Without connections, a book will be lost to us. My mistake was that I expected every student to make some sort of connection to our assigned readings. But that does not happen     in a real classroom with real students.

- Melissa Taylor, Liberty Middle School 

Reader Response & Reflective Writing

How does LAL assist teachers in helping students make the leap from decoding readers to fluent readers?

• by focusing on reader response and cognitive development;
• by linking reading response with reflective writing;
• by emphasizing writing for a particular audience and a particular purpose;
• by providing young writers with a ‘real world audience’ other than the classroom teacher.

What is reader response?

Reader response critical approach focuses on the reader’s experiences, his or her relationship with an author or a work of literature. Rather than the teacher interacting with the text and talking to the student about the text, reader response challenges the student to interact with the text and record memories, emotions, associations, and new ideas.

• Rather than asking “What is the book about?”, the teacher asks “What did the book make you think about?”
• Rather than asking “Who is your favorite character?”, the teacher asks “What strengths or weaknesses do you share with the character?”
• Rather than asking “Why asking what part of the book did you like best or least”, the teacher asks “why is this book important to you?”
• Rather than asking “What is the theme of this book?”, the teacher asks “What did you learn about yourself or your world that you didn’t realize before you read this book?”

What is reflective writing?

Reflective writing is a writer's expression of a personal experience. In the pre-writing stage, the writer looks back, as if over his or her shoulder, at a personal experience and thinks critically about how that experience might have influenced him or her. When writing a reflection paper about a work of literature, the individual moves back and forth between their personal experience and the text, linking both to his or her world knowledge. Reflective writing shows how an experience changed a person. See below the student written passages we received this year that successfully move between the text and personal experience:

Level 2 letter to Mike Lupica, author of Travel Team, written by Ciara from Utah:

I get discouraged and afraid a lot. This usually interferes with my training and performance. Danny is strong and full of grit. His attitude and situation had an effect on my perspective of gymnastics. His courage and determination inspired me. It made me realize that I can be a much stronger person and not let the daring routines on the beam scare me. It also taught me how to be more confident in competing against the mroe experienced gymnasts. And actually, they should be a motivator to me. If I want to be on a college gymnastics team, I have the ability to do it. I have to dedicate myself even more than I have before. With this new understanding, I knew I could do it.

Passage from a NJ Level 3 letter written to Amy Tan:

I was leaving my childhood town. . . . The night before the move, I spent a good three hours staring at the dull, brown cardboard boxes that had compressed my life's worth of clutter into neat cubes and thought about the life I was leaving behind. The one thing that was most prominent in my mind was how everything I had established and had strived to make my own in my old town would mean nothing in the new.

The first day of high school was a splash of cold water for me. I came home that afternoon and tried my best to put on an apthetic, stony expression so that my mother wouldn't find out that I had a horrible day. I didn't want her to find out because I thought that she would belittle my depression to an overblown teenage crisis. . . . I blew off my mother that day, not realizing that my one day struggle was the story of my mother's entire life. I didn't realize it until I read your novel, The Joy Luck Club, two years after the move.

How does reader response & reflective writing dovetail with standards recommended by NCTE and IRA?

Students will read a wide range of print and nonprint texts to build an understanding of texts, themselvs, and cultures in the United States and the world. 

• LAL asks students to select a work of literature—novel, nonfiction book, speech, essay, or poem—as the subject of their letter.  LAL challenges students to select a work of literature—novel, nonfiction book, speech, essay, or a poem—as the subject of their letter and then reflect on ways in which this work of literature has somehow changed or mirrored the reader’s life.

Students will apply a wide range of strategies to comprehend, interpret, evaluate, and appreciate texts.

• LAL challenges students to draw on their current or prior experiences in reflecting upon and writing about the work of literature; corresond rather than compiment; reflect rather than summarize.

Students will adjust their use of spoken, written, and visual language for a variety of audiences and purposes.

• LAL challenges students to write an informal letter to an author to express how reading the author's work changed their view of themselves or their world.

Students will apply knowledge of language structure and conventions.

• LAL challenges students to write their letters using supporting details and vivid descriptions so as to clearly communicate with the audience; to eliminate irrelevant details that do not contribute to the overall message of teh letter; to revise and proof-read their letters so as to avoid unnecessary repetition and grammatical errors.

Students will use a variety of technological and information resources to create and communciate knowledge.

• LAL challenges students to write their ideas using proper letter format; to present these letters when possible in typewritten documents.

Students will participate as knowledgeable, reflective, creative and critical members of libterac communities.

• LAL challenges students to form conclusions about the purpose or value of a written text in relation to their own lives and to share those ideas with others.

Students will use spoken, written, and visual language to accomplish their own purposes (learning, enjoyment, persuasion, exchange of information).

• LAL challenges students to express themselves using their own voices rather than imitating or modeling the voices of others.

More Teacher Feedback!

Kitty Drew, The Walker School,

GA writes:

My five year experience with your contest has been memorable, to say the least. My 'maiden voyage' in 2003 found me hastily assigning the letter, stuffing the results in envelopes and promptely forgetting all about it. Imagine my surprise in March when an email announced that my students had sweapt first, second and third place in my state. Energized by victory, I assigned the contest again in the fall of 2004 and was devastated to learn that not a single one of my students had placed. Still, win or lose, entering your contest is a valuable experience for any young reader. completion of the entry form is, in and of itself, an important lesson in functional literacy.

Jan Rose, Union School, 

NJ, writes:

Tiffany Majors of the Preuss School, CA, writes:

Like other English teachers, I rack my brain tryingn to think of innovative and subsantive ways to create that mystical transfer that we want to see occur in our classrooms. We want our love of al subject to blossom and grow into something beautiful in our students. Thank you for providing the seeds in the form of this contest. I believe these letters are amazing. I found out who is hurting from dysfunctional family relationships. I learned about how my students struggled to acclimate to America at a young age. I felt compassion surge in me as I discovered who had been bullied by others. . . .  My students took the assignment and ran with you. The fact that the students got to choose their own books to focus on increased their buy-in and gave them a stronger feeling of pride in what they wrote.

Allison Gaston from Orr Middle School, Las Vegas, writes: 

As an educator in an inner-city, at-risk school, I found that the contest had even more to offer than you at the Library of Congress may realize that you extended. I would like to share that with you. The majority of my students ener our classroom each day with challneges that far surpass what children should ever have to experience. Many of them face gang violence, fear, hunger, and a lack of other basic resources associated with living in poverty. For these students, books can be an amazing haven. Through working with the students, I saw how this contest really encouraged several of them to dig into themselvs and find the words to describe exactly how books provide that safe place of discovery. It was incredible to see their pride of self-accomplishment as they learned to communicate their feelings in these letters. 

Ginger Cromwell, Lamar High School, CO

So many ideas out there need considerable work by the teacher before they are viable in the classroom.  Not so this project.  The premise for this real world piece of writing invited us all to think together about what we've read, how it moved us, and why.  My students had to delve into themselves and discover what influenced them and then strive to articulate it.  I am excited by the results. 

Nancy Quintell, Pace Academy, GA, writes:

What a joyful experience this has been! As I read my students' letters, I kept thinking to myself that I am one lucky teacher. I was overwhelmed by my students' honest and heartfelt emotion. Sometimes I think I know a student pretty well, but then I read a letter that reveals a depth I had not seen previously.

Days teaching middle school students are fast-paced. There never seems to be enough time to just listen. Those letters gave me a chance to do just that, and I'm grateful. I'm inspired once again to keep them reading and writing.

Denise Doiron Acritelli, Livermore Falls, ME

Download the 36-page TEACHER'S GUIDE in Adobe, click here. This includes lesson plans adaptable for all three competition levels, writing samples, blackline masters, and assessment checklists!

To download the how-to-enter guidelines and the required entry coupon, please CLICK HERE. 

Contest writing is fun but the improvement in their extended responses and narrative essays for the ISAT is unmistakable. With so much to teach and so little time to accomplish it in, this contest is a blessing! I know the lessons we have been hunkering with over the last two weeks have challenged my students to the limit. I am proud of their efforts.

- Laura Burns, Bradley Central School

October's featured lesson:

Synthesize, Don't Summarize!

Directions: Read the passage below, then complete the activity that follows.

Writing a letter to an author may seem awkward. After all, the author knows nothing about you. You may at first be tempted to prove to the author that you read his or her book by summarizing what happened. But think about it. The author wrote the book. He or she already knows what the book is about. What the author doesn’t know is how the book affected you.

 ACTIVITY

Read each passage and determine if the writer is summarizing or synthesizing. For each passage that summarizes, suggest ways the author can weave reader-response details into the paragraph.

1.  I was enraged when Scout’s teacher told her that she wasn’t allowed to read anymore. I felt this way because reading is so valuable to me, and it’s a way of escaping from my troubles. Reading is so important, and this part of your story showed me that.  (to Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird)

2.  Night is a true story. Elie Weisel and his family were split up and transported from the Jewish ghetto which had been their town to Aushwitz. He and his father fought for freedom and survival. (to Eki Weisel, Night)

3.  I have never been to California, never seen the great golden valleys nor the verdant peach orchards or fields of burgeoning grapes. I have never moved from my small community, certainly never ridden across half the nation through cold rain and sweltering heat in an overloaded jalopy. I have never questioned the fact that there would be food, and plenty of it upon our table, and a house, all our own, above our heads. (to John Steinbeck, The Grapes of Wrath)

4.  Harry has strong ties to his family. He feels love and affection for them and always thinks about them. Harry is a boy with strength. He conquers all that comes his way.  When the evil sorcerer Voldemort is mentioned, Harry shudders at his name. (to J.K. Rowling)

GREAT TEACHING TIP!

We love cover letters. They tell us a little bit your you and your classroom. But we really loved the following cover letter because it was written by a student! Kudos to Mrs. Saldino for finding still another way to incorporate real world writing into this LAL program! The student-written cover letter follows:

Dear Letters About Literature,

This collection of letters, we promise, will impress you. We are Mrs. Saldino's Literature Class from South Brunswick, New Jersey. We have composed many thoughtful letters for this contest and learned much about our abilities to reach higher, talk about how authors inspirte us, and transfer our strong feelings onto paper along the way. We found out about this contest from our teacher, thought how difficult it would be, but soon realized how incredibly easy it was.

We know you will be receiving many letters this year from all across the nation, but we hope you will read these with open minds and think about them. Much improvemen has been made during this experience and is shown in our writing. This is not just a contest to us, though it seemed to be in the beginning. This was a brand new way for us to learn about these special books, our own writing styles, and ourselves.

Sincerely,

Tanushree L.

Our Teachers Write Great Letters, Too!

Below are two of the more lengthy cover letters teachers sent us. Both provide real insight to how LAL works in the classroom and both are testimony to the fact the LAL is much more than a writing contest. It is an approach to teaching reader response!

Dear Representatives of the Letters About Literature Contest:

It began in the fall of 2002 during my second year od teaching. Every communication ars teacher in the Liberty Public Schools latched onto a copy of Mosaic of Thought: Teaching Comprehension in a Reader's Workshop by Ellin Oliver Keene and Susan Zimmerman. We were drawn in by their conversational style, their practical classroom applications, their lessons from 'real' teachers. A few of us were even fortunate enough to attend one of Keene's workshops, and we were awed by her ability to connect to students from our own district to draw responses from them that rivaled the discussions in a college-level literature class.  Imagine third graders talking about the symbolic representaton of the kite in The Three Questions by Jon Muth as one eager boy thumbs through the pages to illustrate the points being made. We were amazed and concerned that we might not be able to achieve the same level of enlightenment and engagement in our classrooms.

We decided to start small, and we believed that our students could begin forming their mosaic of thought by discussing the connections that they made to the literture we were reding in class. Three things became apparent fairly quickly:

• students could not always discuss emotional connectons with the entire class;
• there was rarely time for students to write consistently about their connections in a nancie Atwell journal format; and
• a quick note on a post-it could never show the depths of students' connections.

Thus, superficial, hastily conceived connections seemed to abound, and as predicted, we were frustrated by a perceived lack of enlightenment and engagement in our classrooms. Connections went by the wayside.

And then came LAL

I began to realize that it is the connections that we make to literature tha tinspires us to keep reading and to remember a book long after we have finsiehd the final page. Our inferences, predictions, questions, and important favorite literary moments become the fabric of those connections. Without connections, a book will be lost to us. My mistake was that I expected every student to make some sort of connection to our assigned readings. But that does not happen in a real classroom with real students. Students must be given the opportunity to connect to the stories, poems, and novels that interest them and to express those connections in a meaningful way.

Last year, we began to re-examine our required writing pieces. Our seventh grade students were expected to write a literary analysis of symbolism and theme in The Giver by Lois Lowry. And although students enjoyed this writing task, they were not expressing their feelings and thoughts about literture as very few of them had original ideas about the symbolism and theme.  . . . The Letters About Literature contest offered students a chance to make the thoughtful, meaninful connections that our classroom discussiongs had been lacking for so long. I have been most impressed at the depths of my students' emotions and the variety of their experiences as they have shared their lives and ideas with a favorite author. I have enjoyed learning more about the the literature that my students love. And I am most excited that my students are publishing their writing in a way tha tgoes beyond seeing it on the walls of the classroom or the school hallways.

Their letters and this contest have such meaning for my students, and I am happy that I have been able to expose them to one avenue for uncovering their thoughts adn feelings about literature, for discussing the connections that really matter to them and that keep them reading. I am so proud that my students can connect to great books in such signficant and diverse ways. I do not question theri ability to engage in enlightened discussions anymore. Now, I expect it as I have witnessed their heightened level of analysis penetrate our discussions of class novels and stories.

Through the Letters About Literature contest, they have been given the freedom to create their own mosaics for understanding and appreciating literature. Thank you for providing me with the ability to guide them and learn with them.

- Melissa A. Taylor, 7th grade communication arts teacher, Liberty Middle School, Liberty, MO

Letters About Literature Selection Committee:

Tell me a story about yourself that connects you to a favorite book. What did the book cause you to think about and feel? How did the author tell the story that changed you forever? And so the 6^th grade at Union School wrote. They are a challenged group in many ways. Grade level teachers at Union School have encouraged their maturing process, but I was not sure what they would write. I am very pleased. No letters have been edited by me. They are as submitted.

This is the third year we have submitted Letters About Literature. A total of five students from Union School have been chosen as semi-finalists over the past two years. We have attended the reception at The Center for the Book at Rutgers University each year. It is a wonderful experience for the winners and their parents. They were also honored by our Board of Education and received special recognition at Union School. Last years’ winner, Andrew Menna has emerged as a more accomplished student this year. His parents were especially proud as they are both graduates of Rutgers. Morgan Carey has become much more confident as a result of the recognition.

While we hope to be recognized again this year, the whole process of learning to interact with a book has had a lasting impact. Students told me that they never realized that they were a part of the story. Even if two students wrote about the same book the lesson learned and the personal connection was unique. They said the skills acquired will help them with learning logs written daily in their reading class. They told me that they choose books differently. They say they are looking for personal connections from page 1.

At Union School we host one or more authors a year. Their books become part of the history of the Union School library and of our students. This year students have asked if they win, would they have an opportunity to meet an author at the reception. I told them that I would pose that question to you. What a great idea, and it came from several avid readers in our sixth grade as well as a parent of a semi-finalist winner last year.

Even with the coming of wonderful progressive technology at Union School, our library is still populated by kids reading on the big couch. Thank you for creating this enormous experience. We hope to hear from you in the spring.

--Jan Rose, Union School, NJ