Helping Students Read Entire Books with Doug Lemov, Colleen Driggs, and Erica Woolway

Episode 239 

Experts Doug Lemov, Colleen Driggs, and Erica Woolway join Melissa & Lori to tackle one of the biggest questions in teaching today: What happened to reading whole books in school? From the pull of digital distractions to the rise of skill-focused instruction, they explore why diving into full texts matters more than ever. You’ll hear inspiring ideas for making books come alive in the classroom, the magic of read-alouds, and the power of close reading. Plus, each guest reveals their favorite book to teach. Reading entire books ignites curiosity, builds stamina, and so much more.

Resources

• The Teach Like A Champion Guide to the Science of Reading (book)
• Teach Like A Champion (Website - Resources, Workshops, Blogs, & More!)
• Close Reading: Uncover Deeper Meaning (blog)
• The Indispensable Power of [Full] Books  (blog)
• Melissa & Lori Podcast Knowledge & Comprehension (Daniel Willingham & Barbara Davidson)

We answer your questions about teaching reading in The Literacy 50-A Q&A Handbook for Teachers: Real-World Answers to Questions About Reading That Keep You Up at Night.

Grab free resources and episode alerts! Sign up for our email list at literacypodcast.com.

Join our community on Facebook, and follow us on Instagram, Facebook, & Twitter.

Episode Transcript

Lori (00:01):
Reading entire books matters.
We're talking about real books,start to finish, cover to
cover.

Melissa (00:08):
But in a lot of classrooms, kids mostly read
short texts or excerpts.
They have their place, but theycan't replace the experience of
reading an entire book.

Lori (00:18):
We realize this is tricky.
Teachers are jugglingcurriculum, figuring out how to
keep students engaged, and somuch more.

Melissa (00:26):
That's why we're talking with Doug Lamov, Colleen
Driggs, and Erica Woolway,authors of the new book Teach
Like a Champion Guide to theScience of Reading.
We'll dig into why whole booksmatter, how to choose them, and
what it looks like to helpstudents actually read them.
Hi, teacher friends.

Lori (00:45):
I'm Lori.
And I'm Melissa.
We are two educators who wantthe best for all kids, and we
know you do too.

Melissa (00:53):
We worked together in Baltimore when the district
adopted a new literacycurriculum.

Lori (00:58):
We realized there was so much more to learn about how to
teach reading and writing.

Melissa (01:03):
Lori and I can't wait to keep learning with you today.
Hi, Doug and Colleen and Erica.
Welcome to the podcast.
We can't wait to talk to youall today about some topics that
we feel like sometimes get lostin the conversations, the
science of readingconversations, specifically

(01:24):
around comprehension.
So we're really excited.
Thank you all for being here.

Doug Lemov (01:28):
We're really happy to be here too.

Melissa (01:30):
Thanks so much for having us.

Erica Woolway (01:32):
Excited to be here.
Thank you both.

Lori (01:35):
All right.
So today we want to talk abouttexts.
Specifically, what text shouldstudents be reading in the
classrooms and how teachers canhelp students read these texts?
And one really important thingto note is that we want to focus
on reading entire books.
That's what this conversationis going to be about.
Um, Doug, you referred to thisas the hidden tragedy that

(01:56):
reading entire books aredisappearing from schools.
So I thought we could start bytalking about what you notice.
What do you all noticehappening in classrooms if
students aren't reading wholebooks?
And how did we get away fromthis?
Because I know I rememberreading full books when I was in
school.

Doug Lemov (02:14):
Well, and ironically, I mean, I think so
many parents are not aware ofthis, that they imagine their
kids in school reading bookscover to cover.
And that I mean, I'm sograteful to you guys for doing
this episode because I thinkit's one of the one of the
saddest and most importantthings that's like an almost
unacknowledged change inreconstruction in schools.
How do we get away from it?
I think there, I think bookshave gotten harder to read.

(02:36):
One of the things we talk aboutin the book is the decline of
students' attention, but reallyour attention, right?
Reading is such anintentionally demanding um
exercise.
And you have to actually haveto use sustained focus attention
in class and after school,really, because you're supposed
to read at home.

(02:56):
And we know that the cell phonehas degraded people's attention
spans.
It's an attention fracturingmachine.
And one of the outcomes of thisis a steep decline in reading
behaviors outside of theclassroom.
You know, it used to be, youknow, let's say 20 years ago,
you could bet on having threetimes as many kids in a typical,

(03:17):
say, fifth or sixth gradeclassroom who read every day
compared to kids who never read.
And those percentages areflipped now.
Right now you're likely to havetwo to three times as many kids
who never read as opposed tokids who are regular readers.
So um, it's it's it's morechallenging to get kids to read
the book and be able to sustainthe focus on the book.
I think a second issue is um Ithink that people have come to

(03:43):
believe maybe in some ways thatthe text is irrelevant
sometimes, that there's so muchfocus on what we call
skillsiness, which is like thepurpose of reading instructions
to teach kids how to make aninference.
And so I'm going to describeinferences in seven steps, and
we're gonna spend 45 minutespracticing making inferences.
And that first of all, I thinkthat that's unscientific, that
making a hundred inferences fromTactic Everlasting will not

(04:06):
prepare you to read um OliverTwist.
That, you know, I know you'vehad Daniel Willingham on the
show.
You know, he says, he says thatum how we're thinking is
domain-specific, that we thinkdeeply about what we have.
Uh, background knowledge onheat, there's a beautiful
conversation between you and himabout disambiguating text and
how that happens throughbackground knowledge.

(04:26):
But I think that when youimagine reading as an endeavor
that is made up of skills, thenext step is to think, well, the
book doesn't really matter.
I can really practice my skillsin almost any setting.
All texts are more or lessinterchangeable.
Gee, why don't I choose a bookthat will be super entertaining
for kids like CaptainUnderpants, and then they'll
really love that.
And then the last thing that Ilike hope is true is that part
of it is just lack ofunderstanding about how

(04:49):
important books are and thescience behind books.
Because that's kind of where wego in our chapter, which is
there's actually a lot, thereare a lot of reasons
scientifically why books are theoptimal setting for reading.
And so maybe those are threereasons why you know the text
has been crowded up by shortinformational passages.
And when students do read, it'syou know, oftentimes they're

(05:10):
sent to the corners of theclassroom to read a book on
their own.
And that can be lovely.
We don't know much about what'shappening in that setting, and
there isn't much socialinteraction between kids, or
between kids and teacher aroundthe text.
And we really believe that atext is a social thing.

Melissa (05:24):
Yeah, and I just wanted to jump in with, you know, I
don't want to make teachers feellike we're blaming them, like
they're the ones that are makingthis happen.
Because I'm thinking back evenwhen I was in school, although I
did read some whole books, wealso had those textbooks, which
inherently are just shortstories.
And I remember like seeingexcerpts of a play.
Like it would be like one actof a play.

(05:45):
And you're like, well, what'sthe point?
I want to see what happens.
Um, and then I also remember inBaltimore, this was about 10
years ago, um, we looked at thecurriculum that we created in
Baltimore, and there was a highschool that was using an excerpt
from holes, the book holes.

(06:05):
And I'm like, well, I mean, Ilove the book holes, but one, I
would question it being in ahigh school.
But two, what's the point ofreading just a chunk of that
book?
Like, you want to read thewhole book.
Um, and and then there'scurriculum today that's on the
market that lots of schools areadopting that use excerpts of
text.
So I just wanted to put thatout there that like this is

(06:26):
something that's been happening,still happening, not something
that teachers are doing wrong.

Doug Lemov (06:33):
Yeah, totally agree.
And I I'm really glad you saidthat because we want to
distinguish between thesituation the teachers are in
and really determine that,really, you know, are well uh
really have you know full uhcontrol over their own
curriculum.
And uh, you know, and know thatmany teachers want to read
books and and yearn to readbooks.
And uh one thing we'd like todo is give them the support of

(06:56):
science to say, you know, you'reright, keep going with it.
It's worth the struggle.

Erica Woolway (07:01):
Melissa, I'm so glad you mentioned that too,
though, because uh uh sort ofit's it's important to think
about why books have havestarted to disappear from the
classroom.
Um and we do believe deeply inthe power of and the importance
of, you know, state assessmentsto hold schools accountable to
make sure that they are highquality and meeting the needs of

(07:22):
every student.
But I think what's happened inthis stakes in this era of high
stakes testing, that the tailhas begun to wag the dog a bit.
And that um the reason, andactually my son's um AP Lit
teacher uh from last year coinedthis the passage passive
education of the English class.
Um, and oftentimes it's it'skind of a sin of enthusiasm on

(07:44):
on behalf of schools, wanting tomake sure that students get
enough practice uh so that theyfeel prepared for the test.
And of course, so that they asa school do better on the test.
Um but to Doug's point, that'snot that's not the effective way
to teach reading.
It doesn't matter how manypassages you get to identify
main idea, to do it in a complexsetting is is will all will
always prove a stumbling block.
And actually having a deeprelationship with one text is

(08:07):
actually proven to be much moreeffective in preparing a student
to be able to do that than thanjust with these like pass death
by passages, you might call it.
Um so you're absolutely right,Melissa, that it's not, this is
not teachers being like, ooh,we're gonna do passages instead,
uh, but rather just the dynamicthat's been set up in
education.
Um, and it's and it's much moredetrimental on the reading side
even than the math side,because on the math side,

(08:29):
actually that frequent practiceis important to create that
automaticity, but it justdoesn't work the same way in
reading as you guys both know.

Melissa (08:36):
Yeah, and Eric, I'm wondering if we can dig in there
where you just talked about,you know, the benefits of
reading a full text.
So, what do you feel likestudents, or what do you all
know students gain from readinga full text versus these shorter
passages?

Colleen Driggs (08:51):
We talk about this a lot, and I think that um
we know that like increasinglyin our society, the hot take uh
has become uh our primary modeof communication.
Um, and we don't need to godeep on the problems I think
that that that is causing us asa culture and society.
And I think that what'shappened is that we have now
replaced the, you know, sort ofthis hot take with um valuing

(09:14):
deep and reflective thought.
Um, really thinking through acomplex issue, being able to
like, you know, develop yourthinking over time, being able
to go back and say, here's whatI originally thought, and
actually here's how my thinkinghas changed.
And actually, maybe there was amoment when I was actually even
maybe wrong in my initialargument.
And so we think that books canbe the antidote uh in society as

(09:40):
a this sort of helping toreshape the way that we think
about communication with eachother and then conversation.
We just think that it's reallybeautiful to experience uh in
the reading of a book the fullrange of a character's triumphs
and tragedies.
We think it's especiallypowerful when you can experience

(10:01):
that with your peers and yourteacher.
Doug talked about the readingof a book is a social
experience.
Um, and then you can observeand discuss changes that happen
to a character within a bookover the course of the book
enfolding.
It's not a process that happensquickly, it's a process process
that happens really slowly.
And so there's a lot of empathybuilding that also happens

(10:24):
because you start to understandthe full range of experiences
and the complexity of being ahuman.
Doug, it looked like you wantedto jump into it.

Doug Lemov (10:32):
Well, I was just gonna I love I love the point
that you're making there.
I was just gonna chime in tosay something really obvious
about books, which is that aprotagonist never believes at
the end of the book what theybelieved at the beginning.
But it's always about carefulanalysis and um perspective
change and belief change.
I just think it's so important,you know, is probably to live
to a time when the message is,you know, you can understand the

(10:53):
world in 128 characters prettyeasily.
You're probably right.
You know, just that whateveryour hunch is, you're probably
right.
And I think just long-formnarratives undercut that
expectation that it's reallyimportant.
I think there's interesting,like there's a lot of research
around the idea that like booksare cognitively privileged, that
stories are cognitivelyprivileged.
That when we hear informationin expository form and when we

(11:16):
hear it in the form of a story,we remember it better in a
story.
You know, we we stories arefamiliar to us, right?
They reduce the extraneouscognitive load because we kind
of know what the conventions areand how things will work.
And so we're able to just payattention more to what we're
learning, and especially theyoften build a bit of an emotive
context.
And so um, you know, DanielWillingham, this this phrase,

(11:39):
you know, he uses the wordpsychologically privileged, but
I you know it's a little bitclear to me what he means by
that.
I think if we just saycognitively privileged, we learn
more when we read stories,especially when we build a
relationship to the narrator andtheir perspective.
I was just reading um IanMcEwen's book Atonement.
And um, for the first 60 pages,I kind of was not that into it,
if I'm honest.

(12:00):
Like I was counting the pagesand I was like, I'm on page 58,
you know, like and then suddenlyI looked down and I was on page
106, and then suddenly I lookeddown, you know, uh page 206 or
whatever like that.
And I think that the otherthing that happens when you read
long form is that you it'salways a little bit of a
struggle to enter the world thatthe author is creating, and it
takes some patience, and thenyou're immensely richly rewarded

(12:23):
for it.
And I think that's a reallyimportant message for young
people, which is it doesn't comeeasily, that some insights are
worth struggling for.
Um, and maybe just a last pointI'd make is cultural capital,
which is books are the medium inwhich the most important ideas
have been expressed, capturedand expressed in our society for
hundreds of years.
Uh, and when you go to collegeor out into the world, people

(12:46):
will, you know, if you've ifyou've read 1984 and you know a
little bit about what Orwellianmeans, or you've read Lord of
the Flies, but you're more ableto participate in cultural
conversations about meaningfulideas, and that's a gift to
students uh to do this.
So sometimes maybe there areyou know four ideas in there,
you know, the Collins idea ofthe medium is the message,
cognitive endurance, stories arecognitively privileged, and

(13:07):
there's cultural capital inbooks.
It's really important.

Melissa (13:10):
I was a former middle school and high school teacher,
so all of this is like I'm likeover here cheerleading.
Yes, this is exactly right.
I am curious though, a lot ofour listeners are you know lower
elementary teachers, and I'mwondering about that.
Like, would a picture book fallunder this same uh category
that we're talking about?

(13:31):
Or, you know, would readingaloud an even longer text be
beneficial?

Erica Woolway (13:38):
Yeah, I would say absolutely.
So when we talk when we talkabout um, you know, sometimes
Doug will use the language likethe book is dead.
Um, that is really more in themiddle to upper grades.
I think um the beauty, and andthis is certainly true in my own
household, the book was notdead when they were in

(13:58):
kindergarten through, you know,sixth grade.
It was, it was sort of once thedevice started entering, um,
the sort of the inclination topick up a book, whether that be
um uh at home or even in theclassroom, has has started to
dwindle.
Um the first chapter of ourbook really talks about the
importance of attention buildingum and how uh, you know, that

(14:22):
that's one of the challengesthat we face, that that even as
adult readers, um, you know,Doug, your story, we won't tell
Ian Ian McEwan how you initiallyfelt about his book, but um uh
most read most reader, adultreaders might not even relate to
that because on page five, theywould have picked up their cell
phone or they would have, youknow, oh, what's this that I
want to look up?
And now I'm, you know, five webpages in.

(14:44):
So uh it really is more of anupper and middle grade um uh
challenge that we face.
Um and I think the focus alsoshifts.
So, you know, building that joyum in those early grades, um,
building the importance of, toyour point, uh Melissa, the read
aloud in order to build fluencyand to support student
comprehension, continuing thatpractice as the grades progress

(15:07):
is just so incredibly important.
Um, and in fact, we have a, inaddition to the book, T Lac
Guide to the Science of Reading,um, we have a middle grades
curriculum.
It's grade currently fivethrough eight with with um a
couple books that we're startingfor high school.
Um, but but it's book-based forthis very reason.
Just that we want to make surethat we are um reconnecting um

(15:28):
students uh to the relationshipthat they can have with the
book.
Um and one of the importantpieces there is it's not only
the joy they find in the book,but the comprehension.
I love the points you madeabout, you know, the how a
character can evolve, how ourrelationship with the text can
evolve over the course ofreading about it.
Um one of the ways that we doit, both in the in the T Light

(15:49):
Guide to the Science of Reading,but also um in our curriculum
more broadly, is just howimportant knowledge is.
So it's not only reading thethe book that you're reading,
but also supplementing it withthe important knowledge that
students need in order to accessit.

Lori (16:02):
So I the you're making me think, Erica, I have a seventh
grader myself.
I'm sorry, an eighth gradernow, incorrect.
Um, and she last year she readLord of the Flies.
And she, you know, as as shewas reading the book, she was
like, I I like this book.
It's really interesting.
And they did a whole thing onlike, you know, society and and
all the d dystopian things youwould do with with a book like

(16:24):
that.
Um but they also read otherbooks as well.
And when she got to the end ofthe book, she was like, I liked
it, but it wasn't my favorite totalk about dystopian societies.
But she was able to explainwhy, and she was really proud of
herself for reading it.
So, Doug, to your point, she,you know, she got through it,
and she, I would even sayjoyfully got through it because

(16:46):
she was just doing a lot ofdiscussion with her peers.
But the thing too that she wasreally proud of was what they
did in class with that book.
And she ended up writing afour-page paper in response to a
topic and learning a whole lotabout how to write an essay and
what skills you need for thefuture.
Um, but I I think sometimes weforget that you can't really
it's hard to write a four-pagepaper when the thing you read is

(17:08):
four pages.
Do you know what I mean?
Like if you haven't read awhole book, you could write a
four in seventh grade, you canwrite a four-page paper with
guidance and support from yourteacher.
It's very difficult to do thatif the thing that you read isn't
bulky enough in terms ofconcepts, ideas, text to do
that.
So I just want to read that.
You only read a chapter.

(17:29):
Correct.
You're really gonna be lost inthat one.

Doug Lemov (17:32):
But Colleen talks, yeah, Colleen talks about that
all the time, how it's reallyimportant that we that the
books, books be worthy ofanalysis.
But I just want to linger for aminute on the daughter's
surprise, right?
That like and to she's proud ofherself for having done
something hard, for having readsomething challenging, for
something that she knows ismeaningful, and then to like
find herself.
You know, I would love it ifkids would, if kids love the

(17:54):
books that we read.
But to have them walking awayhaving written a four-page, like
cohesive argument to be ableto, you know, articulate a
series of very complex ideasabout the book, even if it's to
say this is why I wasn't thatcrazy about the book and I don't
like dystopian fiction, f likevictory, to be able to like
books are the are the place inwhich substance in which

(18:14):
substance is explored.
There really isn't another wayto communicate that level of
substance.
And you know, like you couldsay, well, could you write a
four-page paper about a movie?
Yeah, you probably could.
But there's something about thedurability of a book, and that
you can go back and you can lookat the author's exact words and
examine them and continue tolike refresh your working memory

(18:38):
of those of those concepts.
That's really important.
And I do think is like one ofthe messages that kids take away
from school, which is um Ididn't really wasn't sure I
wanted to read it.
I wasn't always sure during itthat I wanted to read it.
I read it, I'm really uh Iunderstand it, I'm really proud
of it.
And then I wrote a really goodargument about it, and I looked
back on for something that meanssomething in school.
You know, people like to havedone meaningful things.

Lori (19:03):
Yes.
And I mean, yes, obviously itwas in school, right?
It would be a different thingif she were reading at home.
We wouldn't have had that samedialogue.
She wouldn't have, I don'tthink she would have felt as
proud because I I think part ofit was the collaboration, as you
all said, with her classmates,that conversation and really
digging out the key ideas there.
So I think the next questionthat I want to ask you all,

(19:24):
because I think this is thisconversation is getting at that,
um, is that you say in yourbook, you say, quote, a lot of
books thoughtfully chosen, readtogether and discussed as a
class.
Right.
So as a teacher, I think, whatbooks?
What are we looking for inthese books that we're choosing?
Are there certain qualities?
And why would we choose somebooks over others?

Erica Woolway (19:47):
Lori, to your point on um uh your daughter's
experience about writing thefour-page paper, it's
interesting because um when wewere writing uh to that guide to
the science of reading, wereally struggled with whether or
not it was going to be ReadingReconsidered 2.0.
Um, but uh, but we also wantedto just take advantage of this
moment within the science ofreading.

(20:07):
And again, I think one of thethings that made our book so
different from the first fromReading Reconsidered was this
real emphasis on the research.
Uh and but in our first versionof the book, uh, we really,
really emphasize the importanceof writing.
Um, and I think one of thethings that you describe is just
like the indelible connectionbetween reading and writing and

(20:28):
how it can, how it offers amentor text really for students.
Um, and then Melissa, you know,you were sort of joking, but
like, you know, how do you writea four-page paper on a one-page
article?
The other piece there is myown.
So this is actually my seventhgrader, so a year younger than
yours, but uh uh he had asimilar exercise, but it was in
science class.
So it was a science article, ascience video, and then he had

(20:50):
to answer a series of questions.
And I actually think thatthey're able to do this in other
classrooms.
And so in middle and highschool, it really should be
reserved for, again, thisemotional connection with one
single book for all the reasonsthat we've described.
But then now you're mentioningthis idea of which books, uh,

(21:11):
which is a complicated uhquestion to ask.
But I think Doug or Colleen,one of you guys could kick us
off just with the idea, I thinkfirst and foremost for us is
text complexity and beingthoughtful about um uh exposing
students to complex textsbecause on their own, you know,
you know, Doug, you alluded tothe SpongeBob or the, you know,

(21:31):
Captain Underpants or whateverit is, though if those are the
those are the books they'regoing to flock to and they're
going to find joy out of, thenit's our responsibility to bring
in more rigorous texts toensure that they can also have
those effective relationshipswith Lord of the Flies and
conquer them themselves.
So, Doug or Driggs, I'll letyou take the canonical question

(21:52):
there.

Colleen Driggs (21:53):
I know you love to talk about the the canonical
texts.
One of the things that's reallyimportant to me when we're
thinking about, you know, we wedid this when we were thinking
about choosing books for ourcurriculum, is we know the
relationship between knowledgeand comprehension.
And so we want to be thoughtfulabout what are the books or the

(22:14):
portfolio of books that aregoing to help us to build uh
students' background knowledge,specifically thinking about a
breadth of background knowledge,uh, so that they can use that
knowledge that we build throughthe reading of these books to
fuel their comprehension offuture texts.
And so I think one of thethings that happens to teachers
is they so earnestly wannainspire their kids to read more

(22:38):
that they say, great, do youlove to read about sports?
That's fine.
You can read as many books asyou want to read about sports,
and that's fine.
But I think what we start tothen shy away from is putting
books in front of kids that aregoing to offer them rich
opportunity to build newnetworks of knowledge, uh,
again, that are gonna supporttheir comprehension and their
understanding of future booksthat they read.

(22:59):
And as importantly, thebuilding of knowledge in new
contexts about things that theymight not have known about
previously, we actually start tobuild their interest and
engagement and curiosity inareas that they hadn't
previously known about.
And so just because they lovesports doesn't necessarily mean
that they're not interested innature or space.

(23:22):
Uh, they might be, they justdon't know it yet.
And so I think that we have areal responsibility as teachers
and parents um to think aboutgreat, so what's a new topic or
what, you know, a book, what's anew topic in a book that might
my kids might be exposed to thatmight generate uh this new
interest that is going to fueluh lots more curiosity and lots

(23:44):
more reading on a topic that waspreviously unknown to them.

Doug Lemov (23:48):
I was gonna throw out a couple of just rules for
changing the book.
One is it should be prettyhard.
I mean it shouldn't be likeimpossible, but it should it
should actually be pretty hard.
Because part of the benefit ofreading it together as a group
is that you with the support ofyour teacher, you learn that you
can handle things that areharder than you initially
thought.
That is the fundamentalexperience of being, you know,
in a college or university, islike I remember um being in the

(24:12):
basement of some, you know, someuh university building trying
to read the sound and the furyand being like, this makes no
sense.
Uh and then you're like, youknow, eventually eventually it
does.
But the part of the way you getthere is by having engaged in
productive struggle, ideallywith the support of an adult who
kind of guides you through itand understands how you make

(24:33):
meaning when meaning isdifficult.
Like, and it's not just becauseyou want to read the sound and
the fury in the basement of yourdorm, but if you like anything,
a contract, a legal document, ascientific uh, you know, pit of
research, we have to be able tostruggle with hard.
And the other thing about hardis that I think one of the most
overlooked things in reading iscomplex syntax and how uh so

(24:55):
many students can read very, youknow, can read well when this
when the sentences are simple orsimple, but you come up against
something that's written in amulti-clausal structure with the
subject and the objectreversed, and suddenly
everything falls apart.
So being exposed to complextext is important.
And it should be great.
The book should really, reallybe great because one of the

(25:17):
messages is you struggle throughit.
It was hard, but it was greatin the end.
And you had these thoughts thatyou didn't know that you would
have.
See further, you know, yourdaughter with Lori with Flies.
And I just think it's reallyimportant to remember that with
the decline of reading outsideof school, hopefully we will be
able to change it.
But it is an inexorable anddemonstrable like uh social

(25:38):
trend.
For many students, the booksthat they read with us, the 12
books, the 20 books they read inschool will be the only books
that they read cover to cover.
Like that is really sad toacknowledge, but it also reminds
us how important those bookchoices are.
And like we should be choosinggreat books.
And one of the, to me, one ofthe like criteria for like what
is great tested by time is apretty good proxy that you know

(26:04):
people for you know 50 yearshave been thinking, wow, Lord of
the Flies, this book is reallygreat.
Um that's something you know itdoesn't mean that every book
has to be old, but it'ssomething we shouldn't dismiss
out of hand, right?
That that tells us something.

Melissa (26:18):
Doug, I just have to say you brought me back to my
college days in my Chaucerclass.
It was the exact experiencethat I had, which at the
beginning, I was just like, Idon't, I want to drop this
class.
This is like a whole newlanguage.
I have no idea what's going on.
But then, you know, with thattea, the teacher helped me
through it.
And by the end, it was like,this, these are actually fun

(26:39):
little stories.

Doug Lemov (26:41):
I I did, I dropped a class in college because the
reading was, I was, I wanted to,I was like, oh, I should be a
doctor probably.
And I took a bio class and Ihad never really read any
scientific text before.
And they like sent me down tothe science library to read a
couple of, and I was like,that's over.
And I became ironically, Ibecame an English major.
Anyway, but like I, you know,you should not, you should not

(27:03):
be scared, people should not bescared of difficulty, is it's
part of our duty to young peopleto help them understand how to
how to struggle and actually begratified in the end that they
persisted.

Lori (27:14):
Yeah, for sure.
Learning is not only hard, butreally messy and it's never a
straight line, it's always allover the place.
I think the thing that I'mthinking about now is if I'm a
teacher listening and I am givenbooks to read, I don't have the
freedom to choose.
Like, what what do I do there?
How do I, how do I bring thespirit of this conversation to

(27:36):
my curriculum?
And I know there are so many, Ialways I think it's so
important that like whateveryou're presenting to your
students should be with theutmost energy, right?
I mean, that's your energy,they mimic.
So if you're really bummedabout reading Lord of the Flies
and it's in your curriculum,they're also gonna be really
bummed.
Um, yeah, I I it's funny.
I was I teach at the gym.

(27:58):
Uh I teach classes at the gym.
And the cla the the one themuscle groups that are the
hardest, I'm always like themost pumped about because I know
nobody wants to do chest ever.
They're like, no, that'sexhausting.
You know, chest push-ups, it'stoo much.
So I'm super pumped.
I'm like, chest is my favorite.
Here we go, guys.
This is gonna be your favoritetoo by the end.
You're gonna see how muchgrowth you've made.

(28:18):
And your last five reps are themost important, and we're gonna
do this together.
But I think we need that sameenergy and spirit with the books
that we're given.
So besides that, though, Idon't really have a lot of great
advice.
So I'm excited to hear whatyou're all gonna share with us.

Colleen Driggs (28:34):
For me, it's my shoulders.
Those are the ones that Ialways do.
Oh, shoulders are tough too.
That's that's yeah.

Lori (28:38):
Okay.
Well, if you're in my class,that would be my your my
favorite for you.

Colleen Driggs (28:42):
Um what so I think like at a very
foundational level, I think likewe have to be, I want to give
teachers license just to jump inand start reading.
Um, I think one of the thingsthat has happened in to
teachers, we talked about thisat the beginning, is teachers
have been told that we should bedoing all of these other things

(29:04):
in reading class other thanreading.
So we should be writing, whichwe love, we should be
discussing, which we love.
Uh, we should, you know, bedoing like projects and
PowerPoint presentations.
And what's happening is Whichwe don't love as much.
I didn't comment on that one.
Uh but what we've lost sight ofis that the real work and the

(29:24):
real learning happens in thetext.
And so I think our firstinclination when we get those
texts that we might not love asmuch is to actually like stay
away from the text, right?
We'll we'll assign kids to readit independently.
We'll hope that they read itindependently, but if they
don't, that's okay because we'rejust gonna talk about it the
next day.
So I think the first step isjust really encouraging teachers

(29:46):
to devote as much of their timein their reading classes to
doing the reading and thenstarting to think about well,
how do we support kids in makingmeaning?
So this is the real work ofreading classes.
And I think as teachers, evenif it's a book.
That we don't love, um, firstwe should start to think about
what makes this bookchallenging, right?

(30:06):
What is going to be hard aboutthis book for kids?
Because I think that'ssometimes the reason that we
either don't love a book or wethink that our kids won't love a
book because we're worriedabout the challenges that it
will pose.
And so then we need to start tothink about great, is it a
knowledge gap?
What's the contextual knowledgethat I need to provide to my
students in order to help themaccess this book at a
foundational level or perhaps tosee this book in a new way?

(30:29):
What are the vocabulary wordsthat are gonna be really
challenging for my kids?
And how am I gonna teach thosewords explicitly so that the
vocabulary doesn't become abarrier to understanding?
And then I'm gonna start tothink about so, what are the
different ways that I'm going toread this with my students to
support them in reading thisbook in a more fluent way?

(30:50):
So I'm gonna do some sharedoral reading as a class.
I'm gonna wanna spend some timedoing teacher read aloud and
preparing to do that read aloudto really bring that book to
life.
And then, of course, there willbe opportunities for them to do
some short bursts ofindependent reading.
And I think it's also, and so Ithink in thinking about what
makes it hard and doing ourhomework and thinking about
great, here are the networks ofknowledge that I'm going to

(31:13):
build to give kids access.
I think we start to understanda little bit more about the
author's intentionality.
We begin to see the book at newdepths.
I think we start to understand,hmm, this is a really
interesting perspective,learning more about the author
that I didn't know before.
Now I have a clearer picture ofwhy they might have written
this.
And then I think we should alsojust ask ourselves, what makes
this book beautiful?

(31:33):
And if we can't answer thatquestion ourselves, that's okay.
That's when, again, we start todo a little bit more research.
So we start to read uh a littlebit of the lit crit.
Why do why do people love thisbook?
We talk to our colleagues.
Have you ever read this book?
What is it about this book uhthat I might be missing that I
could share with my students sothat they might enjoy it?
So doing these like, you know,mini book club discussions
outside of class so that I canbring that joy and that

(31:56):
knowledge to my students.

Doug Lemov (31:58):
As Colleen's talking, I keep thinking about
um how hard Shakespeare is.
But then one of the ways to getkids to love Shakespeare is for
them to see it dramatized.
But like when when it comes,when someone brings a text to
life, oh, it's really good.
If you read the screenplay ofyour favorite movie, you'd be
like, but then the movie, thenyou see it dramatized, it comes

(32:19):
to life, it's beautiful.
And so I just want todouble-click on what Colleen is
saying about the power ofread-aloud.
But like stories like investedwith meaning and read and
brought to life are so powerful.
One of the my favorite videosin the book is a video of uh a
teacher named Gabby Wolfe.
She teaches what's to us theequivalent of 11th grade at King
Solomon Academy in London.
And they're reading um MarvelLouis Stevenson, uh, Dr.

(32:43):
Jekyll, and Mr.
Hyde, right?
This is a really hard book.
Uh, very complex syntax.
You could imagine kids beingput off by it.
But the lesson starts just withher reading it beautifully for
like four or five minutes, justinvesting it with expression.
Like suddenly, this very drybook has like come to life.
And then she asked them tostart reading a little bit,

(33:04):
first in like pairs and thenaloud to the group.
And like they're kind ofmimicking her, like taking just
immense pleasure and bringingthis difficult book to life.
So I just think like read aloudis so underestimated.
And of course, then they'rehearing the meaning come to the
book.
She also supplements in acouple really interesting ways.
I think that's one of thethings that we could think
about.
She showed them, she wastalking about Victorian

(33:24):
sensationalism.
So she showed them some likethese are headlines from
Victorian newspapers, and theseare some of the things that were
written about at the time.
And so she's building theirbackground knowledge, but she's
also um, you know,supplementing.
And if you have a book thatyou, you know, you went, you
were saying, like, what if it'sa book that I really, really
don't like?
You know, you could alwayssupplement with either
nonfiction or other fictionpassages that are similar.

(33:46):
I mean, I don't know why anyonewouldn't love No Breathe the
Stars, because I think it's agreat book.
But let's say you're readingsomething about World War II and
you didn't like it, you couldbring in, you could read aloud a
section from the Diary of AnneFrank, you know, to like
embellish it with uh withsomething you really did think
that was great, that's kind oftangentially related to the book
that you're reading.
So if you're not crazy aboutthe book, one bring it to life,

(34:09):
I would say try to, but thenlike you can bring it to life by
finding related, comparabletexts also that might be might
cause connections for forstudents or for yourself.

Melissa (34:19):
Yeah, I am loving these suggestions because uh
throughout this wholeconversation, I was thinking
about all those times that Iwould assign my kids to read a
chapter at home.
And you know, you have all overthe place.
You have some kids who comeback the next day and they're
like, I read the whole book.
Then you have other kids whohaven't read anything, and
you're like, great, how are wegonna have this lesson?
You haven't read a thing, youknow, and you have everyone

(34:41):
across the spectrum and you'retrying to have this lesson.
So I just love the ideas you'retalking about with, you know,
keep it in the classroom.
That's what the class is for,right?
Like, let's read it in class.
But then I've also seen, Iwon't say I've done it, but I
probably have, where teachersare like just reading aloud just
to get through it, or evenplaying the audiobook just to,
you know, like, well, if theydidn't read it at home, they're

(35:01):
not gonna read it at home.
So we're just gonna do this toget through it.
And I love the way you all aretalking about these read alouds
as being purposeful, right?
So it's not like don't readaloud to your kids, but use it
as a purposeful way of gettingthem into the book, getting them
interested, excited, ready forthis lesson, and then giving
them their space and time toread it too.
So is there anything else youall want to add about that?

(35:22):
Just because I that hit homefor me for sure.

Erica Woolway (35:26):
I love that, Melissa.
What you just mentioned umcertainly resonates.
I I mean, I as a parent, I useAudible as a hack for sure.
Um, one of the things I use itin the car as a as a replacement
for devices.
So we'll just listen tosomething together.
But when it comes to theclassroom, I think one of the
things that Read Allow allowsyou to do is um do what we call

(35:47):
knowledge feed.
Um, whether it's maybe it'sjust for vocabulary, right?
So you encounter a challenge invocabulary word and you just
briefly say that means X, um,which you can't do with an
audible, right?
You'd have to be pausing itevery so pretty frequently,
depending on the book, uh, togive that knowledge.
Um and both Colleen and Doughave talked about the importance

(36:07):
of preparing um for us asteachers, even just if it's just
rehearsing your read aloud,encircling that vocabulary that
you know that you might have todefine for kids and actually
just jotting a note to yourselfin the margin what the what the
um how you'll define it.
Because oftentimes um when wecome up, try to come up with a
definition for something on thefly, it's not as accurate as we
might um think it to be.

(36:28):
And so I think that would justbe one other um additional
suggestion um in terms of how toincrease the intentionality of
your read alouds.
And of course, obviouslymodeling the the drama um um in
that read aloud and that passionis really what's gonna help it
come alive, not to mention umhelp it make meaning, right, for
our most struggling readers.
Um, and that's usually thebenefit of Audible because it

(36:50):
will it will lend that sort ofspirited read that that we might
not otherwise be able to bring.

Doug Lemov (36:55):
In the video of Kathy Wolf that I was describing
before, she does that twice.
Once she says to the class, Iwant us to read it aloud, I'll
start, you'll pick up, and we'regonna read it in the spirit of
Victorian sensationalism that weknow Stevenson was trying to
achieve.
So I should really hear thesensationalism in your voice,
which to your point is likecausing them to be like doubly
attentive to the text and pullthings, pull meaning out of the

(37:15):
text and find the words thatwere sensationalists and read it
like, read it purposefully,which I think is beautiful.
And then there, you know, shepauses every once in a while to
like drop down a vocabulary wordor feed into little nods, a
scene where like the maid faintswhen she sees, you know, the
terrible deeds of uh you knowDr.
Dr.
Jekyll or Mr.
Hyde or whatever.

(37:35):
Anyway, she then she pauses andshe's like, Well, she faints.
She says, because she's just awoman, you know, and like the
whole class breaks up laughing.
But now they're now they'resort of more attentive to paying
attention to Victorian genderexpectations, you know.
And so like she even asks themto like play that up a little
bit.
So I just think that I I I loveyour phrase, which is like

(37:55):
reading aloud, but making readaloud purposeful is it's an
exercise in shared meaningmaking, uh, and it can save us a
lot of fun.
You expect having to ask you abunch of questions, like, did
you know where in what whichwords made it sound
sensationalist?
Because if you read it aloud,sensationalist, and you talk
about, you know, the body jumpedupon the roadway or the uh the
bone, the uh the bones audiblyshattered, then uh then you've

(38:21):
already shown that youunderstand.
I also think is reallyinteresting, those are actual
quotes from um from the I'm juststruck by how well I can
remember exact things that Gabbyreads with her kids because
it's so beautifully expressed.
Like um it's weird that Iremember that I remember that
text so well just because shereads it aloud so beautifully.

Colleen Driggs (38:39):
We we love read aloud, so is it okay if I I jump
in as well?
And I think it's particularlyimportant because I think that a
lot of a teach a lot ofteachers assume that read aloud
is something that happens in Kthrough two or maybe K through
three, and then after that, readaloud is done.
And one of the points that wereally try to make in the book
is about the power of readaloud, even through high school.
Um, and so as Doug was talkingabout the Gabby clip, it

(39:00):
reminded me of another clip thatwe show in the book of Scott
Wells.
And he's it's a part of hislesson where he's really focused
on fluency.
And so he does a read aloud,but he is very careful about
calling his shots just likeGabby.
So in this case, he says, as Iread, I want you to pay
attention to how I convey theemotion of the characters.
And then they do a quickdebrief and he says, and now

(39:22):
it's gonna be your turn, you'regonna use those same methods.
And so they do a partnerreading of the very same
section.
And so I think that like,here's a clear model, here's the
purpose for the model, here'swhat I really want you to attend
to, can make it a reallyproductive and meaningful
experience.
For teachers who are interestedin using read aloud, a couple
of things that I think areimportant for uh shaping

(39:42):
students' attention andsupporting comprehension.
Um, so we talk a lot in thebook about annotation tasks.
And so for students who areready to annotate, rather than
just saying, listen as I readaloud, uh, but if we say, um, I
am going to be um reading aloud,and as I read aloud, I want you
to uh notice any of the wordsuh that Lowry uses uh to show

(40:07):
Andre's specific emotions inthis scene, for example.
Um and then also just pausingto ask kids what we call
established meaning questions.
Uh so we want to pause toconfirm literal understanding.
Uh, it can make it a moreactive experience.
We can then uh make sure thatstudents are comprehending in
the ways that we hope that theywere, or the ways that we're

(40:29):
anticipating that they will.
And that's really important todo if it's a particularly
challenging section of text thatwe've just read, or if it's a
particularly critical moment inthe text that we want them to be
able to come back to andremember.

Melissa (40:42):
Yeah, so this is making me think about something else
we wanted to ask you about,which is close reading.
And close reading became, youknow, very popular when the
common core standards wereintroduced.
And, you know, my understandingof close reading, I think is
like just reading a shortpassage and analyzing that short
passage.
So I'm wondering how you allsee close reading kind of

(41:03):
fitting in, like if we'rereading these longer texts, is
there still a place for thisidea of close reading?

Doug Lemov (41:10):
I think we really love the idea of pulling short,
especially meaningful uhsentences or passages from a
longer text that are reallyuseful in helping me to
understand how this text ismaking meaning more broadly.
So I'm almost like digging deepinto the DNA of like one or two
sentences, studying thembriefly, uh, and then letting

(41:31):
you kind of take and apply thatto the rest of the text.
One of my favorite videos inthe book, another favorite video
in the book is one on theteacher named Jan Breaming.
Uh, she's in Plymouth, England.
Uh we have a lot of Americanteachers in the book too, I
promise you, Kevin.
Um she's reading the beginningof Lord of the Flies.
Uh I don't know if you want toif you want to gather your
daughter around for this lawyerand a bunch of I've actually I

(41:53):
have it, uh that's the pagewhere I when I picked my book
up.

Lori (41:56):
I don't know if you saw earlier, I have a sticky on.

Doug Lemov (42:01):
Uh so there it's the beginning of the book.
You know, so for I'm sure mostpeople know the story, but it's
a group of boys from a Britishboarding school.
They're stranded on an island.
It's just the boys, there areno adults, they attend to they
and they attempt to recreatesociety.
It looks like it's going to beidealistic.
It descends very quickly intolike the darkest dystopianism
that you could imagine.
And there's a scene where umone of the one of the

(42:23):
protagonists, Ralph, it's reallyhot on the aisle and he takes
off his clothes.
And so Jen has like taken thissentence and she projects it on
the board wherever can like readit and read it and reread it
and kind of like keep it intheir working memory.
She asks them to read it.
And then she has a she'srewritten a version of the
sentence that is slightlydifferent.
And instead of uh tearing offhis clothes fiercely, he tears

(42:46):
off his clothes eagerly.
Right.
And uh instead of um rememberthe the other exact difference.
I don't know, maybe you can youcan see it in your in your
book, their look, but he shebasically takes a couple of just
word nuances and modulates themslightly.
So you can see the like theforeshadowing in the word
fiercely versus eagerly thatshows like this the savagery

(43:07):
beneath the surface of theboards and she just asks the
students to compare.
How is the mean how is themeaning that's made here
differently?
We could spend a lot of timetalking about symbolism and yet,
but really like this is just anexercise in putting an
important piece of text in acognitively privileged
environment where students canstudy it and go back and forth

(43:27):
between the two and continue tocompare them and study what I've
described as like minimallydifferent examples, how very
small change affects meaningmaking.
And this, you know, I justthink there's a lot of like
cognitive science research abouthow powerful these ideas of
cognitively privilegedenvironment minimally different
examples are to helping peopleunderstand how a complex

(43:48):
phenomena works.
In this case, you know, syntaxand word choice.
I think once you've done thatfor the rest of the chapter now,
and you're like, oh, that wordchoice, you know, that there's a
lot of savage imagery in thisbook.
Hmm.
Rather, you know, so I thinkthat um I just think that's a
great example of close readclose reading.
I'll let Colin Eric make alittle bit more sense of it from

(44:09):
there.

Melissa (44:09):
I was just gonna say real quick, I think it makes so
much more sense to close readsomething that they will have
more knowledge about and canmake more sense of than like
just reading those two sentencesand then never seeing it again.

Lori (44:22):
Yeah.
I was even thinking how thatwould play out for the students
in their writing, that whenstudents are responding to
writing tasks about Lord of theFlies, that they're thinking
about the words that they wantto choose to represent certain
parts.
And if I had to choose betweenthe two words that we were
talking about in this section,which one I would choose and

(44:44):
why, I mean, that's gonna helpme in writing in both the
reading and writing tasks downthe road too, unrelated to this
text, right?
Because as a writer, I'm gonnastop and think, okay, well, what
if I use this word?
Okay, what if I use this word?
All right, now the what's themeaning I really want to convey?
Okay, this word's probably thebetter choice.
And I can have that dialogue inmy head.
I know you all have thatdialogue because you wrote this
awesome book, right?

(45:05):
And Melissa and I had thatdialogue both out loud and in
our heads when when we wrote ourbook too, we feel compelled.
You're putting the words on thepage, but why did the author
choose that word?
Right.
And I mean, it it just levelsup everything.
So sorry to sorry to interrupt.
I know Colleen and Erica, youboth, I'm sure you want to say
something awesome here too aboutthis.

Colleen Driggs (45:25):
No, I love that.
I think one of that's one ofthe important um, you know,
Erica mentioned the indelibleconnection between reading and
writing.
And so one of the ways that weprepare our kids to be better
writers is to give them modelsof complex uh sentences that are
interesting, that have, youknow, sophisticated word choice

(45:45):
in them so that they can then,you know, make those same
decisions or they're moreequipped to make those same
decisions when they're writingtheir own complex, you know,
sophisticated um complexsentences uh with varied syntax
and more interesting vocabularywords.
So I love that point.
Um, I also just wanted to umcome back to this idea of one

(46:06):
thing that's really importantabout us is that we're close
reading in the context of umbooks that kids know.
Um, in the classroom book, um,Melissa, I loved your point of
like they have more knowledgeabout it, so they're gonna be
more successful about with theclose reading, which is an
important component of beingable to successfully close read.
I also think that after readingreconsidered, this was one of
the misconceptions that a lot ofteachers had, which was to

(46:29):
choose a text simply for thesake of close reading, versus
this is the book that we'rereading because it's a rich and
beautiful book that we're gonnaread together.
And there are going to be someexceptionally hard passages, or
there are going to be someexceptionally uh critical
passages that are worth furtherstudy.
And so lift, let's lift thoseand study those.

(46:50):
The goal is to understand themfully and completely so that we
understand better the wholework, uh, versus let me find a
perfect text for close readingthat is actually going to be
meaningless to you tomorrow.

Erica Woolway (47:02):
And I would just add two other brief things.
Um, I think one of the um oneof the reasons I'm really glad
we called this the T Lak Guideto the Science of Reading is um
the power of naming that TeachLike a Champion has as a text
and as an as an ethos.
And the the close readingtechnique that Doug described
earlier, we call sensitivityanalysis.
And we actually borrow it frommath.

(47:23):
Um it's something that theyoften do in math.
Like, so for instance, if thenumber was 6,485, you might ask
a student, okay, how will thisnumber change if we change the
the digit in the in the tensplace?
And so it's sort of the sameidea but applied to to ELA.
And then the other thing Iwould say is um if you've ever
been able to join us in personin our workshops, you'll you'll
get to see, or you would havegotten to see in potentially the

(47:45):
future, I think you're bringingit back, Colleen.
Um, uh Colleen do a model ofthe opening paragraph of John
Steinbeck's Grapes of Wrath.
Um and it really um uh we oftentalk as part of that.
It's it's a the purpose of thatis so that participants can
experience close reading asstudents, but as adult readers
as well, because it's a prettycomplex passage.

(48:06):
And we often talk about how thefirst paragraph of a book is
usually uh pretty rich for andworthy of analysis, and also
oftentimes is um foreshadowingthemes that are gonna uh appear
throughout the book.
So it's another great placealso um for teachers to look in
terms of opportunities for closereading.
But we hope you'll join it uhjoin us at a workshop as well.

Lori (48:28):
Yeah, we'll be sure to link that in the show notes.
We'll link information for yourworkshops, obviously the book,
um, and everything else wetalked about today, too.
I like that Daniel Willing uhWillingham episode that Doug
mentioned earlier, too.
Um but such a good point.
Yeah, I mean, teachers um cantake away some practical tips
just from this conversationright here, right?
So that back and forth withdifferent vocabulary choices, um

(48:51):
looking for the firstparagraph, the last, but really
important places for those closereading opportunities.
All right, so I'm gonna bringit home for us.
Um I have a really fun questionto finish us out today.
If you could each read anentire book with a class of
students tomorrow, so justyourselves today, tomorrow you

(49:13):
walk into a classroom and andyou're gonna teach for the next
month.
Which book would you choose andwhy?

Erica Woolway (49:20):
I'm happy to go first on this.
Um, and I might have cheatedbecause I just reminded myself
of the books that we um teach inour curriculum.
Uh, and we've already mentionedone of them, so I won't
re-remension that.
Uh as I mentioned, ourcurriculum is for middle school.
So for the earlier part ofmiddle school, I would love to

(49:40):
read Wonder with my students.
Um, I think it's, you know,Doug talked about the importance
of reading books that werewritten long ago.
This does not satisfy that.
Um, however, Colleen talkedabout the importance of bringing
in um topics that studentsdon't know as much about.
Um, and I think um what thisbook has is is both an entry

(50:02):
point because it's just aboutall kids, but also um uh the
main character, August, um,living with uh a craniofacial
abnormality and how studentsrespond to him and just the
empathy that's that um you learnthrough reading the book.
Um and so it really capturedone of the things that we talk
about when when it comes to textselection is the importance of

(50:23):
windows and mirrors.
And so I think it both gives awindow into someone else's
experience, but also a mirrorinto their own experiences as
they might be classmates ofsomeone um like this.
So that would I only I'll onlygive one for now.

Lori (50:35):
I know it's very hard to choose.
When we wrote that question, Iwas not sure if you were all
going to be able to rise to thechallenge of just one.

Doug Lemov (50:43):
I suppose that's an argument for books, right?
That we none of us can choose,that they're also meaningful to
us that none of us can reallychoose the one that we most want
to teach.

Lori (50:50):
That is right.

Doug Lemov (50:50):
I'd probably choose Lord the Flies, but with a
giver, I just think they're umspectacularly beautiful and
thought-promoking.
Allah Khalleen take us homewith the winner.

Colleen Driggs (51:03):
Um so it's hard.
I was also thinking of LoisLowry, Number of the Stars,
because I'm reading it with myfourth grader at home right now.
But if I were gonna walk into aclassroom of students tomorrow,
it would definitely be Bud NutBuddy by Christopher Christopher
Paul Curtis.
Um, speaking of canonicalauthors, to me, he is a
canonical author of uh youthfiction.

(51:25):
Um I taught uh the Watson's Goto Birmingham when I was
teaching middle school.
And I love that book deeply,and that was the one I was
pushing for.
Uh the team decided it might beuh a bit of a stretch for fifth
grade.
Um so on our fifth gradecurriculum is we have Bud Nut
Buddy.
Um and I think it is he is soBud is just so relatable, but

(51:48):
surprising and complex.
Um, and given that it's setduring the Great Depression, um,
just an opportunity to buildthose rich networks of
knowledge.
And so I think at first kidsenjoy the book because they're
like, I like Bud, he's funny.
Um, and by the end of it, um,they just like see the depth of
Bud and the depth of the storyuh that he's part of.

Melissa (52:08):
Colleen, I taught both of those books.
Um, yeah, I Watson's Go toBirmingham is one of my
favorites.
But when I taught the Bud N UpBuddy, the kids learned so much
about the Great Depression.
It was crazy.
I was like, and they wereeating it up because they could
also relate to him and hisstory.
It was it was wonderful.
Well, I think this is it, youguys.

(52:28):
This has been a greatconversation.
Thank you all so much.
I want to keep talking to youall, but we have to end the
podcast at some point.
Um, yeah, thank you all foryour time and your knowledge and
your book, and we are soexcited to get this out into the
world.

Doug Lemov (52:44):
So much fun.
Thanks for having us.
We're big fans of the podcast,by the way.

Melissa (52:49):
Thank you so much.
It's been a real treat.
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Lori (53:05):
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Melissa (53:14):
Just a quick reminder that the views and opinions
expressed by the hosts andguests of the Melissa and Lori
Love Literacy Podcast are notnecessarily the opinions of
Great Minds PBC or itsemployees.