Response to Ariel Sacks

Wow! Ariel Sacks' Whole Novels for the Whole Class has truly inspired me. I have underlined and bookmarked countless passages and strategies that I want to bring into my reading curriculum. Although, this novel focuses mainly on the strategies that can be used for a whole class novel I found some answers to many of my questions about tracking independent reading and holding students accountable. I also found the student-centered approach to reading whole class novels to be practical in the context of my own classroom.
Last year, I struggled to teach my students how to truly analyze a text. Despite the modeling and think clouds that I conducted  I would become frustrated when time after time I received summary responses. Sacks talks about this in her text and I realize now that I neglected to teach my students how to "distinguish their own literal, inferential, and critical responses to a story" (Sacks, 2014, p.70).  Sacks provides lesson plans that demonstrate how to teach students this skill through modeling with a n oral story then, students practice this throughout the course of the year with sticky note annotations. I have been struggling with ways to hold my students accountable for their reading and this strategy does this for students in an effective way. Sacks describes the types of annotations that she expects of her students when they read and provides detailed instructions for each type. I love the idea of using this to track my students understanding of a text while also holding students accountable for reading outside of class. Sacks emphasizes the importance of setting high expectations for students by setting a reading schedule, daily page minimums, and daily homework sticky notes. This framework has helped guide my thinking as I move forward in finding ways to hold my students accountable for independent reading outside of class and ways in which I can make reading a priority in a restrictive environment.
One of my favorite strategies that Sacks uses to increase student buy in of a whole class novel is a novel ritual. She states, "By personally handing out a book bag to each student, I send a message that I believe each of them can do this and that I'm interested and invested in each one of their journeys" (Sacks, 2014, p.181). I think that this idea is brilliant and a great way to set expectations for the whole class novel for both students and their parents. Sacks lays out 5 dimensions for selecting a whole class novel that meets the needs of all students, but in the context of my school the book room is very limited in terms of young adult texts. However, she has challenged me to get into the practice of  analyzing a text using the five dimensions in order to best support my students reading.

References

Sacks, A. (2014). Whole novels for the whole class: A student-centered approach. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.