The Big Fresh February 14, 2015 Joy’s Path

                                                                    Jane Goodall

One of our favorite picture books is Me…Jane.  In this book, Patrick McDonnell tells the story of Jane Goodall as a little girl. He paints a portrait of a child who plays outside, watches animals, writes notes about what she sees, and reads books about things she finds interesting. Of course, knowing that Jane Goodall grew up to live a grown-up version of her childhood makes the book even more magical and whenever we read it, we are struck by the way Jane Goodall’s girlhood seems to embody what it truly means to be “college and career ready.” While the national conversation about college and career readiness seems to focus on things like close reading, lexile levels, and text complexity, we can’t help but wonder what the world would be like if more children lived their childhoods the way Jane Goodall did–exploring their passions in ways that give, rather than drain, them of energy.

Spurred to action by this question, we recently devised a simple two-part experiment where we asked children to talk about what they love and then invited them to read books about these interests. When children were reading books that were connected to their passions, we observed them clamor to read hard passages, naturally engaging sophisticated reading strategies. Those children who usually go to great lengths to avoid reading time begged for “just a little bit more time” to read.  Students who professed to “hate reading” hugged books to their chests and waited in line to share with us the parts that inspired them.  Not only was there a whole lot of happy in these classrooms, there was also a whole lot of productivity.

There is a strong cultural belief that hard work is the answer to everything that ails us. This belief has resulted in “close reading” of horribly dry passages, antiquated comprehension workbooks sporting snazzy new covers with shiny “Common Core Aligned” stickers, and a lot of tired (and bored) teachers and students. However, Jane Goodall’s life story, coupled with what we’ve witnessed when teachers tap into the interests and passions of students, make us believe that perhaps the more certain path to future college and career success is the one less often taken: joy.

Franki Sibberson explains the value of Making Time for Individual Conferences, and the dividends longer conferences early in the fall pay all year long:

http://www.choiceliteracy.com/articles-detail-view.php?id=2161

In this week’s video, Ruth Ayres confers with fourth grader Ty about his personal narrative, and works to move him away from a “bed-to-bed” approach in his writing:

http://www.choiceliteracy.com/articles-detail-view.php?id=1735