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 →

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 →

By Lauren Freedman, Western Michigan University

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

Continue reading →

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 →