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Digging Deeper into Migration Stories through MultiModal Text Sets

By Carol Brochin, Leah Durán, and Kathy G. Short, University of Arizona

This past summer, faculty in the College of Education at the University of Arizona virtually hosted a seminar for K-12 teachers sponsored by the National Endowment for the Humanities. Drawing teachers from across the U.S., we looked at the histories and movements of people in what is now Arizona and considered ways to invite students of all ages into our inquiries. Our institute, We the People: Migrant Waves in the Making of America, challenged the perception that migration is a recent negative phenomenon. This two-week virtual institute explored the continuous waves of migration in the U.S. through a case study of Arizona, the last continental state added to the union. We were particularly concerned with the stories often left out of traditional narratives of U.S. history, which are traditionally rooted in the thirteen colonies and so erase the experiences of Black, Indigenous, Latinx and other communities of color. Through interactions with narratives, authors, scholars and museums, our goal was for educators to gain knowledge and strategies to support their teaching by using inquiry strategies from the case study to research migrant waves in their own states.

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Text Sets: An In-depth Look

By Lauren Freedman, Western Michigan University

For this last Monday in May, my blog provides examples of text sets created by teachers from various grade levels and content areas. The topics are insects, weather, shapes and angles, amazing animals, and artists. The text set lists include 30 titles and for each book the following information is given: the bibliographic data, a brief summary of the book, what makes it useful within an inquiry, and special features that it may have. Continue reading

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Students and Scholars Respond: Text Sets & Inquiry Deepens and Strengthens Learning

By Lauren Freedman, Western Michigan University

Children and teachers, mired in narrow curricula and “say this now” instruction geared toward raising achievement scores on standardized tests, are hungry for interesting, engaging, and filling content to be reading, writing, speaking, listening, thinking, and learning about. In a 5th grade Social Studies classroom, the students engaged in an inquiry built around the American Revolution and used a tree as a graphic depiction not only of what they were learning, but also as a metaphor for their learning process and the ways in which inquiry and text sets facilitate learning. Along with the content learning depicted in the photos, the students also engaged in a metacognitive discussion about the ways in which “…a reader is like a tree.” The students’ responses quoted below clearly demonstrate the growth possible when the literacy diets of our children are varied and nutritious. Continue reading

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Learning Centered Classrooms: Where Inquiry and Text Sets are Essential for Literacy and Learning

By Lauren Freedman, Western Michigan University

An inquiry framework provides both teachers and students with a flexible structure that can be used for learning prek-12 within any content area and perhaps most effectively when integrating content areas. An inquiry framework requires careful planning keeping both the learning goals and each student’s strengths and needs in mind. The importance of students’ choice and voice is honored and the use of text sets provides the tools for students and teachers to reach more deeply and broadly into and across concepts. Continue reading

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The Power of Choice, Voice, and Inquiry: Students and Teachers Talk about Text Sets

By Lauren Freedman, Western Michigan University

Moon Text Set

It’s more books than we can read, but we get to choose…and the pictures really help…I never used the raggedy old [text] books, we used to have…but now I like these new books and there’s so many, I feel like I’m at the library…you can investigate history and science facts and some books even disagree; then we go to Mr. Xxx and he says “look it up on the web,” so we become investigators.

The books help me learn to read cuz I can go ‘til I find a book that makes sense to me and then there’s another book and then another so I can read as many as 3 books sometimes in one class and that’s a lot…yeah, but you don’t gotta read a whole book to find what you need so you don’t really read 3 books but look at maybe more…and Mrs. Xxx says that’s okay…and you still learn a lot…the trouble with these books is that they make you ask a lot of questions and then Mr. Xxx says the answers are in these books, find ‘em…yeah then you gotta read more.

–7th grade focus group

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The Way School Should Be: Navigating Learning with Text Sets

By Lauren Freedman, Western Michigan University

Don’t let school get in the way of a good education. Mark Twain

Ok! I introduced the books and ninety minutes later, I was physically taking books out of students’ hands and pushing them out the door. Let’s talk about getting more of these for other units. A teacher using text sets for the first time

While sometimes school can be irrelevant, it doesn’t have to be. In fact, school can provide the beginnings of a fabulous life exploration that takes children on adventure after adventure learning about the world in which they live while laying the foundation to preserve it and change it as needed. While books (and other print media) are often thought of as providing mirrors and/or windows, I contend that they provide living, breathing, breathtaking experiences (albeit vicariously). Continue reading

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Text Sets as Contexts for Understanding

Kathy G. Short, University of Arizona

Several years ago, Amy Edwards and I worked with her fifth graders in literature circles around a set of novels set in China. Her students had been reading and discussing global literature for several years, and so she didn’t hesitate in beginning the school year with these novels as a way to build off interest in the Beijing Olympics. The problem was that the novels were historical fiction, many set during the time of the Cultural Revolution, and it quickly became apparent that the students were struggling because they did not have enough knowledge about that time period. More worrisome, because the novels were historical, students were forming misconceptions about modern China as a repressive country set back in time.
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