In This Issue:

[thrive_toggles_group”][thrive_toggles title=”Quotes of the Week” no=”1/1″]
“A smartphone is the world in your palm, but it is also a tyrant.”

Penny Kittle in “Let Them Read, Please” in Educational Leadership, February 2020

(Vol. 77, #5, pp. 77-81), for ASCD members or purchase at https://bit.ly/38C6DR8

“Once educators are freed from defensiveness and realize that no one is questioning their intentions, they can engage in the daily work necessary to ensure students of color are consistently treated fairly and with respect, high expectations, and dignity.”

Sarah Fiarman and Tracey Benson (see item #1)

“It is futile for school leaders to seek ‘balance’ or ‘science’ in an approach to reading instruction in the current market because both have been commodified as branded symbols of one side of the reading debate or the other.”

Rachael Gabriel (see item #6)

“Reading is more than mechanics, of course. It’s a venture of the heart and spirit as well. The wrong mix, proportion, or order of attention to brain, heart, and spirit will, for some learners, make things go awry.”

Carol Ann Tomlinson (see item #3)

“Imposing a consistent daily instructional block devoted to literacy sounds rigorous. But what would really be rigorous is if we maximized the amount of daily reading instruction – not worrying too much about when it was delivered or whether it all took place at the same time of day.”

Timothy Shanahan (see item #4)

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[thrive_toggles_group”][thrive_toggles title=”1. Addressing Unconscious Racial Bias in Schools” no=”1/1″]
In this article in School Administrator, leadership consultant Sarah Fiarman and Tracey Benson (University of North Carolina/Charlotte) share uncomfortable moments they experienced as school leaders. Benson, who is African-American, got pushback from an all-white middle-school staff when he presented data showing stark racial disparities in student achievement. “Are you saying we’re racist?” one educator asked, leading Benson to back off and adopt an indirect approach on racial issues in the school. Fiarman describes avoiding discussions about race and racism as a new principal, worried that she would make a mistake and lose credibility “as a good white person fighting for social justice.”

After leaving school leadership positions and beginning to consult in schools, Fiarman and Benson found that uncomfortable moments like these are quite common. “White people fear being called racist and education leaders fear the consequences of that reaction,” they say. “Most of us are stuck in what we’ve come to understand as a binary view of racism… On one side are racists who are bad people with malicious feelings toward people of color, and on the other side are people with good intentions who are therefore nonracists. Within this bad racist/good nonracist binary mindset, racism is something you can choose to be exempt from.”

But research has established that almost all Americans have unconscious racial bias, say Fiarman and Benson, and it influences daily interactions in schools: “who gets called on or gets probed for deeper thinking, who is chosen for a special job or recommended for honors or pushed to improve further in written and oral responses. Bias also influences who is reprimanded more often and who is denied empathetic listening or a second chance.” These small daily events accumulate over weeks, months, and years, profoundly affecting the experience of students of color and also perpetuating biases in white students.

Understanding the pervasiveness of unconscious bias – often counter to our espoused values – is key to reducing racial disparities in schools, say Fiarman and Benson: “Once educators are freed from defensiveness and realize that no one is questioning their intentions, they can engage in the daily work necessary to ensure students of color are consistently treated fairly and with respect, high expectations, and dignity.” They believe that two high-leverage steps by school leaders can make all the difference:

• Normalizing conversations about race and bias. “Few educators in the United States have experience talking about race and racial bias in mixed-race settings,” say Fiarman and Benson. “Many white people don’t have experience talking about or recognizing the impact of their racial identity at all, and some white people still mistakenly subscribe to a colorblind approach.” Everyone needs practice, and leaders should work to create a safe space for these conversations. One caution: too often educators of color are called on to lead this work, which is unfair and emotionally taxing for them.

• Gathering evidence of impact. Effective school leaders “understand that the issue is not whether racial bias impacts their students but where and how,” say Fiarman and Benson. “As a result, they regularly collect, disaggregate, and analyze data. They model taking responsibility for results by asking, ‘What is the learning experience of students of color in my district? How do I know? What do we need to change in our practice in order to get better results? How will we know whether the change is an improvement?’”

“The Reality of Unconscious Racial Bias” by Sarah Fiarman and Tracey Benson in School Administrator, February 2020 (Vol. 77, #2, pp. 20-25), https://bit.ly/31XxxjU; the authors can be reached at sarahfiarman@gmail.com and tbenso11@uncc.edu.
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[thrive_toggles_group”][thrive_toggles title=”2. Culturally Responsive School Leadership in Michigan” no=”1/1″]
In this article in School Administrator, Muhammad Khalifa (University of Minnesota) remembers with regret how he absorbed certain attitudes when he was a young teacher in Detroit: “Despite being a black man from a socially conscious family, I was guilty of holding a deficit view of black students (and others who are marginalized). When colleagues attributed students’ acting out in class or spoke of apathetic and angry parents, I began to espouse those views.” Maturing as an educator, he learned more about the historical context, and by the time he was a central-office leader, a parent, and a professor, he knew the leadership practices that would turn around old attitudes.

Khalifa had the chance to observe Joe Dulin, an Ann Arbor high-school principal, over two school years. “I was awed by his ability to connect with and encourage students about their college plans while allowing them to retain their community-based identities,” says Khalifa. “Whenever he spoke to teachers, parents, and students, he asked for feedback.” Here were some of Dulin’s attributes:

– Finding positive cultural assets in how students presented themselves in school;

– Being a “warm demander,” holding students and families to high academic and behavioral standards while maintaining positive relationships;

– Nurturing a “critiquing voice” that gave students the language they needed when they encountered racism, discrimination, and injustice;

– Confronting teacher-student “deal-making” that lowered expectations or permitted student disengagement – for example, voluble students being allowed to leave classrooms for nonacademic spaces.

The results in Dulin’s school were remarkable: nearly all students graduated and were college-bound, suspensions were virtually nonexistent, student-teacher relationships were positive, and students became articulate advocates for equity and racial justice.

“Promoting Culturally Responsive Leadership Practices” by Muhammad Khalifa in School Administrator, February 2020 (Vol. 77, #2, pp. 32-36), https://bit.ly/37yDRzJ; Khalifa can be reached at khalifam@umn.edu.
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[thrive_toggles_group”][thrive_toggles title=”3. Carol Ann Tomlinson on What Works Best in Reading, and for Whom” no=”1/1″]

(Originally titled “Invitations to Read”)

In this Educational Leadership article, differentiation guru Carol Ann Tomlinson (University of Virginia/Charlottesville) says learning to read involves:

– Hearing, recognizing, and manipulating individual sounds in words (phonemic awareness);

– Grasping the relationship between sounds and letters (phonics);

– Understanding word meaning (vocabulary);

– Reading naturally and quickly (fluency);

– Understanding what a text is saying (comprehension).

Those are the basics, says Tomlinson, but “it’s trickier to predict the order in which a student will need to encounter the elements, the amount of initial and follow-up practice that would best serve a particular student, or the mixture of elements most advantageous to a given learner at a given time… Reading is more than mechanics, of course. It’s a venture of the heart and spirit as well. The wrong mix, proportion, or order of attention to brain, heart, and spirit will, for some learners, make things go awry.”

Take phonics. Redundant instruction can shut down students who enter school already reading; dreary exercises can cause behavior problems. But not getting systematic phonics can leave some students with poor decoding skills and zero confidence. The key, says Tomlinson, is tuning into individual needs. Some vignettes:

– A student who couldn’t read basic texts devouring Harry Potter books, “joy seemingly becoming a pathway to greater proficiency with mechanics”;

– Professed nonreaders going home and parsing directions for complex games and reading motorcycle magazines;

– Elementary nonreaders, despite systematic phonics instruction, then learning to read when a community volunteer sat with them in a rocking chair and made a human connection;

– Nonreaders gaining confidence and proficiency when teachers focused on what they could do and gave them highly engaging books.

“Invitations to Read” by Carol Ann Tomlinson in Educational Leadership, February 2020 (Vol. 77, #5, pp. 92-93), https://bit.ly/320BVPc; Tomlinson is at cat3y@virginia.edu.
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[thrive_toggles_group”][thrive_toggles title=”4. Timothy Shanahan on Effective Elementary Reading Instruction
” no=”1/1″]
(Originally titled “Planning Effective Reading Instruction When You’re Up to Your Neck in 6-Year-Olds”)

In this Educational Leadership article, Timothy Shanahan (University of Illinois/ Chicago) says that too much elementary reading time consists of discretionary activities like free reading, unproductive group work, cut-and-paste phonics, and reading aloud to students. He suggests five ways to get better results:

• Make time for literacy. Shanahan believes there should be 2-3 hours for reading and writing each day, with an hour for math, an hour for social studies and science, and an hour for the arts and physical education. He’s reluctant to set a specific amount of time for literacy, leaving schools flexibility so that struggling students can have more instructional time.

• Plan by purpose, not activity. Rather than thinking in terms of scheduling conferences, independent reading time, and reading aloud, Shanahan believes teachers should plan their literacy time around broad goals: comprehension, building vocabulary, critical thinking, and other worthy outcomes.

• Schedule literacy throughout the school day. Some students learn better in the morning and some in the afternoon, says Shanahan; that means the time-honored practice of always having literacy in the morning disadvantages some students. It also has a “sclerotic” effect on scheduling, limiting time for specials, push-ins and pullouts, and interventions.

• Rethink the 90-minute reading block. “Imposing a consistent daily instructional block devoted to literacy sounds rigorous,” says Shanahan. “But what would really be rigorous is if we maximized the amount of daily reading instruction – not worrying too much about when it was delivered or whether it all took place at the same time of day.”

• Reconsider small-group instruction. Shanahan cites four concerns with teachers spending part of their literacy block rotating through several small groups: (a) the teacher is often delivering the identical lesson several times, which is “neither efficient nor effective;”

(b) it reduces the amount of direct instruction to the whole class which, if it is handled well, can be effective; (c) small groups working with the teacher on “just right” texts is a practice that some researchers have seriously questioned; and (d) students who are not working with the teacher are often doing seatwork and independent work that is unproductive. A better strategy, Shanahan believes, is using small-group instruction more strategically and maximizing the impact of whole-group instruction.

“Planning Effective Reading Instruction When You’re Up to Your Neck in 6-Year-Olds” by Timothy Shanahan in Educational Leadership, February 2020 (Vol. 77, #5, pp. 62-67),

available for ASCD members or for purchase at https://bit.ly/323Ylio; Shanahan can be reached at shanahan@uic.edu.

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[thrive_toggles_group”][thrive_toggles title=”5. Problems When Students Read Only “Just Right” Books
” no=”1/1″]
In this School Library Journal article, Wayne D’Orio says that a 1946 textbook by Emmett Betts first put forward the idea that students learn best when they read materials at their current reading level. This is usually measured by whether the student knows 95 percent of the words in a text and gets 75-80 percent of comprehension questions correct. “Part of the appeal of matching readers to books on their level,” says D’Orio, “is that it seems like common sense, a Goldilocks fit. Students don’t get frustrated, and they are also more challenged than they would be by a book below their level. It also makes things easy: Teachers and parents don’t need to know all about a book or a student’s likes to suggest a match.”

Betts’s research and other studies encouraged educators and publishers to embrace the idea of matching students with “just right” materials, as measured by the Fountas/Pinnell, Lexile, Accelerated Reader, and other scales of reading difficulty. For example, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone is at Level V on the F&P scale, 880 Lexile, and 12 AR – appropriate for fifth or sixth graders.

Literacy expert Timothy Shanahan accepted this approach when he was a first-grade teacher, and later taught leveled reading as a college professor. But when he discovered that the research underpinnings of the theory were weak, he became a vocal critic. Here are some of the concerns that he and others have raised:

• Lack of agreement across scales – Although the Harry Potter book mentioned above is in the same ballpark on F&P, Lexile, and AR, other books have widely different levels – for example, Twilight is Level Z+ on F&P (high school) and 720 on Lexile (second or third grade).

• Plateauing – Teachers who don’t assess students often enough may keep students with lower-level material when they could handle something more challenging. Reading expert Paula Schwanenflugel calls this “educational malpractice.”

• Missing factors – Students who are passionate about a subject (baking, skateboarding, World War II) can read books above their level. Especially with strong readers, books’ levels are not what educators and families should worry about.

• Labeling and ranking – Pigeonholing students at particular levels can limit their options when browsing for books, and affect their self-concepts as readers. “When kids come from schools that are highly leveled, they don’t know how to choose a book,” says Donalyn Miller, author of The Book Whisperer. “This is a teacher’s tool, not a child’s level.” Fountas and Pinnell agree [see their articles summarized in Marshall Memos 714 and 771].

• The benefits of “desirable difficulty” – A 2010 study (backed up by other research) found that students reading materials two years above their current level made more progress than students with “just right” materials (and also those working with materials four years above their level). Of course scaffolding and support from teachers, librarians, and family members is important when students tackle difficult texts.

• Acceleration – Students who are below level need to catch up, and pushing them a bit beyond their current level seems to work.

• Fluency, confidence, and practice – Reading material below their level can be helpful, but in leveled classrooms and libraries, students may believe it’s not okay to “read down.”

• Variety – Shanahan says athletic training offers a useful analogy: runners, for example, take short and long runs and work out with weights. “Kids should read a wide range of texts…” he says. “They should read easy books to things that kick their butt. The variation of difficulty does matter.”

If librarians are asked to level and label their collections, Miller advises the following approach with administrators: “Here’s the research informing my decision not to level the school library. I know you want research-based practices in the school.” He suggests this American Library Association link as a resource: www.bit.ly/2T5SAOP.

“Where Did Leveling Go Wrong?” by Wayne D’Orio in School Library Journal, February 2020 (Vol. 66, #2, pp. 22-24), https://bit.ly/31XWFHr
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[thrive_toggles_group”][thrive_toggles title=”6. Three Questions School Leaders Might Ask About Literacy Instruction
” no=”1/1″]
(Originally titled “Leadership for Literacy”)

“It is futile for school leaders to seek ‘balance’ or ‘science’ in an approach to reading instruction in the current market because both have been commodified as branded symbols of one side of the reading debate or the other,” says Rachael Gabriel (University of Connecticut) in this Educational Leadership article. Nonetheless, she believes well-chosen questions can guide principals and their leadership teams as they observe instruction and work with colleagues. “Leaders do not need to have all the answers about literacy instruction across grades and content areas,” she says, “if they have the right questions.”

• Are students reading, writing, and talking in every period of every day? This is just as important in math, science, social studies, and the arts as it is for ELA, says Gabriel: “Even if students may seem to grasp a concept in a lab or during an assignment, without written or oral language attached to this emerging understanding they will not be able to demonstrate their knowledge to anyone who is not present to see them at work. They are also unlikely to retain, extend, or solidify their knowledge independently outside of class.” Gabriel suggests that supervisors watch for reading, writing, and discussion during classroom visits and ask students during classes, and teachers afterward, about the purposes of the reading and the audiences of the writing.

• How are students engaging with text? “The texts of each discipline are the maps of the work of that discipline,” says Gabriel, “and they should be used to represent the knowledge and ideas that are generated, shared, and critiqued within that community.” When school leaders question students and teachers about texts, they invite thoughtful reflection on the purpose and hoped-for outcomes of each lesson.

• What is the plan for adult learning? Gabriel suggests using students’ writing to spark discussions in grade-level, department, and other team meetings, and also kicking off faculty meetings by having teachers look at texts being used in different subject areas. More broadly, leaders should get colleagues talking about what they are reading, writing, and discussing, and reflecting on how they can “select, support, and use more texts more powerfully.”

“Leadership for Literacy” by Rachael Gabriel in Educational Leadership, February 2020 (Vol.

77, #5, pp. 68-72), available for ASCD members or for purchase at https://bit.ly/39I7Bvy; Gabriel can be reached at rachael.gabriel@uconn.edu.

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[thrive_toggles_group”][thrive_toggles title=”7. Dealing with Rational and Irrational Resistance to Change
” no=”1/1″]
In this All Things PLC article, Luis Cruz says that in his 30 years as a public school teacher, administrator, and consultant, the vast majority of colleagues have been dedicated, caring professionals. And yet when he’s seen resistance to positive initiatives, it’s come from adults, not students. “Why would hardworking educators who care deeply for the welfare of their students resist the changes needed to help more students be successful?” asks Cruz. He’s found there are two reasons:

• Rational or logical resistance – This is when educators don’t understand why a particular initiative is needed, lack important implementation details, and/or don’t trust the leader. Here are some possible manifestations:

– I’ve been grading essays this way for years; why should I change now?

– You are the fourth principal in five years. Why should we invest time in changing our schedule when there will probably be another principal next year with a different idea?

– I don’t know how to use this new software for analyzing interim test results, so I choose not to use it.

Effective leaders address concerns like these by (a) using relevant data to explain the rationale; (b) treating those responsible for carrying out the initiative in an empathetic and supportive manner to develop credibility and trust; and (c) involving colleagues in the problem-solving process and creating a culture of adult learning.

• Irrational or illogical resistance – Educators in this camp aren’t motivated by concerns about rationale or implementation details but by “the intrinsic desire to refute change for the sake of refuting change,” says Cruz. He believes it’s a big mistake for leaders to ignore or avoid dealing with such recalcitrance, and suggests the following steps (acronym RESIST):

– Recognize that not confronting these individuals “communicates to other adults in schools a lack of urgency or priority to follow through.”

– Evaluate whether you as a leader have provided sufficient explanation and support.

– Select the language and location where the “tactful confrontation” will take place.

– Initiate the confrontation and ask whether the person has received enough support to accept the change.

– Select your response: Should you provide more support? Identify and name an unwillingness to comply?

– Tell the person that you are invoking positional authority to require compliance with a legitimate initiative that better serves students and their families, and will monitor the person’s actions until monitoring is no longer necessary.

“Leadership in schools,” concludes Cruz, “must be evaluated not only on the merits of promoting collective problem-solving, but also on the merits of how effectively we support others to embrace the uncomfortableness associated with implementation of necessary change.”

“The Unfamiliar Truth About Resistance to Change in Schools” by Luis Cruz in All Things PLC Magazine, Winter 2020, no e-link available
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[thrive_toggles_group”][thrive_toggles title=”8. Does “Data-Driven Instruction” Work?
” no=”1/1″]
In this Education Week article, Heather Hill (Harvard Graduate School of Education) expresses skepticism about the widespread practice of teacher teams analyzing interim assessment data. “This practice arose from a simple logic,” says Hill: “To improve student outcomes, teachers should study students’ prior test performance, learn what students struggle with, and then adjust the curriculum to offer students remediation where necessary. By addressing the weaknesses revealed by the test results, overall student achievement would improve.” Driven by this logic, “data-driven instruction” is now a cornerstone of teacher meetings across the country. It’s also become a billion-dollar business, with products offered by McGraw-Hill, NWEA, Achievement Network, commercial test-item banks, and others.

But “rigorous empirical research doesn’t support this practice,” says Hill. Why would this seemingly commonsensical practice not improve teaching and learning? Drawing on research and her own observations of teacher teams, Hill cites several ways that data-analysis time can be unproductive:

– Discussing students’ progress, or lack thereof, in general terms;

– Citing outside-of-school reasons for students’ failures – a bad week at home, not studying, poor test-taking skills;

– Planning short-term instructional “fixes” for struggling students;

– Focusing on the “bubble” students – those just below state test score cut-offs;

– Not digging into students’ misconceptions, errors, and learning difficulties.

What was almost always missing in the teacher meetings Hill observed was a broader discussion of how to improve instruction, including “how to ask more-complex questions or encourage students to use more evidence in their explanations.” [See an article by Richard DuFour and Douglas Reeves in Marshall Memo 628, “The Futility of PLC Lite”]

Hill did find a few studies that showed positive results from teacher data meetings. One program in the Netherlands used computer-based interim assessments and “instructionally focused feedback to teachers and students and personalized online student assignments.” Another from the University of Pennsylvania helped teachers create assessments, look at the results, and engage in professional development focused on content and students’ thinking. But these are the exception; Hill concludes that data-driven instruction is an unproven idea.

“Does Studying Student Data Really Raise Test Scores?” by Heather Hill in Education Week, February 12, 2020 (Vol. 39, #21, p. 24), https://bit.ly/38Gpn2c; Hill can be reached at

heather_hill@gse.harvard.edu.
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[thrive_toggles_group”][thrive_toggles title=”8. Does “Data-Driven Instruction” Work?
” no=”1/1″]
In this Education Week article, Heather Hill (Harvard Graduate School of Education) expresses skepticism about the widespread practice of teacher teams analyzing interim assessment data. “This practice arose from a simple logic,” says Hill: “To improve student outcomes, teachers should study students’ prior test performance, learn what students struggle with, and then adjust the curriculum to offer students remediation where necessary. By addressing the weaknesses revealed by the test results, overall student achievement would improve.” Driven by this logic, “data-driven instruction” is now a cornerstone of teacher meetings across the country. It’s also become a billion-dollar business, with products offered by McGraw-Hill, NWEA, Achievement Network, commercial test-item banks, and others.

But “rigorous empirical research doesn’t support this practice,” says Hill. Why would this seemingly commonsensical practice not improve teaching and learning? Drawing on research and her own observations of teacher teams, Hill cites several ways that data-analysis time can be unproductive:

– Discussing students’ progress, or lack thereof, in general terms;

– Citing outside-of-school reasons for students’ failures – a bad week at home, not studying, poor test-taking skills;

– Planning short-term instructional “fixes” for struggling students;

– Focusing on the “bubble” students – those just below state test score cut-offs;

– Not digging into students’ misconceptions, errors, and learning difficulties.

What was almost always missing in the teacher meetings Hill observed was a broader discussion of how to improve instruction, including “how to ask more-complex questions or encourage students to use more evidence in their explanations.” [See an article by Richard DuFour and Douglas Reeves in Marshall Memo 628, “The Futility of PLC Lite”]

Hill did find a few studies that showed positive results from teacher data meetings. One program in the Netherlands used computer-based interim assessments and “instructionally focused feedback to teachers and students and personalized online student assignments.” Another from the University of Pennsylvania helped teachers create assessments, look at the results, and engage in professional development focused on content and students’ thinking. But these are the exception; Hill concludes that data-driven instruction is an unproven idea.

“Does Studying Student Data Really Raise Test Scores?” by Heather Hill in Education Week, February 12, 2020 (Vol. 39, #21, p. 24), https://bit.ly/38Gpn2c; Hill can be reached at

heather_hill@gse.harvard.edu.
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[thrive_toggles_group”][thrive_toggles title=”9. Semi-Self-Contained Sixth Grades in Maryland Middle Schools
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In this article in AMLE Magazine, Maryland educators Peter Crable, Casey Siddons, and Robby Dodd describe how they tackled two problems that many students encounter when they transition to middle school: negative attitudes toward classes and disengagement from learning. Their solution: keeping sixth grade homerooms with one teacher for half the school day. The initiative was dubbed Project SUCCESS: Student Unified Curriculum Combining English, digital literacy, Science, and Social Studies. According to the authors, the program has had a significant impact, boosting reading achievement, eliminating SES opportunity gaps, and reducing racial achievement gaps – all for no additional cost.

What explains these gains? “The teachers who instruct Project SUCCESS,” say Crable, Siddons, and Dodd, “are more interested in what students want to learn, more invested in helping students with personal/social problems, and less concerned about grades for the sake of grading. Student climate survey data indicate that students value their peer interactions more, are more oriented to mastery goals, and are significantly less concerned about academic comparisons than their peers.” Classes feel more like family, which goes a long way to smoothing students’ transition from their elementary schools.

When the idea was first introduced, there was pushback on two counts: how different it was from the standard departmentalized structure, and the additional workload involved in teaching four different subjects and creating interdisciplinary links among them.

Implementing the program successfully involved finding teachers who were willing to work with a very different program, figuring out the schedule (the authors say it has worked in traditional and block-scheduled buildings), and providing several key supports for participating sixth-grade educators:

– Twice-a-week common planning time for Project SUCCESS teachers;

– Curriculum support from central-office subject-area specialists and from school-based instructional coaches;

– Professional development geared to the challenges of teaching multiple subjects and thinking about overarching themes and essential questions.

“Project Success: The Way Forward in Middle School” by Peter Crable, Casey Siddons, and Robby Dodd in AMLE Magazine, Feb. 2020 (Vol. 8, #1, pp. 12-14), https://bit.ly/2vI8DIY; the authors can be reached at peter_v_crable@mcpsmd.org, casey_h_siddons@mcpsmd.org, and robert_w_dodd@mcpsmd.org.
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[thrive_toggles_group”][thrive_toggles title=”10. Picture Books for Middle- and High-School Students
” no=”1/1″]
In this School Library Journal article, Massachusetts teacher librarian Lynn Van Auken suggests picture books that have vocabulary and themes appropriate for tweens and teens:

– The Forest by Riccardo Bozzi, illustrated by Violeta Lópiz and Valerio Vidali (Enchanted Lion, 2018), grade 5 and up – an ancient forest not yet fully explored.

– Captain Rosalie by Timothée de Fombelle, illustrated by Isabelle Arsenault (Candlewick, 2019), grade 5 and up – Five-year-old Rosalie has a secret mission while her father fights in World War I and her mother works in a munitions factory.

– The Eleventh Hour by Jacques Goldstyn (Owlkids, 2018), grade 5-9 – Lifelong Canadian friends fight in the front lines in World War I.

– The Fate of Fausto: A Painted Fable by Oliver Jeffers (Philomel, 2019), grade 5-8 – A cautionary tale of greed with a tragic but satisfying conclusion.

– Armstrong: The Adventurous Journey of a Mouse to the Moon by Torben Kuhlmann (NorthSouth, 2019), grade 5-8 – A science fiction tribute to space exploration.

– I Go Quiet by David Ouimet (Norton, 2020), grade 5-9 – An affecting ode to introverts.

– Charles Darwin’s On the Origin of Species by Sabina Radeva (Crown, 2019), grade 5-9 – Quotes from Darwin’s book with bite-size pieces of information about his discovery.

– The Phone Booth in Mr. Hirota’s Garden by Heather Smith, illustrated by Rachel Wada (Orca, 2019), grade 5-9 – Communicating with loved ones who died in a tsunami.

– My Little Book of Big Questions by Britta Teckentrup (Prestel Junior, 2019), grade 5 and up – Dozens of questions for curious minds.

– Manhattan: Mapping the Story of the Island by Jennifer Thermes (Abrams, 2019), grade 5-9 – The people and events that have transformed the island.

– The Feather by Margaret Wild, illustrated by Freya Blackwood (Little Hare, 2019) grade 5-8 – Two children living in a world of shadows and ruin see hope in a feather.

– A Place to Land: Martin Luther King Jr. and the Speech That Inspired a Nation by Barry Wittenstein, illustrated by Jerry Pinkney (Holiday House/Neal Porter Books, 2019), grade 5-8 – The behind-the-scenes story of King’s “I Have a Dream” speech.

“Not Just for the Pre-K Crowd: Picture Books to Share with Tweens and Teens” by Lynn Van Auken in School Library Journal, February 2020 (Vol. 66, #2, pp. 42-44), no e-link available
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