October 2024 - Margin Notes

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TRY THIS TOMORROW: READ THE WORD, READ THE WORLD

Developed by Facing History & Ourselves , “Read the Word, Read the World” encourages students to connect literature and real life. This resource encourages deep, reflective reading and begins by guiding students through a detailed examination of character development, conflict, and themes within a text. The second part, “Read the World,” allows students to connect the insights gained from their reading to real-world issues. These connections foster an understanding of a text’s relevance to their lives and current events.

This resource is not just about reading comprehension; it’s about building a bridge between literature and life. By integrating textual analysis with personal and societal reflection, students gain a holistic understanding of the material. The questions within also cultivate empathy, promote critical analysis, and foster a love for reading. So, I highly recommend that you try this tomorrow.

Read the Word – How it Works:

Discussion Questions: Students consider the conflicts faced by characters, whether internal, external, or both. They explore characters’ perspectives and compare them with others in the text.
Key Scenes: Students dive into pivotal scenes, analyzing character emotions, successes or failures, sources of conflict, and what characters learn about themselves and their world.
Themes: Students reflect on the overarching messages or big ideas in the text and how close-reading techniques help uncover these themes.

Read the World – How it Works:

Written Reflection and Sketch: Students choose from a set of reflective questions and respond in writing. They then create a quick sketch to represent their ideas visually, whether it be a symbol, a drawing, or a mix of words and images.

Reflective Questions Include:

What is the most valuable idea in this text, and why?
What lessons does this text teach about yourself, your community, or the world?
How does this text help you understand current global issues?

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AWAY BY MEGAN E. FREEMAN

Oct

“Anyone who says art can’t change the world never studied history.”

Megan E. Freeman’s Away is the much-anticipated companion to her bestselling novel Alone—you can check out the recommendation for Alone here. While Alone follows Maggie, left behind during the mass evacuation, Away centers on Ashanti, Teddy, Grandin, and Harmony—teens evacuated due to a mysterious contamination. As they adjust to life in emergency camps, they uncover a conspiracy that could explain the evacuation and work together to reveal the truth. The story’s slow build allows readers to sit with the tension and reflect on the complex situation alongside the characters.

Freeman uses various formats—verse, movie scripts, diaries, and letters—that give each character a distinct voice and offer fresh ways to experience the story. The shifting perspectives offer a deeper understanding of the mystery and background of each character. The movie script format is unique and may be a first experience for many readers, and it is also an art that plays a key role in the storyline.

A key theme is how the kids, not the adults, uncover the truth. While the adults accept what they’re told, the teens question everything and work together to expose the conspiracy. Their persistence shows how young people can challenge authority and uncover truths that others overlook.

Away is perfect for fans of Alone, but it also stands strong on its own. With its mix of mystery, friendship, and survival, it’s a must-read for young readers curious about resilience and the courage to seek the truth. This book is available for preorder now and will be hitting the shelves in February 2025.

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SUPPORTING READING COMPREHENSION WITH FIRST CHAPTER FRIDAYS

Oct

We love the practice of introducing texts, topics, authors, and genres to students by reading the first chapter aloud. First Chapter Fridays are a wonderful opportunity to end the week with reading joy. It’s also a strategy that, when planned with intention, can support most aspects of the curriculum. This post is part of a series that will introduce ideas for leveling up your First Chapter Fridays without diminishing its central purpose of engaging readers. Read the previous posts on Supporting Fluency, Vocabulary, and Word Study and Incorporating Graphic Texts.

Comprehension is “making meaning of what is viewed, read, or heard. Comprehension includes understanding what is expressed outright or implied as well as interpreting what is viewed, read, or heard by drawing on one’s knowledge and experiences. Comprehension may also involve application and critical examination of the message in terms of intent, rhetorical choices, and credibility.” (International Literacy Association)

Here are some suggestions for supporting reading comprehension with First Chapter Fridays:

While reading, stop and model your use of comprehension strategies.
Think aloud to make your metacognition visible.
Revisit portions of the text in a targeted comprehension mini-lesson. Possible areas of focus include summarizing key information orally or in writing, using questions to construct meaning, and identifying personal experiences and prior knowledge to make personal connections.
Explore the connection between background knowledge and comprehension by asking students to discuss in pairs or small groups what the author assumes they know.
Practice identifying relevant textual details by select a short passage and offer invitations to respond in discussion with partners.
Copy a section of the text for modelling and practicing annotation.
Introduce a related poem, song, image, video, etc. and discuss connections between the two texts.
Make and discuss predictions for how the plot will develop beyond chapter one.

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GUEST WRITER EMMA MURRAY RECOMMENDS KILLER HARVEST BY CHRISTOPHER KROVATIN

Oct

Killer Harvest is a fast-paced novel set during the spooky season that leads up to Halloween, making for a festive and fun read. The story follows a boy named Marcus who is forced to go on a fall weekend trip because of his misbehaviour in school. He meets two other classmates there who have also been labeled as “troubled youth”, Kris and Angie. The three are in a small town called Gentle Valley that is so perfect it doesn’t seem real. As they peruse the town’s Harvest Festival, they begin to feel unsettled by the corn maze. Marcus, Kris and Angie are sucked into a sinister town plot to prey on youth that genuinely left me unnerved – and maybe a little scared.

The three kids do not associate with each other at school but find themselves bonding in a meaningful way while talking about their past traumas. This dynamic introduces quickly a main theme of friendship. The friendship bond is not uncommon in books in the middle school level and for good reason. In Killer Harvest, friendship means working together with everyone’s strengths and loyalty. They are each given reasons to save themselves and forget about the other two and they never choose to. These nuances within friendships are introduced to young readers through a riveting plot.

Further, there is serious empathy for the students labeled as the “bad kids.” The misunderstood Marcus unloads his heavy burdens onto Kris and Angie as the author lets the reader into what the root of his behavioural issues are. Grief and the grieving process is an underlying theme in Killer Harvest. Marcus has been wracked with grief and has bothered him immensely and effected his life in all aspects. The author alludes to Marcus acting out because of his struggle with losing someone very close to him. Killer Harvest depicts “bad kids” in a kind light, reminding readers we can’t always tell just from observing the someone from the surface. Killer Harvest is a middle novel worthy of recommendation because of the sophisticated themes that lay within the thrilling story.

Emma Murray is a BEd student at the University of New Brunswick and appreciates the horror genre. She consumes books for every meal and wanders aimlessly in libraries and bookstores.

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FROM RESEARCH TO THE CLASSROOM: INTEGRATING READING AND WRITING INSTRUCTION

Oct

This is the first post in the series From Research to the Classroom, designed to bridge the gap between educational research and classroom practice. Each post will feature a key study and offer practical, research-backed strategies for immediate classroom use. Our aim is to provide educators with clear, actionable insights that translate the latest findings into effective teaching practices, directly supporting student learning and enhancing instruction

The Sciences of Reading and Writing Must Become More Fully Integrated by Steve Graham (Reading Research Quarterly, 2020)

“Science has greatly enhanced what we know about reading and writing. Drawing on this knowledge, researchers have proffered recommendations for how to teach these two literacy skills. Although such recommendations are aimed at closing the gap between research and practice, they often fail to take into account the reciprocal relation that exists between reading and writing. Writing and writing instruction improve students’ reading and vice versa.”

Summary

Steve Graham contends that the sciences of reading and writing are too narrowly focused on how to teach either reading or writing rather than how they can be used to support one another. He argues that recommendations for literacy instruction drawn from science often fail to take advantage of the reciprocal relationship that exist between reading and writing.

Graham provides theoretical support for reading and writing connections by drawing on three perspectives:

Shared Knowledge Theory: readers draw on knowledge while reading that overlaps with knowledge they draw on when writing and vice versa.
Rhetorical Relations Theory: the purpose of both reading and writing is communication and both processes involve a conversation between the reader and writer (the reader with the writer and the writer with the assumed reader).
Functional Theory: reading can be used to facilitate writing and vice versa and both can be used to facilitate learning.

Graham also presents empirical evidence of the impact of reading and writing connections by sharing the findings of two meta-analyses that confirm reading and writing are connected and mutually supportive:

Writing and Writing Instruction Improve Reading

A meta-analysis of 95 true and quasi-experiments exploring whether writing and writing instruction improve the reading performance of students in grades 1-12 revealed that reading comprehension is enhanced by:

writing about the material read
increasing the amount of time students spent writing their own texts (journal entries, self-selected topics, personal experiences, emails, etc.)
writing instruction on process, functions and features of text, paragraphs, and sentences

Reading and Reading Instruction Improve Writing

A meta-analysis of 92 studies designed to identify whether reading and reading instruction positively impact the writing performance of students in preschool to grade 12 concluded that writing performance is made better by:

increasing students’ interactions with texts
devoting more time to reading instruction, including phonological awareness, phonics, and reading comprehension

Conclusion

Although Graham is clear that he is not advocating that we abandon studying reading and writing separately, he is proposing that researchers contributing to the current discourse around the sciences of reading and writing place a greater emphasis on the relationship between reading and writing and how it can support students’ development as readers and writers.

Takeaways For the Classroom

Increase time for students to read and write.
Increase time spent on reading and writing instruction.
Explicitly identify for students the ways reading and writing processes are mutually supporting. For example:
- After a lesson on writing with clarity, remind students when they are reading independently to attend to the strategies they notice the writer using to make their ideas clear.
- Follow up a lesson on using text structures to support comprehension with an opportunity to practice using similar structures to organize their writing.
- Create lessons that combine reading and writing by having students notice and name the craft of a mentor text, discuss how it impacts their reading, and then experiment with the same techniques in their writing.
Encourage students to explore the conversation between reader and writer by reflecting on the intentional craft moves they made in their writing to engage their reader and by reading text through the lens of what it says and how it says it.
Integrate writing and reading by inviting students to write about their reading (notemaking, summaries, response, reflections, etc.)
Design larger units such as text sets and form, craft, and process studies that combine reading and writing.

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STUDENT WRITER BRIAN BEATTIE RECOMMENDS WANDER IN THE DARK BY JUMATA EMILL

Oct

The novel Wander in the Dark depicts a bonded brotherhood between two estranged half-brothers: Amir and Marcel Trudeau, both of African American descent. This brotherhood is tested throughout the novel when a tragic murder unfolds, leaving one of the brothers as a primary suspect, fueled not only by the circumstantial evidence presented but also by the color of his skin and the racial prejudices that ensue. To have any hope of clearing the brother’s name, both brothers must work together to investigate and uncover the truth, delving into the darker secrets behind the murder. Ultimately, they challenge not only their wits but also their strained relationship, as they confront unresolved truths and the people surrounding them.

Wander in the Dark by Jumata Emill does a brilliant job of crafting a mystery/thriller/drama while touching upon the relevant and pressing issue of systemic racism within the U.S. justice system. One immersive element of novels in this genre, for me, is how well the characters are crafted and presented. Kudos to Jumata Emill, because the time I spent biting my nails and feeling on edge for Amir and Marcel was astonishing. The novel shifts between Amir and Marcel in a first-person, informal style, which allows me to connect more deeply with the text and understand the emotional complexity of the conflicts that unfold.

Amir and Marcel are also great character foils for one another. Coming from different classes and privileges, it’s interesting to see how their similarities prevail as the novel progresses. It shows how the brothers relate to, see, and interact with their surroundings, ultimately shaping their development and roles throughout the story. This gives me, as a reader, a deeper understanding of their relationship as siblings, especially as conflicts arise throughout the text, leading to moments of unity between them.

The subplot layering is perfectly on point in this novel. Jumata Emill pulls the reader down different investigative paths that Amir and Marcel take, as they both aim to prove innocence amid the complexity surrounding the murder. With the rich investigative process and the clues building up throughout the novel, I never felt the story lagged or dragged on. While I didn’t agree with how some parts of the novel played out (no spoilers!), the significance was too minor to overshadow my overall enjoyment.

In conclusion, I would highly recommend this novel to any teenage or adult crime novel enthusiast who wants a relevant exploration of social and political issues in society. It addresses not only the murder mystery aspect but also the racial tension and prejudice. I also confidently recommend this novel to anyone interested in the legal field. This novel is similar but lighter than a John Grisham novel. So, if you are one of those individuals who struggle to stay immersed in reading but are genuinely interested in crime and the racial biases in modern-day legal systems, I truly recommend giving Wander in the Dark a read.

Brian Beattie is currently a student attending Fredericton High School in New Brunswick, Canada. He has a passion for writing, and often writes in his free time. He always has ideas to throw out onto a piece of paper, and never really thinks about trying for the marks aspect when it comes to his writing pieces. He feels that, as within sports, you only perform on the field as good as you performed at practice. So, he takes every opportunity when writing to better his skills.

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TRY THIS TOMORROW: A LIST OF THINGS BY THEIR RATEDNESS

Oct

John Green, author of many books such as The Anthropocene Reviewed and Turtles all the Way Down, has quite an active Twitter/X account. Recently, he posted about the fact that he has never created a PowerPoint on his own before…which is honestly quite surprising! However, as surprising as that was, it was the screen grab from the PowerPoint that caught my eye.

This would make for a fun QuickWrite: create a list of things you believe are either overrated or underrated.

Here is my list (views expressed are my own):

Elvis Presley – Overrated
Soccer – Overrated
Using your manners – Underrated
The effect a good book can have on a person – wildly underrated
Influencers – Overrated

Try this tomorrow!

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GUEST WRITER JULIA WRIGHT RECOMMENDS BAD MEDICINE BY CHRISTOPHER TWAIN

Oct

Historically, popular horror stories in books and films have drawn from Indigenous legends, such as curses and old burial grounds, without much attention to their origins. That makes it extra-refreshing to see so many young, Indigenous horror creators now reclaiming those legends and telling them in authentic, chilling ways.

Bad Medicine (Conundrum Press, 2023), the debut young-adult horror graphic novel by self-taught Cree writer and illustrator Christopher Twin, is an excellent example of this phenomenon. Long-listed for Canada Reads in 2024, Bad Medicine features a colorful retro art style, concise, accessible writing, and thought-provoking themes that make it an ideal introduction to horror for young adult readers.

A group of Cree teens have gathered around a bonfire on the banks of Loon River to swap scary stories. Each unfolds four separate tales that range from spirits that play pranks on fishermen, to shape-shifters, to real-life monsters on deserted highways and quiet-seeming homes. While the book is suitable for young adult readers, it contains depictions of violence, drug and alcohol use, and deals with missing and murdered Indigenous women. Both spooky and serious, the collection reflects broader themes about the value of life, and the importance of connecting with the land.

On the lighter side is the first tale in which a fisherman named Carl, who goes to visit his girlfriend in Cold Lake and encounters the mimiskiwa – tiny, childlike spirits who live by the river and demand an offering to keep them from playing tricks. Carl’s offering, however, doesn’t quite work the way he hopes.

More poignant and disturbing is Shawna’s story of Tracy Aloomse, a Cree girl who goes missing in a snowstorm while walking down the highway, after being stopped by a mysterious stranger in a truck. When she’s stolen away she meets another woman who appears as trapped as her – but what is she, really?

While the brightly-illustrated cover promising “Shapeshifters, Demons and Legends!” is intended to resemble retro comics like Tales from the Crypt or Vault of Horror, Twin takes horror seriously, and wants to impart a serious message about friendships, fishing, hunting, and spending time in community. This is most apparent in the final story about Derrick, who wanders off from his friends to protect his sister against demons who have taken hold of his family. In the end, he has to decide what his own path will be. (“Someday, he will find himself in a very similar position ….and he’ll have to choose …. He can keep the cycle going, or break it.”)

The final image of the teenagers walking each other home along the train tracks is a beautiful illustration of the risk inherent to being a young Indigenous person in Canada – and the perseverance, and resilience all teens have inside themselves. This is memorably summed up in the quote “still going…still going.”

Horror graphic novels can be more than just silly, spine-tingling entertainment: they can also be a vehicle to explore the things that teenagers might find scary in their own lives, and provide a controlled place to work through these anxieties. As Halloween approaches, Bad Medicine couldn’t be a better bet for teen horror fans seeking a smart, sensitive scare.

Julia Wright is a writer, teacher-in-training, and lifelong fan of spooky stories & films. She was born and raised on the foggy, haunted shores of the Bay of Fundy.

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TRY THIS TOMORROW: EXPLORING CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT WITH ABC BOXES

Oct

In her book, When Kids Can’t Read What Teachers Can Do, Kylene Beers introduces several strategies to support the exploration of character development, one of which is ABC Boxes. These ABC Boxes can be used as post-reading scaffolds, facilitating discussions on character growth throughout a story. Students who understand character development are better equipped to recognize themes, because character arcs often embody the central ideas and messages of a story. As characters face challenges, make decisions, and grow, their experiences and transformations illuminate the underlying themes. For instance, a character’s journey from isolation to connection can highlight themes of friendship and belonging. By analyzing how and why characters change, students can identify the broader messages the author is conveying.

ABC Boxes are a great way for supporting readers to notice and track how characters change. Students compare and contrast two characters by choosing words that describe the characters challenges, choices, experiences and transformations using different colored ink for each character. Beers illustrates this concept using an example from Lisa Fipps’s novel in verse, “Starfish,” where a student employed ABC Boxes to compare and contrast character development of two characters. Additionally, I used the blank template provided in the Appendices to complete my own comparative analysis of two characters from Fipps’s latest work, “And Then, Boom!”

Try this tomorrow!

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A THOUSAND HEARTBEATS BY KEIRA CASS

Oct

From the same author as The Selection series, A Thousand Heartbeats by Kiera Cass is a captivating story that combines romance, adventure, and thought-provoking themes. Set in a beautifully crafted world of royalty and rebellion, this novel explores the intertwining fates of two characters from very different walks of life—Annika, a princess, and Lennox, a soldier. These two characters set out on opposing missions to protect and serve their people, but when their paths cross, they can help but be drawn together.

Cass always does a great job of writing fantasy and romance in a way that is accessible and exciting for teenage readers, and still appropriate for their age group. This novel is no different and delves into complex themes like loyalty, identity, love, family and power struggles—perfect for analysis and engagement with students. Cass’s writing style is ideal for high school readers, even those who may be reluctant to pick up a book. Though this book is 500+ pages, the fantasy world building element is clear and easy to follow, and the plot moves quickly sure to engage all readers!

For students, A Thousand Heartbeats is more than just a love story. It’s an epic journey about finding one’s place in a world full of conflict, making it relatable for young readers navigating their own transitions into adulthood. Annika’s personal growth and Lennox’s moral dilemmas offer reflections on self-discovery and making tough choices—an experience many will be able to relate to. For teachers, the alternating viewpoints from each of the characters and the heroic journey they go on, will allow for deep thinking and deep discussions around narration, point-of-view and plot.

A Thousand Heartbeats is an excellent addition to a high school classroom library and is one I would recommend to any students looking for a fantasy or romance novel that is accessible and addicting! (Bonus points if they’ve read The Selection and loved it!)

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