I See You, I Hear You (Part 2): How do students know we see and hear them as readers and writers?

Meghan Retallick contributed this post. It is the second part in a series. Click here for the first post.

My reflection around this question has grown in the last two months as a coaching cycle has developed into a full-scale action research project.  A few months ago, I began working with a high school social studies teacher to incorporate supports for struggling readers within in his 9th Grade Global Studies course.  We decided to try a push-in model of support by conferring with readers during the independent reading time he has incorporated into his class structure.  First, I cannot give him enough “props” for taking a risk three years ago and incorporating independent reading time into his classes.  Now all Global Studies teachers have used this model, so each freshman in our high school has this as a part of their Global Studies experience.  Our coaching goal is to refine this process and support students who are struggling with motivation, stamina, and engagement.

After reading Cathy Toll’s book on coaching, I decided that the opening conversation with students should take a similar approach as I get to know them as readers.  You can read my post from last month to find out what happened when I first introduced myself to students.  I do not have a daily relationship with them, so my questions must be ones that allow me to learn about who they are and direct our focus for conferring.  The two questions I opened with were:

• How do you view yourself as a reader?
• When you think about your success in reading, what gets in the way?

An amazing thing happened in the very first interview.  This student is one that has been talked about in teachers lounges as unmotivated, edgy, and sometimes defiant.  When I asked her these questions, she didn’t even bat an eye as she went into a detailed description about the differences for her as a reader outside of school vs. inside of school.  Her comments were living proof of all the research I’ve read about adolescent reading motivation.  Here was a student who has been written off by many tell me that her and her friends spend hours writing through an app, critiquing each other's work and publishing their work online.  She certainly sounded like a motivated writer to me!  

She shared her story in such a way that I could not capture in writing and do her justice, so she inspired me to take the next step in my conferring process--to audio record all my conversations with students.  This led to conversation after conversation of insights from students.  I still can’t believe how asking two simple questions opens the door to these conversations.

My work now is to put this together in a format to share with a large audience.  I was sharing my plan with a few other teachers from the high school and the assistant principal the other day.  The assistant principal asked me if most of the responses I heard from students were that they viewed themselves negatively as a reader.  I, surprisingly, have found that this is not the case.  Many students consider themselves to be okay readers if they are reading about something interesting to them.  What was clear to me from the interviews I’ve done is that many students don’t understand why they are reading what they are reading.  The purpose is unclear.  I was also surprised by the number of students that labeled themselves as lazy and unmotivated when it comes to school reading.  As one student said, “I know I could do more as my teacher tells me all the time.”  My response was, “What do you think is keeping you from doing more?”  This is the heart of what I would like to uncover with my continued interviews and research to find better ways to support both students and staff in increasing reading motivation.  

My biggest take-away from the initial start to this process is that two simple questions unlocked all of this thinking and further research.  In the first interview with students, those questions allow me to truly hear and see them as readers.  We can grow from that first meeting to set a goal and monitor their progress together.

As I continue this research, I can’t wait to see where it leads.  Look for more in my coming posts on how being culturally responsive fits into this process.

How do you show students that you see and hear them as readers and writers?