A Battle Worth Conceding?

Ever hear a parent say when it comes to their kids they have to choose their battles, because standing your ground is only worth the energy on the important stuff? The same can be said for teachers, only with all eyes on you all the time, and "accountability" that can cost you your job and possibly your reputation, sometimes it's hard to know which battles to choose.

In a school that systemically promotes independent reading through the Accelerated Reader program, or AR (I will not provide commentary about AR here, perhaps in a future piece), all of the students are accustomed to selecting books by their AR levels. Therefore, they expect library books to be arranged on the shelves by these levels, often assigned colors for easier reference. At least half the books in our school library are shelved in this manner, and most of the classroom teachers arrange their class libraries this way as well. I did too, until two years ago...

It was two years ago that I started teaching a children's literature course as an adjunct at the local university. Education majors, most preparing to complete their studies and begin internships, are required to take this course, not to learn how to teach reading but  to learn how to promote literacy and literature in their future classrooms. It is a terrific course. Though I did not design the course myself, I thoroughly enjoy teaching it. The content and the textbook contain some of the most essential and practical information a teacher should know about building a classroom library, understanding multiple genres, and supporting literacy. I have now taught the course four times, and will continue to do so as long as the dean keeps asking me to teach.

But as I prepared to teach the course for the second time, I realized that so many of the ideas I was teaching through this course had disappeared from today's classrooms; many because of the emphasis on standardized testing and the overly standardized curriculum materials and programs following in its wake. But some of them were lost or replaced by habits of convenience. This was the case with the arrangement of the classroom library. While in the course I was teaching that books should be arranged in genres, series, categories of interest to current students, author studies, or award winners, my library was simply arranged from one end to the other by AR level. As such, kids were going right to the buckets with their levels and largely ignoring every other book in my library no matter how hard I tried to promote alternatives.

Some would think this is a good thing, that a student should read on his or her level, nothing more- nothing less. I disagree. To increase lexile or reading level, students should definitely be encouraged to read at an appropriate independent reading level.  However, there are other occasions and purposes for interacting with books. Children should be encouraged to explore genres and topics of interest to them. They should select books that can be read aloud to them by a parent, grandparent, or family member or that they can read to a younger sibling or cousin. They should be allowed to return to old favorites that give them the chance to revisit characters they love. They should be excited about using authors as mentors for their own writing. Limiting kids to books in a very tight level keeps them barricaded from a world of literature with no boundaries.

It is with all of this in mind that I returned to school that fall with a whole new plan for my classroom library. I set up bins with all sorts of labels. I had favorite series bins with Harry Potter, Diary of A Wimpy Kid, Percy Jackson and Goosebumps. I had author bins with Andrew Clemens, Judy Blume, Gary Paulsen, Carl Hiaasen, Patricia Polacco, Cynthia Rylant, and a whole bunch of others. I had a science and nature bin, a history and culture bin, a poetry bin and graphic novel bin. I had dedicated bins for Newbery and Caldecott Award winners. So as not to freak out the kids completely, I arranged all other books that didn't fit appropriately into the other buckets, by AR levels.

What do you think happened? No matter how much I pulled out suggestions, did book walks or synopses, my students went right for the AR buckets. It didn't matter that there were tons of books on their various levels throughout the other categorically arranged bins. They didn't care to even browse anything that was grouped off for them. Tooth and nail, I fought them on it. "Oh, you liked that book? Take a look at that bin over there, I bet you'll find one you'll love," I would say. Or, "If you loved Extra Credit, take a look in the Andrew Clemens bin. There are several other books of his over there." My efforts were futile. The more our school promoted AR, the more rewards we offered for meeting point goals in AR, the less attention they gave to any book outside the bins labeled with their levels.

So as I was preparing to concede, I felt deflated about my failed attempt to promote literacy the way I knew in my heart was a positive way to impact my students as lifelong readers. I dumped all my buckets, reorganized all the books by levels and relabeled all my book bins with a numerical range to help students find AR books- not library books, but AR books. I lost this battle, not because the "fight" was no longer worth it, but because I had to figure out a way to work within the confines of a system in which they have grown up. While I was feeling sorry for myself, and sad for my students, it occurred to me it's not all bad. Now all the wonderful books I was trying to encourage them to read are mixed in and labeled in their minds as "AR books." Maybe now they will read some of them. Once I notice that, I'll be willing to accept that it was a battle worth conceding.