Taking Time

Sometimes a book just needs to go slow.

This is a contradiction in today’s world where everything moves at lightning speed, instant gratification or appeasement are the norms.

As I work with students, I see, more and more, the need to slow down. Yet this is a stark contrast to what they want: a book that has action, books that catch their attention right away and is interesting. Reading that can be done, right away, so they can move on to the plethora of attention-demanding aspects they must attend to.

As I have said before, and will continue to say, when students don’t know what they’re interested in, what makes a book interesting, or they want to be done, they find their way out of reading fast.

During a recent summer school session, I decided to show students how to find how a book could be interesting. The Underdogs of Upson Downs was the book I had in mind.

One beautiful aspect of “Upson Down” is how the story begins. Right off, we find out who the character is and where it takes place (Upson Downs, obviously – which is NOT a horseracing track, a wee disappointment for me). Within a hundred words or so, we quickly narrowed down to a sheep farm. (Not even a racing stable!)

Using the funnel described in I Hate Reading, students were able to identify the broader setting – the town – and the more specific setting, the sheep farm.? Presumably, there is more to the setting, which we will uncover in due course.

Simultaneously, we began to notice Annie. Craig Silvey makes it easy to see any, but we still have to decode a bit.

To begin with, we find out that Annie is short, 11, and has brown eyes and hair.? Students looked around at each other. They’re almost eleven. Some had brown eyes and brown hair. A few could be considered short, but I wasn’t saying that!

Next, we had to break down the way Silvey presents Annie’s attributes. Silvey presents them in opposition to other’s opinions about her.? We had to delineate that the actual character attributes are not the opinions held by others, which was a big step. The readers were more than happy to name off the opinions but had to re-read the sentences to see the distinction.? For example, the text says, people think Annie is different. We had to consider the opinion; that she may not be “different.”

For this, I had students place a bullet at each phrase or word that helped us recognize who Annie is. We uncovered the following:

· ? ? ? ? Though considered weird to others, she wears a tool belt (I bet the tool belt did a better job than a standard belt!)

· ? ? ? ? Annie likes having pockets to store things (no need to pick on people who wear cargo pants!)

· ? ? ? ? Annie is happy (A hook, why is she happy?)

· ? ? ? ? Annie cares deeply about others (Is this enough to establish that she is the hero?)

· ? ? ? ? She spends too much time by herself (The world today…?)

· ? ? ? ? Annie loves her dog (this is what makes the book interesting, the hook)

Honestly, what might be scoffed at is the fact that we spent 30 minutes on a single page.? This, on the surface, is utterly ridiculous. After all, it kills the joy of reading. It forces them to slow down when they just want to get lost in it. What is there to get lost in when a text is confusing other than just being lost? Instead, these maturing readers have a sense of character. They are putting this character together in their heads based on what they know.? They are learning to connect and like the character. And we're only on page 2.

Thinking about the lesson, I know there is no way we will not complete this book in the 6, 40-minute sessions we have left. And I won’t assign it. The students still need too much support. However, not one of the students flinched or showed signs of boredom. Quite the contrary. Each of them was actively engaged with annotations or coding, as they are referred to, in the professional text, I Hate Reading. They absorbed the information. They organized the information. They walked away relieved that reading wasn’t a burden, rather, that it made sense. They didn’t say it was boring or it wasn’t interesting. They were just happy they understood it enough to keep reading. As one said, “I kinda like this book.” There was no, “Oh, I have to read this again,” or “This book is so boring.” Instead, there was optimism – just optimism – that the book might be decent if we continue to take time and make sense of what the reading is. We will find out in a few days.

Not all books are interesting right away. A premise of good writing is to draw a reader in, not always captivate them right away.? Many times, confidence in reading is an affective factor that makes books interesting. Let’s face it, no reading is interesting when overwhelmed by content and complexity with no process to “figure things out.”

The idea behind this investment is not to end the book, it’s barely even to start it.? It wasn’t about drilling foundational skills. It wasn’t even about improving fluency skills, though they are desperately needed.? Rather, swimming upstream if you will, since students didn’t read very fast (but accurately and with no self-corrections), it was a fine time to read the text slowly to locate specific evidence within the text that would define the character and setting. Students took away some visualization of their reading, a contrast to what they said at the start of summer school, “the page just goes blank.”

In conclusion, the idea is to plant a seed so that students can carry forth an understanding of isolating the setting and the character when first starting a reading to uncover the avenues in which they can be interested in various texts. Who knows? As these readers gain more confidence, maybe they will complete the book of their own volition by the end of the forthcoming school year.