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Reading Inspires is Reading Is Fundamental’s new podcast celebrating the power of books and the joy of reading. Each episode invites educators, librarians, families, authors, illustrators, and all who champion children’s literacy to explore one big question: What does reading inspire for you? Through engaging conversations and storytelling, Reading Inspires bridges the gap between research and real-world practice—showing what literacy looks and feels like in classrooms, libraries, and homes. Grounded in evidence yet open-ended in approach, this is a space for curiosity and connection. Whether you’re an educator seeking fresh ideas, a parent hoping to spark a love of reading, or simply a lifelong bookworm, you’ll find inspiration, practical insights, and stories that remind us all why reading matters—and how it changes lives.
Welcome to Reading Inspires by Reading Is Fundamental.
I'm your host, Dr. Erin Bailey.
This podcast celebrates the power of books and the joy of reading.
In each episode, we talk with educators, librarians, families, authors, and literacy champions to explore one big question: What does reading inspire for you?
Through stories, research, and real-world experiences from classrooms, libraries, and homes, we explore what literacy looks like and why it matters.
Whether you're nurturing young readers, shaping learning spaces, or simply love a good book, we're glad you're here.
Be sure to subscribe to get the latest episode.
Let's get inspired.
Erin Bailey: Welcome everyone.
Today we are joined by three of my friends, Doctors Valerie Lee, Midge Madden, and Susan Brown.
So, Valerie and Midge are on our Early Childhood Education advisory board, and Susan is on our middle school advisory board.
But the three of them work together at Rowan University, which is in New Jersey, and they've written the book Literary Life Histories: Reclaiming, Reading, and Living the Story.
that's what we're here to talk about today.
Um, I love it when I get to speak with, you know, professors at one university who work so cohesively together.
The three of you have known each other for a long time, and you came together to, um, write the book.
So to begin, I'd love if each of you could just share a little bit about your professional backgrounds and what brought you together to write the Life Histories.
Not only the book, but really it's, it's an approach to literacy instruction.
Valerie Lee: So we've been working together at Rowan a long time.
I came to Rowan about 20 years ago.
Susan and Midge, for you it was
Susan Browne: 23 years ago?
Yes.
Valerie Lee: So, uh, we have been doing this work on life histories for over 15 years and, um, we are just three people who write together.
You know, we collaborate on writing, but we also enjoy each other and love to travel and are great friends as well
Marjorie Madden: I'm, I'm Midge, clearly.
And, um, but so I come from an elementary background where it's, we're kind of a nice, uh, collection of the three of us.
And I also worked for Coalition for Essential Schools for a while out in Virginia and Maryland.
So working with creating student-centered classrooms and trying to help kids really engage with books and, and talk about books.
so I've always loved reading and, and we came together and actually we were part of historically it was called the Reading Department, um, for many, many years at Rowan until, um, I think one of our deans thought it didn't sound academic enough.
So we've had many iterations of titles since then, but, uh, basically we're all about reading and literacy
Valerie Lee: Yeah, I come from an adolescent background.
I was a high school teacher for 12 years, and, um, Midge and I, and Susan's been a part of it as well, we do the Literacy Consortium at Rowan, which is a, um, 10-year plus, professional development, uh, organization for teachers.
And we also are all three, um, co-founders of the Rowan University Writing Project
Erin Bailey: Amazing
Susan Browne: And
Marjorie Madden: I think that we still like each other too, you
Susan Browne: we do.
We do, very much.
I'm Susan, Susan Brown, And, um, yep, Rowan 23 years, uh, formerly a School District of Philadelphia teacher, where I taught fifth grade for many years.
And, for the three of us, we've always just been looking for ways to engage readers, to make reading and reading instruction mirror how we read in the real world.
and so, you know, coming together around life histories was just kind of a culmination of all those things that we came to believe and were part of our practices as, classroom teachers before coming to the university
Erin Bailey: Amazing.
And if you can't tell, the three are very good friends.
I can… You can hear it in your voices, the way you speak to one another, that you're good friends.
You've worked together for a long time.
Um, so I mentioned earlier you do have a book, uh, Literary Life Histories: Reclaiming, Reading, and Living the Story, um, which I will link for everyone beh- below.
But really, life histories is a framework.
So how did you discover that having students li- what you call live the story through writing and performance could really deepen their understanding of literature?
Marjorie Madden: Uh, you want me to take that from the beginning, ladies, a little bit?
Um, I think Susan and I were involved in something called testimonials, where we worked with real live stories with real live students.
And, uh, we found out that really engaged them.
The kids were interested in hearing about each other.
And the way testimonials worked is you would tell a story, and then the one student would stand up, and the other student would tell the story about that student.
And so we found that, these were with middle school students, I think, Susan, uh, that they, they really loved the performance aspect of it, or standing up and sharing.
And, and kids today do not mind being photographed, uh, you know, via Instagram everywhere you go.
All my granddaughters are posing all over Instagram.
But so, uh, I think it started with testimonials, and then we thought, "Wow, if, if they're so engaged in hearing real-life stories, could we move that over to text, to literary text, and ha- see them similarly engaged in reading text?"
Um, I know everyone is talking about the same thing, AI and social media and the kind of… the kinds of reading that kids do today, which is social media basically, you know, blips, lightning-fast messages.
Um, so the whole notion of stamina and really going deep into a text, I'm afraid, is, is somewhat getting lost.
I think kids are redefining reading, um, based on what the curricular, the curriculums often emphasize, like, um, reading and answering questions about a text
or… Oh my gosh, I have so many, so, so many students in high school who their teacher grades based on how many annotations they do on a particular t- text.
And o- our argument always is, if you understand a text, you don't need to annotate it.
So w- we're losing a whole lot of what it means to read.
And so we were thinking that let's try, creating a life histories, but using it with a literary text.
Um, and then S- I think Susan and I first explored it, um, in a s- in a seventh or an eighth grade class, middle school classroom.
Um, and they did a book called The Wave.
Um, and actually, the students decided themselves how they were gonna perform, and and they did an Oprah talk show.
So it's great.
I mean, there's, there's no one way to do it.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Um,
Susan Browne: Mitch, we also did it with our cross-cultural class.
Marjorie Madden: Forgot, you know?
Right
Susan Browne: um, you know, with a, was a stu- a group of students that were in a five-year program, and I guess, I think they were in their fifth year by then, so they would leave with a BA and a master's and their certification in, collaborative education.
And we used a book, um, Lesson Before Dying by Ernest Gaines.
And that, I, was that the very first time I think we did it with, um, university students in the very… And we were just kind of figuring it all out.
It was very much in its infancy stages.
And we must confess, it did not go very well.
But, uh, we didn't abandon the idea, and it really helped us to learn and figure it out.
And the first thing we learned is that you really have to scaffold the reading and make sure that the students are really engaged with the text and doing the reading.
Because when you get to the end, you know, the, the first part is read.
um, if they're not doing that reading, then when you're getting to that performance part, um, it just doesn't work.
Um, yes.
Yeah.
So that was a, a good learning experience for
Valerie Lee: Yeah, our, our experience with it expanded to different classrooms.
We were doing it in our university classrooms, but we were also in fifth grade classrooms, um, looking at Holocaust literature.
We were in middle school classrooms looking at novels like Long Way Down.
And, and, um, so we really were trying this framework with a variety of readers and a variety of ages to see and to kind of study what happens when students engage in life histories
Marjorie Madden: And honestly, the, the RISP, the name of our framework, came about k- almost just serendipitously when we were writing the book.
Because we always had reading, uh, scripting, performing, but we had never put it together a- as a framework, um, with, with our … So w- we think that works really well.
Um, I think that'll be very helpful to teachers who are trying to do it.
and we also did it with classroom teachers, um, during a writing insti- a writers institute, summer writers institute.
And the only thing, they, they did a great job, but one of the feedbacks, um, was, and I w- that they wish they had gotten more feedback from us during the script writing phase.
Um, they felt like they worked a really long time, and these are teachers, so of course they wanted to do their best, on the scripts.
And they performed, and we glossed over it and went on to the next thing in the summer institute, whereas they wanted to unpack that and talk about what does it
mean to actually delve into a character's nuances, and then all of a sudden take that, not all of a sudden, but over time, take that and put that into a script.
So what does a script look like?
So there's lots of little pieces that, um, teachers c- or can be really helpful in scaffolding
Erin Bailey: Yeah.
Amazing.
I, I, so the, there is no age limit.
You've used this with gradu- you know, undergrad, graduate students.
What would you say is the youngest th- c- that can use this framework, like fifth grade, adolescents?
Marjorie Madden: No, I was gonna laugh.
One teacher, a third grade teacher, where, where was it, Val?
Somewhere she said, "Can't we do it if I'm, if I teach third grade?"
Valerie Lee: Yeah, we were doing, yeah, we were doing something for another thing and, and somebody said, "Well, I see you have fifth grade, but what about, like, early elementary? Could this work?" And so… Go ahead, Midge
Marjorie Madden: I mean, I think it could.
Um, you'd need a, you'd need a book, a chapter book.
So I, I, well, I don't know.
It,
Valerie Lee: Well, we talked about picture books too, right?
Yeah, yeah.
Susan, I think you, you talked about a particular picture book that would be
Susan Browne: yes.
Um, I think, you know, because part of it is to go deep into the themes that the, uh, author has created, it depends on the, the students who are in the younger grades, you know, and their ability to really, do that and be comfortable with that.
I have used, Kwame Alexander's Undefeated
Erin Bailey: Mm-hmm.
Susan Browne: as a, um, source of creating life histories.
It looks a little bit different because, you know, he gives us all these wonderful characters throughout the pages that represent, you know, African Americans who have been undefeated over time in, um, American history.
And so, um, I did it with a group of graduate students where they actually researched the characters and then performed the life histories because he doesn't give us the text.
His text is ac- actually like a poem.
He just gives us the, the characters.
Um, and it actually worked really, really well.
And we talk about it in the book.
Um, one of the things that really resonated for students is one student did a life history on Billie Holiday, uh, who is prominently shown, um, in, um, the book.
And, they talked about … There were multiple responses that talked about Billie Holiday often being portrayed as this tragic character, and the w- way
this person, um, presented, um, Billie Holiday in their life history showed her as a much more empowered woman, and they really appreci- appreciated that.
So that was that deep interpretation part, um, that came through in the, in the performance.
So yeah, picture books can work.
Erin Bailey: you can use this for both nonfiction, h- you know, historical figures, as well as literary characters, right?
Susan Browne: Exactly
Erin Bailey: Amazing.
Um, so one of the central themes of the book is helping students develop empathy by taking the perspectives of literary characters and then, as I just mentioned, historical figures as well if you're using a nonfiction t- text.
Can you start by defining for our listeners what empathy means to you?
What does it mean in today's educational context?
Um, and then go on and explain why empathy is such an important outcome of literacy education
Valerie Lee: Yeah, Val here.
I would say about halfway through our time of doing life histories, we started thinking about… We started noticing the ways that students
sometimes could, you know, sympathize or feel bad for a character that they were reading about, but do they actually get to deeper levels of empathy?
So we started researching life histories more from that perspective, um, of empathy.
So I'll get a little technical with the listeners here for a second just so that we understand what we're, what we mean when we say empathy versus sympathy, because the two are often, um, interchanged.
And so we looked at two theorists, um, to help us with this, and one of them is Peter Goldie, and his definition of empathy is empathizing with another
person, person is essentially a si- simulation approach, and involves imagining the experience of a narrative from the other po- person's point of view.
So that last part, imagining the experience of a narrative from another person's point of view.
And he a- also said that meant, like, the thoughts, narrative means the thoughts, feelings, and emotions of another.
Uh, but Goldie also helped us understand that there's some distinctions between empathy and sympathy.
So first of all, it's necessary for the reader to be aware of the other as a center of consciousness that's distinct from the reader.
And then also that empathy, uh, should be someone of whom the reader has a substantial characterization, so they really take time getting to know that particular character.
And third, it's necessary for the reader to have a grasp of narrative as imagination with the other as the narrator.
So our literacy history framework really provides an opportuni- opportunity for students to practice all three of these in order to move from sympathy to empathy.
And so when I did this with my, um, undergraduate pre-service teachers, we were reading, the memoir The Circuit by, uh, Francisco Jiménez.
And so what I was noticing in a lot of their reflections and a lot of their discussions, I heard comments like, "I feel so sorry for this character." And this was a story about a family who's migrating across the country to find work.
I feel sorry for this character." Or they would say things like, "I'm so blessed that I don't have any of those troubles."
And so that's sympathy.
And so we're trying to move readers into more an empathetic approach, and I heard that in some of the responses later after the lice hi- life history work.
They would say things like, "As a reader, I felt like I was going through the experience with the family," or, "I was able to lose myself in the whole family dynamic and not even compare it to traditional stereotypes as I normally would."
So you can see that my students, as they worked through this life history framework, were able to really move from that.
Our second theorist is Suzanne Keen, and she, she's also very involved with narrative empathy and talking about the per- perspective taking that's induced when you read, view, and hear the imagined narrative of another situation or condition.
And we think that life histories, um, and we've seen it with literature, with memoirs, with, nonfiction, that it really does move, uh, readers to those deeper, uh, levels of empathy.
And I mean, it's also important that we recognize that one of the critiques of narrative empathy is that there's not a lot of research that shows once you engage, uh,
students in, empathetic reading, narrative empathy, do they actually take that outside the classroom and take action, social justice based on those new understandings?
But I, but we argue that teachers could create social action projects inspired by the life history that they engaged in with a novel or a memoir.
and then to your second question, Erin, I'm thinking like, you know, why is this important today?
And I, I think it would be really hard, right, to argue that we don't need more empathy in the world.
And, um, we really do see school as a place where empathy can be taught and practiced and… but we also think it needs to be intentional, and we think that that can happen through life histories.
We've seen it happen, um, and we've seen that te- you know, teachers can have a great impact on moving students, from those, uh, superficial
levels of sympathy to deeper empathy based on their reading, interpretation, and writing and scripting that they do through life history.
Marjorie Madden: Yeah, and I'm thinking as you're saying that, Val, I'm thinking of, um, Susan and I co-taught a, an honors literacy course with undergraduate students, and we did, was it Long Walk to Water?
And, we had two students that, you know, we, we explained life histories, and they were gonna script it and, and they, they scripted it, but
they, they went their own route, which was to turn it into a comedy, and the, the story, if you know the story, is not, is not comedic at all.
It's, it… so they, they… Go ahead, Susan.
I maybe want to add a little bit on to that
Susan Browne: so their, their interpretation, um, did not match the author's intention for us to take away.
You know, it was, going back to that theme of empathy, it was for us to understand the challenges of civil war, for us to understand the
challenges of, you know, a village that doesn't have water and what it means to go get that water and bring it back, and to do that safely.
and so um, we struggled with how to do that, but this was in that cohorted program that I'd mentioned earlier, and we had a chance to revisit it and to talk about it with
the students that wrote that life history, and to unpack their interpretation, and actually give them an opportunity to, to do it again, and we got a very different result.
And, um, their understanding of themselves as the interpreters, improved or changed, um, it became more appropriate, and their understanding of the text changed and became more appropriate.
Doesn't mean that there's not room for interpretation, um, when you can validate that interpretation in your writing, you know, and in your performance.
But this was clearly, not a comedic text, and the comedic
Marjorie Madden: and I mean, they were, the students were sympathetic, but I don't think we even got close to what we mean, mean by empathy.
Um, we did find that, um, maybe oftentimes you have to do… They really had no background and, and these, these are college students, but yet I don't know in where
in their education they had, they really didn't have any background of what it's like to live in an arid country in Africa with, with, with, with no transportation.
So looking back, and I think, Val, you did this when you were doing the circuit, we used videos or we used, we built the schema, we built the background information.
Not, not assuming that children have this, um, ac- this knowledge.
So, um, that's something that as a teacher,
Susan Browne: and undergraduate students.
We also, I actually found a, um, a, a video game that, um, where the students could be, you know, pick an avatar, and they actually
had to experience what it was like to travel outside of their village to another area and get that water and to bring it back safely.
able to build that schema for them.
Yeah
Erin Bailey: Th- these are great examples, and I appreciate so much you sharing what didn't work or your pathway to find what did
work because I feel like in research, a lot of times we publish the good, positive results because we want people to learn from it.
But I think what you're sharing is there's as much learning from the bumps or the, you know, y- I, we, when I taught first grade, we used to always say, Uh, mistakes are proof that you're learning." That's how you learn is through mistakes.
Mm-hmm.
So, like, for those students that created the comedy, and then to further deepen their interpretation and understanding, um, shows real growth for them as students.
And I think the example that you've used so far, like The Circuit, that's perfect.
I actually r- didn't read that book until I was an undergraduate, and I struggled a lot with that book.
I needed your, your program because one of the… I clearly wasn't empathizing with the family.
I remember, you know, as, like, a 19-year-old, one thought I had was, "Why does this family keep having more kids
Valerie Lee: Oh my gosh, Erin, that's
Erin Bailey: so hard for them?"
Valerie Lee: that's exactly what my students said.
Like, why do they keep having children?
And so to Midge's point, you know, going back and looking deeper, and our, our framework really requires students to keep going back to the text.
So any teacher will tell you one of the tensions with doing reading with, with kids is that one and done, right?
I've read it, I'm done with it.
But, you know, taking them back into the text and saying, "Okay, why are they having so many kids?
What do we know about the family?
What is their religious background?
What is their current condition?
What timeframe?" And this is in the 1930s.
Like, how does that impact how we might look at their decision?
And so that keeping going back to the text, that's really important, helps them with the second part of the framework, which is interpret, right?
So instead of interpreting this family as irresponsible, for instance, having more kids, how can we interpret this character now?
Um, and life history requires them to pick a character, and then to work collaboratively with a small group, a small group of students has that same character, and then they go
back and look at that, text from the perspective of that character and get to know that character so that they can script from that character's perspective and then perform it.
So a lot of those going back into the text really made a difference there.
And to your point about pointing out the mistakes, you know, as former K-12 teachers, we are never going to put something out to teachers that we haven't already tried, that we haven't tried it with actual
K-12 students, um, and that we're not gonna share the things that went wrong because that's where some of the strategies we present in the book can help teachers who are gonna try this out for the first time
Marjorie Madden: Yeah.
I mean, I don't really want teachers who, who read the book to think, "Okay, this is how I do it. I have to follow this ex- exactly, and it has to work," because it's a messy process.
I- and some of the complaint, not complaints, but some of the concerns I hear from teachers is that, "I don't know how I can fit it in my curriculum.
I, I have so much to teach, there's no way I can fit that in my curriculum." Yet if y- if you find a willing teacher trying it, they will, you'll
understand that they're fitting everything into their curriculum that they need to teach around writing, around reading, around talking about text.
so it's just that, just…
That little, that little jump, that little hurdle that teachers need to make to, to get to give it a try.
I think we've had really pretty positive responses from the teachers who have, um, worked with us on that, right?
Susan Browne: And it also gives this lens to this opportunity of the kinds of skills that we're trying to teach in really meaningful and embedded and generative ways.
Like, if you're trying to teach kids how to annotate text, like annotation is such a real part of crafting the life his- history.
You have to go back into the text, and you have to look closely at your character.
If you're thinking about close reading, it's all about, you know, deep interpretation.
I think Val's gonna talk a little bit about that, so I'm not gonna go too deep in that.
But it lends to the kinds of things that, standards re- um, suggest and require, and, um, good practice.
So, you know, when you're saying there's no time, I get it because of those pressures, but if you can figure it out, you'll find that you're making time for the very important things that you're trying to do in the first place
Erin Bailey: Yeah, I'd love to hear about that, Val.
Like, how does this support reading, you know, in today's landscape of wanting to cover all the standards, do the test preparation, everything?
Like, how does this support comprehension, critical thinking, and w- I, I mean, this kind of, like, discussion too?
We used to have a saying, those who are doing the talking are doing the learning, and I think teachers are a little weary, uh, now of, of a lot of scripted curriculums, that it feels like they are doing too much of the talking.
So how can this support covering the standards, teaching comprehension, and allowing for that deep discussion?
Valerie Lee: Yeah, and I would say to any teacher that wants to try this out, you know, start with a novel that you're Already.
using.
Like, so if you have a chapter book in the elementary grades, or you have a picture book that has a theme about friendship or diversity or something like that, that has some rich characters in it, those are perfect opportunities for practicing life history.
Um, we always look for books that have a, kind of a provocative theme, have, you know, interesting characters.
We started with a book, Paul Fleischman's, uh, Seedfolks, uh, which is a great book because it has a character for every chapter, and the story is told through those different, characters.
So start with a book that you already use, and then, um, use the life history framework to go through all of the things that are absolutely a part of your standards.
So what-- in the book, we looked first at New Jersey, um, ELA learning standards because, of course, that's the state that we're in.
but we also looked across the country.
We looked at Florida, for inst- for instance.
We were curious, you know, with the change in some of the standards and things, do, would it still apply, you know, in, in other states?
And all of the states for reading have, you know, to Susan's point, read closely, interpret text, cite evidence.
Those are, those are found in any ELA standard, and they are absolutely a big part of the reading and interpreting part, um, and the scripting part of our framework.
Interpret figurative language and connotative word meaning, shades of meaning.
All of that is really important if you're gonna write a script from a character's perspective.
Um, assessing how perspective or purpose shapes the style of a text, that's one of the standards.
Perfect opportunity to do that.
from a writing perspective, you know, all of the standards ask them to write narratives, rathe- right?
Either, like, real or imagined.
So this would be an imagined, um, narrative, uh, using effective techniques and well-structured sequence, which when our students go then to write a script from that character's point of view, um, they have an opportunity to practice that.
speaking standards.
You know, using appropriate voice and tone when speaking or writing.
Um- Because students write collabority, collaboratively with life histories, it's also a perfect opportunity to connect to the listening
standards, you know, using appropriate active listening skills when engaging, you know, in a dis- discussions, a variety of discussions.
Those are all, um, ELA, I would say, bread and butter, find them in most any standards.
But, you know, with the emphasis right now, on reading, this really does help get at, uh, listening comprehension, reading comprehension, which are a, you know, a major part of the… and should be a major part of the focus of kids learning to read.
we also were concerned, you know, as we, you know, we work in classrooms, we have our students placed in classrooms, and one of the concerns that we have is that creative writing is receiving less and less attention in ELA classrooms.
And mostly not to the fault of teachers, it's mostly coming from the curriculum.
Students are writing, but they're writing about what they read, not so much writing from a character's
perspective.
Erin Bailey: yeah
Valerie Lee: uh, life histories is a great opportunity for students to stretch their creative skills, integrate those comprehension skills that they got from reading and interpreting, into a script, and then into a performance.
And it's a great opportunity for students to have choice in how they write.
So as somebody said earlier, uh, Mitch said, you know, one group did a Oprah Winfrey Show.
We've had spoken word poetry done.
We've had a lot of monologues, dramatic monologues.
So students have an opportunity to decide how to shape that script, which will lead to more engagement.
And so we see this as a, a really great way to practice skills, but also to engage students.
and I will also say in the last two years, we've kind of expanded out beyond the ELA classroom.
So we do have a chapter in the book that actually talks about social studies and how life histories can be done, to Susan's point, with real people, right?
That were in Undefeated, for instance.
So how could this actually be practiced in social studies as well?
And the standards for social studies, all of them talk about responding to diversity, building empathy, uh, recognizing people's multiple identities.
And, um, so life histories can absolutely be something that could also be practiced in the social studies
Marjorie Madden: let me jump in for a minute about it because I was, I wanted to talk a little bit more about, um, inclusion classrooms and how life histories can really address the needs of, the multiple needs of many students in a classroom.
The, I think the, what the most interesting piece in, in some ways is the collaborative writing.
and also working in groups because y- it doesn't… Actually a classroom, uh, students could have choice and you could u- if it, if it's around
a theme, like we did the Holocaust for one, or we've done, um… It could be, uh, love, it could be anything, whatever the theme would be.
Students could pick multiple texts to use in the classroom, and then work in groups around that text so that, that in the end you would have three performances, um, around different texts instead of just one.
But so many teachers would often say that, "Oh, my students, they're, they're, they're not really deep readers. They're not good readers. I don't think they could do this." Not so.
If you're in a group, even a, a reader who struggles somewhat, by talking about the text that they read together, they read them individually first, then they come together and talk about them, um, that's huge.
and then so someone may struggle as the writer, but then the other person takes over as the writer.
So I think the collaborative piece is really critical in both talking and in, um, scripting.
And I, and just one thing and then I'll stop, Susan.
I know you want to say, you have to say a few things.
But I think the area that we s- that we don't strug- we, that we had the least, we've had the least success with, in some ways is the performance aspect.
because ch- these are, these are fifth graders and high schoolers, and even teachers, they're a little bit timid.
So I think where we need continued work is helping them see what, spoken word sounds like or what a real authentic performance could look like.
And then, then that's it.
But thank you, though.
I just think that that collaborative piece
Valerie Lee: that's a good point.
Susan Browne: really important, yeah
Erin Bailey: I will add collaborative writing is a standard as well, so you're covering that standard.
And I think the, what you said about the speaking standards and the collaborative writing and the performance, those are things that are often overlooked because, dare I say, they're not something that's tested
on, but indeed are standards
Valerie Lee: Right.
And, you know, speaking is rehearsal, right?
So I would say with my students, if you're, if you're gonna write, speaking and talking about it first is rehearsal for that.
Rehearsing for having a discussion about something.
So all of those things build comprehension and everything, but yes, they are often the overlooked part of the standards
Susan Browne: go back to that collaboration though.
So you know, I'm, I, I'm able to read.
I'm on grade level as a reader, but I'm not maybe that deep reader, and I'm in a group collaborating, and someone in my group really knows how to go back in the text and interpret.
And all of a sudden, I'm watching that and seeing how that emerges and how that's informing our writing.
the collaborative piece is so huge, um, because it's really helping me, as a reader, and also there's an opportunity, um, that example was a student that's on grade
level, but there's also an opportunity for a child that might be slightly below level to, you know, get really pulled along in meaningful ways in that collaborative group.
I, I don't think we can emphasize, how important that is,
Marjorie Madden: And I think, too, that, um, another thing that, uh, we found that teachers realize is that they almost have to set the stage for what talk about text looks like.
So you can't just assume that students are gonna be able to talk deeply about the text.
So sometimes even doing a goldfish model and having one small group do the kind of talk that, that y- teachers expect to see or that you would, that would get at the deeper pieces of a character would be helpful
Erin Bailey: So this, I'm thinking about the middle school that I worked in, which was at an arts-based school that was very social justice oriented, and the middle schoolers loved deep themes, loved controversial topics.
So this would be perfect for that school.
What advice would you have for teachers that are maybe…
I mean, 'cause you think about it, you're asking students to take on an identity that is not their own, in a framing in, in which, you know, people are critique, critiquing, um, identity politics to begin with.
Like, what advice might you have for teachers who are hesitant or resistant to allow students to write from the first person of an identity that is not their own?
Valerie Lee: What was the student from Sw- We, we did this for Swarthmore, um, College, and what the one student s- raised as a concern, undergraduate student, she raised as a concern, um, how, what do you do if what they're portraying is
Erin Bailey: Mm, yeah.
Or that too
Valerie Lee: character, right?
Or is, like we mentioned earlier with the example of Long Way to Walk- Water, is actually biased and, and might be stereotypical as well.
And so we try to provide a lot of insight about that in the text, you know, to help, help teachers.
We have a whole chapter on, you know, this current climate, can you actually teach diverse, provocative books in particular parts of the country?
And h- if you're living in s- a state like that, how do you do that?
but, um, so there are some, there is some insight there for that as well.
Susan Browne: Yeah.
And in one of the chapters where we talk about the, um, honors class, Midge and I gave examples of how we allowed students to talk back to the characters at the end.
So if there was something that was ringing, like, inauthentic, we got to push that a little bit further.
or, or, you know, just to help the, the crafter of the life history think about, you know, how can you really back that up?
You said you were this character, how can you go further?
Um, so yeah, that was a really good example of,
Valerie Lee: One of my, uh, I did a, um, I'm drawing a blank on the name of it.
Not wagon wheel.
Was it wagon wheel?
I'm
Susan Browne: Pinwheel.
Pinwheel.
Valerie Lee: I was like, "Wagon wheel?" It was
Susan Browne: I remember 'cause I was just reading about it in our, in our book.
Valerie Lee: So I, I s- found that strategy somewhere where, so they have their character, they've been talking about their character, they're scripting, and they're having a little hard time being authentic or, you know, really maybe some biases or whatever.
And so I had them get in a circle, and every character was, like, one spoke of the wheel, so it was like a line of students.
So whoever was in the mid- middle of the wheel represented each of the characters.
And so they got a chance to talk as the character.
Um, and then what I noticed is that I was ready to stop them several places and go, "Wait a minute, let's think about this."
And students actually said, "Would they really, would, would Papa really say that?" Like, w- you know, he's not in 2026.
Like, this is 1930.
Would he sound different?
and we saw that happen with elementary students, too, and middle school students.
Like, they would w- interrogate each other in those way.
But that does mean you as a teacher have to be, have to be comfortable with some uncomfortable types of discussions that might come up from that, and help students see critique as different from, you know, being critical of you.
um, but also being true to the character.
And, and, um, so I think it does, you know, it does require that the teacher, you know, um, is okay with the messiness and uncomfortable parts of that, working with students.
Susan Browne: Yeah.
And Erin, to, to go back to that whole idea of, you know, pushback about these kind of provocative ideas.
so there's the life history and what that can mean in terms of the context of the classroom.
Then there are also, like, these opportunities for deeper and more societal implications.
I'm thinking about when we did, um, Long Way Down and, students in urban areas that are confronted with the reality of gun violence and how many
students have actually experienced that in their own lives or just, struggle with the threat of that being a part of, um, many urban contexts.
Um, we talked about in, in one piece this idea of violence interrupters and how do, you know, we act as interrupters of violence, and this idea of talking about
it and, thinking deeply about the implications of it is a way of kind of interrupting that something that's become, um, so typical or, or is becoming normalized.
And so there's that deeper implication that goes outside of the actual RISP model and the classroom and, um, to have those kind of implications too for thinking more deeply about how to change behaviors
Marjorie Madden: Yeah, I think Susan just going on what you said, life histories can give students a platform to talk about issues that are part of their lives, but they don't talk about them in school.
So this is a safe place to kind of un- unpack why, why has it become normalized?
What can we do about it?
So, you know, moving forward with that.
So I can, can start from a text and, and move out from, from there,
Susan Browne: Exactly.
Valerie Lee: Yeah, Elena Gonzales is somebody we cite in the book, and she has l- a lot of good pedagogical suggestions for teachers when dealing with, topics that come up that are provocative in some way.
she said things like, If students are having a hard time with the reading, you can guide them by saying things like, 'Well, what do you think the author means by this?'"
Rather than that student having, having to speak for a racial group or, um, a gendered, a, a gender group or something like that.
You know, what… Kinda shifting that conversation back to, "Well, what did the author mean by this?" Is, is just one small little kind of teaching move that can help in those particular cases.
Erin Bailey: That's great.
And I appreciate that.
Like, we talked mostly about taking on others' perspectives, but like with your example, Susan, you know, I had many students who experienced gun violence, so if that was a topic or theme in the book, like that's act- you
know, it's one thing to take on a perspective that is not your own, but to take on a perspective that's maybe different than your own but an experience that is similar to your own, I think that that can be powerful as well.
heading towards the end here.
I would love for each of you to share, um, out just one practical takeaway, um, that teachers, librarian, br- librarians, literacy curriculum
consultants can use, um, to implement life histories in their classrooms and help their students become more engaged readers and more empathetic humans
Marjorie Madden: Hmm.
That was a hard one.
Erin Bailey: Uh, yes.
The, the last one's even harder.
Valerie Lee: did, we did title our book, the subtitle is Reclaiming Reading.
Susan Browne: Yeah.
Valerie Lee: And so I would say the big takeaway is, how can we as teachers reclaim, you know, what it means to engage our students
in reading and to develop them as readers when a lot of times every- there's a lot of things telling us what that should look like.
But as teachers, how can we also reclaim that?
And I think life histories is a great way to do that
Susan Browne: I think, um, just, you know, being out there and finding texts that you have at your ready, whether you're going to use them or not.
Um, you know, sometimes there are just things happening in our world and it's like, "Oh my gosh, this would be such a great text for this moment." Um, knowing your students, you know, what would resonate for them.
So just having that collection of books that you can go to, um, or that collection that you can actually present to your students that, "Oh, what, what should we try now for
a life history?" so that would be one practical thing is just continue to collect those authors and, and their works that you have them at the ready so that you can jump in
Marjorie Madden: And for me, I think I might even, if I were a classroom teacher, I might tell my students, ask my students, "What i- what is reading? What do you
think reading is?" And then I, I would like them to move from … I'm assuming they're gonna say what we've talked about already, what the curriculum emphasizes.
But I would like them to say there are so many children who do love to read.
There really are.
I mean, and, and if … And you go into Barnes & Noble, and you go into these stores, and the, the doom, the d- the, you know, the bell tolled that they were gonna all end 10 years ago, and now they are packed with people.
So people are buying books.
So there are still readers out there, and I would like to see our classrooms become a place where readers thrive, and where you can read.
And Val and I did a whole other study on independent reading, and the power of providing time in classroom for kids to just read and enjoy a book.
So I think life histories, definitely would support that.
Erin Bailey: I love that question, what is reading?
I think every teacher should ask that.
When I was the reading specialist, a lot of times when I had older students, middle schoolers, sixth, seventh, eighth, it was because they were, they transferred into the school, so they had a different experience than the one that we provided at our school.
Um, and I asked a seventh grade boy, "What is re- what is reading?" You know, our first day together, and he said, "Getting all the words right." Um, and so I knew that I had a lot of work to do with him, to change his, his view on reading.
Um, so this last question, which always is the challenging one, is what does reading inspire for you?
Valerie Lee: I love how reading is always there for every season of your life, right?
So, you know, I lost my mother a couple years ago, and I do notice that some of the reading I do is around themes of grief and around themes of death.
And just knowing that that is a universal experience.
Um, Midge recommended the book When Cranes Fly South, and I was mad at her at first because I was just on the floor after I read it.
But it really spoke to what I needed to hear.
And so I just love that reading can be that
Susan Browne: Yeah.
I have a recommended book that I'm looking at from Mitch right here too.
um, that was about the loss of a pet and, it was so very thoughtful and, so there's that connection.
But I also just think about, um, when I began to understand reading in a different way or began to understand how to articulate it as a graduate student with, um, you know, my dissertation chair and my friend and someone I loved and respected dearly.
And we just talked about in our responding to literature class about the life informing, um, and the life transforming potential of reading.
And that just is something like that is with me every day.
I carry it in my heart.
Um, you know, I hear a line from a book or I read a line from a book and I just jot them down on Post-its and sometimes I find them later or sometimes they just disappear somewhere.
But it's that, that moment when you're informed.
And I do believe that those moments when you read those lines that resonate so much that you have to stop, that they are transforming you in some way.
I don't know how to quite capture that, but it's changing you or it's becoming you.
So that idea of this life informing and life transforming potential of reading is something that is, is really strong for me
Marjorie Madden: Well, I agree with both of you ladies, Susan and Val.
Um, and I don't really read all these books to give them to friends.
But that's one thing, sharing books with friends
Susan Browne: Yes, you do
Marjorie Madden: And Val said I cried.
I said, "Good," because I cried for about half an hour after this book was finished.
So, for me, I, I, I was kind of looking back over my reading life.
So I grew up in the era of, you know, Dick and Jane, right?
And, and how many words could you read correctly.
and then I, then I just went through just loving the Nancy Drew series.
I'm, I'm giving my age, but that's okay.
Um, just loving to read for the story, but as I've grown older and more wiser in many ways, and know more about the world, what I like to read is, is changing, has changed.
but it's always helped me to grow and to better understand myself, better understand people around me, uh, to better, um, accept people around me at times.
You know, it's very helpful.
for me it inspires me to reflect on my past, on the past, to engage in the present.
So I like reading about things that are happening right now.
Helps me understand the chaos in our world.
Um, I like to read positive and negatives, and then stay optimistic about the future.
I, I really am optimistic about the future, so, and I think reading just supports that.
It helps that out.
Erin Bailey: Yes, I love that.
Reading inspires change, growth, and optimism.
Um, thank you all so much for sharing, um, about your book.
And also for listeners, when you get the book, there … It is just, I mean, we talked about a lot of the literature today, the examples, but it's just filled with great books that you can use with students of all ages.
Um, so thank you.
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