306: Help! My Readers have such Different Skill Levels

On this week’s mini-episode, I want to answer a question sent in by a member of our community. Here’s what she writes: Hi Betsy, I have classes of 10th graders who are SO divergent in skill levels. Some are reading Murakami for fun, and some are reading at a 5th grade level. I am struggling to differentiate for them and provide challenge for the strong and support for the others.” Today on the show, I’m going to offer some ideas for this listener, and I hope they can help you too, if you find yourself in the same boat. My first thought with this class is to suggest trying hard to have a range of whole class texts, book clubs, podcast clubs, choice reading units, and choice-based projects with lots of final product options. I recently finished reading Katie Novak and her team’s Book, Universal Design for Learning in Language Arts, and so much of what she talks about in that book would apply here.  Universal Design for Learning - which by the way I would highly recommend exploring -  suggests that when you plan bearing the needs of all your learners in mind, you better serve every learner. By providing the options and scaffolds that will help one group of students, you’ll actually be serving up a stronger learning experience.  One of my favorite quotes from the book is “UDL lives in the OR.” So let’s talk about how you might apply the choices inspired by UDL to a unit with a highly varied group of readers. Let’s say you’re going into book clubs about identity. You want to provide options that can engage every reading level, without simplifying the content since you know your students are mature thinkers.  Maybe you also have several students who have trouble decoding print and several emerging bilinguals who recently immigrated from Latin America. So as you design your book clubs, keeping all these kids in mind, you choose two graphic novels that weave memoir together with stunning illustrations that help to tell the story, one verse novel that is both engaging and accessible, a longer historical fiction novel that you also have the audiobook for, and a contemporary award-winning YA novel that’s available both in audiobook and ebook on Libby, which has an option to translate into fifteen other languages including Spanish.  You’ve now created a lot of different paths into texts that approach identity, providing options for readers and learners with different strengths and challenges.The audiobook version may benefit a student with a high reading level that’s incredibly busy caring for his siblings, as well as a student who has trouble decoding print. The graphic and verse novels may help readers who need a ladder back to books, and also open up new genres for your advanced readers. The idea in UDL is that every student benefits from all this “or,” all these choices. Now let’s say you’re moving into a whole class text - The Odyssey. Again, if you consider the needs of every learner, you can gather different access points for the text. You can make several copies of Gareth Hinds’ Graphic Novel version available to check out as well as look at during class time. You can help connect students to electronic versions they can translate. You can look for the best audiobook version of the best translation out there. And you can practice close reading both visual and print passages with your students in class, modeling the strategies all readers need to dig deep into the meaning behind the pages. Then there’s choice reading, and you probably know what I’m going to say here. Building a thriving choice reading program is an incredible way to support your readers on every level. When you provide a huge range of options, from picture books to graphic novels to novels-in-verse to short stories to fantasy to the classics, you’ll be able to meet your readers where they are and help them progress. I’ve got a lot of episodes out about this already, so I won’t dig in too far. But you can build whole units around choice books, letting kids read what feels right to them and still creating a class curriculum built around the development of skills you want to see improve and projects that offer many choices.  OK, I’m going a bit long on what is supposed to be a mini episode! But if this is an issue that is always on your mind - as it is for so many educators - today I want to highly recommend you remember that one simple phrase, “UDL lives in the OR.” And maybe grab yourself a copy of Universal Design for Learning in Language Arts. It’s a quick read, and I’m giving it all the gold stars.   Go Further:  Explore alllll the Episodes of The Spark Creativity Teacher Podcast. Join our community, Creative High School English, on Facebook. Come hang out on Instagram. Enjoying the podcast? Please consider sharing it with a friend, snagging a screenshot to share on the ‘gram, or tapping those ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ to help others discover the show. Thank you!    

Om Podcasten

Want to love walking into your ELA classroom each day? Excited about innovative strategies like PBL, escape rooms, hexagonal thinking, sketchnotes, one-pagers, student podcasting, genius hour, and more? Want a thriving choice reading program and a shelf full of compelling diverse texts? You're in the right place! Here you'll find interviews with top authors from the ELA field, workshops with strategies you can use in class immediately, and quick tips to ignite your English teacher creativity. Love teaching poetry? Explore blackout poems, book spine poems, I am from poems, performance poetry, lessons for contemporary poets, and more. Excited to get started with hexagonal thinking? Find out how to build your first deck of hexagons, guide your students through their first discussion, and even expand into hexagonal one-pagers. Into visual learning? Me too! Learn about sketchnotes, one-pagers, and the writing makerspace. Want to get your students podcasting? Get the top technology recs you need to make it happen, and find out what tips a podcaster would give to students starting out. Wish your students would fall for choice reading? Explore top titles and how to fund them, learn to make your library more appealing, and find out how to be a top P.R. agent for books in your classroom. In it for the interviews? Fabulous! Find out about project-based-learning, innovative school design, what really helps kids learn deeply, design thinking, how to choose diverse texts, when to scaffold sketchnotes lessons, building your first writing makerspace, cultivating writer's notebooks, getting started with genius hour, and so much more, from our wonderful guests. Here at The Spark Creativity Teacher Podcast, discover you're not alone as a creative English teacher. You're part of a vast community welcoming students to their next escape room, rolling out contemporary poetry and reading aloud on First Chapter Fridays, engaging kids with social media projects and real-world ELA units. As your host (hi, I'm Betsy), I'm here to help you ENJOY your days at school and feel inspired by all the creative ways to teach both contemporary works and the classics your school may be pushing. I taught ELA at the 9th, 10th, 11th, and 12th grade levels both in the United States and overseas for almost a decade, and I didn't always get support for my creativity. Now I'm here to make sure YOU get the creative support you deserve, and it brings me so much joy. Welcome to The Spark Creativity Teacher Podcast, a podcast for English teachers in search of creative teaching strategies!