by Guest Blogger Dana Johansen, 2015 Literacy for All Conference Featured Speaker, Teacher, and Author
My reading workshop has transformed over the past five years- now it is digital. Have I tossed out students’ reading notebooks? No, of course not! Have I removed all the books in my classroom library and bought ebooks? No, students need printed books. Does a digital workshop mean that all my assignments are online? No. It’s a balance. My students have spiral reading notebooks and digital reading notebooks. They have a three-ring binder and an online folder. There is a harmonic balance of blending everything I hold dear (real books, fresh new chart paper, spiral notebooks and pencils) with technology that supports learning (Google Docs, KidsBlog, and Twitter).
My digital reading workshop is a blended-learning environment, which Catlin R. Tucker describes as a hybrid style of learning in which educators “combine traditional face-to-face instruction with an online component” (11). This teaching approach allows me to meet the needs of all my learners. I have found that it increases engagement, provides greater opportunities for individualized learning, and creates spaces for collaboration and participation. The Common Core State Standards call for students to read complex texts, identify literary elements, and read a variety of texts, both print-based and digital. My digital reading workshop helps me achieve these goals.
The following scene is a snapshot of what my digital reading workshop looks like in action. The purpose of this lesson is for my fifth grade students to transfer the strategy work they did with the digital text, Pixar’s La Luna, to the print-based text, My Ol’ Man by Patricia Polacco.
“I’m impressed by all the thinking we’ve been doing!” I say to my class. “We’ve been learning how to identify symbols in our reading. Yesterday, we talked about one strategy for noticing symbols. It was, “Noticing objects that are important to the characters.” If you look up here at our class chart, we created a list of the symbols we noticed in the short film, La Luna. So let’s see. Leah noticed that the little boy’s hat was important to him and Mira noticed that the broom was important to him. You can see that we created a long list of possible symbols in La Luna.”
“After we generated a list of ideas, you wrote on our blog. I was excited to read your posts about what these objects might symbolize. I noticed that some of you accessed the digital charts in your digital folders and reviewed what we talked about in class before writing your blog posts. Good strategy! Your posts revealed some thoughtful interpretations!”
“Today, we are going to think about La Luna some more and connect our strategy work about symbols to the book My Ol’ Man by Patricia Polacco. This will give us more practice today looking for symbols in texts and making connections between texts.”
After reading My Ol’ Man to the whole class, I ask my students to talk with their reading partners about the symbols they found. I also ask them to connect their interpretations about these symbols to those from La Luna. After students meet and talk, we come back as a whole class and discuss. Using a combination of digital texts and print-based texts helps my students learn to read across a variety of texts, use the strategies they’ve learned to identify the literary elements, and construct interpretations about what they’ve found.
Here are five ways that you can create a digital reading workshop experience in your classroom:
- Virtual Reading Logs– Having students use an online reading log or book list can save paper and time. I do not have my fifth graders log their pages each day but I do require them to keep a list of the books they’ve read. Each student has a Google Doc that is shared with me. Students cannot lose their list and can access it easily.
- Tweet Authors– Tweeting authors live during your reading lessons is a great way to connect your readers to the global community. Take a moment during a minilesson to ask students if they have any questions for the author and then tweet. I like to print out the authors’ answers and post them on a bulletin board in the classroom for students to reread throughout the year.
- Blogging– Creating a classroom blog provides an excellent space for students to collaborate and participate. It also improves readers’ writing skills. Grant Wiggins discusses the importance of creating authentic writing experiences for students. He says, “By introducing a real purpose, a real audience– hence, consequences– we get the feedback we desperately need to become good writers” (33). Blogging provides a real audience for our readers, and in turn, helps them become better writers.
- Classroom Charts– Posting pictures of your classroom charts to your classroom website, blog, or a shared Google Folder is a great resource for your students. No longer do you need to keep all those charts hanging in the classroom. Students can refer to them online. Plus, they can access them at home. This is a terrific way to make your workshop digital.
- Digital Bins– Creating a text set of digital texts is a great way for students to read across texts and use the strategies they’ve learned in class. Plus, it is really fun! Imagine creating a symbolism digital bin with two photographs, an advertisement, and a short film. Students can use the strategies they’ve been taught in class to identify symbols and construct interpretations. To create a digital bin and learn more about them, visit LitLearnAct@wordpress.com
Cherry-Paul, S. & Johansen, D. (2014). Teaching Interpretation: Using Text-Based Evidence to Construct Meaning. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.
Richardson, W. (2006). Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts, and other Powerful Tools for Classrooms. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Tucker, C. R. (2012). Blended Learning in grades 4-12: Leveraging the Power of Technology to Create Student-Centered Classrooms. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin.
Wiggins, G. (2009). Real-World Writing: Making Purpose and Audience Matter. English Journal, 98(2), 29–37.
Dana has taught elementary and middle school for fourteen years. She currently teaches fifth grade in Connecticut and is earning her doctorate in Curriculum and Teaching at Teachers College, Columbia University. Dedicated to the ever-expanding applications of technology in the classroom, Dana is a literacy consultant who presents on Flipped Learning, the Digital Reading Workshop, and STEM in the English Language Arts classroom. Passionate about this work, her first book, Teaching Interpretation: Using Text-Based Evidence to Construct Meaning, co-authored with Sonja Cherry-Paul, helps educators use technology in exciting new ways to teach students how to interpret the literary elements and do close reading.
Follow Dana on Twitter @LitLearnAct or visit her at LitLearnAct@wordpress.com
Dana’s Literacy for All conference sessions include:
- Digital Bins: Creating Digital Text Sets (Grades 3-8)
- Power Blogging: Strengthening Students’ Reading Responses, Independent Writing, and Book Clubs (Grades 3–8)