Slice of Life March 17, 2023

Throughout the next two weeks of March, I thought I’d share some of my favorite books for pleasure and for instructional purposes. Today I’m sharing one of my favorite books that provides some awesome ways for students to engage with a text.

One of my favorite books that provides strategies for teaching literature is Texts and Lessons by Harvey “Smokey” Daniels and Nancy Steineke. I heard Harvey Daniels speak somewhere, but I can no longer remember where this happened, but I thought his ideas were fantastic. I have tons of professional books, and I should start gifting these to others, but it’s hard for me to part with books. They’re like fond memories I just don’t want to part with.

A few reasons I like this book is because it shares short-short stories that are easy to read and reread during a class period. It also provides engaging ways for students to dig into a text, one of the things the Common Core continually pushes.

One of my favorite stories from this collection is called “The Container” by Deb Olan Unferth. This story is included in chapter 7 which focuses on movement and critical thinking. Students create character interview cards, and basically role play various characters from the story, some of these characters are invented by the students as they do not really appear in the story. Students prepare their interview cards, and then one student will role play a character while the other student plays the reporter. Students then reverse roles. I personally love to have students up and moving around a classroom while thinking creatively and critically.

The story is fascinating and ambiguous. It’s a wide-open window for students to explore the various levels the story offers in just a couple of pages; perfect for a read aloud, too. The lesson closes with the students writing a short news article.

Another favorite is “The Wallet” by Andrew McCuaig. It’s featured in Chapter 8 which focuses on literary arguments. “The Wallet” action is centered on a small moment in time in which a woman is at a toll booth and the worker makes a perhaps “immoral” decision to help the woman. I don’t want to give too much away, but it provides a lot of discussion about unsettling gender-related behaviors. For this activity students prepare argumentative positions and refutations about the main character’s decisions. Students must argue both sides of their own positions by using evidence from the text to support their positions.

What’s really nice about this book is that when you learn the various strategies, you can apply them to other texts. If you’ve used this book in your own classroom, please let me know your thoughts. What are some of your favorite professional texts?