Good Luck, They’re Yours: Sharon Draper on Giving Students Room to Read

Episode Transcript
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Sharon M. Draper (00:01):
You can't be preachy. I just put it out
there, if you learn something,oh, good. I got that out of it.
Wonderful. You can't say, well,this is what you need to learn
from this.
You put it out there, andsometimes if you ask a group of
students, well, what did you getfrom this story? Well, I got
this and I got this. They theyget completely different
messages. And so I think that'swhat reading is. As you read,

(00:25):
you get a personalinterpretation of the story and
it may not be the same assomebody else.

Jordan Lloyd Bookey (00:32):
The beauty of a great story is that it
doesn't tell you what to think.It gives the reader space to
feel, to question, and to seethemselves inside.

That's the whole idea of a good teacher.
There should be differentinterpretations. And sometimes
student will come up withsomething that I never thought
of. So sometimes the studentsbecome the teacher. I've learned
a lot from my kids.

Sharon M. Draper knows stories and she
knows kids. She was the kid whomaxed out her library card every
Saturday, the teacher who readaloud to even the most skeptical
students, and the writer whosebest selling novel, Out of My
Mind, was adapted into a filmfor Disney plus and remains
requisite reading for manymiddle schoolers year after

(01:16):
year. A two time Coretta ScottKing award winner, Sharon is the
author of Stella by Starlight,Blended, Tears of a Tiger, and
many more. In this episode,Sharon digs into what it means
to trust readers, how herstudents helped guide her first
book, and how she's navigatedseeing her stories be banned in

(01:36):
classrooms.
Plus, we talk about churchmusic, spiked lemonade, and how
she ended up with a speciallibrary card that gave her
access to the adult section ofthe library. My name is Jordan
Lloyd Bookie, and this is thereading culture, a show where we
speak with diverse authors aboutways to build a stronger culture
of reading in our communities.We dive deep into their personal

(01:58):
experiences and inspirations.This show is made possible by
Beanstack, the leading solutionfor motivating students to read
more. Learn more atbeanstack.com, and make sure to
check us out on Instagram at thereading culture pod and
subscribe to our newsletter forbonus content at the
readingculturepod.com forwardslash newsletter alright on to

(02:21):
the show Hey, listeners.
Are you looking for a fun, easyway to track your reading and
earn cool rewards? Well, meetBeanstack, the ultimate reading
app used by a community of over15,000 schools, libraries, and
organizations nationwide. Areyou an avid reader? Check with

(02:44):
your local library to see ifthey offer Beanstack for free. A
parent?
Ask your child's teacher if theschool library already uses
Beanstack. And if you are aneducator searching for a fresh
alternative to acceleratedreader, Beanstack is the perfect
tool to cultivate a thrivingreading culture. Ready to turn

(03:05):
the page? Visit beanstack.com tolearn more. Alright.
Let's get started at thebeginning. You grew up in
Cleveland. Is that right?

I grew up in Cleveland. It was my mom and my
dad and my brother and mysister. I'm the oldest. And I
kind of controlled whathappened. So if I was reading,
everybody was reading.
If I was playing the piano,everybody was playing the piano.
So, you know, I was the thenatural leader of the family
while mom and dad were at workor whatever. But from the time I

(03:38):
was, I don't know, maybe threeyears old, we lived in walking
distance in the library. And mymother would walk me every
single Saturday down to thelibrary. And we would check out
10 books because that was themax that you could take.
And I would check out 10 booksand I would read them all. And
then the next Saturday, we wouldgo back and I'd get 10 more. So
after a while, everybody at thelibrary knew me. You know, they

(04:01):
knew me. They knew the cat andthe dog.
And so reading just became thething that I did. You know? That
was the thing that I was good atand the thing I enjoyed. So I
read everything on theelementary side of the library,
and then I started sneaking tothe grown up side of the library
when they weren't checking. Butthey knew me so well, they
didn't really care.

I heard you got a special library card?

I did. I got permission to do basically what
I wanted to. They checked me.They knew me. They knew I was a
reader.
I mean, there's those kids thatare just the reader kids and
ugh, Karen, her go. So I readeverything. I read some things
that I probably shouldn't haveread at that age. I learned a
lot. I said, oh, really?
Is that how that works?

Look how you turned out for all those
people out there that are

trying to ban these books that are about
nothing. Yeah. But books were ahuge basis of my childhood.
Huge.

Yeah. I know. It definitely sounds like
that was, like, the cornerstoneof your childhood, really.
Right? And what aboutspirituality?
Was your family religious?

We went to church every Sunday and
Wednesday night bible class toosometimes. Yeah. But yeah. So
the church was very, veryimportant and very influential.
Mhmm.
And there's a lot of music inchurch and song and stories. And
so the whole idea of stories andsongs and music that you learn

(05:23):
from church, you can apply. Youknow, it's the same kind of
thing. You know, church is thesame thing except the story is a
song. Mhmm.
You know, with a little snippetsof wisdom in between, but it's
the songs that I like aboutchurch. I

love that. Little pieces of wisdom woven
into the songs. Were your familywere they storytellers, or did a
lot of the story that you arefamiliar with come from books?
Or did you grow up in atradition of telling stories and
that sort of experience?

The storytelling came from my
grandmother who lived in NorthCarolina. And we would visit
every summer, and that was wherethe stories were good. The
people would come out at nightand they'd all get their
lemonade, which I'm sure wasspiked with something. And later
it got, the better those storiesgot. That's right.
And I would sit in the cornerand hope nobody would send me to

(06:13):
bed because they would just tellstories. That was what they did.
They would sit in the evening.You know, there was no Walmart
to go to. There was, you know,it was just neighborhood and
friends.
And so I learned so much just bylistening to the old people tell
these stories. I wasn't writingthem down. I wasn't taking

(06:34):
notes. I wasn't planning onbeing a writer. I was swallowing
all of that, the music of thosewords.
I was swallowing it. And so thatbecame a real strong part of
what I did. And then in one ofthe books, Stella by Starlight,
I included that southern familyand the girl who wanted to read

(06:55):
and the girl who was havingdifficulty in school and the
racial tensions and things likethat. So a lot of Stella by
Starlight was inspired by mygrandmother's house.

Oh, interesting. In terms of, like,
some of the story itself or interms of just, the environment
that we're in there?

The environment. Yeah. And it was in
North Carolina and it wasextremely racist and divided.
But as a kid, I didn't know.Mhmm.
You know, I just knew there wereplaces that my mother says, no,
you can't go there and quiet,you know. And I remember when it
was the thing because of themovement of people from the

(07:33):
South to the North, There was ahuge amount of people in the
North, but they all hadrelatives in the South. So they
would all go back and they wouldexchange information about go
straight through this town, donot stop. Make sure you get
through this town before dark.Because there were cities that
you could not be in if you wereAfrican American, and you could

(07:55):
not be in these cities afterdark.
There were sundown cities.

Mhmm.

And I remember my father sitting with the
people who had gone a few weeksbefore saying, okay. This is
safe. This is safe. This is notsafe. And I remember we would
drive all night withoutstopping.
There was no such thing asstopping at McDonald's. There
were no McDonald's. There wereno places that we could stop and
eat. No place. Not any.

(08:20):
So my mother would pack food andwe would eat the food that she
packed in the car. Then when wegot there, my grandmother would
have food for us to eat. It wasa whole different world and I
wasn't aware of it because I wasa child.

What was your world like in that way in
Ohio? Did you grow up in like apredominantly black
neighborhood? Was your worldmostly black there too?

Sure was great. Integrated neighborhood,
integrated school. We didn'treally have a lot of racial
tension in schools. Mhmm. Youkind of knew without saying what
was safe and what wasn't and whoto hang with and who not to hang
with.
Some things don't change. Yeah.Just like the teenagers. Right.

(09:04):
So we just figured things out aswe needed to.
I was learning things that I didnot know I was being taught. I
was just observant and watchingeverything. But one of the most
exciting things was sittingaround on my grandmother's porch
late at night listening to theold people tell stories. And

(09:25):
they told stories from way back.Know, they were the stories,
folk tales that are now told.
The story of Anansi and thestory of the animals and how the
animals spoke to each other andall of those stories. I learned
from my grandmother sitting onthe porch listening to the old
people tell the stories. Andthat's something that we've
lost. I think we should sitaround and tell the stories to

(09:47):
our grandchildren again. Theyneed to hear the stories of the
old times and the old people andthe people way before before
them and way before me.
Hi, teach. Look at her. Is she ateacher? Who is she? Is this
three or four?
Are you mister Beringer? Are youthe teacher? You too young. Hey.

(10:09):
She's cute.
Hey, teach. Can I be in yourclass? Good afternoon, miss
Byrne. My name is on theblackboard. Oh, no.
A dame for homework. You want Ishould slug him? Is this
homeroom period?

Yes, listeners. That was a book, an
unconventional one read bymissus Draper that is called up
the down staircase by BellKaufman, first published in 1965
and quickly became a cultclassic among teachers. Told
through memos, notes, andfragments of school life, it
captures the messy, funny,sometimes heartbreaking reality

(10:43):
of a first year teacher tryingto make sense of it all.

So it's just comments from the kids, comments
from the teachers. It's aglorious little book. It's old.
It's dated. You know, just theregular confusion and that comes
in with the kids and how thisyoung teacher figures her way
out through the red tape ofbeing a teacher.
She's not sure how to be ateacher. The kids certainly are
not sure how to be students, andso how she manages to do that.

Okay.

But this was pivotal as I was I knew I was
gonna be a teacher, but thishelped, you know, because it was
everything about what it waslike to be a classroom teacher,
how hard it was, howfrustrating, and how rewarding.
And it was very different then,but it's still the same. You
know, the first day of school isstill a zoo. Yeah. It's still

(11:34):
confusing even with computersand this is where you will sit
and, you know, it's still a zooand you still have a room full
of children who don't know eachother coming together.
Some of them do know each otherand they don't like each other
or they do like each other,which is even worse. You have to
find seats for them. You have tofigure out what their
personalities are. You have tofind their strengths and their

(11:57):
weaknesses, and they close thedoor and say, good luck. They're
yours.
She

may not have written the book, but when
those classroom doors closed,missus Draper turned out to be,
well, the best teacher,literally. In 1997, after more
than two decades as an Englishteacher, she was called to the
East Room of the White Housewhere president Clinton awarded
her the national teacher of theyear. Yeah. That's on her resume

(12:26):
too. Part of the secret to hersuccess was her unflagging
belief that any student could bedrawn in if you could find them
the right kind of stories.

You'd be surprised. Even kids who are
very good readers or kids whoare supposedly very
sophisticated will be quiet ifyou read to them. I was read to
a lot as a child, so I realizedthe importance of the voice that
went along with the words. So alot of times, I would just read
to them, and I would say, okay.We're gonna read chapter three

(13:00):
together.
And I would read it out loud tothem, and I might ask them a
couple of questions. Okay. Youguys read chapter four, and then
tomorrow, I'll read chapterfive. So, you know, it was a
shared experience. But I neverhad any trouble teaching.
Never had any trouble teaching.I loved my job. I loved reading.

(13:20):
I loved writing. I lovedteaching kids how to read and
how to write.

Despite that love for reading, missus
Draper and her students oftenfound themselves stymied by the
curriculum's overwhelmingemphasis on dead male British
authors. And so long beforethere was an official movement
called We Need Diverse Books,missus Draper made it her
business to find stories for herstudents that they could
actually relate to.

I came up at the time when you read the
required text.

Mhmm. For example?

You read Robinson Crusoe. You read Moby
Dick. You read the approvedcanon of books. Most of which
were very old and very boring.And you're reading stories about
ancient England and, you know,kids are saying, well, what's a
jitney?
You know? Vocabularies. Right. Alot of the stuff that's on the

(14:21):
required reading, I don'tnecessarily agree with because
it was a very small group ofpeople says, yes. They all have
to read this.
There's so many other wonderfulbooks that were left off of
their required list. Right. Andso I did a lot of I had a
library in my classroom andsaid, you don't have to read all

(14:43):
that. Read this. Read this.
Here. Try this. Try this. Trythis. And I didn't give them
anything that was too mature forthem, but there's so much more
available than the literature ofancient England.
It was it was boring. It reallywas. I would spice it up with
different books. I would bringbooks in. I would go to the

(15:04):
library and bring books in.

What kind of books did you bring in?

Anything. Anything that was interesting,
that was lively. Henry Huggins,you know. The books that were
about kids, books that wereabout real people. What was the
name of that book about the girlthat lived on the mountain?

Oh, Heidi?

Yeah. Heidi. Those kinds of stories. Anything
that would appeal to thembecause nothing at that time was
contemporary. Nothing.

Yeah.

There was no such thing as writing a book
about what's happening today inthe world. You read a from a
long time ago, and you shut upand said you liked it because it
was all that was there.

Did you feel like there was also, like,
a prescriptive way to interpreta book? Like, this is the
correct interpretation of a textas well?

In some cases, in some schools, schools,
especially the parochialschools, you know, were very
strict on the interpretation ofthis is what this means and very
strict on what they would allowthe students to read. Mhmm. But
you tell a student that a bookis banned, oh my goodness. I had
a book that was banned in, Idon't know, some state,

(16:14):
Michigan, some I don't know. Itwas a long time ago, but it was
banned.
And the kids all promptly wentout and bought it because it was
banned. It's like, oh, pleaseban something else because they
want what you say they can'thave.

So true. Kids are just like us. They want
what they can't have. Right? Youknow, one of my former guests on
this show, Mac Barnett, hetalked a lot about how before a
book ever gets into a child'shands, it has to go through so
many adult gatekeepers, youknow, and it can get really
diluted.
But you, you had this directconnection with kids for a

(16:50):
really long time as a teacher,and I wonder how that informed
your writing. Like, did itinform what you wrote about or
how you

wrote it? I don't think I thought about it.
I really don't. It was like Iknew I had to tell a story. I
knew I had to write a story.
Mhmm. I've read a million books.I can write one. I know I can do
this. So when I wrote the firstbook, my students, I let them
read passages from it.
And, okay. He was, no. We'dnever say that in a locker room.

(17:20):
I said, well, I can't write whatyou would say in a locker room.
I still hear from those kidsfrom time to time who are now
grandparents.
You know? Yeah. But I still hearfrom them and say, you remember
when we sent that book in? Andso it was like a group effort
and I said, okay. So they were a% behind me when I sent the
first manuscript in.

That first manuscript may have had Sharon
Draper's name on the cover, butit was shaped by students who
knew exactly what rang true andwhat didn't. That same trust
carried into Sharon's teaching,where she made sure every reader
had room to interpret thematerial in their own way and
often found they had somethingto teach her in return.

I think kids are independent enough to have
opinions on what they like andwhat they don't like. Mhmm. And
I would keep a huge library ofbooks in my classroom, you know,
and say, if you don't like this,go read that. You don't wanna
read that? That's fine.
You know, use this one. Use thatone. That's harder. That's more
challenging. I had one studentwho was just brilliant.

(18:24):
I mean, she was the smartestchild I have ever taught in my
life. She was just plainbrilliant. It was a challenge to
find books for her to read thatshe hadn't already read.

Oh, like you. You know,

it was fun giving her books and giving her
challenges. And each childrequired a different kind of
book or a different kind ofchallenge, which is why I kept
books in the classroom. I livein Florida and books have been
removed from classrooms, so wewon't go there. I went to a
school in Florida and the roomwas empty and echoey. And I

(19:01):
said, what is this room?
Oh, it used to be the library.Saddest thing I've ever heard in
my life. They've taken all thebooks out. Really? Yeah.
I have some middle school inFlorida.

Wow. Yes. Oh, God. That's so dystopian.
Really?
Yes. But you were still invitedto speak there?

Well, I was given parameters Mhmm. Of what I
could and could not cover. But Istill have four or five of my
books on the Florida bannedbooks list. The people who do
that are people who were not thea students in school.

Say that again.

You know, who said, okay. We're gonna ban all
these books. And it hurts me tomy very soul, the fact that
there are human beings who aresaying we are limiting the
number of books that childrencan read.

Yeah. I know. It's heartbreaking,
really, to think about kidshaving that access taken away.
Because as you've said, the waystudents, like, pull different
meanings from the same story, Imean, that's the whole point.
Right?
That's where the learninghappens.

Yeah. And they learn a little something. You
can't be preachy. They'll turnyou off. Commit it if you're
preachy.
I just put it out there, and ifyou learn something, oh, good.
You got that out of it?Wonderful. You can't say, well,
this is what you need to learnfrom this. You put it out there.
And sometimes if you ask a groupof students, well, what did you
get from this story? Well, I gotthis and I got this. They get

(20:26):
completely different messages.And so I think that's what
reading is. As you read, you geta personal interpretation of the
story and it may not be the sameas somebody else.
And that's okay when they'reinterpreting your stories
differently too even than youwould?

It should be. In your experience, did you
see that that was acceptablehaving different interpretations
of the same text?

Oh, yeah. Absolutely. I mean, that's the
whole idea of a good teacher.There should be different
interpretations. Right.
And sometimes a student willcome up with something that I
never thought of. Like, youknow, that character reminded me
of a bird. You know what? You'reright. And I never even thought
about that.
And the next time I teach it, Isay, you know, this character

(21:10):
could probably be a bird. I gotthat from a student. So
sometimes the the studentsbecome the teachers. I've
learned a lot from my kids. Thatis true.
I still communicate with lots ofthem. They still keep in touch.
I remember when I first got onFacebook, they all said, hey.
She finally joined the Facebook.And so I still hear from them

(21:31):
from time to time.

No. I love that. Your students were always
shaping how you saw a characterand then that relationship is,
like, continuing today. Do youfeel like that carries over into
your writing too still? Like,when you're working on a book
now, are you thinking about alot about your readers or even,
like, specific students, or isit more about the story that you
feel pulled to tell?

Well, I think the teacher in me is always got
the audience in the back of mymind. But my first job is to
make sure that the book isreadable, funny, exciting, just
a little bit challenging, youknow, because they won't read it
if it's too hard. And it has tohave something in it so that

(22:17):
they can hey, you gotta readthis book. This is pretty good,
you know. And that kind of thingwhere you get a grudging respect
from the students.
And over the years, I have kindof figured out what it is that
they will read. And they wannaread about kids their own age.
They wanna read about kids whohave challenges, kids who have
mastered challenges, and youhave to know your audience. And

(22:43):
I kind of know who my audienceis and who my kids are, who's my
reader kids, And they're rightthere for me.

What is it in your mind about, like,
certain of your books that havehad this, like, huge success?
What is it that you

think is, like, just so captivating about
them for students? When I'mwriting a story, I don't think
about where it's gonna end up. Ireally don't. Mhmm. You know, I
can't.
Yeah. Because the world is socrazy now. It's hard to there's
no way I can say, well, this iswhere I want this to land and
this is the purpose or this waybecause it might end up going

(23:20):
completely in a differentdirection. But I know young
people. And even though today'syoung people are all on their
computers and their laptops andtheir little finger things and
they know how to do things thatI don't know how to do.
You know, my computer goes down,my grandson comes and fixes it
for me. That's far ahead that weBut they're still wondering

(23:43):
about who they are, who they'regonna be, what am I gonna do?
I'm getting ready to grow up.What am I gonna do with my life?
And they need something to helpthem make those decisions.
Like, when I do Zooms with kids,I'll tell them, how many of you
like to cook? Oh, yeah. Good.Well, come to my house because I
can't cook. They say, you can'tcook.

(24:04):
I said, no. I can write, but Ican't cook. So find that you're
good at. If you're good atcooking, then look for a career
in cooking. You're good inswimming, look for a career in
swimming.
I can't swim.

Mhmm.

If I jumped in the pool, I would die and you
would have to save me. So learnto be a good swimmer so you can
save me so I don't die. So Itell them, we all have our
gifts. Find your gift and thenfocus on that. Everybody has a
gift.
So you figure out what your giftis.

When we asked missus Draper to come up
with a reading challenge, shewas reluctant to give us a list
of must reads. Maybe that's notsurprising though given her past
frustrations with inflexiblerequired reading lists. In true
teacher fashion, she flipped theassignment. What she gave us was
basically a lesson plan.

The project that I would give for teachers
is to find something that fitstheir classroom, that fits their
students because every classroomis different, every student's
needs are different. Thebackground that the students
have, the kids who live inchallenged neighborhoods and
have difficult family lives, theteachers have to know, how do I

(25:22):
deal with this child who says,well, the reason I was late is
my daddy got taken to jail thismorning. There's you gotta be
able to cope with that and dealwith and that's a common thing
that kids might say, and theyjust throw it off. But that
child is traumatized, and sowhat do you do to reach out to
that child? Ideally, you have astory or something that you can

(25:43):
read to them or they can read.
So here's a book about a kid whohad to do this. Oh, really? You
know, that kind of thing. Butthere's no one answer because
every day is different.

You can find Sharon's lesson plan and
all of our past author readingchallenges at the
readingculturepod.com. And thisweek's Beanstack featured
librarian is William Shaller,the middle school librarian at
Hoffman Middle School inHouston, Texas for the past
seven years. William shares hissecret sauce for getting kids

(26:19):
excited about reading.

William Schaller (26:22):
So when I look at the middle school students at
my school, they eat with theireyes first. So they're not even
gonna come in to the library. SoI really wanted to make
something eye engaging andvisually appealing and just to
completely switch up the space.When I interviewed for the
position, they said, what areyou gonna do to make the library
the heart of the school andenergetic? And that got me

(26:43):
thinking, like, the first thingit needs is a total, like,
makeover.
It's ugly. The carpet stinks.The books are smelly. We just
need to weed everything and getit up to par. So the secret
sauce for me was getting thekids in the library and how am I
gonna do that by just almosttricking them, but it's not
really tricking them intoreading.
It's tricking them to come intothe library so then that way
they can get a book. So wecompletely painted all the

(27:06):
walls. We got the old books out.We did front facing shelving,
and one of the biggesthighlights is the LEGO wall. So
they're building in themakerspace area, but then as
they're building, they'relooking at the books on the
shelf.
They're realizing, oh, thislooks good. There's Medusa on
this cover. Oh, I like this one.This one has romance, and I I'm
becoming a teenager, and I Iwanna read about someone's love

(27:26):
story. So by getting them inhere and doing activities and,
like, Lorcana tournaments orLego activities or just book
clubs during lunch, getting themhere is the hardest part.
Then once they're here, I cantalk to them. I can interact.
They like me. I like them, andwe can get them a book. And we
can ask the questions, andbuilding that trust is the
secret sauce.

(27:46):
Getting them in, building thetrust, and then getting them
that book is the easy part oncethey're here.

This has been the reading culture, and
you've been listening to myconversation with Sharon m
Draper. Again, I'm your host,Jordan Lloyd Bookie, and
currently, I'm reading a courtof thorns and roses by Sarah j
Maas and coven by Soman Shanani.If you've enjoyed today's
episode, please show some loveand give us a five star review.
It just takes a second, and itreally helps. This episode was

(28:19):
produced by Mel Webb and LowerStreet Media and script edited
by Josiah Lamberto Egan.
To learn more about how you canhelp grow your community's
reading culture, check out allof our resources at
Beanstack.com. And remember tosign up for our newsletter at
the readingculturepod.comforward slash newsletter for
special offers and bonuscontent. Thanks for listening,

(28:41):
and keep reading.

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Good Luck, They’re Yours: Sharon Draper on Giving Students Room to Read

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