Building Relationships to Discover Reading Identity

Welcome to our series of Friday Teacher Scenes where Ethical ELA features teachers’ stories from their classrooms and experiences to contribute to and shape the public narrative of what it means to be an English language arts teacher in today’s sociopolitical climate. We hope to center and uplift one another by featuring the professional, informed, intentional work that drives and makes possible inclusive-affirming critical language arts learning spaces. We welcome your stories in the comments or contact Sarah if you’d like to contribute a blog post.

Building Relationships to Discover Reading Identity

by Kimberly H. Johnson, Ed.D.

When I looped up from teaching primary and elementary students to teaching middle and high school students, I felt a gut punch when I discovered students’ reluctance to read in secondary grades.  Young children, it seems, are far more motivated to read along a wide variety of genres and titles.  They are still curious about the world and don’t have hormones competing with their energy levels.  Middle and high school students threw me a curveball I wasn’t expecting.

This was a challenge that needed attention, pronto!

Early in my career, I’d attended a conference in Savannah, Georgia, where keynote speaker Ruby Payne encouraged teachers to build student and family rapport as soon as possible. 

“Do this,” she suggested.  “Write at the top of a piece of paper, ‘In a million words or fewer, tell me everything you’d like me to know about your child.” 

I needed a fresh, innovative approach, and this idea came rushing back.

Building Relationships

To begin building relationships and establishing a community of learners, I invited parents to share information about their child with me. I sent home a paper with every child, along with an envelope for parents to seal their letters and return to me by the end of the first week of school.  I also gave students the same assignment:  In a million words or fewer, tell me everything you’d like me to know about you.

I wasn’t expecting the outpouring of emotion and gratitude the parents and students expressed in their letters.  They thanked me for taking an interest. 

As I read their stories, I laughed, cried, and got to know each of my students in a way I hadn’t predicted.  I began coding the letters and discovered that I was learning about their strengths and weaknesses, their hopes and dreams, their fears and regrets.  I organized a large binder by class period and kept the student and parent letters together.  

Then, I took it a step further.  I wanted my students to see me as a person and not merely as their teacher.  I created a Powerpoint approach to sharing bits and pieces of our lives.

Discovering Our Reading Identities

I designed a presentation entitled My Life/Your Life: Everything We Need to Know About Us, along with a matching graphic organizer with the categories of information I was both sharing and seeking.  I explained to students that after I shared my information on a topic, they’d have a minute to share that same information about themselves on the graphic organizer.  The categories included My Hobbies, Something I Don’t Enjoy, My Favorite Book I’ve Ever Read, and How I Would Change the World, and others.  When I shared that I don’t enjoy shopping, for example, I invited students to write what they didn’t enjoy in their section of the graphic organizer. Once we finished, I was able to fill in the gaps from my letter coding and use the information to help predict books that my students would enjoy, based on their interests. 

Before I conferenced with them, though, I wanted to create a way for the entire class to share their reading identities with each other through a unique gallery walk.  I asked them to look through magazines for photos that caught their interest, or to print photos from a quick web surf to make a Reading Personality Collage.  They should have four or five pictures, and each photo should be linked to a potential reading interest.  For example, under a photo of birds, a student might write, “Since I enjoy birdwatching, I would enjoy reading nonfiction books or memoirs about bird watching excursions.”  Under a picture of a football player, a student might write, “I play football and would enjoy fiction books about football players or nonfiction books about my favorite NFL teams.”  This activity was designed to get them thinking about their reading identities and to be able to articulate who they were as readers with their peers.  After students shared these, I displayed them in the classroom to create an environment that proclaimed us all readers.  

By the second week of school, I was ready to begin conferencing with my students to help the most reluctant readers choose books based on their interests.  Each day, I opened the floor for students to offer book blessings.  A book blessing lasted a minute, and allowed students to share what they were reading, explain why they liked it, and predict who else in the class might like it after gaining a sense of the reading identities in our class from the gallery walk.  I modeled a book blessing by holding up John Steinbeck’s Travels with Charley: 

“I’m reading Travels with Charley by John Steinbeck…. again.  I love traveling.  Steinbeck shares stories of traveling in his camper across America with his dog, so I connect with him.  I think Paul would enjoy this book because he likes to travel, too.”  

By investing time at the beginning of the school year to get to know my students and to help them come to know each other as readers with unique reading identities, I engaged more deeply with students about their reading and how it was impacting their lives.  The most joyful moments came as I overheard students having conversations with each other about their reading.  The most gratifying moments come when former students, now grown adults, reach out to ask me what I’m reading right now and give me a book blessing recommendation they think I’d like.  

And they’re always right.

Closing

 My hope for a new school year is that teachers form lasting bonds with students and get to know them in a way that brings joy.  In 1950, Gladys Taber wrote that “a child that is confident that he or she is cherished is armed against almost anything life can bring.”  

Sharing a love of reading and taking a strong interest in their lives is one way we cherish our students.  

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