Book Club Workshop:
Learning about language and literacy through culture

Taffy E. Raphael

Introduction
Book Club Workshop
Syllabus
References
Appendix

(To appear in: J. Many (Ed.). (forthcoming). The Literacy Educator's Handbook. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.)

The Re-Engaging Low-Achieving Readers project takes as its model the idea that to change literacy practices effectively within classrooms, we must begin with teachers’ professional development. Our ultimate goal is to create a literacy intervention that (a) is grounded in principles of conversation-based learning, (b) features literature study, (c) integrates language and literacy instruction (i.e., intradisciplinary) and integrates between those processes and the study of cultural practices (i.e., interdisciplinary), and (d) supports struggling readers’ language and literacy development within a literacy-rich and meaningful context. The instructional intervention, Book Club Plus, was designed to be developed collaboratively by university and school-based researchers who had shared experiences within such learning approaches and who could work together to create a curriculum targeted initially for third-grade students.

The project focuses on creating the collaborative team, developing the intervention, and then studying its impact on students’ literacy learning. In the first year, our research efforts concerned site development. We were building from an existing network of teachers who had been associated with the master’s degree program in literacy instruction at Michigan State University (MSU) (see CIERA Report 3–003), extending that network from the Lansing area to southeast Michigan. We were building our conceptual base on integrated instruction (see CIERA Report 2–001). We were engaging teachers from the southeast Michigan area, including but not limited to Oakland, Wayne, and Macomb counties, through a course that I developed for the master’s degree program in reading and language arts at Oakland University.

Now in the second year of our project (1998–99), we are examining how participation in conversation-based learning around themes related to cultural identity influenced (a) the curriculum development that teachers engaged in to create the units within the Book Club Plus intervention, (b) their understanding of themselves as cultural beings and literacy as a cultural practice, and (c) the inquiry stance they take to study their own literacy instructional practices. Further, we are extending site development efforts to include teachers working within Michigan’s major urban school district. In the third year of the study, 1999–2000, we have two goals. First, we will examine howparticipating in the units developed within the Book Club Plus model influences third-grade students’ literacy learning. Second, we will explore the implementation of the Book Club Plus model at younger grade levels (i.e., grades one and two) and study the developing teacher network as it expands across southeastern Michigan.

The current Book Club Plus CIERA research collaborative consists of two university faculty, six volunteers who took this course during the 1997–98 academic year, and two teachers who were members of the Literacy Circle from MSU (described below). Book Club Plus group members are: Susan Florio-Ruane, CIERA/MSU; Taffy E. Raphael, CIERA/Oakland University; Kathy Highfield and Amy Heitman, Holly Public Schools; Mari Anne George, Rochester Public Schools; Karen Eisele, Lansing Public Schools; Kristin Grattan, Mason Public Schools; Molly Reed, Bloomfield Hills Public Schools; Jennifer Szlachta, Davison Public Schools; and Marcella Kehus, Berkeley Public Schools.

In this report, I lay out the process of the course development at Oakland University and its relationship to the issues that Susan Florio-Ruane and I are addressing in our line of research. I also provide a syllabus with relevant readings and professional activities

The Book Club Workshop
This course grew out of a line of research about literature-based instruction that I began while a professor at Michigan State University and a line of research on developing teachers' understandings of culture, begun by Susan Florio-Ruane, my colleague and friend at MSU. Susan and I had offices next door to each other, and over the years became sounding boards for each other’s work. We shared an interest in conversation-based learning approaches and teachers’ professional development, applying our interest to our individual lines of research from 1991 through 1995. In 1995, we began to work together to explore how my research on Book Club (McMahon & Raphael, 1997; Goatley, Brock & Raphael, 1995; Raphael, Brock, & Wallace, 1998) and her research on the Future Teachers' Autobiography Club (Florio-Ruane, 1994; 1997; Florio-Ruane & deTar, 1995) could be connected. We currently codirect a project within the Center for the Improvement of Early Reading Achievement, and this course has resulted from our collaboration. In our work together, we began by "unpacking" challenges associated with literacy education today. We then created professional development contexts to support teachers' attempts to address these challenges, one of which is the Book Club Workshop course. Most recently, we have begun to explore how teachers who participated in these professional development contexts have changed their own beliefs about culture, literacy, and their sense of themselves as professionals; and how such changes have influenced the curriculum they create and related literacy instruction.

Challenges Facing Literacy Educators
In our individual and joint research, Susan and I had been concerned about three challenges to literacy educators today: (a) challenges that arise from the lack of connection between literacy in school and literacy in the world outside of school; (b) challenges in terms of conflicting ideas about what we should be teaching, often phrased as a question of balance; and (c) challenges that stem from the wide range of diversity among the students we teach .

Innovations Connecting Literacy In and Out of School.
Consider the first challenge—connecting school practice to actual reading experiences. We've all experienced reading something great and giving it to a friend or family member to read; or we've gotten a good book someone else has recommended. In subsequent conversations about the now-shared reading experience, I predict that never have we asked or been asked, "Who was the main character? What was the setting? What happened first?" Yet, in school literacy instruction, this is all too often the only talk students experience around stories they've read. Unfortunately, simply expecting teachers today to teach using conversation-based approaches (e.g., book clubs/literary circles, process writing) may be unrealistic. Innovations related to changing talk about text are complex, and teachers themselves often have not experienced these innovations either in their own role as students, or in their teacher preparation programs. Such innovations to school practice include:

• changes in textual materials (e.g., moving from commercially prepared short stories and text excerpts as a basis for instruction to using original literature);
• changes in curriculum organization (e.g., moving from isolated instruction in reading, writing, language, and subject matter to intra- and interdisciplinary teaching);
• changes in teachers’ roles (e.g., moving from teacher control over topics and turns to teachers assuming multiple roles, including direct teaching, modeling and scaffolding, facilitating, and participating); and
• changes in students’ roles wherein students are asked to assume more responsibilities for selecting books, initiating discussion topics, and evaluating their progress.

Burbules (1993) has written that status quo professional education practices encourage teachers to support learning that is dialogic in nature and aimed at framing and solving complex problems, but our professional education rarely provides teachers opportunities to experience directly such teaching and learning. At best, this creates challenges for today's teachers; at its worst, it leads to frustration and even disenchantment for teachers, students, administrators, and parents.

Balance in the Literacy Curriculum.
The second area where teachers face challenges relates to today's emphasis on the need for balance, as if balance were a single phenomenon (see Pearson & Raphael, in press). The problem is, balance isn't simply one-dimensional. There is balance in the content of what gets taught, such as balancing skill and strategy instruction with opportunities to engage in more authentic activities for learning to read, write, and talk about books. There is balance in teachers' and students' roles (see Raphael & Au, 1998), such that teachers, at times, are in control of topics and turns within the classroom (e.g., when teachers explicitly instruct, model, and scaffold); and at other times, students assume more of this control (e.g., when teachers take the role of facilitator, or participant). There's also a need to balance and integrate language and literacy experiences, where teachers connect students' reading, writing, and discussion opportunities through intradisciplinary and interdisciplinary units (Lipson, Valencia, Wixson, & Peters, 1993; Gavelek, Raphael, Biondo, & Wang, in press).

Diversity Between Teachers and Students and Among Students.
The third challenge stems from students' diversity, which plays out in two important ways: relationships among teachers and students, and curriculum foci for struggling readers.

First, most of the teachers with whom we work—and typically in the profession as a whole (National Center for Educational Statistics, 1995, cited in the New York Times Education Life, 1996)—are Euro-American, monolingual speakers of English, female, middle income, and in their twenties and thirties. They tend to be rather naive with respect to their own cultural practices and beliefs, and how these have influenced their own learning and their approaches to teaching. Many work with students who do not share their economic, racial, ethnic, or linguistic backgrounds. These teachers face challenges relating to their students, including these students’ literacy backgrounds and cultural experiences. In this case, culture—because of differences among teachers and students—may serve as a barrier to students’ school learning. In contrast, other teachers work with students who are so similar to themselves that culture becomes transparent—something that is not visible in their lives and thus not recognized or discussed. Instead, a false sense of sameness can pervade school interactions, doing little to prepare youngsters to live and work in an increasingly diverse society. Thus, one of our goals was to help teachers come to understand themselves as cultural beings, to understand literacy as cultural practice, and to extend these understandings to their curriculum development and instructional practices.

Second, diversity plays out in terms of students' academic achievements, especially for students who aren't reading at grade level. Because of our focus on struggling readers, we often lose sight of the importance of (a) children who may know how to read, but choose not to; and (b) struggling readers who are never asked to think critically about books that are age-appropriate. This doesn't mean we stop worrying about helping them build skills and strategies, but students who are in upper grade levels need to be asked to think critically about books written for their age levels, not just to practice decoding and other skills with texts more appropriate for early elementary students.

Helping Teachers Develop as Professional Literacy Educators.
Susan had created a Future Teachers' Autobiography Club, in which six young women preparing to become teachers engaged in six monthly discussions, each centered on one of six autobiographies Susan had selected. These autobiographies represented stories of white teachers who chose to work with students from diverse backgrounds (Paley's White Teacher; Rose's Lives on the Boundary), of immigrants who left their homelands voluntarily to seek new educational and financial opportunities (Hoffman's Lost in Translation; Conway's Road from Coorain), and immigrants or descendants of immigrants who were forced to leave their homeland due to slavery or economic deprivation (Rodriguez's Hunger of Memory; Angelou's I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings). As a result of this experience, students obtained a heightened awareness of themselves as cultural beings, but struggled to talk about race, culture, and gender. Susan was looking for a way to create a context in which she would have a more clearly defined role as instructor to facilitate discussions about hard-to-talk-about topics, while still emphasizing conversation-based learning.

I had been working with teachers in Book Club who were using dialogic methods to teach literacy, but who indicated their own discomfort due to their never having experienced book clubs themselves. Thus, I was looking for a substantive set of issues that teachers teaching with Book Club could read, write, and talk about in their own book clubs. The combination of the two lines of work seemed to us to be perfect. We began our joint research by studying what teachers felt they gained from participating in book clubs where the focus was on literacy, culture, and autobiography. We studied the impact this participation had on teachers’ own professional development and on the way they planned their curriculum and taught their students.

Why autobiography and why use the Book Club model? Jerri , one of our teacher participants, once said, "I was one of those people in the beginning who (thought) I had no culture. There’s nothing to me. I’ve had no experiences." Getting culture "on the table" for discussion was an important first step. One means for doing so is through engaging one another in dialogue about rich textual material (Vygotsky, 1978; Harré, 1984; Gavelek & Raphael, 1996). However, in our practice, which tends to emphasize social scientists' discussions of culture, this dialogue reflects a limited range of voices. By drawing on autobiographies, written by authors of diverse social, cultural, racial, and linguistic backgrounds, as well as representing both genders, we could bring a broader range of voices to the table for discussion. Jerri described the reading of autobiographies as providing "experiences, even though I haven’t (had them). It’s given me a better understanding for some of those things."

Another observation Jerri offered, after participating on the project for several months, was that "one of the most important (reasons for participating) for me was mostly as a teacher actually because it gave me a feeling for what the kids are trying to do in the classroom…Whenever I participate in things my kids do, it gives me a lot more insight as to what they’re trying to do…more ideas." Hannah, another teacher, noted that "for me it was an excellent, excellent experience because I use book clubs in my classroom. So it was terrific for me to be able to participate in something that I ask my students to participate in." Jerri's and Hannah's comments reflect our second focus—using autobiography with adult book clubs. They were members of the first course for practicing teachers that combined Susan's research on autobiography with my research on Book Club. Susan taught the course and I worked as a participant observer, primarily maintaining field notes, gathering students’ course assignments as artifacts for later study, and so forth. Two research assistants worked with us, also as participant observers, and one of these research assistants interviewed the teachers. We read the same six autobiographies Susan had used in the Future Teachers' Club, but we embedded their discussions within a model of instruction based on the students' Book Club Program (see Florio-Ruane, Raphael, Glazier, McVee, & Wallace, 1997).

After the course, the teachers wanted to stay together, so we formed the Literary Circle, a voluntary group. We initially met at Susan’s home, and everyone from the course participated. Since each of the authors covered had written at least one additional book, we decided to continue with the same group of authors. Over subsequent years (the next two, and continuing today), we moved our meetings from Susan’s home to a private room at a local coffee shop/book store. We take turns recommending a book we’ve read in advance that fits our theme of literacy and culture, broadening our text selection to include not only autobiography, but autobiographical fiction such as Amy Tan’s The Kitchen God’s Wife Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God, and books such as Peggy Orenstein’s School Girls that explore related issues—in this case, gender examined through a series of case studies.

In the master’s course I created when I moved from MSU to Oakland University, I decided to build on this autobiography and culture focus and created the Book Club Workshop, I a course in which teachers engage in three types of activities. First, I continued the autobiography book club tradition. We read four autobiographies in the course, each one over two nights. From this experience, teachers reported many of the same responses as did Hannah and Jerri. Second, I drew on Jane Hansen and Kathy Au’s insights on the importance of uncovering our own literacy histories(Au, 1997; Hansen, 1998). Each student developed three entries that related to how literacy had played roles in her own life. Third, each teacher created a Book Club unit she could use in her own teaching. For example, Karen Damphousse, a middle-school teacher, emphasizes cultural practices as students explore different cultures' traditions for coping with grief and death, centered around an author study of Cynthia Rylant and a key book, Missing May, but also drawing on poetry, essays, and other genres.

The course has been taught during each fall and winter semester since 1997. From this course has emerged a small group of teachers who have formed an adult book club to continue reading and discussing books that examine our storied lives, such as Robert Coles (1989) Call of Stories. How long we will continue or what direction we will take is yet to be determined. What its existence says to me is that there exists a need to have opportunities as professionals to examine our own lives and literacy practices, and to do so in a context that helps connect these experiences to our roles as teachers and learners. The syllabus that follows is based on the course I taught during the Fall 1998 semester.

A Syllabus for the Book Club Workshop:
Learning About Literacy and Culture Through Autobiography
Students can expect to develop a conceptual and practical grasp of literature-based instruction, including (a) social constructivism and reader response theory, (b) teacher as reader, (c) teacher's roles in literacy education, (d) literacy curriculum, (e) written response to literature, (f) literature discussion, (g) classroom organization and management, and (h) assessment; and a deeper understanding of literacy as a cultural practice and each of us as cultural beings.

Expectations for Participation:

1. Attend all classes and participate actively in class discussions and activities.

2. Come to class prepared. Do the assigned readings before class. Readings are needed as background. Come to class with questions, comments, or concerns from the readings. You are responsible for the information in the readings even if it is not covered in class.

3. Maintain a literature-response log, capturing your responses to the autobiographies. Your written responses are the basis for your sharing in literature discussions. Your log is to be turned in on the date indicated in the class calendar.

4. Consider your own literacy histories as you read about the lives of others. Develop at least three vignettes based on an artifact you have saved or can replicate to share in class. These vignettes serve as a basis for your Literacy History portfolio.

5. Ask for clarification about activities, projects, and lectures as needed.

Required Texts

Textbooks

McMahon, S. I., & Raphael, T. E. (with Goatley, V. J., & Pardo, L. S.). (1997). The Book Club connection: Literacy learning and classroom talk. New York: Teachers College Press.

Raphael, T. E., & Au, K. H. (1998). Literature-based instruction: Reshaping the curriculum. Norwood, MA: Christopher-Gordon Publishers.

Autobiographies/Autobiographical Fiction

Angelou, M. (1969). I know why the caged bird sings. New York: Bantam Books.

Conway, J. K. (1989). The Road from Coorain. New York: Vintage.

Tan, A. The Kitchen God's wife. New York: Ballantine Books.

Welty, E. One writer's beginning. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Optional Resource Materials

Raphael, T. E., Pardo, L. S., Highfield, K., & McMahon, S. I. (1997). Book Club: A literature-based curriculum. Andover, MA: Small Planet Communication. (A Teachers' Guide — see www.smplanet.com, or call 1-800-475-9486).

Raphael, T. E., & Hiebert, E. H. (1996). Creating an integrated approach to literacy instruction. Orlando, FL: Harcourt Brace College Publishers.

Course Overview:
Each class is divided into two parts: (a) curriculum content focusing on Book Club, culture, and literacy instruction; and (b) a Book Club thematic unit, focusing on culture and literacy through the genre of autobiography. Part A, the curriculum content, includes lectures/discussions on the Book Club program and literacy instruction. Part B is Book Club, during which we will read, write, and talk about a series of autobiographies, thematically related in terms of their focus on the immigrant experience, reflected across generations within families and in terms of the genre itself. For a weekly list of assignments, activities, and discussion topics, see Table 1.

Course Assignments/Evaluation: Grades derive from written assignments, discussion leadership, Book Club participation, and class participation. Because weekly assignments and papers relate to class discussions and participation, no late papers are accepted.

(1) Book Club Unit. Each participant will develop, teach, and evaluate a unit designed along the Book Club model, thematically-oriented, and based in quality literature. The unit assignments are divided into three parts (see Appendix A).

(2) Reading Log and Reflective Writing. For each of the books you are reading, you should write your reflections in a reading log to prepare for the book club discussions during class. Your reflections should include questions the text raises for you, personal responses to the text, connections among the books you are reading, connections between your experiences as a Book Club member and the teaching practices you are attempting, and so forth.

(3) Literacy History Portfolio. Three entries are required (see Appendix B for an example). Identify three areas of influence in your own literacy development. Talk with your family members, examine your "treasure boxes" as well as your own memories. In the past, students have examined early reading experiences, early writing experiences, family stories of literacy among parents and grandparents, holiday traditions within their family and related literacy activities, and so forth. For each entry, select or create a representative artifact or a set of artifacts. Then, write a one-page essay explaining its or their significance. Try to select, over the course, three different categories of entries to write about. You will have the opportunity to share each entry and hear others' during the course.

(4) Participation. Participation includes weekly attendance in class and active contributions during formal class sessions, participation during the adult book clubs; activities related to group work in unit construction; and participation during discussions related to sharing literacy histories.

References
Au, K. H. (1997). Schooling, literacy, and cultural diversity in research and personal experience. In P. L. Peterson & P. A. Neumann (Eds.), Learning from our lives: Women, research, and autobiography in education (pp. 71–90). New York: Teachers College Press.

Burbules, N. (1993). Dialogue in teaching: Theory and practice. New York: Teachers College Press.

Coles, R. (1989). Call of stories. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.

Florio-Ruane, S. (1994). The future teachers' autobiography club: Preparing educators to support literacy learning in culturally diverse classrooms. English Education, 26(1), 52–66.

Florio-Ruane, S. (1997). To tell a new story: Reinventing narratives of culture, identity, and education. Anthropology and Education Quarterly, 28, 152–162.

Florio-Ruane, S., & deTar, J. (1995). Conflict and consensus in teacher candidates' discussion of ethnic autobiography. English Education, 27(1), 11–39.

Florio-Ruane, S., Raphael, T. E., Glazier, J., McVee, M., & Wallace, S. (1997). Discovering culture in discussion of autobiographical literature: Transforming the education of literacy teachers. In C. K. Kinzer, K. A. Hinchman, & D. J. Leu (Eds.), Inquiries in literacy theory and practice: Forty-sixth yearbook of the National Reading Conference. Chicago: National Reading Conference.

Gavelek, J. R., & Raphael, T. E. (1996). Changing talk about text: New roles for teachers and students. Language Arts, 73(3), 182–192.

Gavelek, J. R., Raphael, T. E., Biondo, S. M., & Wang, D. (in press). Integrated literacy instruction. In M. Kamil, P. Mosenthal, P. D. Pearson, & R. Barr (Eds), Handbook of reading research (Vol. III). New York: Longman. (Also available as CIERA Report 2–001, Integrated Literacy Instruction: A Review of the Literature.)

Goatley, V. J., Brock, C. H., & Raphael, T. E. (1995). Diverse learners participating in regular education "Book Clubs." Reading Research Quarterly, 30(3), 352–380.

Hansen, J. (1998). When learners evaluate. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.

Harré, R. (1984). Personal being. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Lipson, M. Y., Valencia, S. W., Wixson, K. K., & Peters, C. W. (1993). Integration and thematic teaching: Integration to improve teaching and learning. Language Arts, 70, 252–263.

McMahon, S. I., & Raphael, T. E. (1997). The Book Club connection: Literacy learning and classroom talk. New York: Teachers College Press.

National Center for Educational Statistics. (1995, January 7, 1996). Female and far from diverse. In The New York Times Education Life, p. 22.

Pearson, P. D., & Raphael, T. E. (in press). Toward a more complex view of balance in the literacy curriculum. In L. Gambrell & L. Morrow (Eds.), Balanced literacy instruction. New York: Guilford Press.

Raphael, T. E., & Au, K. H. (Eds.). (1998). Literature-based instruction: Reshaping the curriculum. Norwood, MA: Christopher-Gordon Publishers.

Raphael, T. E., Brock, C. H., & Wallace, S. (1998). Encouraging quality peer talk with diverse students in mainstream classrooms: Learning from and with teachers. In J. R. Paratore & R. McCormack (Eds.), Peer talk in the classroom: Learning from research. Newark, DE: International Reading Association.

Raphael, T. E., & Hiebert, E. H. (1996). Creating an integrated approach to literacy instruction. Fort Worth, TX: Harcourt Brace College Publishers.

Vygotsky, L. S. (1978). Mind in society: The development of higher psychological processes. (M. Cole, V. John-Steiner, S. Scribner, E. Souberman, Trans.). Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Appendix A
Book Club Unit Assignment Guidelines
The Book Club Unit assignment needs development, discussion, and feedback from peers throughout the course. For that reason, I’ve laid out the following guidelines for you to prepare the unit over the semester. Each phase has a "due date" that indicates the date that we will spend some class time focused on your unit development.

On designated days in class, you will have 45 minutes to meet in grade level groups to share progress, provide feedback to each other, and explore questions you may be facing. In addition to the time you are spending discussing your units in class, you may wish to meet outside class as well. Thus, on the first day of grade level groups, please exchange phone numbers with the other members of your group.

Phase 1. Identifying Your Organizing Framework for Your Unit
There are several resources that can help you with identifying an organizing framework for your unit. In the textbooks, the chapters by Valencia & Wixson and by Peters & Wixson directly address the role and development of themes. In addition, the chapter by Highfield & Folkert provides an example of a thematic unit linked to history. In the optional books, there are several examples of units for grades 4–6 in Raphael, Pardo, Highfield, & McMahon (1997). There are examples in Chapter 2 and 3 of Raphael & Hiebert and a guide for planning in Chapter 10 of Raphael & Hiebert.

As Pardo (1997, Chapter 11; 1998, Chapter 10) suggests, literature selection is crucial. However, selecting literature is complicated regardless of grade level or experience teaching book club. Pardo lays out the range of ways that literature contributes to a Book Club unit, including a read aloud book, book club books, classroom library books, and resource books. Other chapters that may be useful are Sipe, Chapter 3, RA; Grattan, Chapter 13, MR; Harris, Chapter 2, RA). There are lists of books in the Raphael et al (1997) book that relate to suggested units for upper elementary grades that may help you think about the number of books you will need to identify. Hiebert describes selection issues for lower elementary grades in Chapter 9 of Raphael & Au.

Organize the books in terms of lists for read alouds, book club books, classroom library books, and related resource books.

Phase 2. Developing the Curricular Focus
In this phase, draw on the curriculum charts to help you select specific mini-lessons in each of four areas: (a) comprehension, (b) composition,(c) literary aspects, and (d) language conventions. Identify items from the subcategories listed for each main category, and if possible, link these to your school or district guidelines as well. The areas you identify should be relevant to your particular grade level, and should grow out of the particular literary texts you’ve selected for the unit.

Consider your selected texts and draft the mini-lesson sequence that would make sense for the unit. Think about the order of the lessons, how you would link to the literature read that day, and the nature of the reading log entries you might suggest to your students.

Many of the readings will help you identify and develop particular lessons, such as Sipe’s chapter on literary critique; Raphael & Au on the curriculum framework; the chapters on book club, reading, and writing in the McMahon & Raphael book; Denyer & Florio-Ruane on writing; Chapters 5–8 in Raphael & Hiebert.

Phase 3. Accountability Issues
In this phase your focus is on evaluating what your students have learned from the unit. Consider their learning in areas such as:
1. What they’ve learned about the thematic focus of the unit
2. Growth in language conventions, including talk about text
3. What they’ve learned about literary aspects
4. Evidence of comprehension

Related readings from Raphael & Au:
McMahon, Chapter 13; Peters and Wixson, Chapter 12; Bisesi et al., Chapter 11; Wong-Cam, Chapter 14

Related readings from McMahon & Raphael:
Bisesi & Raphael, Chapter 9; Folkert & Bean, Chapter 15.

Appendix B
Introduction to the Assignment Sample
In the past, students have used artifacts that varied from a grandmother's way of marking items in the freezer with symbols, because in her generation, women were not taught to read; a students' report on space travel and how it related to her desire to become a scientist in an era where women were nurses or teachers; a students' collection of stories written in first grade that her mother had saved; an early IQ test kept from kindergarten; and so forth.

The example below is based on a series of artifacts I have collected related to communications among members of my family. The communication artifacts I have saved include three letters my youngest brother, Dennis, sent me when I was away at camp; a series of letters that my father sent me, from the first letter sent while I was at camp, to letters sent to me while I was in college; cards my mom had sent to me while I was in college; my parents letters to each other during World War II; my brother Ralph's two sons’ cartoons or letters to me while they were at camp; an email from Dennis announcing the birth of his daughter, my first and only niece; and a fax from Dennis of our most recent addition to the family, my youngest nephew. The essay about these items follows.

ESSAY: ARTIFACT SET #1—Literacy History Entry #1: Letters in My Family
Letters have played a major role in my family. In fact, I think it's safe to say that without letters, my brothers and I would not be here, nor would my three nephews and niece. My mother and father met briefly at Wiebolts Department store sometime in 1943.

My father was an extremely shy man well-known for his reluctance to stand in line. Sometimes this served him well — family lore has it that he went down to buy bonds to support the war effort, and on his way decided to enlist in the Marines (which if you'd ever had the chance to meet my father would be immediately apparent as a major mis-match), but the lines for both the Marines and War Bond purchases were too long. Instead, the line for joining the Navy was quite short, so that's where he ended up, serving as payroll master on a destroyer in the South Pacific.

My mother was a buyer for Wiebolts, working in women's lingerie, when my father's brother-in-law introduced them. My mother is a very outgoing woman, at the time writing to many different military men around the world which was typical of young women's contribution to the war effort throughout World War II. When he was home for a brief leave, his brother-in-law took him in to meet my mother. She asked my father what he would be doing in town. He replied that he was busy that night. She thought he was an idiot. And that was ALMOST the end of that. Thank heaven for letters...

My father's brother-in-law asked my mom to write to him, convincing her he was a nice guy, lonely overseas, and that this was the least she could do. Over the next two years, they wrote. Interestingly, they both saved all of each other's letters, except the first one each had sent. I have their entire courtship in these letters, which my mom is now reading and taping commentary about what she remembers of that time in their lives. Letters are crucial in our family. I wouldn't be here without them.

My father encouraged us to write—and letters have continued to be one of the ways. I have my fathers letters to me from summer camp and from college. There aren't many but they're treasured. And recently, my mother just sent me three letters she had come across that my brother sent to me when I was at camp. These letters are crucial in providing irrefutable evidence that despite his suggestions that I was a horrible older sister who mistreated him, this was apparently not true.

Letters are infrequent today, replaced for many years by phone calls. But camp once again, as well as technology has actually brought a bit of a return. I treasure the occasional letter from camp, this time from my nephews—one a cartoon, the other more traditional. It was by email that I learned my youngest brother and wife were expecting their first child. It was also by email that I learned that I had a niece named Alex. It was by fax that I learned and saw the first picture of my nephew Sam. And most recently, I received my first letter from Alex, in scribble-writing, but hopefully the continuation of a long and cherished family literacy tradition. The written word changes, but it has no less impact on my family's lives.

Appendix C
Literary Response Activity

Describe "Cat and the Hat" activity using Book Club groups and responses as identified in Sipe (1998).

Appendix D
List of Books Read in Courses and Literary Circle
1995–98

Bibliography of Books [9/95–12/97]

From the Reading Culture in Autobiography Project, funded by the National Council of Teachers of English, co-directed by Susan Florio-Ruane, Michigan State University, and Taffy E. Raphael, Oakland University.

Angelou, Maya. (1969). I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings. New York: Bantam Books.

Angelou, Maya. (1974). Gathered Together In My Name. New York: Bantam Books.

Bateson, Mary C. (1990). Composing a Life. New York: Penguin Books.

Chang, Jung. (1991). Wild Swans. New York: Doubleday.

Chernin, Kim. (1994). In My Mother’s House. New York: Harper Perennial.

Conway, Jill Ker. (1990). The Road from Coorain. New York: Random House.

Conway, Jill Ker. (1994). True North. New York: Random House.

Hoffman, Eva. (1989). Lost in Translation. New York: Penguin Books.

Hoffman, Eva. (1993). Exit Into History. New York: Penguin Books.

Hurston, Zora Neale. (1937). Their Eyes Were Watching God. New York: Harper Perennial.

McBride, James. (1996). The Color of Water. New York: Riverhead Books.

McCourt, Frank. (1996). Angela’s Ashes. New York: Scribner.

Morrison, Toni. (1987). Song of Solomon. New York: Penguin Books.

Orenstein, Peggy. (1994). School Girls. New York: Doubleday.

Paley, Vivian G. (1979). White Teacher. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Paley, Vivian G. (1995). Kwanzaa and me: a teacher’s story. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Rodriguez, Richard. (1982). Hunger of Memory. New York: Bantam Books.

Rodriguez, Richard. (1992). Days of Obligation: An Argument with My Mexican Father. New York: Penguin Books.

Rose, Mike. (1989). Lives on the boundary. New York: The Free Press.

Rose, Mike. (1995). Possible Lives. New York: Houghton Mifflin.

Santiago, Esmeralda. (1993). When I Was Puerto Rican. New York: Vintage Books.

Tan, Amy. (1991). The Kitchen God’s Wife. New York: Ballantine Books.

Welty, Eudora. (1983). One Writer’s Beginning. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

TABLE 1: Book Club Workshop weekly course assignments, reading, & discussion topics

Week	Topics	Readings/Activities
1	Course Orientation: ...Book Club Framework ...Theoretical Basis	Introductions and Course Overview Book Club--Essays from Lois Ann Yamanaka's Wild Meat and the Bully Burgers
2	Theoretical Bases for Literature-Based Instruction: ...• Why Literature? ...• Response to Literature	Required Reading: ..McMahon & Raphael, Chapter 1, MR ..Sipe, Chapter 3, RA Book Club—The Cat in the Hat [please bring copy from your school or public library]
3	Framing the Curriculum: ...Themes, Genres and Topics	Required Reading: ..Valencia & Lipson, Chapter 5, RA ..Highfield & Folkert, Chapter 13, MR BOOK CLUB: Road from Coorain, part 1
4	The Curriculum for Literature Based Instruction: ...An Overview	Required Reading: ..Au & Raphael, Chapter 6, RA ..Highfield, Chapter 8, RA BOOK CLUB: Road from Coorain, part 2
...	BRING TO CLASS [SHARE/TURN IN):	Unit organizing theme & related literature
5	Book Club: Community Share	Required Reading: ..Raphael & Goatley, Chapter 2, MR
...	BRING TO CLASS TO SHARE:	Literacy History Portfolios Entry #1
6	Book Club: ...Supporting Reading and Reader Response	Required Reading: ..McMahon, Chapter 3, MR ..Brock & Gavelek, Chapter 4, RA BOOK CLUB: I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, part 1
7	Book Club: The Writing Component ...Sustained Writing Activity	Required Reading: ..Raphael & Boyd, Chapter 4, MR ..Denyer & Florio-Ruane, Chapter 7, RA BOOK CLUB: I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, part 2
...	BRING TO CLASS (SHARE/TURN IN):	Unit curricular areas to be taught & plan
8	Book Club Discussion Groups	Required Reading: ..McMahon, Chapter 5, MR (upper elementary) ...[OR] ..Scherer, Chapter 12, MR (early elementary) ...AND ..Grattan, Chapter 13, MR (grade 1)
...	BRING TO CLASS TO SHARE:	Literacy History Portfolios Entry #2
9	Literature Selection ...• Race and Literature Selection ...• Early Literacy Learners ...• Upper Elementary Grades	Required Reading: ..Harris, Chapter 2, RA ..Hiebert, Chapter 9, RA ..Pardo, Chapter 10, RA BOOK CLUB: Kitchen God's Wife, part 1
10	Assessment in Literature-Based Instruction: Part 1	Required Reading: ..Bisesi et al, Chapter 11, RA ..Bisesi & Raphael, Chapter 9, MR BOOK CLUB: Kitchen God's Wife, part 2
11	Assessment, Part 2 ...Tracking Progress through Portfolios	Required Reading: ..Wong-Cam, Chapter 14, RA ..McMahon, Chapter 13, RA
.	BRING TO CLASS TO SHARE:	Literacy History Portfolios Entry #3
12	Teacher observation for tracking students’ progress: ...The Role of Teacher Research	Required Reading: ..Pardo, Chapter 11 Select One ..Goatley (special education) in MR ..Brock (second language learners) in MR ..Boyd (high school students who struggle)in MR ..Scherer or Grattan (early elementary) in MR ..Wong-Cam (conferences/portfolios) in RA ..Highfield (upper elementary) in RA BOOK CLUB: Welty, part 1
.	BRING TO CLASS (SHARE/TURN IN):	Unit evaluation
13	Book Club from Students’ Perspectives	Required Reading: ..Vance, Ross, & Davis, Chapter 10, MR BOOK CLUB: Welty, part 2
...	...	READING LOGS DUE ...[Remember 5 point overview]
14	Final Book Club: ...The Future of Literature-Based Instruction	Essays 1 - 8: We will divide up the essays so that groups of 3 will read and present the issues in each one. Discussion will focus on themes that cut across the essays as well as diversity of opinions on the future of literature-based programs. Be prepared to connect what you have learned about Book Club to the issues each of the essayists raise.
...	...	LITERACY HISTORY PORTFOLIO DUE