March 2026 - Margin Notes

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APRIL IS POETRY MONTH 2026

April is Poetry Month and Margin Notes will be featuring ideas for celebrating poetry this month…and all year long.

We’ve updated our Poetry Month Resource Round-Up. You can access it here. You will also find many poetry ideas in our Craft Studio and Try This Tomorrow posts and in the archives of A 30-Day Writing Habit.

I’ve been thinking a lot about these words from Susan Goldsmith Woolridge:

It’s impossible to teach anyone to write a poem. But we can set up the conditions in which poems are likely to happen. We can create a field in and around us that’s fertile territory for poems. Playing with words, we can get to the place where poems come from. We can write and make discoveries about who we are and who we might become…

I hope you and your students enjoy a month of joyful curiosity about words and where they might take us.

Happy Poetry Month!

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FROM RESEARCH TO THE CLASSROOM: READING MOTIVATION

Mar

“The Relationship Between Situated Reading Motivation and Perception of the Learning Environment for Adolescent Students” by Travis VanderVelden and Xornam Apedoe (The Journal of Adolescent and Adult Literacy, 2025)

“Reading motivation is defined in this study according to the consensus definitions put forward by Conradi et al. (2014) as ‘the drive to read resulting from a comprehensive set of an individual’s beliefs and attitudes toward, and goals for reading’ (p.154). Motivation to read has been shown to be an important predictor of reading performance and growth and there have been a variety of motivational interventions, specifically targeting reading motivation for adolescent students (McBreen and Savage 2021; Toste et al. 2020).”

Summary

In this article, VanderVelden and Apedoe make the link between reading achievement and motivation while encouraging a more contextualized and dynamic view of reading motivation. Because they consider motivation to be a function of the discipline and/or classroom where the reading event occurs, their research focuses on context-specific reading motivation. For this study, they define the learning environment as “everything from the physical layout of the classroom to the social-emotional components, such as teaching and learning practices, relationships between teachers and students, and the goals and values of the class.”

The authors acknowledge, however, that although the classroom environment provides important contexts for learning, adolescent readers bring with them unique identities, backgrounds, and reading habits that impact their reading habits and experiences. In their view, reading motivation is a characteristic of the reader and is acted upon by the text and context.

Two research questions guided their study:

To what extent does reading motivation vary across content areas?
To what extent does student perception of aspects of the learning environment influence situated reading motivation within different content areas?

They surveyed a sample of 1939 students at a large urban high school across four content areas: English, Social Science, Science, and Math. Motivation was measured by reading curiosity and reading involvement, and students’ perception of the learning environment was measured by student cohesiveness, teacher support, involvement, and investigation.

The results revealed clear differences between content areas and reading motivation. The authors theorize that this variation in motivation may stem from the different types of texts and purposes for reading students experience across subjects. They also revealed that the most impactful aspect of learning environment on motivation is investigation. The more perceived emphasis on problem-solving and inquiry, the more students felt individually motivated to read.

Takeaways For the Classroom

The results of this study reveal a direct relationship between classroom environment and motivation that has implications for classroom practice:

Frame texts as tools for solving problems or answering compelling questions.
Replace or supplement textbook reading with current authentic text from the discipline.
Develop text sets around thematic inquiries.
Integrate reading into authentic problem-solving scenarios by incorporating data infographics.

Conclusion

“The present findings show that in all content areas students are more motivated to read in a class when they perceive that the learning environment places more of an emphasis on investigation. This indicates that reading motivation is less affected by teachers and more significantly impacted by the nature of the class and the activities.

As students move into secondary education, reading becomes a crucial skill to succeed in most subjects, and simultaneously more nuanced and difficult to master. For many students who are unprepared to meet those reading demands, motivation is key to ensuring that they remain engaged.”

From Research to the Classroom 0 Comment

ADDRESS UNKNOWN BY KATHRINE KRESSMANN TAYLOR

Mar

Certain texts possess a rare economy of language, carrying an emotional and intellectual weight that far exceeds their page count. Kathrine Kressmann Taylor’s Address Unknown is exactly that kind of work.

What makes the most recently published edition increasingly special as an additional to the classroom library are the supplemental pieces that frame the narrative. In her introduction, Margot Livesey sets a powerful stage, noting that when the story was first published in 1938, it served as a “jolt” to an American public largely looking the other way. Livesey’s analysis highlights the confounding, timeless questions at the heart of the book: How do we know what we know? Why does a good person become a bad person? What power does a citizen have against the state?

The story itself unfolds entirely through letters between two friends and business partners: Max, a Jewish art dealer in San Francisco, and Martin, who has returned to Germany in 1932. While their initial tone is warm and familiar, the relationship shifts with the political climate. This gradual, and then sudden, erosion of loyalty demonstrates how easily individual identity can be consumed by a larger ideology. It is a hauntingly relevant lesson for young adults today, who may see these same patterns of normalization and polarization reflected in their own daily news.

The narrative concludes with an ending that is easy to miss at first, but impossible to forget once seen. This sense of unease is only deepened by the afterword, where the author’s son, Charles Douglas Taylor, reveals his mother’s real-world inspirations. By providing this historical record, he transforms a fictional exchange into a chilling account of actual events, offering students a touching yet sobering perspective on the author’s intent.

As a masterclass in the epistolary form, Address Unknown is an essential addition to high school libraries. It is a concise but profound case study in how ideology can reshape a soul, sparking the kind of critical thinking and debate that is vital in our increasingly polarized world.

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TRY THIS TOMORROW: WORDS WORKING TOGETHER

Mar

In last Thursday’s post, we explored how to use the New York Times’ What’s Going On in This Picture? to help students build sentences from the ground up. By starting with a “Who + Do” chart and expanding with details, students learn how to construct meaning.

But what happens when students encounter a complex sentence in their reading that they didn’t build themselves? To help them navigate this, teachers can turn to a routine from Nancy Lewis Hennessy’s The Reading Comprehension Blueprint.

While the previous routine focused on sentence construction, this script focuses on sentence deconstruction. It teaches students to ask specific questions to unlock the meaning of sentences they encounter in their texts.

The Routine: Words Working Together by Nancy Lewis Hennessy

Each word in a sentence has a job. Each is a building block of meaning. We have learned that words answer different questions about the sentence, such as who or what it is all about. Let’s review how these words can answer questions about the meaning of the sentence.

Let’s read this sentence from your text: ________________
Let’s find the words in the sentence that answer these questions (adapt questions to targeted sentence):
- Which word(s) answers the question who or what? ________________
- Which word(s) tells us what the who/what was doing? ________________
- Which word(s) tell us about the who or what?
  - What kind? ________________
  - How many? ________________
  - Which one? ________________
- Which words tell who did what (to whom)? ________________
- Which words tell you
  - When? ________________
  - Where? ________________
  - How? ________________
(Note: Partners each have a set of word cards and a structured organizer with questions.) These words all come from sentences in your text. Your job is to match the word with the question it answers. I will do one with you. The word ________________ answers the question ________________. Let’s try one together. The word ________________ answers the question ________________. It is your turn to match the rest of the word cards with the questions.
Let’s check our work. Listen or look as we review the completed organizer. (Complete orally or on whiteboard.)

This routine is the perfect follow-up to the Who + Do image practice. In the image routine, students learn that adding “how, when, and where” details makes their writing more precise. In the Teacher Syntax Script, they learn that those same details are the keys to comprehending what an author has written.

By teaching students to identify how phrases and clauses contribute to meaning, we give them a “way in” to complex text. Instead of getting stuck on a difficult sentence, they can systematically break it down into its functional parts and rebuild the meaning for themselves.

Hennessy, Nancy Lewis. The Reading Comprehension Blueprint: Helping Students Make Meaning from Text. Brookes Publishing, 2021.

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A MOON WITHOUT STARS BY CHANEL MILLER

Mar

A Moon Without Stars introduces the reader to Luna, a middle school student who knows exactly who she is; she is the quiet girl who has always had her best friend, Scott, by her side. But, as with all coming-of-age stories, her world is turned upside down when she enters a new friend group and has to make choices about who she is and who she wants to be.

In her author’s note, Miller captures the heart of the middle school experience: “I think we often overlook the daily trials of young people. But ask any adult if they remember middle school, and I you’ll realize they’re carrying memories that profoundly shaped their sense of self.” We can recall that exciting and achy time; enduring small humiliations, strengthening our perspectives, scavenging for bits of confidence, laughing uncontrollably, hurting from rejection, and wondering if who we were becoming was enough.”

This perfectly frames the story we see unfold for Luna. Her insecurities, her tentative steps toward confidence, and her shifting friendships feel deeply authentic and mirrors the kind of emotional landscape students navigate every day. This book is a perfect addition to all middle level bookshelves and especially for those grappling with changing friendships, questioning their identity or place within a peer group or experiencing any type of emotion turbulence that comes with growing up.

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TRY THIS TOMORROW: USING THE NEW YORK TIMES “WHAT’S GOING ON IN THIS PICTURE?” FOR SYNTAX PRACTICE

Mar

The New York Times feature What’s Going On in This Picture? is a simple way to help students notice and apply syntax. This quick routine moves students from observation to sentence building, sentence expanding, and sentence combining. Each step is followed by class discussion and sharing opportunities.

Here’s a version using this NYTimes image.

Step 1: Observe and Build a Who + Do Chart

Ask students to study the image silently first.

Give students a two-column organizer labeled:

Who (subject)
Do (verb/action)

WHO	DO
child in animal ears	lies across chairs
child in bird costume	sits upright
boy next to him	looks to the side
girl in front row	looks down
children	wear costumes

Step 2: Write Kernel Sentences

Students turn each row into a short, direct sentence.

The child lies across the chairs.
The child sits upright.
The boy looks to the side.
The girl looks down.
The children wear costumes.

Step 3: Expand with Adjectives and Adverbs

Now students add detail.

Ask: Which one? What kind? How many? How? When? Where?

The tired child lies across the metal chairs.
The serious child sits upright in a dark costume.
The curious boy looks to the side quietly.
The young girl looks down at her hands.
Several children wear colorful costumes.

Step 4: Combine Sentences

Students now combine related ideas using conjunctions or clauses. Offer combining stems: while, as, because, when, who is/who are

The tired child lies across the chairs while the serious child sits upright beside him.
Several children wear costumes as they sit in rows of chairs.
The boy looks to the side while the girl looks down at her hands.

Step 5: Create

Have students return to a paragraph they are currently drafting and revise two short sentences by expanding or combining them using today’s syntax moves.

Reading Transfer

When students build sentences themselves, they understand how meaning is constructed. Later, when they hit a long or complex sentence in a text, they have a way in. They can ask:

Who is this about?
What are they doing?
When, where, why, how?

Instead of getting stuck, they break the sentence apart and rebuild the meaning, just like they practiced with the image.

Writing Transfer

Writing complete subject–verb sentences
Adding precise detail
Combining ideas into more fluent sentences
Varying sentence structure intentionally

This lesson was inspired by William Van Cleave’s Syntax Matters: The Link Between Sentence Writing & Sentence Comprehending

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BROWNSTONE BY SAMUEL TEER & ILLUSTRATED BY MAR JULIA

Mar

In the graphic novel Brownstone, 14-year-old Almudena is suddenly dropped off to spend the summer with a father she has never met. While her mother is away on a dance tour, Almudena must live in a Brooklyn neighborhood where she feels like an outsider. She does not speak Spanish, and her father, Xavier, knows very little English and is focused on renovating a run-down brownstone.

The reader follows Almudena as she navigates a significant language barrier and struggles with her identity. She works through intense emotions of figuring out this new relationship with her dad and where she belongs. Throughout the summer, she encounters neighbors whose assumptions about her heritage make it difficult for her to earn their trust. The text also explores serious themes such as gentrification, racism, homophobia and the process of building a family within a community.

Along with the beautiful artwork, a notable feature is the bilingual dialogue; much of the Spanish is left untranslated, which allows the reader to experience the same sense of immersion and confusion as Almudena.

Though Brownstone doesn’t shy away from difficult themes, each moment is handled with care and optimism. Almudena’s journey is shaped by acts of kindness, the embrace of a community that shows up for her, and a growing sense of identity as she pieces together her past and imagines her future.

This is a heartfelt read for any student navigating teenage angst and figuring out who they are and where they fit.

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