Margin Notes

RETURNING TO READING IDENTITY AT THE START OF SECOND SEMESTER

Jan
29

Second semester has started for high school, and the beginning of any literacy course starts with identity, including who we are as readers, why we read, and how our reading lives shape the ways we make meaning in the world.

As teachers, sharing our own reading identities and making space for students to share theirs helps us gather important information. It helps us understand what students choose to read, what they avoid, and how they see themselves as readers. When teachers and students come to know each other as readers, conversations about texts, choice, and engagement become easier and more productive.

Over the past few years, we have shared several posts on Margin Notes that focus on making reading identities visible, both our own and our students. These are not new ideas, but they are practical practices you may want to return to at the beginning of second semester.

Making Our Reading Lives Visible: This earlier post explores simple and practical way teachers can make their own reading lives visible to students. Read the post here

Quickwrites to Reflect on Reading Identity: In this Try This Tomorrow post, quickwrites are used as a short, low-pressure way to learn how students see themselves as readers. Read the post here

Reading and Writing Timelines: This post looks at reading and writing timelines to surface patterns in students reading lives over time. It can be revisited as a brief activity or conversation starter rather than a full assignment or project. Read the post here

Reading Conferences: Three Things I Know About You: This post reframes reading conferences as opportunities to listen and notice as you come to know your students as readers. Read the post here

 

 

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GUEST WRITER MALKIT KAUR RECOMMENDS AFTER LIFE BY GAYLE FORMAN

Jan
27

What if you were given a second chance at life only to discover that the hardest part wasn’t coming back, but facing what your absence left behind? Author Gayle Forman takes this powerful question and turns it into a touching, unforgettable story in After Life, a story that readers will remember long after they finish the book.

Amber Crane is a kind and strong seventeen-year-old who dies in a hit-and-run accident. Seven years later, she suddenly returns, still the same age, while everyone else has grown older. Her younger sister is now also seventeen, her friends have moved on, and her family has been deeply changed by grief. Amber is thoughtful and brave but also confused and hurt as she faces how much has changed, as well as the truths about her past that surface when she returns. She learns that her boyfriend and best friend betrayed her, her mother struggles to accept her return, haunted by the fear of losing her all over again., and her father has found peace by forgiving the boy who caused the accident. Through all this, Amber begins to forgive others too and realizes that her second chance is not about reliving the past but it’s about healing old wounds and helping her loved ones find peace.

Gayle Forman, the award-winning author of If I Stay and Where She Went, often explores themes of love, loss, and resilience. Her stories connect deeply with young adult readers, offering both emotional depth and hope. In After Life, she again delves into grief and forgiveness, but with a fresh focus on what it means to find meaning after tragedy. Amber’s story reminds us that even after great loss, there is always hope, healing, and the chance to make things right. This story is more than just a page-turner: it’s a heartfelt reminder of the power of second chances.

Malkit Kaur is a Bachelor of Education student at UNB who believes that every story can teach a lesson and every learner has a voice that deserves to be heard. Malkit enjoys reading books, listening music and playing Badminton in her free time. She hopes to guide her students to discover their strengths through curiosity and creativity.

 

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TRY THIS TOMORROW: CELEBRATING MICRO-OCCASIONS

Jan
22

What I was reading:

This post is inspired by the NYTimes Learning Network student opinion piece titled What Little Victory Would You Like to Celebrate? by Natalie Proulx. The article argues that people should celebrate small, everyday accomplishments instead of only major milestones like birthdays or holidays. She explains this idea by sharing examples of “micro-occasions,” such as getting a new haircut or being pain-free, and suggests that recognizing these moments can make life feel more joyful and meaningful. Overall, the article encourages readers to rethink what is worth celebrating and to notice the good things that often get overlooked.

This text made me think of the TikTok trend of buying cake to celebrate the typically unrecognized accomplishments of friends. An example of this trend can be found here, here and here. This one is an example of a class doing the trend. The common theme among the videos is the worthy celebration of the simple accomplishments like surviving finals, drinking water daily or not hitting snooze.

How to try this tomorrow:

1.Quickwrite:

Quickwrites are a flexible way of inviting student thinking, building confidence, and preparing students for deeper reading, writing, and discussion. You can read more about them on our blog series here.

Choose one of the TikTok small wins videos from the examples linked above that best suits your students and view it together. Offer invitations to respond such as:

  • Write anything that comes to mind after viewing the text.
  • Write about the small wins you have had this year that may not typically be celebrated.
  • Write about whether you agree with the trend of celebrating all success, no matter the size.
  • Write about the wins from the video. Which one was most impressive?

Offer the opportunity to share thinking by summarizing, reading directly from the page, commenting on another perspective or listening.

Pre-Reading:

2. Background Knowledge: Cultural Celebrations vs. Personal Victories

Create a quick T-chart on the board:

Cultural Celebrations Personal Victories
birthdays finishing a project
holidays trying something new
graduations getting through a hard week

Complete the chart together to notice the difference between cultural celebrations and personal victories. The discussion along with the quickwrite and vocabulary, will prepare students for this distinction in the article.

Discuss:

  • Who decides when cultural celebrations happen?
  • Who decides when personal victories matter?
  • Which type happens more often in real life?

3. Vocabulary/Morphology

Look for tier 2 words to teach vocabulary needed for comprehension and opportunities for morphology.

In this article you may choose words like milestone, revelry, confine, micro-occasion or other words best suited for the students in front of you.

NYTimes – Little Victories – Vocabulary – Click the link to see models of vocabulary and morphology routines for these words.

4. Reading Task:

Introduce the 3-2-1 response. This is a flexible thinking tool that can be repeated with different texts and for different purposes. It might focus on comprehension, reflection, argument etc. The numbers stay the same, but the questions can change depending on the text and learning.

The goal of a 3–2–1 is to provide focus and to make that thinking visible.

3-2-1 Learning Reflection – here is an example of what the template could look like.

Read the text.

After reading, students complete the 3-2-1:

  • 3 key details the author wants you to know from the quickwrite or article
  • 2 micro-occasions you hope to celebrate
  • 1 milestone you are looking forward to

 5. Debrief:

  • Invite students to share a micro-occasion they have experienced or hope to experience this year.
  • Is celebrating small victories meaningful or unnecessary?
  • How can schools celebrate the small wins? What does this look like?

This lesson sets the tone for a new semester by modeling a routine of quickwrites, word study, mini-lessons, independent work and debriefing while focusing on positive celebrations and intentions. Try this tomorrow to start the semester with joy.

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GUEST WRITER JACOB LEBLANC RECOMMENDS WHEN WE RIDE BY REX OGLE

Jan
20

Do you, dear reader, have a forever friend? A friend who has been in your life for so long that you do not even remember when or how you became friends? “Friend” may not even be a strong enough word to express the love you have for them. Perhaps this friend is more like a sibling. Diego Benevides has a forever friend, a brother named Lawson, and he is selling drugs at their high school.

Reflecting on your forever friend, what would you do if you found out they were doing the same? Would you turn them in or allow them to continue to sell drugs to support their family? Rex Ogle’s When We Ride walks the tight rope of these considerations without fear.

The driving novel written in verse is unafraid to ask the tough questions of adolescence, confronting issues of drug and alcohol use with honesty and empathy for the real decisions teens face. While Diego is resistant to substance use because of his family history of addiction and a commitment to his academic future, the book puts forth a framework of how young people can talk about the selling and use of drugs around them.

When We Ride follows Diego as he navigates how to get Lawson out of the danger associated with the drug dealing racket. As Lawson moves from selling dime bags of marijuana to pills and hard drugs, Diego wrestles with the fact that to look out for his own future, he may have to leave Lawson in the past. While this conversation is introduced through the lens of drugs in the book, When We Ride is about so much more. It asks young readers who are ready for mature themes to consider the difficulties of adolescence and how growing apart from a friend is a grieving process that is not linear.

Rex Ogle’s book invites readers to find the balance between how much we value the present versus the future. How do we choose between friends that need us and the family that we need? How do we weigh the moral and legal implications of drug dealing against the necessity that drives and forces people to sell? If mature themes and these questions pique your interest, Rex Ogle’s When We Ride is the book for you.

Jacob LeBlanc is a student in the B.Ed program at University of New Brunswick. Born and raised in Fredericton along the Wolastoq, Jacob grew up in theatre where he would stuff his head in a book in between scenes. In his university life where he studied philosophy, Jacob developed a contentious relationship with books by viewing reading as work. While this work can take you to weird and wonderful places, he is working to get to these places through a love of reading. Jacob is learning to love reading again through young adult fiction, comics, and graphic novels!

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FROM RESEARCH TO THE CLASSROOM: EXPLICITLY TEACHING LISTENING

Jan
15

“Explicitly Teaching Listening in the ELA Curriculum: Why and How” (The English Journal, 2020)

“We may assume that listening comes naturally from the process of learning other things. However, research suggests that ‘the better one can listen, the more educated one can become, and the more educated one becomes, the better one can listen…Listening leads to education and education leads to listening’ (Rice and Burbules 2740). Unfortunately, we have not focused enough attention on listening as a distinct skill to be taught, learned, practiced, and assessed (Parker 2816). This skill develops and grows more complex as our thinking and learning become more complex—that is, we do not stop developing as listeners just as we never stop growing as writers and readers. Instruction must be ongoing and develop more complexity as students’ skills in this area increase.”

Summary

According to the author, “listening is the foundation of the other language arts and is fundamental to all learning” and is directly linked to reading comprehension and overall school success. As such, we should be explicitly teaching listening in the ELA classroom.

Alford identifies three realities that have led to a diminished focus on listening as part of the ELA curriculum:

  • Teaching the act of listening has been an ignored area of research.
  • ELA standards prioritize reading and writing.
  • These is a lack of resources available to support teaching listening.

Good listeners demonstrate three essential skills that we can teach, model, and practice as part of our ELA curriculum:

  1. They can summarize what they have heard and identify the most relevant information.
  2. They connect what they have heard to themselves, their prior learning, and other texts.
  3. They are able to visualize, which deepens their listening in a multimodal way.

Takeaways For the Classroom

There are several ways teachers can embed active listening and build communities that values listening:

  • Teach, assign, assess, and provide feedback on listening explicitly.
  • Make listening an active process.
  • Use wait time.
  • Avoid restating what your students say, which reduces their responsibility to listen to one another.
  • Encourage students to respond to one another’s ideas.
  • Establish listening guidelines early in the year and practice them frequently.
  • Model good listening.
  • Teach notetaking.
  • Create more opportunities for group and partner work.
  • Invite students to talk about what they see effective listeners doing.
  • Provide models for what positive discussions look like.
  • Check for understanding by asking students to rephrase what you have said.

Conclusion

“Listening is a skill to be explicitly taught, practiced, and assessed. It is a political act that, if done well, can foster a sense of agency in our students. When they know how to listen well, they can engage more richly in public debate, and it builds a conscious awareness of all they hear and see in our world. We have focused too narrowly on giving voice to our students, and we have forgotten to provide them with a listening ear.”

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GUEST WRITER BRYCEN SCHOFIELD RECOMMENDS THE SPIRIT BARES ITS TEETH BY ANDREW JOSEPH WHITE

Jan
13

Recipient of the Stonewall Honor in Young Adult Literature, Andrew Joseph White’s The Spirit Bares Its Teeth is a modern YA modern rendition of the classic Gothic thriller, filled with body horror, the monstrous, and provides extensive commentary on the experiences of queer and neurodivergent youth in society.

The novel follows Silas Bell, a visibly autistic and transgender youth in a prejudiced, fictional, and magical Victorian society. In avoiding an arranged marriage, he is diagnosed with a magic related illness and is sent to a sanitorium where he uncovers a sinister secret of the facility, a network of controlled disappearances. He works extensively to manage his mental and physical wellbeing, protect his peers and care for their medical needs, all while trying to uncover the sanitorium’s hidden agenda, or risk falling victim to it. By the end of the book, Silas will have to decide for themself what the weight of a single human life is.

To give an adequate content warning, one needs to look no further than the author’s introductory letter: “I will make this clear: The Spirit Bares Its Teeth contains transphobia, ableism, graphic violence, sexual assault, discussion of forced pregnancy and miscarriage, mentions of suicidal ideation, and extensive medical gore.” Therefore, this book should be avoided if any of these themes (especially when explicitly mentioned in detail during the story) would be triggering or uncomfortable to the reader.

However, it should also be said that the bloody body horror is inescapable in this narrative and is central to its themes of oppression and Othering. While graphic, it provides powerful commentary on the persisting struggles of neurodivergent youth, women, and the queer community throughout society. Titles such as The Spirit Bares Its Teeth are vital because they demand empathy and understanding for those who deserve it, but don’t always receive it.

 Brycen Schofield is a teacher candidate in the University of New Brunswick Education program, and an aspiring author. Literature is a huge part of his life, and he has grown to love all things classical. He is a fan of all things Gothic and Victorian.

 

 

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CRAFT STUDIO: THE TROUBLE WITH HEROES BY KATE MESSNER

Jan
08

What I was reading:

Kate Messner’s book The Trouble with Heroes follows Finn Connelly as he navigates challenges following the death of his dad. Finn is struggling in school, messing up with friends, and feeling lost. When he’s caught on camera knocking over a gravestone, he’s given a surprising deal: spend the summer climbing all 46 Adirondack High Peaks. The novel is largely in verse with a sprinkle of other formats. This particular poem caught my attention for the craft used to demonstrate what is left unsaid.

What Minh and Jesse Write in My Yearbook
(and What They Really Meant)Hey, Finn!
        (T’m only signing this not to be rude.)Remember when we got milkshakes after that track meet?
         (You only came along
        because your mom was working
        and you needed a ride.)Wish we could have hung out more.
         (I invited you over once.
        You made some weak excuse
        so I didn’t ask again.)
                                             ~ Minh

Thanks for being a cool friend.
         (Thanks for letting me copy your math.)
         Have a great summer!
        A leave for camp on Saturday
        and won’t give you a thought
        until fall.)
                                             ~Jesse

Craft moves I noticed:

  • Dual Voices: The “public” message vs. the “private” truth.
  • Punctuation/Spacing/Italics: The parentheses, spacing and use of italics separates the notes from the perceived truth.
  • Specific Details: The small details are very specific like the car ride, track etc. which make relationships feel real.
  • Tone Shift: The brutal honest notes are what Finn believes to be true and how he perceives the original notes. This says more about him than the people who signed the yearbook.

Invitations for writers:

  • Try writing a two-layer message: what you’d say out loud vs. what you’re really thinking.
  • Use punctuation choices (parentheses, spacing, italics) to show what you think is the true message.
  • Brainstorm a list of conversations where people say one thing and often mean another.
  • Write common yearbook phrases and what people could really mean. (Ex. Have a great summer! (aka I don’t really know you, so I have nothing personal to write).

 

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H IS FOR HOPE: CLIMATE CHANGE FROM A-Z BY ELIZABETH KOLBERT

Jan
06

H Is for Hope: Climate Change From A-Z is a collection of short essays written by Elizabeth Kolbert, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Field Notes from a Catastrophe: Man, Nature, and Climate Change; The Sixth Extinction. The 26 essays, ranging from a few words to a few pages, are organized alphabetically and are paired with Wesley Allsbrook’s stunning illustrations.

Kolbert sets the stage for the focus of the collection in the introduction: “Climate change resists narrative—and yet some account of what’s happening is needed. Millions of lives are at stake. And upward of a million species. And there are decisions to be made, even if it’s unclear who, exactly, will make them.”

Depending on the topic, the essays can be categorized as scientific and informative, historical and background knowledge, social commentary, or calls to action. For example, A is for Savante Arrhenius who developed the world’s first climate model; B is for Blah, Blah, Blah—a refence to Greta Thunberg’s famous speech; and C is for Capitalism, an explanation the costs of climate change.

Not only is this an eye-opening and informative collection of essays, it also holds many possibilities as a mentor text:

  • The clever structure can be used as inspiration for organizing shorter pieces of writing.
  • Each essay is beautifully written and offers many examples of craft moves.
  • Because the essays fall into a variety of categories, pieces from the collection can be grouped together as an example of writing in a variety of forms on a single theme or topic.
  • Many of the essays focus on scientific or technical topics and can be used as models of techniques for making complex concepts and ideas user-friendly.
  • The illustrations that accompany the essays are wonderful and can be used as a study of representation techniques or to explore how the illustrations support the text and vice versa.
  • A number of the illustrations present data and are excellent models of data visualization.

 

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