Gerard Dawson - Hacking Literacy: 5 Ways To Turn Any Classroom Into a Culture Of Readers

Hacking Literacy

2016 by Times 10 Publications

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These books are available at special discounts when purchased in quantity for use as premiums, promotions, fundraising, and educational use. For inquiries and details, contact us at www.hacklearning.org.

Published by Times 10

Cleveland, OH

HackLearning.org

Cover Design by Tracey Henterly

Interior Design by Steven Plummer

Editing by Ruth Arseneault

Proofreading by Jennifer Jas

Library of Congress Control Number: 2016946078

ISBN: 978-0-9861049-5-4

First Printing: August, 2016

Table of Contents

Publishers Foreword

Most educators who know my work think of me as the blogger who wants to throw out grades, or the teacher who hates homework, or simply as the Hack Learning guy. While each of these descriptions is accurate to one degree or another, what few people know is that I am most passionate about literacy. I believe that if all students loved books and became avid readers, every single aspect of education that we attempt to measure would improve. Test scores would skyrocket. Learners would excel in every area of interest. Participation in co-curricular activities and community service would increase. All students would graduate. Poverty and crime might eventually disappear, and our prisons would become empty shells.

If even one of these bold beliefs is true, one would think that every educators primary goal would be to foster the love of reading. How is it, then, that our schools fall so dreadfully short when it comes to producing literate students? One answer, and this is my own hypothesis based on more than two decades as a classroom teacher, is that the entire structure of school is designed to inhibit literacy. Because we focus on standards, competency, and high stakes test scores, encouraging a love of reading, writing, and of books is rarely assigned the importance that it deserves.

Enter Gerard Dawson, an education hacker who grasps the one simple idea that eludes so many new and veteran teachers: When students learn to love reading, everything else we work so relentlessly to teach falls seamlessly into place. Not only does Dawson understand this notion, he has built a classroom that gives action to the idea, spawning a beautiful, vibrant culture of readers.

In Hacking Literacy , the sixth book in the Hack Learning Series , Dawson reveals the characteristics of this culture and shares the simple strategies that empower any teacher to replicate it. Along the way, Dawson identifies problems that educators face as they attempt to teach often-reluctant learners to read and write daily, and he provides examples and anecdotes from other educators who have built their own reading cultures.

Education hackers like Gerard Dawson are tinkerers and fixers. As with all hackers, they see solutions to problems that other people do not see. They are specialists who grapple with issues that need to be turned upside down or viewed with a different lens. The fixes they suggest may appear unusual at first, but as each chapter unfolds, their purposes will become clear and youll be as eager as youve ever been to implement them immediately in your own classroom and school.

Inside the Books

Each book in the series contains chapters, called Hacks, which are composed of these sections:

• The Problem: Something educators are currently wrestling with that doesnt appear to have a clear solution.
• The Hack: A brief description of the authors unique fix.
• What You Can Do Tomorrow: Ways you can take the basic hack and implement it right away in bare-bones form.
• Blueprint for Full Implementation: A step-by-step system for building long-term capacity.
• Overcoming Pushback: A list of possible objections you might come up against in your attempt to implement this hack and how to overcome each one.
• The Hack in Action: A snapshot of an educator or group of educators who have used this hack in their work and how they did it.

I am proud to be the publisher of and a contributing author to the Hack Learning Series , which is changing how we view and solve problems in teaching and learning. When you finish reading this book, you will understand the simplicity of building a culture of readers. You may begin to see solutions to other problems that youve previously overlooked. In the end, you might even become an education hacker.

And thats a good thing.

Mark Barnes, Education Hacker and Avid Reader

Introduction

If you always do what youve always done, youll always get what youve always gotten.

Jessie Potter, Director of the National Institute for Human Relationships

Imagine a classroom centered around a culture of readers. In such an environment, reading is celebrated instead of just being assessed. When the focus shifts away from grades to honor the pleasures of learning, students take ownership of their reading lives. They cultivate the habits that develop lifelong readers.

Students whose teachers facilitate a culture of reading engage actively in reading. They submerge themselves in books, perhaps leaving their desks to lounge in comfortable spots on the floor, and drift mentally away from their immediate environment. Because they recognize the personal benefits of finding terrific reads, they use a variety of channels to seek out new books. They talk to other students about books they love or loathe, they recommend books to their friends, they search recommendation lists online and add books to their To Read lists. Anyone who finishes a book discusses it with the teacher or tells the whole class about it. Other students listen, hoping to find their next great read. The students set their own goals for reading, keep track of books theyve read, and write about their reading in meaningful ways.

Some teachers might argue that creating a culture of readers is a waste of time: Teachers are required to follow a literature curriculum. In response to this concern, Id like to pose a question: Is the study of whole class texts and literature worthwhile if the cost is the death of reading? When we focus on coverage, assessing students ability to parrot back facts and ideas that they have gleaned from class discussionsor the Internetrather than their own responses to texts, we create the illusion that kids are actually engaging in reading. Too many of Americas students pass through their upper elementary, middle, and high school educations never reading a book cover to cover.

I aim to create a culture of reading with my students. Unlike some clear milestones in educationcompleting a course, being hired for a new position, helping a child move on to the next gradethis goal has no fixed end point. The process is the purpose. Teachers who create a culture of reading consistently reinforce a mindset, system, and set of habits that draw students into rich lives as literate citizens.