Writing In A Book - Is Not A Sin

When I was 8, I made a significant life error.? I wrote on a football card.? At the time, I presumed football cards were worth less than baseball cards, so it didn’t matter.

More, I was excited.? All the numbers on the back of the card were like magic to me. Like a code was in them. So, I circled the highest numbers showing what I now know to be career best.s

What was more interesting about the card, and I circled it, was that the player was from Mississippi. Where I lived at the time. I mean, that had to be circled.? We were both from Mississippi.

The year was 1985. 20 years later I would realize the significance of writing on that card, essentially destroying it. There was one rookie from Mississippi in 1985. His name: Jerry Rice.

I’ve never forgiven myself.

In the same vein, as parents, we buy books for our toddlers and preschoolers.? We save books from their childhood.? Yet in some way, we are inclined to keep those books in pristine condition as a memento, somehow overlooking the fact that children 0-5 are going to rip them, bite them, chew on them, and ultimately “draw” in them.

This is only one of the places where children learn from a young age, “Don’t write in the book!!”

Without fail, every school year, one of my students is horrified to learn they can write in books.? Whatever the family value are at home, children have learned that it’s a sin to write in a book.?

On the contrary, twenty years down the line, we are writing in books as we work to obtain a degree or licensure for anything from automotive repair to hairdressing.?

It shouldn’t be surprising then that students scold me during my first read-aloud with annotations. “Mr. Stygles, you can write in a book.”?

I reply, “Why not? It’s my book. And, I’ve been writing in books for as long as I can remember.” (If you think the football card was bad, you should have seen my football books of all-pro players and yearly almanacs. That was before the Daily Racing Form.)

In my classroom, I make it clear students can write in “my” books. These are the books I purchase for independent reading, bought with the intent that they will be used, read, and marked in, with the loved ones nominated for replacement when necessary.

Students naturally resist. They cannot grasp the idea of writing in a book because by fifth grade, from other sources as well, that writing is a horrendous thing to do. I’m not about to argue with parents about their values. That’s not fair. I can only provide strategies and resources. Therefore, I ask students to seek their parent’s permission. I agree with not marking up library books. There’s a huge audience when it comes to library books. That’s all fine. Not every book needs to be written in. Not every book should be written in, nor is every book conducive to being written in. It’s all about function and purpose; knowing when. This is where post-it notes come into play. Post-its are great for self-monitoring, strategic reading, and reflection while reading - that doesn’t require writing in a book!

This is not the first time I’ve written about this topic. I’ve written about it before on the International Literacy Association’s ILA Today blog because I believe in writing in books.? In this particular piece, I discuss how annotations left in books help other readers sort out the content and/or give students the space to feel like they are in conversation with their peers. (Yes, I do acknowledge that some students don’t want their annotations to read, hence post-it notes as an option.)

One quote that always sticks in my mind, which I write about in I Hate Reading, paraphrased here from Fisher, Frey and Lapp, is that annotating is like using an external hard drive. The fact is, when I first meet my fifth graders, every year, almost unanimously, they feel like they are responsible for remembering everything in a book they read. This is one reason they admittedly avoid reading fiction, books over 100 pages, and assignments. I don’t blame them. Remembering everything in a book is a burden!

Annotations, that is, writing in a book is essential to me. For one, the annotations are the files in our external hard drives.

Now, I am perfectly aware, from students and leading educators, that writing on Post-it notes during pleasure reading (aesthetic reading) is heresy. Stopping to jot notes while getting lost in the story makes my students “hate” reading. I agree with them. For reading that is for passive enjoyment, for surface-level understanding. That’s why there must be a delineation between efferent and aesthetic reading. But there also needs to be an understanding that not all readers are the same. Some of us readers need to read with a higher and a pencil to gain that surface-level understanding, to obtain the characteristics a character, to monitor the conflicts, and to define the evidence of their themes during our pleasure reading because otherwise, we are going off task, or as my students say, “the page goes blank.”

Not all readers get it. Not all readers love reading. Not all readers need to act like avid readers. Instead, we all need to find a process that works for us and not be ashamed of it. If that means some students need to write in books, then why prohibit them? Why not encourage them and show them the various strategies that can be applied with the annotations or post-it notes as that external hard drive.?

A reason students hate reading is because often there are too many rules (vs. boundaries) of what reading has to be like. These are values ingrained in the lives of adult readers and are passed on to students as if that’s how it needs to be.?

If I’m funding my library, I am investing in students' reading processes. Teaching students to write in books (or post-its) may actually be the greater investment. As for my Jerry RIce card… that was an investment I never saw coming.