The Very First Episode: What is Book Love About? - Season 1, Episode 1

Welcome to the very first episode of The Book Love Foundation Podcast! And thank you for joining us in this celebration of teaching and the joy of learning.

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Episode 1 Show Notes
You can learn more about the Book Love Foundation at booklovefoundation.org, where you can also make a donation. 100% of the money you give to the Book Love Foundation puts books into classrooms. We've given away $100,000 in three years, but the need is far greater. Help us reach more young people with the power of reading. Book Love Foundation awards are given to teachers like you. If you're listening to this show, you're already committed to kids and the power of reading. You can apply for a Book Love Foundation grant by visiting booklovefoundation.org. Applications for 2016 are due March 1st.

CONVERSATION SEGMENT
Allison Marchetti teaches high school English in Richmond, VA. She is the co-author of Writing with Mentors: How to Reach Every Writer in the Room Using Relevant, Engaging Mentor Texts (Heinemann 2015) and co-founder of the blog Moving Writers with Rebekah O’Dell. You can connect with Allison on Twitter @allisonmarchett or at movingwriters.org.
Laura Tracy Baisden is a 26-year veteran teacher, serving as Language Arts Department Chair at Logan High School in Logan, West Virginia. She teaches Honors 9, English 12 College Readiness, and Creative Writing. She is a former co-director of Marshall University Writing Project, and director of the rural satellite, Coalfield Writers. She can be reached at [e-mail] Tracy is also a National Writing Program teacher.
Lori Lebel has earned a dual Bachelor's Degree from Syracuse University and a Master s Degree from the University at Albany. She has been teaching English Language Arts with the Schenectady City School District for sixteen years. For the past six years she has been the English Language Arts teacher and Team Leader for the Schenectady Smart Scholars Early College High School Program. Additionally, she was the sole recipient of the 2015 New York State English Council Dr. Ruth E. Everett Award for promoting teaching as a profession. Lori can be reached via email at: [e-mail] Lori mentioned talking with Penny at NCTE. Read more about NCTE and the NCTE16 here.

BOOK TALK
Here are the books from this episode's book talk (courtesy of the students who visit Brian Kelley's classroom library)

Butter, by Erin Jade Lange
The Daughter of Smoke and Bone Trilogy, by Laini Taylor
Coldest Girl in Cold Town, by Holly Black
Anything from Jandy Nelson.  Brian says a lot of his kids are reading The Sky is Everywhere.
Crank, by Ellen Hopkins.  This is the first of a 10-book series.
The Crossover, by Kwame Alexander

Brian Kelley teaches 8th-grade creative writing at Charles F. Patton Middle School in Kennett Square, Pennsylvania. He is a co-director of the Pennsylvania Writing & Literature Project. You can email him at [e-mail], connect with him on Twitter @_briank_ , or follow his blog: http://www.brianjkelley.net/

STUDENT STORY
This episode's student story was from Amy Marshall, who teaches grade 9 and 10 English at St. Malachy’s Memorial High School in Saint John, New Brunswick, Canada. Amy uses her love of literacy to provide workshops to teachers on creating engaging high school English classes. You can email her at [e-mail] or follow her blog: https://meaningfulteacher.wordpress.com/ Amy's student was inspired by Go Ask Alice. Published in 1971.

Thank you for listening to the very first episode of The Book Love Foundation Podcast. If you enjoyed listening, please share it with a colleague or two.

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Creators and Guests

Host

Penny Kittle

Penny is Chairman of the Book Love Foundation and is dedicated to helping students and teachers develop a passion for reading and writing. She has taught English and coached literacy in public schools for 34 years.

AM

Guest

Allison Marchetti

Teaches High School English in Richmond, VA. A co-author of Writing with Mentors: How to Reach Every Writer in the Room Using Relevant, Engaging Mentor Texts.

AM

Guest

Amy Marshall

Teaches grade 9 & 10 English at St. Malachy's Memorial High School in Saint John, New Brunswick, Canada.

BK

Guest

Brian Kelley

Teaches 8th-grade creative writing at Charles F. Patton Middle School in Kennett Square, PA. A co-director of the Pennsylvania Writing & Literature Project.

LB

Guest

Laura Tracy Baisden

26-year veteran teacher and Language Arts Department Chair at Logan High School in Logan, WV. A former co-director of Marshall University Writing Project, and director of the rural satellite Coalfield Writers.

LL

Guest

Lori Lebel

Teaches English Language Arts with Schenectady City School District for sixteen years. A sole recipient of the 2015 New York State English Councel Dr. Ruth E. Everett Award for promoting teaching as a profession.

What is The Book Love Foundation Podcast?

Celebrate the joy of reading with the Book Love Foundation podcast. This is a show filled with information and inspiration from teachers and leaders across grade levels, states, and school systems. We interviewed authors and educators for the first five years and now turn our attention to leaders in public, private, and charter schools. Find out more at booklovefoundation.org or join our book-love-community.mn.co of 2500 educators from 28 countries. We sustain joy together, one kid and one book at a time.

Penny Kittle 00:00
The Book Love Foundation podcast is produced by the teacher learning sessions, connecting teachers with ideas, experts and each other,

Allison Marchetti 00:16
simply put a classroom, library removes all barriers when you can put a book in the hand of a student who otherwise wouldn't be able to get that book.

Laura Tracy Basden 00:27
My students don't have references to things. They're so lost. I don't know another word to say, but they so don't know.

Brian Kelly 00:36
She read it three or four times and kept saying it's her favorite book. It's her favorite book. She literally could not let it go. She wanted it next to her like a blanket, security blanket.

Penny Kittle 00:48
It reminds me of that student who said to me, the book owned me. Miss Kittle, I had to keep reading.

Amy Marshall 00:54
She became a reader, and she saw the value, and now she has a little boy who would consider himself a reader, who loves books, and I just think that's why, that's why.

Penny Kittle 01:11
Welcome to the Book Love Foundation podcasts. I'm Penny Kittle and I'm your host. I'm the founder and president of the Book Love Foundation. We have one goal, to put books into the classrooms of teachers of teenagers. We believe all teenagers, and I mean every single one, will create a reading life of challenge, whim, curiosity and hunger if we put lively, interesting and irresistible books into their hands, you will meet teachers in our podcasts who've won grants from our foundation, as well as some of my author friends who have important things to say about the teaching of reading, but mostly this podcast is a celebration of all that's possible in reading, something I believe in and I believe every teacher will again believe in teenagers as readers, if they begin their teaching with one goal, that every kid, every year, will find a book they can fall in love with that will keep them reading late into the night, that will Answer questions they didn't even know they were asking the book that lasts. Today's episode is focused on how teachers connect students to books, and how a classroom library changes interest and engagement with reading. Joining me on these shows is Kevin Carlson from the teacher learning sessions.

Kevin Carlson 02:43
Today's conversation begins with Allison Marchetti, a teacher and now author in Virginia who talked with Penny about why classroom libraries matter.

Allison Marchetti 02:54
Simply put, a classroom library removes all barriers to reading. It removes the cost barrier. It removes the transportation barrier. It removes all barriers. When you can put a book in the hand of a student who otherwise wouldn't be able to get that book for whatever reason, you're really increasing the chances the student is going to open that first page, dive in and hopefully like what he or she, you know, reads another reason I think classroom libraries matter so they expand resources for students, but in a wonderful way, I think classroom libraries also make schools smaller, and I'll explain what I mean by that. I have a librarian at my school who has set up my library so it shows up in the main library database. So when a student from anywhere at our school searches for a book, if I have it in my classroom library, for example, or another teacher has it in her classroom library, it shows up that it's living there in our classrooms. So we have students that we never teach coming into our rooms asking if they can check out a book from our libraries. So I'm connected to students I wouldn't otherwise be connected to because of the library in my classroom. And we actually refer to our classroom libraries as as satellite libraries, as you know, sort of branches of our our main library. So it makes our school a lot stronger, and everybody's able to have these conversations about books and where they're located in the school, and then get them immediately.

Penny Kittle 04:28
That is so powerful. I think, you know, we sometimes assume that those already exist in classrooms, or at least when I appeal to donors, they tend to think that, you know, what do you mean, those don't already exist.

Kevin Carlson 04:41
Alison talked about how her classroom library invites even practiced readers into an individual reading life of joy and challenge. Alison teaches in a private International Baccalaureate school. Her students have access to resources outside of school, but that does not mean that they are readers. We will talk more about that, how common fake readers are in classrooms in another episode, but some teachers work where the barriers that limit kids access to books are extreme. Penny spoke with Laura Tracy Basden, who works in rural West Virginia.

Penny Kittle 05:18
I was actually rereading your application this afternoon, and I was so struck by the incredible challenge of the conditions you teach in.

Laura Tracy Basden 05:30
It's a hard place.

Penny Kittle 05:31
Yeah, I mean, when I looked just at facts like 100% free and reduced lunch, the closest bookstore is 60 miles away, and there is no public transportation to your library. That's right, so 78% of your kids live below the poverty level. Yes. How are these kids going to get books? If you don't have a classroom library,

Laura Tracy Basden 05:59
they won't. They will not. And many of them have never owned a book. They don't have magazine, things like that in their homes. It's very

Penny Kittle 06:10
hard, yeah, well, of course they wouldn't.

Laura Tracy Basden 06:13
And I'll tell you our, our those are the statistics that are available. I will tell you that that living here tells me our poverty level is actually really even much higher than that. Now I have a huge number of students now who don't have television, who have no internet access. And, you know, as a teacher who loves reading, I've always thought about, you know, they're wasting their brains on the TV or whatever. But when I now that I'm teaching students who don't have access to even that kind of media, that I mean, there's nobody spending money to go to the movies now, kids don't have references. My students don't have references to things. They're so lost I don't know another word to say, but they so don't know. They have no cultural references. They have no nothing beyond what's in their small little world.

Penny Kittle 07:08
That is a really credible thing to think about. I just think we assume so much about the access to resources in this country. Yes, we do. It's interesting, because we were really swayed by the letter from Rachel and Haley your students, yes, and they talked about the fact that that it was your classroom, and your classroom library, the one you'd already built before we gave you more books, had such an impact on them. So I know that you've been out there doing this work for a really long time.

Laura Tracy Basden 07:42
Yes, I am a National Writing Project teacher. So I know, I mean, you know, I credit the National Writing Project and the Summer Institute experiences and years of being fortunate to be connected to so many brilliant teachers there are really helping me understand even more clearly than I already did the value of literacy in all of its forms, and the value of stories and books and having access to reading material. So for a long time, I've, I've worked on that, but it's some the library, this library, has given my classroom such a boost. My kids are so excited. They love the books. They're in. Them all the time. It's just really amazing.

Kevin Carlson 08:24
We hear again and again, and research bears this out, that access to books leads to engaged reading. Penny says that once you have students engaged, you can build the volume of their reading, and once they have the increased stamina that volume brings you can lead students to deeper reading in complex texts. But you can't skip engagement and stamina and give students one complex text after another, expecting they'll be engaged or expecting that they'll become lifelong readers. We will talk more about this throughout the season, but along the path from engagement to volume to complexity, students will come to experience the power of literature as both mirrors of life experiences and as windows into the larger world. Students will see themselves in the books they read, and they will begin to see the human struggles that unite our world. Regular readers not only have larger vocabularies and more confidence in all subjects in school than non readers, but Reading helps teenagers seek courage and resilience, strength and beauty, to feel less alone in a world full of digital distractions. Lori Labelle teaches in inner city. Schenectady, New York,

Penny Kittle 09:43
you know, I'm curious about you have an inner city school that you said has all the challenges of New York City? Yes, and do you find that books help kids cope with all those kinds of challenges?

Lori Labelle 09:57
Oh, absolutely. Sometimes. Is getting a kid, giving them the just the right book is the only way you can often reach one of these students. They have so much going on in their own lives that reading for many of them is just not on their spectrum, and they they don't know how to cope. I mean, they're teenagers. I'm dealing with ninth grade. They went from being the biggest and the baddest in middle school to the tiny little ones in high school. You know, it's a transition for them socially, emotionally as well as academically. So being able to connect kids with the right book is sometimes the way that you actually reach them on a personal level, or even as simply as an academic level. You can draw those kids in by paying attention to who they are and what they're interested in, and giving them something they may never have picked up on their own can open doors with you, both academically and personally, with those students. It's an amazing connection builder.

Penny Kittle 10:54
Yeah, I think that's such an interesting thing to think about. Kelly Gallagher and I are working on this book together this year, and he said to me, I know my kids better than I've ever known kids because of all the conferring I'm doing. Yeah, it just makes such a difference. And like you said, I loved how you mentioned that if you give a kid that book that really matters to them, you've created this connection between you and that child that will transfer to all other kinds of things you're trying to teach?

Lori Labelle 11:21
Oh, absolutely. I tell my students, you know, every year I ask, how many aren't readers? How many kids like to read? How many don't more than half of the students, I'm a non reader. I don't like to read, and I truly believe, and I tell all my students this, you're only a non reader because no one's ever given you the right book, and it's my job to help find you that right

Penny Kittle 11:42
book that's so inspiring.

Lori Labelle 11:45
Thank you. And oftentimes, if you can get that right book into that kid's hands, it changes even who they are. I know that books have changed me. I know that books have changed you. When we met at NCTE, you talked to me about that a little bit, but books can help people. They can actually open doors that people didn't even know were visible, and so getting those right books into those kids hands helped them move beyond where they are now, it opens possibilities.

Penny Kittle 12:19
In these podcasts, we will also talk about books. When you book talk in class, your audience is your students, the book shoppers, the potential readers of that book. But here on the podcast, the audience is you, you and other teachers who need to connect students with books. So we will share the titles that teachers just can't keep on their bookshelves. This is Brian Kelly. I'm curious, what are your kids favorite books right now?

Brian Kelly 12:44
I see them. A lot of them are passing around butter. Yeah, a lot of my kids like the Laney Taylor trilogy, Daughter of Smoke and Bone, that got passed around a lot. And, you know, those books wore out quickly. Coldest Girl in cold town is another one that's pretty popular right now among my kids. I don't know that book. Jandy Nelson, yeah, all of her stuff. They love. All of her stuff. I'll tell you one that has been popular for several years and it's amazing, is crank, and I have some of my best, like moments with kids who find that book, and even parents who have asked if they could borrow it as well. Just so many little moments pop up with that book. It's amazing. I had one girl a couple of years ago who literally who just walked around with it and kept it on her desk, even though she read it several times, I forget how many times now, but it was something like, you know, she read it three or four times and kept saying, it's her favorite book, it's her favorite book. And it was, she literally could not let it go, in a sense, right? She wanted it next to her, like us, animal, kind of like a blanket, security blanket. And it was, and it was, it was just so cool to see that. And I ended up getting multiple copies of the book so she could still have this tattered paper bag with her. You know, it

Penny Kittle 14:12
reminds me of that student who said to me, the book owned me, Miss Kittle, I had to keep reading.

Brian Kelly 14:18
Yeah, yeah, the crossover this. You know, boys are definitely been into that the last two years, obviously. And I love some of the side comments I hear from from boys as they recommend it to one another. Two different sets of boys asked each other like so, so this is all rap, right? This books rap. This book was written in rap. You know, that's their language. That's the way they're the poetry in the book. I just thought it was so cool, because they're excited

Penny Kittle 14:47
about that absolutely. And I just love Kwame Alexander, what a speaker,

Kevin Carlson 14:51
yeah, oh yeah, the books mentioned in each book talk will be included in the show notes at teacherlearningsessions.com/go/booklove. Or by going to the podcast network menu and selecting the Book Love Foundation podcast on that page, you can also join a special email list and receive more info about each episode directly to your inbox, including a list of the books that we book talk that's at teacher learningsessions.com/go/booklove.

Penny Kittle 15:23
I'm going to close each podcast with a teacher's story to motivate you and inspire you as you go into your own classroom, like this one shared by Amy Marshall, our first Canadian Book Love Foundation library winner, Amy teaches in New Brunswick. So do you have a story about one kid that you know was a particularly I don't know, interesting or inspiring?

Amy Marshall 15:49
I have the best story, the best story. I love it just I might even cry. It brings me to tears. I love the story. A few years ago, I was teaching a grade 11 student. She was a single mother. Her son was two years old or so when she was in grade 11, so her mother had abandoned her when she found out that she was pregnant. So here she was all by herself in this world. She had her own apartment. That's where she lived with her son, and she was coming to high school full time. So right off the bat, this, this woman, she wasn't even a girl, in my opinion, this woman had so much going on, and then she comes into my room and she said, I don't read. I don't have time to read. And I thought, yeah, that's that's fair. I said, so that means that the books that I suggest to you had better be good if you've got to make the time to read them with all the other things going on. So I gave her Go Ask Alice, because what better book to engage a student than Go Ask Alice, in my opinion. So she read, Go Ask Alice, and loved it. And then asked for more titles. And so I gave her more titles and more titles and more titles, and she just ate it up. But for me, the most profound part of her whole journey was she had finished a book over the Christmas holidays, and so didn't have anything to read. So she went to the public library for the first time in her life to check out books, and she took her son with her and checked out books for him.

Penny Kittle 17:24
Oh, that's beautiful.

Amy Marshall 17:25
And now I see I've seen her a few times. Her son is in grade one, and I said, How's Ben doing? And she said, He loves books. He loves to read. We go to the library every month to get new books out, because he loves to read. And I thought, I've broken the cycle she was in. Her mother was a non reader who didn't think education was important. She was headed in that direction, and her son would have headed in that direction, but she became a reader and she saw the value, and now she has a little boy who would consider himself a reader, who loves books, and I just think that's why, that's why,

Penny Kittle 18:10
absolutely, it's like, my work is done.

Amy Marshall 18:13
Yeah, I kind of thought, Okay, I'm done. I can, I can retire now, I wanted to,

Penny Kittle 18:17
but I hope you want that's beautiful story.

Amy Marshall 18:23
Yeah, she wrote me a big, long letter just a couple years ago about the whole thing and about how she now considers herself a reader and and she went off to community college to become a healthcare provider, and she did these things with her life that she never dreamed she would have been able to do.

Penny Kittle 18:39
And it started with Go Ask Alice. Started with Go Ask Alice. Yeah, that's still such a classic, good read for kids. And, you know, it doesn't fit the canon. It doesn't fit the classics. And I've had teachers say that's what kids need to read in high school. And I would agree that we can have some of those, but if that's all they see, that's why so many kids don't read? Yeah, absolutely. So it's a beautiful story of how a kid just manages to find her own way starting on this journey of books. And I love that. Thank you for listening to this very first episode of the Book Love Foundation podcast. You can learn more about our foundation at Book Love Foundation.org where you can also make a donation 100% of the money you give to the Book Love Foundation puts books into classrooms. We've given away $100,000 in three years, but the need is far greater. Help us reach more young people with the power of reading. Book Love Foundation awards are given to teachers like you. If you're listening to this show, you're already committed to kids and the power of reading, you can apply for a Book Love Foundation grant by visiting our website. booklove foundation.org applications for 2016 are due March 1. Penny. Thank you very much for listening. I'm Penny Kittle.

Kevin Carlson 20:05
If you enjoyed this podcast, please tell your colleagues about it in person or through your online social network and help us spread the word about the show. We will leave you with some scenes from our next episode, which comes out in two weeks. It's about why classroom libraries matter and how to build them. Said, I just want

Future Guest 1 20:26
you to look at them. I just want you to touch them. I just want you to pull them off the shelves and just kind of be with these books for a little while.

Future Guest 2 20:33
It's like a 24 752, weeks out of the year, I'm constantly looking for new titles and trying to find that next book that I'm going to be able to put in someone's hand.

Penny Kittle 20:42
The thing that some people don't understand is that 52 weeks a year, job of locating the right book is one of the greatest, most enjoyable things I do.

Kevin Carlson 20:52
The Book Love Foundation podcast is produced by the teacherlearningsessions.com connecting teachers with ideas, experts and each other. You.