Then, Ms. Kuklin asked the same question of Abbigail. (I suspect this was a reflective moment in our conversation during which we all contemplated this question.)

“What were you hoping to learn from the teens (in Beyond Magenta: Transgender Teens Speak Out)? Had you known much about transgender studies prior to the book’s creation? (Lily Dawson) Lily and the class learned how Ms. Kuklin builds her background knowledge first, conducts research, and identifies interviewees. We also learned that each of her most recent books takes approximately five years to craft.

“I thought your use of children’s own words in Families and How My Family Lives in America, rather than description in the third person made these books stand out as unique and particularly compelling. What, if any, challenges did you face in obtaining and settling on the final text from the children?” (Nina Reiniger). Ms. Kuklin spends hours with the children and through her recordings of those sessions draws out their message. She uses the actual words of each child and checks in with them again that what she’s written is accurate before determining the final text. She also noted that the use of the first-person honors the voice and agency of the children in her picture books.

If you want to know more about the students’ responses to Ms. Kuklin’s books and our interaction with her, search Twitter for Susan’s handle @susankuklin and  this hashtag: #is445.

Author Visits
I firmly believe in the power of the transaction between the reader, the author, and the text. This theory by Louise Rosenblatt is known as the “reader-response theory.” Rather than making inferences, author visits provide readers with powerful ways to access the intentions and meanings authors themselves ascribe to their work. Having the voice of the author in the classroom or library is an incomparable gift.

In my experience, author/illustrator visits are the most successful when learners are familiar with the author or illustrator’s work through reading and discussing their responses to the work with their peers. This allows learners to build their background knowledge in order to deepen the questions they will bring to the author visit. Their minds will be prepped to engage with the guest and their takeaways from the experience will be more meaningful and long lasting.

Susan Kuklin’s Next Book
Ms. Kuklin’s next book In Search of Safety: Voice of Refugees will be released on May 12, 2020. In the book, she shares the experiences of five individuals—refugees from Afghanistan, Northern Iraq, Myanmar, South Sudan, and Burundi. Please read about this timely book on her website.

Thank you to Ms. Kuklin for generously sharing your craft, experiences, and heart with us. Thank you to IS445 students for sharing with each other, Ms. Kuklin, and with me.

Work Cited

Kuhlthau, Carol C., Leslie K. Maniotes, and Ann K. Caspari. 2012. Guided Inquiry Design: A Framework for Inquiry in Your School. Santa Barbara, CA: Libraries Unlimited.

Note: I have used students’ comments, questions, and Ms. Kuklin’s responses with permission.

 

Professional Book Review: Disrupting Thinking

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In their book, Disrupting Thinking: Why How We Read Matters (Scholastic 2017), Kylene Beers and Robert E. Probst offer educators strategies and opportunities to reassess the various ways they invite readers to approach texts. Classroom teachers, reading specialists, and school librarians will benefit from learning and reviewing research and information related to reader response, reading stances, rigor and relevance, and more.

The BHH Strategy
The Book Head Heart (BHH) strategy is at the center of Disrupting Thinking. This series of questions is designed to guide readers’ thinking from what is written in the text through feeling and thinking about the content of the text. (Note: Graduate students in IS445: Information Books and Resources for Youth will the using the BHH strategy in their interactions with texts throughout the spring semester. I look forward to learning how this strategy supports them as they select, read, and curate library resources for their reading communities.)

Book

  • What is this book about?
  • Who is telling the story?
  • What does the author want me to know?

Head

  • What surprised me?
  • What does the author think I already know?
  • What change, challenged, or confirmed my thinking?
  • What did I notice?

Heart

  • What did this text help me learn about myself?
  • What did this text help me learn about others?
  • How has this text change my thinking about the world?
  • How will my actions or feeling change as a result of reading this text?
  • Does this text offer me any of my own Aha Moments? Any Tough Questions? Perhaps my own Words of the Wise? (2017, 62-71).

Regardless of the genre or format, these questions invite readers to enter deeply into the text.

Reading Stances
Aesthetic and efferent are two stances proposed by Louis Rosenblatt’s reader-response theory (1995). When we read from an aesthetic stance, we pay attention to how the text affects our emotions. We may respond by living vicariously through the characters and their experiences. We can also approach a text from an efferent stance, in which we focus on the factual information in the text. Readers, for the most part, read along a continuum from a purely aesthetic stance to solely efferent stance depending on their purpose for reading.

One of the strengths of Disrupting Thinking is that the authors make a strong case for readers learning to enter into nonfiction and informational texts as deeply as they have been taught to live through fictional texts. “Nonfiction should not suggest nonfeeling. Nonfiction offers us the chance to learn not only about the world and the people in it, but about ourselves” (2017, 49). When the content of nonfiction texts matter to readers, these texts will elicit feelings as well as thinking. Using the BHH questions is one way to support deep comprehension with nonfiction and informational texts.

Interest and Relevance
Educators have been taught to provide hooks, or motivational invitations, in order to spark students’ interest in texts or curiosity about topics or themes. Beers and Probst note that interest will fade if educators fail to address relevance. They cite this nugget of wisdom from their book Reading Nonfiction: Notice & Note Stances, Signposts, and Strategies (2016), which I will be referencing in many posts this spring for the benefit of IS445 students.

“Getting kids’ attention is about creating interest; keeping their attention is about relevance” (2016, 45).

Beers and Probst contend that if we help develop readers who are open to the possibility that a text will change them, they will then enter a text with “compassion.” An openness to different perspectives, motivations, reasoning, and evidence, or compassion, will further develop readers’ thinking. This compassionate approach can result in readers acting with compassion in the world.

The Goal of this Book
In Disrupting Thinking, Beers and Probst set out to create a resource for educators that serves as a guidepost for how to transform reading instruction so that the texts students read are transformative to their thinking and to the actions they take in the world.

For me, Beers and Probst’s approach to guiding students’ interactions with texts relates directly to the inquiry process suggested in the Guided Inquiry Design (GID) (Kuhlthau, Maniotes, and Caspari 2012). The overarching goal of inquiry learning is to put students in the driver’s seat—to determine questions, discover answers or solutions, and the develop as thinkers and learners. Finding the sweet spot, or third space, in the GID is where students’ internal motivation to pursue answers to questions propel them through the learning process and result in them taking action in the world.

Similarly, the approach to reading fiction, nonfiction, and informational texts offered in Disrupting Thinking is intended to support students as they experience reading as a change process. This connection is why I most highly recommend Disrupting Thinking to school librarians who are guiding students through an inquiry process and who are open to considering or reconsidering how they invite students into learning and growing—and changing—as a result of their interactions with texts.

Works Cited

Beers, Kylene, and Robert E. Probst. 2016. Reading Nonfiction: Notice & Note Stances, Signposts, and Strategies. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.

Beers, Kylene, and Robert E. Probst. 2017. Disrupting Thinking: Why How We Read Matters. New York: Scholastic.

Kuhlthau, Carol C., Leslie K. Maniotes, and Ann K. Caspari. 2012. Guided Inquiry Design: A Framework for Inquiry in Your School. Santa Barbara, CA: Libraries Unlimited.

Rosenblatt, Louise. 1995. Literature as Exploration. New York: MLA.

Opportunities for Voice and Choice

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Guided Inquiry Design: Identify, Gather, and Create Phases

In schools and libraries where curriculum and learning outcomes standards guide teaching and learning, ensuring that students have voice and choice is essential. Student agency, learning experiences that are meaningful and relevant to the students’ themselves, can easily get lost in standards-crowded learning environments. If primary goals of inquiry are to tap into students’ interests and passions, increase their internal motivation to learn, and create opportunities for them to persist and succeed, then educators should assess their planning in terms of maximizing student voice and choice.

Identify Phase
A well-constructed Explore Pathfinder—with numerous (if not, limitless) avenues for students’ own questions—is an essential feature of the Guided Inquiry Design (GID). These “dip in” resources focused around an overarching inquiry question must open doors for students to pursue related sub-topics and develop personally meaningful inquiry sub-questions. These openings are intentional and seek to stimulate students’ critical thinking and creativity.

When students identify their own questions, they are giving voice to their personal connections to the overarching inquiry question. Students’ opinions and perspectives on the topic will vary based on their values, beliefs, and background knowledge. Their identities, cultural backgrounds, and prior learning experiences will likely influence their questions. If they are working with a group, their classmates’ opinions and perspectives will also shape the group’s question(s). The inquiry guide(s) can help ensure that all voices are considered.

Differentiation and inclusion involve providing different learners or groups of students with options for how they conduct their inquiry process. Students’ individual strengths, preferred ways of learning, or accommodations necessitate that educators differentiate in order to increase students’ success in reaching the targeted learning outcomes. The “Identify” phase creates opportunities for students to take their individual or group’s questions in a multitude of directions, some of which the educators may not have predicted. When developing their inquiry plan, students may also seek to explore their questions in unique ways, such as bringing in experts or taking field trips off campus.

Gather Phase
Students will build off the resources provided by educators and access far-ranging resources beyond those included on the Explore pathfinder. Educators support students at this phase by teaching/reviewing strategies for determining accuracy, authority, and authenticity of resources. They keep students focused on purpose, currency, and relevance as they curate their own resources. Educators also connect students with human resources in the school and community to further enrich their knowledge base.

Educators can offer students various strategies and tools for organizing their resources, making notes, and bibliographic record keeping. These are lifelong learning strategies are transferable to other learning contexts.

Create Phase
Likewise, the “Create” phase provides yet another opportunity for students to demonstrate learning and meet the target outcomes in a variety of ways. Educators can provide choice through a menu of tools for presenting learning. These can be various apps, online creation tools, or software. Educators may offer students options in terms of the format of a final product. In addition to the tool menu, they may provide a list of final products that includes journals, letters to the editor or op eds, poems, scripts, short stories or essays, bibliographies, debates, leading discussions, presenting skits and plays, taking action in the school or community, and more. Educators may (should) also be open to students’ presentations ideas.

When students determine how they will show their new understandings, they are more likely to be invested in their learning process because they “own” it. Their work products will be authentic in terms of the questions students ask, the audiences with whom they want to share, or the feedback they seek to receive. The one-size-fits all approach to final products may make it easier for educators to assess student learning outcomes, but they should have a strong rationale for why one single way for students to demonstrate their learning is best for all students. Educators must ensure that students’ voice and choice is still evident in their final products.

Coteaching the “Identify” and “Create” Phases of the GID
Having two or more adults in the room to guide students during the Identify phase is of benefit to students and educators alike. Monitoring individual student’s or student inquiry groups’ formulation of an inquiry question can increase learners’ engagement and enthusiasm as well as reduce their frustration. With a school librarian and a classroom teacher, or a public librarian and a caregiver offering support at this phase in the inquiry process, the outcomes are likely to be more satisfying and successful.

Inquiry guides can help students see opportunities to narrow or broaden their questions. They can ask students to define terms, determine keywords, and phrases within their questions that may otherwise cause students confusion or complicate their search for resources. Guides may help students reframe their question toward “how” and “why” and steer the away from “yes” and “no” answers. They can prompt students to consider other perspectives.

As noted above, far too many inquiry learning experiences result in predetermined presentation formats. While this can help standardize the assessments used for the inquiry, it can also stifle creativity, student voice, and student choice. When two or more educators are guiding an inquiry experience, the educators can feel more confident that they are able to respond to a range of creative processes, products, and presentations.

Work Cited

Kuhlthau, Carol C., Leslie K. Maniotes, and Ann K. Caspari. 2012. Guided Inquiry Design: A Framework for Inquiry in Your School. Santa Barbara, CA: Libraries Unlimited.

 

Explore Phase: Annotated Bibliography Pathfinder

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The Explore Pathfinder is an essential feature of the Guided Inquiry Design (GID). This can be in the form of a hands-on text set or annotated bibliography. A text set is “a set of materials that is provided by educators or created by students that helps learners investigate a topic, theme, problem, or dilemma. A text set is usually comprised of hard-copy printed materials and can be effectively combined with a web-based pathfinder of electronic resources” (Moreillon 2018, 178). These resources are selected by educators to invite learners to “dip in” and explore a sampling of resources that support the overarching inquiry question.

The goal of these resources is to prepare and support students before they develop their own inquiry questions. Their questions will be based on the overarching essential (inquiry) question for the learning experience. Learners skim and scan these resources for ideas that connect with their interests or information that sparks their desire to know more. Purposeful skimming and scanning are essential reading strategies, particularly online. In an information-rich environment, the ability to weed out the extraneous and identify promising resources is essential.

Annotated Bibliography
The annotated bibliography was a staple of librarians’ work long before the dawn of the Web. (Way back in the Dark Ages) I can remember my high school librarian providing students with printed bibliographies comprised of print-only resources and reminders to access the printed Readers’ Guide to Periodical Literature. (If you are too young to remember it, Google it. Of course, now there is an online database version.) I believe my approach to using those bibliographies was that they were the “final” word on the topic and I need not look any further.

By contrast, the Explore pathfinder/annotated bibliography is intended to be a jumping off place for students. As they “dip in,” they will uncover other resources mentioned in the text or in the books’ bibliographies or source notes. They will discover names, places, events, and subtopics that may not be included in the pathfinder resources that they will want to pursue. They may also realize there are human resources that can support their inquiry and take their learning far beyond the starting place of the pathfinder.

Types of Informational Books
The image above shows four types of nonfiction/informational books we are exploring in IS445: Information Books and Resources for Youth. We Are Here to Stay: Voices of Undocumented Youth by Susan Kuklin (Candlewick 2019) is shelved in the 300s social science section of a Dewey library. Andrea Warren’s book Enemy Child: The Story of Norman Mineta, a Boy Imprisoned in a Japanese American Internment Camp During World War II (Holiday House 2019) is a biography found in the 92s. Racism and Intolerance from the Children in Our World Series (Barron’s 2017) and written by Louise Spilsbury and Hanane Kai is an expository informational book, also shelved in the social sciences. And Don Brown’s The Unwanted: Stories of the Syrian Refugees (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt 2018) is an informational book presented in a graphic novel format, which is shelved in the 900s history section of the library.

Each of these types of informational resources may be more or less accessible to individual skimming and scanning inquirers. Some readers may gravitate toward narrative nonfiction titles that pay attention to literary elements, such as characters, settings, plot, themes, and the like. Others may appreciate the primary source documents in a well-written, well-researched biography. While others may be more inclined to reach for expository books with tables of contents, glossaries, indexes, bolded keywords, and more. Still others may gravitate toward non-traditional formats—graphic novels, ebooks, audiobooks, and more. Others will go straight to the computer and out on the free Web. Providing a wide array of types of books and other resources organized around subtopics of the overarching inquiry (essential) question may help students avoid frustration and can support them in achieving success.

Coteaching the Explore Pathfinder
Learners’ hands-on, minds-on interaction with an Explore pathfinder/annotated bibliography gives educators opportunities to monitor students’ comprehension strategies. Educators can also probe students for connections to the inquiry topic and push their thinking deeper. They can help individual students use resources effectively and efficiently. When classroom teachers and school librarians collaboratively facilitate the inquiry process, students will receive more individualized attention than one educator working alone could provide. “Guiding students through the Explore phase leads them to form a meaningful inquiry question (of their own making)” (Kuhlthau, Maniotes, and Caspari 2012, 3).

Works Cited

Kuhlthau, Carol C., Leslie K. Maniotes, and Ann K. Caspari. 2012. Guided Inquiry Design: A Framework for Inquiry in Your School. Santa Barbara, CA: Libraries Unlimited.

Moreillon, Judi. 2018. Maximizing School Librarian Leadership: Building Connections for Learning and Advocacy. Chicago: ALA.

Immerse Phase: Author Study and Visit

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In the Open Phase of the Guided Inquiry Design (GID), educators invite learners to join the inquiry. There are any number of creative ways to do so including presenting learners with a thought-provoking inquiry question, a thorny problem, or a real-world dilemma. The goal of the Open Phase is to set a tone for the inquiry and pique students’ curiosity. (I will be writing more about how I began our whole class inquiry in a WOW Currents blog post to be published in August. In three additional WOW Currents blog posts, I will provide more information about our class inquiry process and outcomes.)

Immerse, the second phase of the GID, invites learners to explore resources to build their background knowledge, consider various perspectives on the inquiry question, and further their motivation to pursue the inquiry process. These are some possible Immerse Phase experiences: reading a book, story, or article together; viewing a video; or visiting a museum” (Kuhlthau, Maniotes, and Caspari 2012, 3).

For IS 445: Information Books and Resources for Youth, I invited graduate students to explore informational books written and/or illustrated by author-photographer Susan Kuklin. I provided them with a list and starred her books that most closely align with our inquiry question. Ms. Kuklin will join our class for an online author visit this week.

Author Visits
Although I have facilitated and presented children’s/teen’s author/illustrator visits in many K-12 school libraries and classrooms, I have not had the opportunity to plan such a visit for graduate students or in an exclusively online classroom. Fortunately for me/us, Ms. Kuklin has experience and is willing to take this calculated risk with me.

In my experience, author/illustrator visits are the most successful when learners are familiar with the author or illustrator’s work. This allows them to build their background knowledge in order to deepen the questions they will bring to the author visit. It is unlikely that all of the IS 445 students will have the opportunity to ask their prepared question(s) based on one or more of Ms. Kuklin’s books or the Web-based information I provided them. Still, their minds will be prepped to engage with our guest.

Introducing an Author
Giving one or more book talks is an ideal way to introduce an author/illustrator’s work. Although book trailers can be fun multimedia presentations, in my experience they are fraught with “opportunities” for copyright violations. Authors, illustrators, and publishers are fine with book reviewers/book talkers sharing the cover of a book. The book jacket, after all, provides promotion for the title and the book’s creators. Of course, everyone involved with the book’s creation will want the review to be positive; some might even believe that any publicity—positive or not so positive—puts the book in the spotlight.

Sharing interior images or lengthy quotes from a book can put a book trailer creator or book talker who publishes reviews for Web distribution in jeopardy of copyright violations. (Sharing interior images and quotes in the face-to-face library or classroom, or online behind password protection does not violate copyright as long as the talk is not distributed.) It’s my opinion that the best way to avoid these possible pitfalls is to share the publisher’s book trailers and create DIY podcasts or video/vodcast book talks that show only the book jacket. (Here’s an example of a publisher’s trailer for our picture book Ready and Waiting for You, illustrated by Catherine Stock.  Clearly, there is no way a book trailer creator could have created a similar trailer using Ms. Stock’s images without grossly violating her copyright.)

Podcast Book Talk
To prepare graduate students for Ms. Kuklin’s visit, I shared a podcast book talk for Iqbal Masih and the Crusaders Against Child Slavery (Kuklin 1998) and connected it to the class inquiry question focused on how prejudice and discrimination affect children and teens globally. (Later in the semester, students will have the opportunity to create podcast or video/vodcast book talks of books and resources they identified for their small group inquiry projects.)

In addition, Ms. Kuklin and I will collaborate to determine the best way to introduce her to the class and launch her author visit. (I highly recommend that librarians and educators collaborate with their guests to make sure they are on the same page about the content and process of an author/illustrator visit.) Bottom line: I am excited to work with Ms. Kuklin, learn IS 445 students’ questions related to her books, and hear Ms. Kuklin’s responses!

Work Cited

Kuhlthau, Carol C., Leslie K. Maniotes, and Ann K. Caspari. 2012. Guided Inquiry Design: A Framework for Inquiry in Your School. Santa Barbara, CA: Libraries Unlimited.