WISH: An interview with Barbara O'Connor

I was lucky enough to read a copy of Barbara O’Connor’s latest book Wish (out November 2016) last week.  What a wonderful surprise to open the mailbox and find an advanced reader copy.  Wish is the kind of read I was hoping it would be!  Wish is the kind of book I was hoping my friend would write.  Wish is the kind of book I can't wait to get into the hands of readers. 

If, like me, you are a Barbara O'Connor fan, you know Barbara's writing well.  You know that she invites a reader to live out a character's life through his or her story.  You know that she introduces supporting characters filled with angst and humor.  You know that she creates a setting full of allure and intrigue.  You know that she sprinkles her words with southern charm.  You know that she writes with a rhythm and simplicity that makes you stop in your tracks to ponder.  You know that her books leave a reader changed.

I think is was Socrates who said, “Be as you wish to seem.”  And, that's what I love about Barbara, she is what she seems.  She is a writer's writer.  

Wish is about Charlie, a girl with a special "wish" that she's been making every day since fourth grade (in the most unique ways).  Due to situations at home, Charlie is sent to live with her Aunt Bertha and Uncle Gus in the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina where day after day she continues making her "wish," hoping it will come true.  She befriends a boy named Howard Odom (and his family*) and as their relationship unfolds, they develop a special bond.  Charlie's heart melts when she discovers a stray dog she names Wishbone.  As Wish continues, Charlie learns the true meaning of family, friendship, and love.

In anticipation of Wish's release, Barbara and I had a conversation about her new book and her writing in general.  Here's a snippet of our conversation...  

Me:  What was your inspiration for writing Wish (without giving too much away)?  It seems like you dug deeply into some familial issues that seem all to familiar to many young (and old) people.

Barbara:  I was conducting a biography writing workshop with fifth graders in a school in Massachusetts.  The students interviewed a family member and used those answers to write creative nonfiction (a short biography).  One of the questions on the interview sheet was: What were your favorite interests or hobbies as a child?

A boy in the class had interviewed his grandmother and she answered that question: soccer, ballet and fighting.  Obviously, that struck me as quite interesting and stayed with me for a long time.

So when I got ready to write Charlie’s story, I knew I wanted to start with her filling out a “Getting to Know You” paper for her teacher and listing those three things as her favorite activities.  The rest of the story unfolded from there.

As for familial issues, I’ll spare you the details of my youth and save them for my therapist, but I'll quote the author Joan Bauer, who said: "The great thing about having a dysfunctional childhood is that it never stops giving.”

Me:  You have the uncanny ability to cause your readers to fall in love with the characters in your books.  When you "go after" a character, what do you keep in mind as you develop him or her?

Barbara:  It’s kind of hard to describe my process with characters other than to say I spend a lot of time with them in my head before I start writing, so that I know them through and through.  Dialogue is a biggie for me - the way I really get to know characters and then present them to the reader.  I try to stay so focused on the character that when the dialogue doesn’t ring true, I know it immediately.

I have a harder time with their physical appearance.  I don’t always SEE the character initially.  But I definitely HEAR the character.  So I have to make more of a conscious effort to figure that out and then describe the appearance of a character.

Me:  There's southern charm in your words.  The smells, the sounds, the thoughts... the sensory images you create for your readers are so strong.  What tools or strategies do you use as a writer to create strong images?  

Barbara:  This will probably sound a little hippie-dippie, but I try to get into a sort of zen-like state when I write and then immerse myself in the setting.  Having grown up in the South, I have many memories to draw on.  I try to dredge up those memories when I write and those memories are often sensory. 

Ironically, I have no sense of smell!  A little trivia for you.  Ha haI  But I know that smells are important so I always try to include them.  I rely on trusted readers/critique partners to ensure that I’ve gotten the smells correct.

Me:  What are you hoping your readers will discover about themselves as they read Wish?  What did you discover about yourself as you were writing?

Barbara:  I don’t know if I’d call it a discovery…but rather a reminder: that sometimes what we wish for is right there in front of us all the time….but we are often too busy wishing to notice.  Does that make sense?  The old adage, “Be careful what you wish for” also comes into play.  The main character of WISH, Charlie, was so busy wishing for something she didn’t have, that she didn’t notice all the good things she DID have.  And…if she had actually gotten what she THOUGHT she wanted, things wouldn’t have turned out so well for her.

And another old adage comes to mind: Take time to smell the roses.

Me:  Describe your writing process.  What would you say to a young writer (say, 4th grade) who has a story to tell? Someone once said, "There's a writer in all of us."   What would you say to a writer who has a story to tell, but is afraid to tell it?

First and foremost, I would say, “DON’T be afraid.” I always tell kids to never be afraid to write something that they think isn’t very good. Because they can always fix it.  But you can’t fix what you haven’t written. To me, a page full of not-so-great writing is way less daunting than a blank page.

Secondly, I like to remind young writers that each of them is an individual with a unique style and voice. I could give a whole room full of writers the same storyline, but the end result would be different for each one. So I always encourage young writers to embrace their own personalities which come through as style and voice in their writing. 

Me:  One of my favorite lines from Wish is, "Maybe the Odoms' hearts were so good that they didn't care that they lived in such a sad-looking house."  As you reread Wish, what are two or three of your favorite lines?

Barbara:  Some of my favorite lines are: 

“There she was over there on the other side of the table thinking I was an angel, and here I was on my side feeling about as far from an angel as anybody could be."

“Then Jackie came outside looking like Miss America, and I thought Burl was going to faint right there in the red dirt.”

“That night in bed, I laid on top of the cool sheets with Wishbone’s soft, warm body next to me. I thought about my broken family back in Raleigh and wondered if they were thinking about me, a ray of sunshine at the end of a long, sorry day.”

And I can't resist just this one more:  “But Bertha said, ‘You know, sometimes when you’ve had a bad day, eating grits makes you feel better.’”

Me: You know my fourth graders are going to love hearing Wish and are going to devour it on their own.  What would you tell a group of fourth graders about this book?

Barbara:  I’d tell them, “For Pete’s sake, read the dang thang.” LOL

Me: What are your wishes?

Barbara:  

• I wish for my family and friends to stay healthy and happy.
• I wish for readers to enjoy my books and be inspired to write their own.
• I wish cheesecake didn’t have so many calories.

• • • • • • • • • 

Note:  Bertha is one of my favorite character's in Wish.  

As I got to know her, I couldn't get my mom, Freda, out of my mind.  

Freda would have loved Bertha!  

Book Love - An Interview with Penny Kittle

My colleagues always ask me how I find the time to read professionally.  My answer is, "How can I not?"  It's what keeps me grounded... in learning, in current thinking, in the underpinnings that frame and enhance my beliefs as a teacher.

I often pull Harwayne, Miller, Graves, Fletcher, Ray, Rief, Fox, Tovani, Smith, Keene off my shelve (along with many other important readers and writers who challenge my thinking).  Whenever I need a push, a nudge, a regrounding, a kick in the pants... my old friends are there to greet me, challenge me, and move my thinking forward (or reenergize my core beliefs).

And, I'm so glad I have Penny Kittle on that list as well.  Her new book Book Love: Developing Depth, Stamina, and Passion in Adolescent Readers is a grand read.  In it, she encourages us to think of our students as readers for a lifetime.  Penny nudges us to help students develop the stamina and strategies they need to become readers who read because they want to read.  Using trust as the backbone of her work, Penny emphasizes the importance of becoming a reader who chooses to read and builds the capacity for students to become the kinds of readers who read with purpose and passion.

I am so glad that Penny agreed to let me interview her.  And, I'm glad Book Love is at my fingertips.  It's an important addition to our professional world.  Enjoy our conversation: 

First of all, your acknowledgment page is so endearing.  What was your inspiration for using the photo booth snapshots?

The acknowledgments page came about by accident.  My husband got that filmstrip photo booth strip from my mom laminated as a bookmark on a holiday years ago, and he's used it ever since.  I took a photo copy of it and pasted it in my notebook because I was writing about being five and there was such spirit there in those photos.  I wanted to remember that and write from that place--and my Winnie-the-Pooh stocking hat I'm wearing--I wore it everywhere.  I started writing next to the photos and then it became a place where I was listing all of the people that were helping me get Book Love to print.  Suddenly I just knew--it felt right to include it, since the introduction speaks of my falling in love with books as a small child.  But I wanted to write much more about every person's contribution and tried to, it just wouldn't fit.  No book is written alone--no book that I've written anyway.

In your acknowledgments, you mention both Don Murray and Don Graves.  What would you tell a teacher who asks about their work?

I had been reading books by Don Murray and Don Graves for most of my teaching life.  When my husband was offered a job here in New Hampshire, I remember telling him I'd move because of the University of New Hampshire and the possibility that I could meet the Dons--and Tom Newkirk, Jane Hansen, Linda Rief, Tom Romano.  The Dons wrote many of the most important books I've read about teaching writing.  They were first.  They are the foundation of the writing process teaching we all emulate.

Murray and Graves were best friends for more than 35 years--and spoke on the phone every day after Don Graves retired and moved to the White Mountains (where I live).  Murray created a writing workshop in freshman composition at UNH.  He held individual conferences with his students and showed them what he did as a writer himself (Murray won the Pulitzer Prize while a journalist in Boston).  Graves studied the way young children wrote--from drawings to words.  He had an office down the hall from Murray and the two often spoke about the possibilities of teaching the writing process to young writers.  When Graves wrote Writing: Teachers and Children at Work, it was Murray who helped him find his voice for the book.  That book revolutionized the teaching of writing and established Heinemann as a leader in educational publishing.  The Dons discovered so much together that has taught all of us.  But they also laughed a great deal and were together in the hardest times--Graves conducted the funeral service for Murray's daughter Lee, who died at 19, for example.  They shared their writing almost every day by email and continually pushed each other in writing and in thinking.

It is one of the great gifts in my life that I knew them both so well.  They helped me believe in myself as a writer and also helped in bringing my first book from my notebook to its finished form.  They always welcomed me in--as a writer and a friend.  There were huge shifts in thinking in education because of their work. I hope we never forget it.

In my book, Conferring: The Keystone of Reader’s Workshop, I write a lot about building stamina and strengthening endurance.  Reading Stamina is a huge issue in most classrooms today.  In Book Love you tackle the topic too.  How do you encourage the teachers you work with to move stamina to the forefront of their instruction?

I'm glad you brought up your wonderful book on conferring.  I love that book, Patrick. I've read it twice and bought it for many friends here.  You are a master in the art of workshop teaching.

For years I've been trying to understand stamina in reading in high school.  My students didn't have it.  They didn't practice reading, and they came to me often (much too often) having dodged difficult reading for years.  They Sparknoted their way through English class and waited for content teachers to give them the notes from the textbook, so they didn't read much at all.  One way I help teachers understand this problem is filming my students who share their experiences as readers.  I've also made movies to show what happens when we put idiosyncratic reading lives in a central place in a high school English classroom.  Students are so willing to challenge themselves.  They'll read more than we could have imagined.

I think most high school teachers would say they weren't ignoring stamina, but they believed it could be built by slowly reading hard texts with students.  And I think one kind of stamina is built that way--but it isn't to prepare a student for college reading.  College reading is lots of pages a week and students need to experience that volume before they get there.  Studying difficult texts most often does not build a reading life for a student, either.  None of us do something that is almost always hard enough.

I believe high school English has to have parallel tracks in reading--one track is slow and difficult and often dependent on guidance from the teacher through difficult texts--but the other track should be the opportunity for students to build stamina through finding books that interest and engage them, causing them to read a lot and read willingly.  This isn't casual reading.  It isn't something we can just recommend our students do or pay scant attention to in our teaching and hope that is enough.  We have to monitor their lives as readers and help students reach for more difficult texts they can comprehend and enjoy independently.  It is real work day after day, but the payoff is huge.

One of my favorite chapters is chapter four, “Opening Doors into Reading.”  Maybe it’s all the arches… maybe it’s because I’ve worked hard to develop my own classroom library.  

What do you do to nudge teachers to fill their classroom shelves with books?

Building classroom libraries is a passion of mine.  I make a lot of lists (with students) to recommend to teachers and then I book talk wonderful books everywhere I go.  When I guest teach in a classroom I almost always leave a book behind.  This year I have been building classroom libraries with content teachers.  We have ordered hundreds of books connected to science, math, social studies, marketing, etc.  Now we're booktalking those and kids are reading them.

The last thing I've done is establish a non-profit foundation (booklovefoundation.org) that will provide classroom libraries of 500 books to teachers who apply and are chosen to receive the books by the Board of Directors.  I have big dreams, but it is hard work to pull together.  We are still figuring out lists of books (I have some great helpers there) and shipping and soliciting donations, so it will be a challenge to get our first sets of books out this August as planned, but I'm determined.  I will post updates on Twitter.

Ahh… conferring.  What’s your favorite part of a reading conference?   As you confer, what runs through your mind?

Conferring is the best teaching I do.  It is a daily joy.  It is the opportunity to really listen to what a student is trying to say or what he thinks about a book and then just sharing in that thinking and figuring out how I can move the student a little farther.  As I'm conferring I'm always thinking two things, "Stop talking, Kittle--listen," and "What does this student need?"  Conferring keeps me on the edge because I can't anticipate what will come up and I sometimes don't know the answer--it pushes me as a teacher.  And as Katie Wood Ray said, "It is one of teaching's greatest joys."

I love the term “interdependent readers.”  You clearly have high expectations for learners.  How has your thinking continued to evolve around this idea since you finished writing Book Love?

I love this question... How has my thinking about readers continued to evolve since I sent Book Love to publication?  Right now I am in the midst of two projects in two different classrooms--mine and my colleague's (who teaches 6th grade at one of our elementary schools).  In my classrooms we called it the non-fiction Q3 challenge.  I brought in copies of non-fiction books--about 20 titles in all--and students previewed them and talked about them and gathered in small groups to figure out a title they wanted to read together.  Then I set them up like literature circles with time to create a schedule for reading and time to talk.  It has been marvelous to watch how it unfolds.  In one group they read about 75 pages in and two of the group members were miserable with the book, so they all agreed to change and start over. The students are dependent on each other in ways I hadn't seen yet this year.  It is exciting to be in my room on a book discussion day.

In 6th grade, my colleague got 40 copies of one title so she gave one to each student and just told them to read as far as they wanted to that night.  The next day she organized kids into groups based on where they were in the book and those groups created their own schedules for the rest of the reading.  As they've finished (at different times) they've explored projects they want to do in connection to the book and most are researching things they thought about in connection to the reading.  I love how in both cases how fast or slowly you read is not stopping students from enjoying the reading and learning with other students.

Lastly, we're on year three of challenging my district policy banning goodreads and other social networking sites that revolve around books.  My students have written some compelling letters and this year we're going to break through... I'm sure of it.  My students need connections to readers to feed them during the summer and after high school, interdependent in a larger community of readers.

What’s your greatest hope for the readers of Book Love?

My greatest hope for the readers of Book Love is that they will find ways to open up reading to students--to invite them into a relationship with books that will last for the rest of their lives.  Some of my readers are parents and I hope they will find ways to talk with their children about books beyond just what is required reading at school.  My greatest hope is that more young people will find themselves in books.

What are you most proud of as a reader and writer yourself?  As a teacher?

It's hard to answer this question, Patrick.  I feel blessed, not proud.  Blessed to be a teacher and to still be so inspired by the students I meet each year.  I love that I find books that teach me every month.  I find knew ways to see and understand because a writer had the courage to put it on paper.

As a writer, I just feel grateful that anyone reads what I write.  My writing has brought me wonderful friends and experiences I'll never forget.  I am continually humbled by how hard it is to write.  I am proud that I've been willing to send my words out into the world, though. It has never been easy.  Writing has taught me how to teach, and I know I'm a better teacher because I struggle beside my students.

What’s your current passion, both personally and professionally?

I am working on personal essays--although I'm not sure that's what they're called.  I've been reading Joan Didion and Eula Biss and John Jeremiah Sullivan and David Foster Wallace and studying how they make their essays work.  I've got quite a list in my notebook of big things I want to write about (none about education) and I'm slowly working my way through them in a rambling narrative essay form.  I've found some pretty interesting threads and some real surprises.  I don't have an audience, although I've shared one essay with four people and the others with my husband.  It's writing for me--and it is filled with risk.  I like it.  I feel free of deadlines and expectations.  Sometimes I write things I didn't know I knew.

Professionally, I've made improving my conferences with students a goal of mine this year.  I am filming conferences all the time and trying to learn from what I see and hear.  My students have been very patient.  Conferring is at the center of differentiation in a reading and writing workshop, so it is the right place for me to work.

Why read professionally?  Pick up Book Love or any other professional book and read... think about your own teaching, contemplate the changes that are occurring in education and make a decision about your core beliefs, think about ways to questions the status quo, talk to a friend, blog!  That's why I do it.  And, thank you Penny for helping us better make sense of this wonderful world we call teaching!

An interview with Debbie Miller -

It's hard to believe that it's been 10 years since Debbie Miller first wrote Reading with Meaning.  If you're like me, it quickly became your "go to" resource for thinking strategy instruction and developing understanding with your students.  If you're like me, your copy became dog-earred, sticky-noted, and well-loved.  If you're like me, you often sat with your tattered copy of Debbie's book on your lap as you taught, on your desk as you planned, or in your hands as you talked with fellow teachers.

And now, our profession is once again blessed because Debbie has written the second edition of Reading With Meaning.  In the second edition, she shares some of her recent thinking about comprehension instruction.  She shares new insights into the gradual release of responsibility and how to plan to develop student independence.  For Debbie, it's always been about intentionality and understanding.  Once again, we're taken into Debbie's teaching life... into the classroom experiences that made us all better teachers in the first place.

I've known Debbie for many years.  She's my colleague, and more importantly, my friend.  I couldn't wait to read the second edition and I was excited to spend a bit of time asking her about her latest endeavor... and to share it with others:

Patrick:  What prompted you to revisit and revise Reading with Meaning?

Debbie:  It was an email from Philippa, my editor at Stenhouse, that got me thinking—she asked if I would consider writing a second edition, and in the end, I said, "Yes!"

Patrick:  Writing a book is no easy task, "revisioning" a book is daunting.  What are you most proud of as a writer?

Debbie:  I'm most proud that I stuck with it, and did it!  I'd never considered myself as a writer and the first time around it took me quite a while to find my voice.  I kept trying to sound like what I thought I should sound like and it was getting me nowhere.  Finally, Philippa said to me, "Why don't you try writing the way you talk?

"Funny you should say that," I told her, "that's what I'm always saying to kids!"  And really—that one piece of advice made all the difference.  Once I learned that being me was enough, I got myself going and kept at it.  And sometimes I still can't believe it did...

Patrick:  Thousands of teachers read the first edition of Reading With Meaning and their teaching lives were forever changed.  What are some of the ways you hope this second edition will challenge a teacher's thinking?

Debbie:  I hope it will challenge teachers—as it did me—to think about what we've learned over the past ten years.  What makes sense still?  What have I learned about children, teaching, and learning over time?  I'm always asking the children I work with, "So what did you learn about yourself as a reader today?  What do you understand now that you didn't understand before?  How did you make yourself smarter today?"  

What if we as teachers asked the same kinds of questions—"What am I learning about myself as a teacher?  What do I understand now that I didn't understand before?  How am I making myself smarter?"

So what's new for me?  Instead of comprehension strategies being the organizing features of the curriculum, I see them as the essential tools children need to actively engage with content, construct meaning, and grow their understanding of big ideas in the world.  Comprehension strategies are the how—the specific processes learners flexibly use—to get smarter about big, important topics that are relevant to them and help them become powerful and thoughtful human beings. 

I've also been rethinking gradual release and its connection to agency—could too much modeling lead to conformity and compliance, taking away student energy, engagement, and motivation?

And the the planning documents I've included reflect new thinking—How can I plan so that each child receives a years worth of growth?  How can I do my best to ensure that no child falls through the cracks? 

Patrick:  When you visit classrooms to work with young readers, what brings you the greatest joy?

Debbie:  Walking into a classroom and getting to work with kids brings me so much joy (even when twenty or so teachers are watching)!  I love it when children understand that smart isn’t something they have, but something they get—that they have the power to make themselves smarter by putting forth effort and working hard.  It just doesn’t get better than that.

Patrick:  There's a lot of angst today because of the changes made by the Common Core State Standards, yet in this edition you talk openly and honestly about the positive changes they are bringing to classrooms.  What would you like teachers to recognize as positives about the CCSS?

Debbie:  Remember No Child Left Behind, where comprehension, phonics, phonemic awareness, fluency and vocabulary received equal importance?  The common core state standards changes all that—now higher-level comprehension work is emphasized for all children, even our youngest readers.  Reading, in the common core, is all about making meaning!  And thankfully, it focuses on results, rather than means, leaving room for teachers to determine how these goals should be reached and what additional strategies might be addressed.

If teachers haven't read The Key Considerations section of the common core—do it!  They'll feel better.  I promise. 

Patrick:  In Conferring: The Keystone of Writer's Workshop, I write about two questions that our friend, Randi Allison, once asked me... What are your guiding principles?  What are you willing to fight for?  As you were working on your second edition, what were you most looking forward to reiterating?  What message carries over most strongly from the first edition?

D:  I love children.  I believe in teachers.  And these are my most important words to all of my dear colleagues...

There are many effective ways to teach children and live our lives. No one has the patent on the truth.  Find yours.  Read.  Reflect.  Think about what you already know about good teaching and how it fits with new learning.  Read some more.  Think about the implications for your classroom.  Collaborate with colleagues.  Try new things and spend time defining your beliefs and aligning your practices.  Once you’ve found what’s true for you, stand up for what you know is right.  Live it every day and be confident and clear about why you believe as you do.  People will listen!

Patrick:  The new edition includes a focus on learning targets and assessments for learning.  How to you nudge the teachers with whom you work to look closely at the ways they are "assessing" thinking?

Debbie:  Assessing thinking is hard. But if we don’t, how will we know where children are and what they need?  How will they know?  Having clear learning targets, or goals, and matching assessments, are the best way I know for children and teachers to understand where they are going, where they are now, and what they need to do to close the gap.  Assessments for learning help ensure that no child falls through the cracks—we have tangible evidence (in addition to conferring, listening in, and observation) of where each child is and what they need to move forward.  It’s enormously helpful.

Patrick:  What else would you like someone reading this to know about you?

Debbie:  I’d like them to know that I’m every teacher—that I have the same wishes, hopes, and dreams for children as they do.  That some days I feel like I am amazing and other days I leave the classroom thinking I’ve lost my touch.  But this is teaching.  It’s not about perfect lessons.  Teaching and learning—real teaching and learning—is messy.  My new mantra?  What’s the worst that could happen?

We’ll never get smarter if we don’t try new things or imagine new possibilities for the children we work with.  I want to be smarter at the end of the day than I was at the beginning.  And I’m thinking the kids I work with will be smarter, too...

• • • 

By the way, I used BOTH editions last week to talk to my 4th graders about Determining What's Important... and how our thinking changes over time.  We looked at both copies of Debbie's book (mainly the back covers) and had an amazing conversation about how Debbie's thinking has changed.  Though inferring, my students were so clear about how important it is to revise your thinking and how "what's most important" can change, depending on your purpose.  Amazing!