Yes—two things can be true at the same time. Thanks for this reminder.And for the links, which I will check out. I’m drafting a piece called All the Broken Places, and I really appreciate how you are out there with your repair kit trying your best to fix them.
Have there been a lot of blanket statements about doseage? I think the criticism of the lack of focus on age is valid (are we talking picture books with 1st graders or...?) But generally the dosage argument I've seen is "more than none." The discussions I recall were more like "we don't know the ideal doseage exactly" as well as discussions about opportunity cost. Of course I don't see everything.
This is a beautifully written and thoughtful piece and I want to push back partially on the main premise. Sharp takes should be okay when they are correct. I think the "sharp takes" around whole books have been that "students should read whole books," and that it is not acceptable for students to read no books. The "how" of this is complex of course, as you illustrate.
Some things deserve sharp criticism - I think we know enough on how to teach novels to give a full-throttled recommendation that full novels should be taught. And likewise, if there are literacy leaders who are kind of hemming and hawing about whether excerpt-only curriculum are reasonable - that deserves loud push-back.
We should be careful coming to our opinions, and nuance is good. But messages can get lost in nuance (as you also mention). Some things are important enough to be loud about.
I always welcome pushback! Thank you. I think some would ask for your hard evidence for this: "I think the 'sharp takes' around whole books have been that 'students should read whole books,' and that it is not acceptable for students to read no books." Yes, this is the consensus. It's certainly intuitive and why I chose to teach whole books in grades 2-12. But when ChatGPT tells me "we found no peer-reviewed trial directly comparing whole-book instruction to excerpt-only instruction," I just want to be careful to contextualize my recommendations, which is what I attempted to do in this piece. Thanks again!
I don't think makes sense to ask for hard evidence for the benefits of whole books. For one, as you note, the way you teach and what books you pick will make a big difference for whatever measure you are measuring. But two, and arguably most importantly, there are some things that are just self-evidently important. Like, in science class, students should complete experiments. In English class, students should read whole books. It's a goal in and of itself. Shouldn't students leave school with the ability to complete a full novel?
In the absence of evidence, I think we should defer to the common sense idea that experience with reading entire books will... make you better at reading entire books.
Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence and saying that it's "reasonable" to exclude novels from the curriculum is, imo, an extraordinary claim. And it's one that has no evidence. To me it feels like a way to justifify the production of bad ELA curriculum.
Now certainly you can teach novels poorly, choose poor books etc, but with everything being equal, I personally feel there should be no debate on whether novels should be part of a curriculum (alongside high quality excerpts)
"But two, and arguably most importantly, there are some things that are just self-evidently important." As a science teacher, you may not have a complete understanding of how much trouble this thinking got us into as applied to whole language and balanced literacy, but those of us who have seen students suffer from applications of the "obvious", are more circumspect when it comes to messaging. My piece is concerned about rhetoric that outpaces research. I think we need to exercise more care when making our case. Here's how I expressed it in Of Mice and Mentors: Best Laid Plans (https://harriettjanetos.substack.com/p/of-mice-and-mentors-best-laid-plans?r=5spuf):
"I’m not saying there isn’t cause for concern; I’m merely suggesting that we might be missing the whole forest of literature because we’re fixating on certain types of trees.1 If today’s students aren’t receptive to a full length novel—for the usual reasons ranging from screens to serious apathy toward all things academic—then maybe we need to think outside the book and consider how to include literary works in the curriculum that reflect a complexity that is real but not too time-consuming. If the mountain won’t come to Muhammad, then maybe we need to develop within our students the stamina to ascend to the literary heights that we really do want them to experience—but make the whole thing more manageable for everyone by reducing the reading load while retaining its rigor."
I do understand it and a similar debate still afflicts science education. It's not the same. I'm saying there is an end goal to read whole books in school. For students to go through an entire schooling experience without having read a novel is a failure in and of itself. Similarly, I don't need to see data (although there is plenty) that doing science experiments helps students understand science concepts, because students should experience science experiments as a critical part of science education. This is very different than arguing about methods by which students learn to read.
The other critical consideration is we have to make curricular decisions, now. The rhetoric is appropriate, in my opinion, considering that the decisions being made for large numbers of students (i.e. excerpt only) go against everyone's intuition *and* have no data to back them up. If people are worried we don't know how to teach novels correctly, or are worried about doseage, than *that* should be the focus of the discussion. I.e. "We know this is essential, how do we make sure to do it right?" I make the same argument for knowledge-building. We know doing it is essential, there should be *no* debate there (yet there is). But the "how" can be tricky. Let's focus on the "how" and debate in that space.
I'll add this too, if we don't care about students reading novels, what do we care about? Why do we care if they can identify theme and setting if we don't think it's important that they experience reading whole books? I'm being genuine. If they don't "need" to read a whole book why do they "need" to read an excerpt from said book?
I guess I’m saying it’s not a binary: whole books or excerpts. It might be both of these plus plays, essays, and articles. There are lots of options out there for reading.
I teach high school English and the curriculum my district has adopted is supposedly arranged thematically but the connections between texts are often haphazard and forced. A weirdly large percent of the texts are excerpts from novels, with writing prompts that assume familiarity with the whole work. The kids are kind of marched along from short piece to short piece, taking guesses at their significance. There's something really perverse in how states and districts have become obsessed with fidelity to "high quality instructional materials" when it's obvious the materials in question were copy/pasted into existence by interns and grad students. But each time I've taught a full-length work, I've seen the kids light up with genuine interest, even the ones who hate reading. I'm going to try to fit in both a novel and a play this semester, along with as many poems and short stories as I can. And I'm trying to be really thoughtful about the use of excerpts because my curriculum is not.
May I ask a question as an interested amateur who has been involved in training adults but not teaching children beyond my own?
Regarding the "Mockingbird" scenario you give, what age and grade-level were these students? Was it a writing class or something more general? Thank you.
Great question. This was an activity I used with a tenth grade English class, but I have used this lesson structure with grades two through twelve using age-appropriate text. When teaching narrative writing, having model texts to analyze helps establish the goals for the genre and allows us to revise based on established guidelines, such as including sufficient descriptive detail with interesting adjectives or using a variety of verbs to make the action happen. Stories are like stoplights: writers stop and describe and they go to make events happen. Hope this helps!
A fantastic synthesis of the current dialogue 🙏The opportunity cost of a novel study can't be understated if all reading is happening in class, and blanket statements about dosage just can't be made w/o considering demographics and teacher skil set.
Thank you! I'm repeating this because it's so beautifully concise: "The opportunity cost of a novel study can't be overstated [your own correction from 'understated'] if all reading is happening in class, and blanket statements about dosage just can't be made w/o considering demographics and teacher skill set."
When people say teaching whole books do they mean reading every word in class? I never know how to interpret this. The best I have achieved in 10 years is whole books studied by focusing on key chapters, with homework reading that may or may not get done.
Thanks for zeroing in on an important point, which captures the constraints of our classrooms. My take is that the current push is to cover complete works rather than excerpts, which is why selecting shorter books (like Of Mice and Men) as well as plays, short stories, and essays can make things more manageable for everyone. Thanks again for raising this issue.
In Australia we have three strands to our curriculum — literature, language and literacy. There’s no way we would get time to cover a whole book. And limiting the selection to novellas is a bit of an own goal. It means you don’t really get to experience the canon.
In Australia we have three strands to our curriculum — literature, language and literacy. There’s no way we would get time to cover a whole book. And limiting the selection to novellas is a bit of an own goal. It means you don’t really get to experience the canon.
Thanks so much for this link. More decision-making for the the teacher. The review ends with “However, in an educational context it is important however that this book is only used as a piece of fiction and that teachers make clear to young people that historically the book is not factual.” This is an appropriate and important recommendation. From the perspective of literary criticism, I disagree that Schmuel is not a sympathetic character and where the sympathy lies at the end. But my reaction could be colored by the fact that I brought decades of knowledge about these events to my reading experience that inevitably colored my reactions, which supports the recommendation that this fictional account can in no way stand alone.
However, I think the way Boyne introduces some key themes is truly skillful, transmitting an entire category of indignity in a single sentence. Take, for example, the scene where the cook treats Bruno’s seriously scraped knee and Bruno is inconsolable, insisting he should see a doctor. When told he doesn’t need one, he says “How would you know?” The simple response: “I am a doctor.”
I am currently listening to the sequel, All the Broken Places (my third Boyne book),and I remain impressed by his skill at developing complex characters and themes through highly-engaging plots.
Re: "I think the solution to the tension is to soften one’s tone and contextualize convictions because unequivocal recommendations can be just plain wearying for teachers."
Wow. I think we've found one of those rare moments when I completely agree with something you said.
Yep-- Teachers who I speak to in my partnerships with schools are feeling gaslit because of that! People are telling them to just follow the research but aren't talking about things such as: 1. What problem is that research trying to solve? What new problems will arise by solving that problem? What problems do we have in our context? How can we use that research to solve that problem? For sure, read this article https://open.substack.com/pub/rodjnaquin/p/why-teaching-requires-managing-paradox?utm_campaign=post-expanded-share&utm_medium=web It gsts to the very heart of that idea and it is missing in the discourse around literacy right now. I'm confident if it was added we could more for students and keep teachers in the classroom. I talk about that problem here as well https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=POOXd5z4bLM
This is the conversation educators need to be having!
The idea of being nuanced: listening to research, while at the same time encouraging teachers to use their judgement is called coincident opposites
It’s defined as two things that seem in opposition that in fact can both be true depending upon perspective and context.
I recommend two things to pair with this article:
1, Rod J. Naquin’s wonderful article about paradoxes in education: https://rodjnaquin.substack.com/p/why-teaching-requires-managing-paradox?utm_campaign=post-expanded-share&utm_medium=web
My talk with @Tim Cavey about this very topic and the stories that I have from the field to show the paradox. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=POOXd5z4bLM
Yes—two things can be true at the same time. Thanks for this reminder.And for the links, which I will check out. I’m drafting a piece called All the Broken Places, and I really appreciate how you are out there with your repair kit trying your best to fix them.
Have there been a lot of blanket statements about doseage? I think the criticism of the lack of focus on age is valid (are we talking picture books with 1st graders or...?) But generally the dosage argument I've seen is "more than none." The discussions I recall were more like "we don't know the ideal doseage exactly" as well as discussions about opportunity cost. Of course I don't see everything.
This is a beautifully written and thoughtful piece and I want to push back partially on the main premise. Sharp takes should be okay when they are correct. I think the "sharp takes" around whole books have been that "students should read whole books," and that it is not acceptable for students to read no books. The "how" of this is complex of course, as you illustrate.
Some things deserve sharp criticism - I think we know enough on how to teach novels to give a full-throttled recommendation that full novels should be taught. And likewise, if there are literacy leaders who are kind of hemming and hawing about whether excerpt-only curriculum are reasonable - that deserves loud push-back.
We should be careful coming to our opinions, and nuance is good. But messages can get lost in nuance (as you also mention). Some things are important enough to be loud about.
I always welcome pushback! Thank you. I think some would ask for your hard evidence for this: "I think the 'sharp takes' around whole books have been that 'students should read whole books,' and that it is not acceptable for students to read no books." Yes, this is the consensus. It's certainly intuitive and why I chose to teach whole books in grades 2-12. But when ChatGPT tells me "we found no peer-reviewed trial directly comparing whole-book instruction to excerpt-only instruction," I just want to be careful to contextualize my recommendations, which is what I attempted to do in this piece. Thanks again!
I don't think makes sense to ask for hard evidence for the benefits of whole books. For one, as you note, the way you teach and what books you pick will make a big difference for whatever measure you are measuring. But two, and arguably most importantly, there are some things that are just self-evidently important. Like, in science class, students should complete experiments. In English class, students should read whole books. It's a goal in and of itself. Shouldn't students leave school with the ability to complete a full novel?
In the absence of evidence, I think we should defer to the common sense idea that experience with reading entire books will... make you better at reading entire books.
Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence and saying that it's "reasonable" to exclude novels from the curriculum is, imo, an extraordinary claim. And it's one that has no evidence. To me it feels like a way to justifify the production of bad ELA curriculum.
Now certainly you can teach novels poorly, choose poor books etc, but with everything being equal, I personally feel there should be no debate on whether novels should be part of a curriculum (alongside high quality excerpts)
“But the "how" can be tricky. Let's focus on the "how" and debate in that space.” I like this!
"But two, and arguably most importantly, there are some things that are just self-evidently important." As a science teacher, you may not have a complete understanding of how much trouble this thinking got us into as applied to whole language and balanced literacy, but those of us who have seen students suffer from applications of the "obvious", are more circumspect when it comes to messaging. My piece is concerned about rhetoric that outpaces research. I think we need to exercise more care when making our case. Here's how I expressed it in Of Mice and Mentors: Best Laid Plans (https://harriettjanetos.substack.com/p/of-mice-and-mentors-best-laid-plans?r=5spuf):
"I’m not saying there isn’t cause for concern; I’m merely suggesting that we might be missing the whole forest of literature because we’re fixating on certain types of trees.1 If today’s students aren’t receptive to a full length novel—for the usual reasons ranging from screens to serious apathy toward all things academic—then maybe we need to think outside the book and consider how to include literary works in the curriculum that reflect a complexity that is real but not too time-consuming. If the mountain won’t come to Muhammad, then maybe we need to develop within our students the stamina to ascend to the literary heights that we really do want them to experience—but make the whole thing more manageable for everyone by reducing the reading load while retaining its rigor."
I do understand it and a similar debate still afflicts science education. It's not the same. I'm saying there is an end goal to read whole books in school. For students to go through an entire schooling experience without having read a novel is a failure in and of itself. Similarly, I don't need to see data (although there is plenty) that doing science experiments helps students understand science concepts, because students should experience science experiments as a critical part of science education. This is very different than arguing about methods by which students learn to read.
The other critical consideration is we have to make curricular decisions, now. The rhetoric is appropriate, in my opinion, considering that the decisions being made for large numbers of students (i.e. excerpt only) go against everyone's intuition *and* have no data to back them up. If people are worried we don't know how to teach novels correctly, or are worried about doseage, than *that* should be the focus of the discussion. I.e. "We know this is essential, how do we make sure to do it right?" I make the same argument for knowledge-building. We know doing it is essential, there should be *no* debate there (yet there is). But the "how" can be tricky. Let's focus on the "how" and debate in that space.
“But the "how" can be tricky. Let's focus on the "how" and debate in that space.” I like this!
You might also be interested in Can We Inspire a Love of Reading (https://open.substack.com/pub/harriettjanetos/p/can-we-inspire-a-love-of-reading?r=5spuf&utm_medium=ios).
I'll add this too, if we don't care about students reading novels, what do we care about? Why do we care if they can identify theme and setting if we don't think it's important that they experience reading whole books? I'm being genuine. If they don't "need" to read a whole book why do they "need" to read an excerpt from said book?
I guess I’m saying it’s not a binary: whole books or excerpts. It might be both of these plus plays, essays, and articles. There are lots of options out there for reading.
I teach high school English and the curriculum my district has adopted is supposedly arranged thematically but the connections between texts are often haphazard and forced. A weirdly large percent of the texts are excerpts from novels, with writing prompts that assume familiarity with the whole work. The kids are kind of marched along from short piece to short piece, taking guesses at their significance. There's something really perverse in how states and districts have become obsessed with fidelity to "high quality instructional materials" when it's obvious the materials in question were copy/pasted into existence by interns and grad students. But each time I've taught a full-length work, I've seen the kids light up with genuine interest, even the ones who hate reading. I'm going to try to fit in both a novel and a play this semester, along with as many poems and short stories as I can. And I'm trying to be really thoughtful about the use of excerpts because my curriculum is not.
This is admirable: recognizing a real problem and attempting to address it, knowing you can always keep tweaking your methods as needed. Good luck!
May I ask a question as an interested amateur who has been involved in training adults but not teaching children beyond my own?
Regarding the "Mockingbird" scenario you give, what age and grade-level were these students? Was it a writing class or something more general? Thank you.
Great question. This was an activity I used with a tenth grade English class, but I have used this lesson structure with grades two through twelve using age-appropriate text. When teaching narrative writing, having model texts to analyze helps establish the goals for the genre and allows us to revise based on established guidelines, such as including sufficient descriptive detail with interesting adjectives or using a variety of verbs to make the action happen. Stories are like stoplights: writers stop and describe and they go to make events happen. Hope this helps!
A fantastic synthesis of the current dialogue 🙏The opportunity cost of a novel study can't be understated if all reading is happening in class, and blanket statements about dosage just can't be made w/o considering demographics and teacher skil set.
Thank you! I'm repeating this because it's so beautifully concise: "The opportunity cost of a novel study can't be overstated [your own correction from 'understated'] if all reading is happening in class, and blanket statements about dosage just can't be made w/o considering demographics and teacher skill set."
**overstated...
When people say teaching whole books do they mean reading every word in class? I never know how to interpret this. The best I have achieved in 10 years is whole books studied by focusing on key chapters, with homework reading that may or may not get done.
Thanks for zeroing in on an important point, which captures the constraints of our classrooms. My take is that the current push is to cover complete works rather than excerpts, which is why selecting shorter books (like Of Mice and Men) as well as plays, short stories, and essays can make things more manageable for everyone. Thanks again for raising this issue.
In Australia we have three strands to our curriculum — literature, language and literacy. There’s no way we would get time to cover a whole book. And limiting the selection to novellas is a bit of an own goal. It means you don’t really get to experience the canon.
In Australia we have three strands to our curriculum — literature, language and literacy. There’s no way we would get time to cover a whole book. And limiting the selection to novellas is a bit of an own goal. It means you don’t really get to experience the canon.
It’s worth reading this critique of The Boy in the Striped Pyjsmas from the Holocaust Centre: https://holocaustcentrenorth.org.uk/blog/the-problem-with-the-boy-in-the-striped-pyjamas/. English schools are actively discouraged from using this book in class.
Thanks so much for this link. More decision-making for the the teacher. The review ends with “However, in an educational context it is important however that this book is only used as a piece of fiction and that teachers make clear to young people that historically the book is not factual.” This is an appropriate and important recommendation. From the perspective of literary criticism, I disagree that Schmuel is not a sympathetic character and where the sympathy lies at the end. But my reaction could be colored by the fact that I brought decades of knowledge about these events to my reading experience that inevitably colored my reactions, which supports the recommendation that this fictional account can in no way stand alone.
However, I think the way Boyne introduces some key themes is truly skillful, transmitting an entire category of indignity in a single sentence. Take, for example, the scene where the cook treats Bruno’s seriously scraped knee and Bruno is inconsolable, insisting he should see a doctor. When told he doesn’t need one, he says “How would you know?” The simple response: “I am a doctor.”
I am currently listening to the sequel, All the Broken Places (my third Boyne book),and I remain impressed by his skill at developing complex characters and themes through highly-engaging plots.
Thanks again for broadening the discussion.
Re: "I think the solution to the tension is to soften one’s tone and contextualize convictions because unequivocal recommendations can be just plain wearying for teachers."
Wow. I think we've found one of those rare moments when I completely agree with something you said.
Yep-- Teachers who I speak to in my partnerships with schools are feeling gaslit because of that! People are telling them to just follow the research but aren't talking about things such as: 1. What problem is that research trying to solve? What new problems will arise by solving that problem? What problems do we have in our context? How can we use that research to solve that problem? For sure, read this article https://open.substack.com/pub/rodjnaquin/p/why-teaching-requires-managing-paradox?utm_campaign=post-expanded-share&utm_medium=web It gsts to the very heart of that idea and it is missing in the discourse around literacy right now. I'm confident if it was added we could more for students and keep teachers in the classroom. I talk about that problem here as well https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=POOXd5z4bLM
“What new problems will arise by solving that problem?” Love this!
It's a feature of ed reform, not a bug.