Webinar Transcript

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Karly O'Brien: All right, well, we're gonna get started, because I definitely don't want to keep from anyone's time, and have lots of wonderful content to get through, so want to make sure we get through all of it. So, hi everyone, welcome! We're so excited for tonight, or this afternoon's session. Every book counts, every book is a life histories book. If you've joined us before, welcome back. And if this is your first session with us, we're really excited to have you.

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Karly O'Brien: You can revisit this session, as well as any other past sessions that we've hosted in the archive. I'll be sure to share that link in the chat later this evening. Closed captioning is available, and we encourage you to use the chat box and Q&A throughout the session to share questions, ideas, or reflections.

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Karly O'Brien: And I'll be here in the background throughout the session taking care of logistics and supporting our wonderful presenters tonight, so feel free to reach out on the back end if you have any logistical questions.

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Karly O'Brien: But I'm really excited for today's session. We're focusing on how to bring deeper meaning and engagement into literacy instruction for students through life histories. This approach invites students to think critically about characters, themes, and perspectives in complex texts, while also making meaningful connections to their own experiences and the world around them.

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Karly O'Brien: So, during the session, you'll learn how to use books already in your classroom library to support this work. Our presenters will introduce a model called the RISP model, which stands for Read, Interpret, Script, and Perform, and demonstrate how it can be used to strengthen comprehension, engagement, and student voice. You'll also have the opportunity to begin creating your own life history scripts, and walk away with some really,

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Karly O'Brien: exciting, ready-to-use resources and connections to everyday ELA standards, so…

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Karly O'Brien: With that, we're gonna jump right in. A little bit about us. We Are Reading as Fundamental, or RIF for short. We are turning 60 this year, and we have always been the nation's largest children's literacy nonprofit. Our mission is to inspire the joy of reading and ensure every child has the opportunities and resources to become a lifelong reader. And these webinars are just a small part of that commitment.

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Karly O'Brien: To supporting educators and families with practical tools and strategies to bring literacy to life.

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Karly O'Brien: We're super excited to be joined today by three literacy experts from Rowan University, who, we're so grateful also serve as valued members of our advisory community, contributing to both the Middle School Family Literacy Initiative Advisory Board and the Early Childhood Advisory Board. So, quickly going to introduce the three of them. So, Dr. Valerie Lee is an Associate Professor and program coordinator for Literacy

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Karly O'Brien: Studies and the Reading Endorsement program. With nearly three decades in education, she brings experience as a classroom teacher and literacy researcher.

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Karly O'Brien: Her work focuses on life histories, reading intervention, and clinical literacy practices, and she is a co-founder of the Rowan University Writing Project.

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Karly O'Brien: Dr. Susan Brown is a professor in the Department of Critical Literacy, Technology, and Multilingual Education. She teaches undergraduate and graduate reading courses, and advises master's and doctoral students.

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Karly O'Brien: Her work focuses on critical pedagogy, diverse literature, and reader response, and she is co-director of the Rowan University Writing Project.

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Karly O'Brien: And then, certainly not least, but last, Dr. Marjorie Midge Madden is an associate professor with over 35 years of experience in literacy education. She teaches both undergraduate and graduate reading courses, and co-developed the Literacy Consortium, which supports school districts through annual literacy-focused symposiums. Her work also includes international teacher training and

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Karly O'Brien: extensive contributions to literacy research and practice. So, we are super excited to learn from their expertise today. So, with that, I will turn it over to our presenters, and welcome. We're so grateful to have you all.

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Marjorie Madden: Okay, thank you. Next slide, I think, Carly.

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Marjorie Madden: Hello, everybody. We're, I'm Midge. Marjorie is the official name, but I go by Midge. We're excited to be here with all of you this evening, and want to share our work with Life Histories.

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Marjorie Madden: Over the past 15 years, Susan Val and I have worked together with teachers and students using critical multicultural texts to engage and invite close study and a deeper interpretation of literary texts.

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Marjorie Madden: Tonight, we're going to take you through the process of life histories, show some examples, share some resources, and invite conversation from you about possibilities in your classrooms and teaching contexts. Next one! Thank you, Carly. Next slide, please.

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Marjorie Madden: Okay, this is just to give you an idea of the breadth of our work. It's been a long time coming. We are close friends, we travel together, we present together, we ride together, and we thought this visual, this map might be a good visual to show you where we've taken life histories. As you can see, we've worked both across the United States and internationally in places as diverse as Oxford, England.

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Marjorie Madden: Ireland, Greece, and Guatemala.

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Marjorie Madden: It's been an amazing adventure, to work with so many different teachers and students.

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Marjorie Madden: And they've all validated our belief in the power of literary life histories to push readers to deeper understandings of self and other, and have fun in the doing.

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Marjorie Madden: Buddhi Mohammed argues that we must bring back the joy in learning, and we agree.

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Marjorie Madden: It's been our experience that Life Histories does indeed bring back the joy in learning, specifically with reading, writing, and performance.

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Marjorie Madden: Next slide, please, Colleen.

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Marjorie Madden: So, beginning in the early 2000s, Susan and Val and I stumbled on the work of Cole and Knowles, and they have taken the anthropological stance of life histories, where one works with lived life histories, living persons' life histories.

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Marjorie Madden: And they've moved it into the realm of literature. And so, we thought that would really be an interesting

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Marjorie Madden: Interesting concept to follow, to see if we could take this notion of life histories and apply that to practices, similar practices with characters in literary texts.

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Marjorie Madden: And so our work with Life Histories began, really in 2005, we started it out, and it's finally culminating, with the book, which we hope to come out in the spring.

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Marjorie Madden: Next slide, Carly, thanks.

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Marjorie Madden: So here's the risk model. You'll be hearing much more about it. Balances are going to take over after I stop talking, and kind of will take you through the different phases of the risk model. But what's even more important is our core belief

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Marjorie Madden: And it's over here in this, navy bubble. It says, the practice of reading literature slows thought down.

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Marjorie Madden: a strange thing in our world of instant, instant, instant information. So going back to literature, it slows thought down

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Marjorie Madden: It's… a book provides a rare opportunity for a sustained focus.

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Marjorie Madden: contemplation, and introspection. And that's what we have found life histories to do, and we hope that you will find the same. If you should choose to, give it a try.

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Marjorie Madden: Next slide, Carly.

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Marjorie Madden: So, selecting a text for life histories. That's kind of been the… one of the challenges in the beginning when we worked with teachers, and these are some of the questions, we ask, and teachers ask as well.

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Marjorie Madden: How will the book promote student engagement and motivation? How will this book interact or engage your students in your particular context?

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Marjorie Madden: What does the book offer regarding life-informing opportunities, aesthetic evocations, and textual connections? And then how does the book promote critical thinking, literacy skill development, and opportunities for learning across curriculum?

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Marjorie Madden: Success… successfully, sorry, Crafting life histories also importantly begins with the selection of a diverse critical text that offers rich character portrayals

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Marjorie Madden: and engaging narratives. And these narratives should address important issues central to critical literacy, such as identity, power, justice, and representation of the students' own lives.

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Marjorie Madden: We characterize diverse multicultural critical texts as literature that uses themes, context, and characters to broaden or change the way that readers look at themselves and the world.

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Marjorie Madden: The literature, this literature is quality by nature, and lends itself to the critical inquiry that takes place during the life histories process.

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Marjorie Madden: Next slide.

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Marjorie Madden: What we've provided here is just to give you all an overview of different texts that we've used across the years.

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Marjorie Madden: later on, we'll talk about more current texts that… there's… there's so many more texts now than there were in the beginning in terms of critical multicultural texts. These just give you an idea of ones that we've used.

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Marjorie Madden: We've worked with, many, many different, age levels, from 5th grade to middle and high school students, and…

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Marjorie Madden: I think the next slide for this, as well.

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Marjorie Madden: And this is where students are going to go and talk about intensive reading, but I did want to tell you a little bit more. We've worked with 5th graders, middle and high school students, and pre-surfers and graduate university students, as well as teachers. And we always think of Rudine Sims Bishop's notion of using text as windows and mirrors, and I know many of you under… know her work.

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Marjorie Madden: But that helps teacher and students to select books that would resonate with individual cultures of their class and the backgrounds, as well as open their students' eyes to other cultures and experiences.

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Marjorie Madden: And Susan, I'm gonna let you.

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Marjorie Madden: Take it away.

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Susan Browne: All right, thanks, Mitch. Good evening, everyone. So happy to be here with you all. I'm going to start taking us through the RISP model, and I'm going to start with READ, the R. It's, intensive reading.

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Susan Browne: So, the first part of our life histories model involves intensive reading, and in intensive readings, readers extend themselves into the literature. And here, the emphasis is on the lived experience, connecting in personal ways with the story world.

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Susan Browne: and actually living in the author's invented world. And here, small groups now are working together to decide on a character that they'll focus on with a particular text to craft their life histories.

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Susan Browne: And next slide…

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Susan Browne: Carly, please. All right, so here, we have, a picture of a 5th grade class that we worked with in Merlin, and this is Kathy's class, and here the students are engaging in rich, deep talk around the double's arithmetic.

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Susan Browne: And this helps students, this conversation helps students as they went back to collaboratively script their characters for their life history. And this process also gave Kathy the opportunity to bring the history of

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Susan Browne: Nazi Germany into the conversation and connected to the historical fiction that they were reading.

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Susan Browne: And in a later clip, we're going to share a life history that a student performed as a part of this study of the Holocaust. Next slide.

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Susan Browne: And these are handouts that we use as we move into the interpret part of,

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Susan Browne: risk. Here, students are engaging in some character analysis.

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Susan Browne: And, these two handouts help students to begin to interpret the character that they've selected from the novel that they're working on. And all this is happening collaboratively. Students are working with a partner or in small groups.

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Susan Browne: So, using the handout on the right.

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Susan Browne: They go back into the text, and they identify important moments around their character, and then they're documenting those important moments on the handout. Then they go back, and they determine what makes these moments important.

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Susan Browne: And this iceberg concept on the left is probably familiar to everyone, and using the iceberg concept, students document what they know about their character that's easily observable.

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Susan Browne: or above the surface. Then they identify those aspects of their character that may not be explicitly stated in the text, but can be

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Susan Browne: Inferred based on the text.

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Susan Browne: And next slide…

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Susan Browne: So, quickly here, we just wanted to share this to say that we think about interpretation

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Susan Browne: as meaning-making through the life histories process, and we're thinking about these areas that are provided by Ziegler, Paulus, and Woodside, which are noticing, reinterpreting, theorizing, and questioning assumptions. And as we share some examples of

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Susan Browne: scripts, hopefully these things come to light.

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Susan Browne: Next slide.

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Susan Browne: So, beginning some of the examples, when working with a group of 9th grade students in Philadelphia.

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Susan Browne: Their teacher was worried that the group was losing steam and creating life histories.

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Susan Browne: And,

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Susan Browne: he wanted to, make sure that, you know, this process was successful. So, and he was really concerned. So, to make sure students remain engaged, we developed some mentor texts with some layering following Goldie Muhammad's work in preparation for their life histories.

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Susan Browne: And the first layered text was a clip from Hidden Figures, in which actor Taraji Henson plays the role of NASA mathematician Katherine Johnson, something you all are probably familiar with. And then the clip, she's being admonished for being late.

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Susan Browne: And she explains there's no bathroom for me here. And in a powerful monologue, she describes how she feels alienated from the rest of the team, and how she has to walk a great distance, to use a colored bathroom.

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Susan Browne: And then we go on to use Gem of the Ocean as another layered mentor text. And this is a play by August Wilson.

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Susan Browne: And in this clip, we see a play… we see Aunt Esther, and the play is set in the home of Aunt Esther, who is the community's spiritual leader, and she's believed to be 185 years old, and she has the power to wash people's soul.

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Susan Browne: And students view this clip that describes

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Susan Browne: Aunt Esther's spiritual relationship with what Wilson writes as the City of Bones, and this is performed by, actor Felicia Rashad. And both monologues served as really strong examples of how to craft a monologue

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Susan Browne: And really gave students some direction. We also gave them the opportunity to think about crafting their life histories as spoken word.

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Susan Browne: And we found some really good clips of a young spoken word artists that we shared. So this was setting the stage for being successful, and really showed that,

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Susan Browne: Students found a great level of engagement with thinking about writing in these styles, and did not at all lose steam. Next slide, Carly.

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Susan Browne: And then here we see, a pedagogy course where second-year education majors are reading Francisco Jimenez's The Circuit. And here, Life Histories allowed students to write, narrate, and perform an inner monologue for their character. And as students moved from initial postings about their character.

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Susan Browne: to subsequent Padlet postings, group discussions, and finally writing their script, their understanding of the character changed, and their responses became

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Susan Browne: more nuanced. And in analyzing their online dialogue, we found stereotypes often existed in their first iterations, and there was a lack of what Zagler, Paulus, and Woodside call questioning assumptions.

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Susan Browne: So students made assumptions about the parents having more children, and why it was difficult for the boys to learn English. And one student wrote,

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Susan Browne: I sympathize for families that are going through struggle… struggles like Ponchito and his family.

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Susan Browne: This book has truly given me a bigger picture, to look and understand how lucky I am. And we use this as an opportunity to question assumptions, think about, you know, what it means to empathize versus what it means to sympathize. And layered texts such as videos about migrant farm workers allowed students to expand

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Susan Browne: their understandings, and in turn moved towards deeper understanding of their character. Their responses also revealed a complexity around this notion of empathy.

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Susan Browne: Next slide, Carly.

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Susan Browne: All right, and then our last finding on empathy comes from our analysis of both middle school and

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Susan Browne: life histories with pre-service teachers. We recognize that empathy is complex. Psychologists identify three aspects of empathy. Studying brain neurons, researchers attempt to explain which elements of the narrative create feelings of empathy and why.

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Susan Browne: In our work with pre-service teachers, we found that literature and memoir offer a way to build empathy and understanding by opening new possibilities to move readers to deeper level

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Susan Browne: of text interpretation, and critique.

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Susan Browne: And… next slide…

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Susan Browne: So this idea of revisiting our theories of teaching emerged as, we examined some responses to, All-American boys.

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Susan Browne: So, in response to All American Boys, two students sat in the back of the room, and they were focusing their monologue on the character Clarissa.

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Susan Browne: And Clarissa is Rashad's character, the main character in the book, his white nurse, when he's hospitalized.

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Susan Browne: for, suffering a horrific beating.

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Susan Browne: And Rashad is an African-American young man. And their teacher, Mr. Lawrence, tried several times to discourage these students from selecting Clarissa.

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Susan Browne: He wasn't seeing what they were saying. He thought that Clarissa's role in the book was very short and very small.

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Susan Browne: And he wanted them to pick another character. And so, their monologue speaks to the importance of listening to students when a character really resonates for them. And here's an excerpt of what they wrote. My name is Clarissa, and I work as a nurse.

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Susan Browne: Some say I'm a sweet, red-headed nurse.

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Susan Browne: I recently had a young man named Rashad Butler in my care. As I brought him his lunch, I saw him drawling. How are you, Rashad? I asked him.

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Susan Browne: Good as I can be, he replied in a raspy voice. It hurts my heart to deal with young patients like this. He didn't deserve that.

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Susan Browne: After getting him together for the night, I decided to clock out.

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Susan Browne: Days later, Rashad is finally out of the hospital. I'm happy for him. I hope he doesn't come back.

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Susan Browne: I've been here for a while, but never have I experienced something so vulgar for a child.

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Susan Browne: The way that cop manhandled him was completely unacceptable. He didn't deserve that. He's just a mere boy.

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Susan Browne: It was also unnecessary, even if he did something.

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Susan Browne: Shoving him to the ground and kicking him in the back was disrespectful and uncalled for. How he handled Rashad was almost like he had a grudge or hatred against him.

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Susan Browne: So, that little, piece shows that the students were able to discern the importance, that Reynolds and Kylie had made to include Clarissa in the novel.

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Susan Browne: And despite the short contribution related to her presence in the book.

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Susan Browne: Clarissa clearly offers a larger contribution related to humanity.

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Susan Browne: Next slide. And I think I am turning it over to Dr. Valerie Lee.

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Valerie Lee: Thank you, Susan. Hello, everyone. So, I'm gonna pick up right after Susan leaves off with the script writing, and so if you want to go ahead, and,

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Valerie Lee: Did we skip a slide?

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Valerie Lee: Script writing… could you go back one, Carly?

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Valerie Lee: Okay, must be out of order. So, there we go. All right, so,

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Valerie Lee: We, our next step in the model is collaborative writing, and so you already saw a little snippet of that with Clarissa, the nurse, and we really do think it's powerful in life history that students pick characters who don't have a lot of voice in the novel, and they're able to bring voice to that character.

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Valerie Lee: The life history script step requires readers to go back into the text again and again.

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Valerie Lee: Using notes and text markings, students engage in collaborative script writing that gives voice to their character.

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Valerie Lee: As one group member serves as the scribe, students make suggestions and imagine different points of view and actions for their character. Students are invited to draw on their creativity with the goal of capturing the persona of the character while moving beyond the author's rendition.

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Valerie Lee: This layered process takes place over time in multiple drafts, as they synthesize those notes they did on those graphic organizers that we shared earlier.

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Valerie Lee: One of our experiences was with 7th graders, and these 7th graders were from three different schools, and we brought them all together at Bushfire theater in Philadelphia to take part in what was called the, what is called the Big Book Club. This happened in the fall of 2019. We met these students, you can see in the bottom photo, the students are all gathering in the cafe space.

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Valerie Lee: And they were working to create life histories in response to Jason Reynolds' book, Long Way Down.

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Valerie Lee: If you don't know this book, it's written in a narrative poem and takes place in an elevator as 15-year-old Will descends from the seventh floor.

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Valerie Lee: The 60-second elevator ride is actually a long way down to the first floor, as Will meets ghosts from the past, all victims of gun violence, who push him to contemplate his plans to avenge his brother Sean's death. Readers are left to determine if he follows the rules that have led him to this place to place a gun in his waistband, or does he break the cycle

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Valerie Lee: from, from violence. And if you've never read this book, I read it in one evening. It's captivating. Students… students love it.

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Valerie Lee: So here you can see students engaged in collaborative writing. It was truly amazing to watch students working across different schools. They had never met each other, but one of the things that connected them is they had picked a particular character, so they had that in common. So they came together in small groups around this character.

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Valerie Lee: We believe that collaborative writing is critical to the eventual rendering of characters and their performance. It invites diverse perspectives and diverse skills from different writers, and they all contribute different areas, such as dialogue and character development, and it all just enriches the script's complexity.

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Valerie Lee: Collaborative talk and writing can spark a sort of creative synergy that invites brainstorming together and playing off each other's ideas. These experiences often lead to ideas that individual readers may not have been able to contrive alone.

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Valerie Lee: The final life history script can take shape in multiple formats, as been mentioned earlier. It could be a monologue, a dialogue, spoken word poetry. We've even had students frame their life histories as an interview, somebody interviewing the character.

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Valerie Lee: Next slide, please.

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Valerie Lee: Rereading these urban middle schooler scripts, the novel resonates strongly with their lived experience, and here we have one for Leticia.

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Valerie Lee: I am Letitia. I scream, seeing my boyfriend lying on the sidewalk, covered in blood.

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Valerie Lee: At 18 years old, I never thought my world would come crashing down right in front of my own eyes.

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Valerie Lee: Kissing his forehead between shrieks, I talked to Sean, hoping it would somehow keep him alive, trying to stay calm for him, and being with him in his last moments. I knew deep down I was kissing Sean goodbye, and then Sean took his last breath.

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Valerie Lee: So you can see that they are writing these scripts with authenticity and credibility. Each life history captures the traumatic life-altering devastation of senseless violence in the case of this novel.

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Valerie Lee: Giving students opportunities to talk and write about traumatic experience is crucial to approaches that are sensitive to its impact.

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Valerie Lee: Of course, it's also important to recognize if students seem to be experiencing any anxiety or stress related to the events or issues presented in the text, and we as teachers know how to do that thoughtfully.

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Valerie Lee: And make adjustments accordingly. Although Reynolds does not avoid traumatic realities present in urban communities, the trauma is not the salient issue. He focuses more on how his characters negotiate these events, which makes it a perfect life history text.

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Valerie Lee: Next slide.

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Valerie Lee: In our work with students, and I don't know if any of you as teachers right now are thinking, but when does it not go so well, right? When do you run into difficulties? And as Susan shared earlier, you know, when students started to get bogged down and using those layered texts helped them.

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Valerie Lee: In our work with students, we often encounter students who struggle to write from the perspective of their character. We used the pinwheel discussion as a sort of rehearsal strategy while students were drafting their life history scripts with the circuit.

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Valerie Lee: So, how this works is the teacher presents an event from the book, and then four students take the role of the character to discuss it. Four chairs face each other in the center, with chairs radiating out from each chair in the center, like spokes on a wheel.

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Valerie Lee: The students, the four students, discuss a topic from their character's point of view. If they get stuck, they can move back, and another student fills their spot.

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Valerie Lee: In the beginning, students play their characters more as the character would talk today, using modern expressions, like, I was so pissed off when you did that, it sucked. Conversations are stilted, and students laugh at their own awkwardness.

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Valerie Lee: As the discussion continues, however, students take on more of a character's voice. In this case, a pivotal moment came when the student playing Panchito responded to Papa killing his bird in a very controlled way. Another student.

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Valerie Lee: Moves to the front, waiting to be heard. She begins. Papa, why would you do that? I understand that you're stressed, but no, that's my friend. The one thing I love, the one thing I wanted, gone. Taken away from me. Everything. You do not understand how I feel. Silent blood going down his silent beak?

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Valerie Lee: How would you feel if your best friend was shot? Next time you get stressed, don't hurt my bird.

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Valerie Lee: The students sat stunned, taking in the raw emotion of the performance. And you notice here, they also included a quote from the book, directly from the book.

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Valerie Lee: Finally, one student remarked, but yeah, this is the 1940s. Children are seen and not heard. Would he really say that to his dad?

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Valerie Lee: Although Panchito did not express his feelings in the memoir, and because it would have been out of character for a son to lash out, it opened the door to the power of life history.

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Valerie Lee: It gave voice to that which could not be said. In their scriptwriting process, rehearsals like pinwheel discussions can give students opportunities to experiment with voice, word choice, and tone in a supportive environment.

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Valerie Lee: Next slide.

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Valerie Lee: And finally, the most important thing, arguably the most important phase of life histories, is the performance.

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Valerie Lee: We had opportunities for students to perform their life histories on a community stage, and you can see there in the right, Bushfire theater in Philadelphia. We've also had students perform in their classrooms to their classmates, like Annie's video, which you'll see in a few minutes.

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Valerie Lee: We've also had performances in a school cafeteria or auditorium, where they present to other grade levels. Our point here is that performances can happen anywhere.

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Valerie Lee: However, we also want to point out that students don't always naturally move from script to performance, and again, teacher modeling here is key.

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Valerie Lee: Focus shifts from what the character says to now, what does the character do?

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Valerie Lee: Up to this point, students have read intensely, completed an analysis, written a collaborative script, and now they're ready to perform their script. Over time, in many experiences with students, we've learned that there are several steps to actively engage audience and truly portray characters. Like directors.

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Valerie Lee: Teachers must work with students to turn words on paper into some sort of theatrical performance.

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Valerie Lee: Admittedly, our classrooms aren't really set up as theater, nor do our students normally perform their Life Histories always on a stage. However, we emphasize the performance as a culminating act of Life Histories Project.

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Valerie Lee: It's critical for students to see their characters as a physical being, not just an idea or a creation. What is the posture, rhythm, vocal texture for the character? In other words, how do they speak?

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Valerie Lee: walk, and move. Here again, the teacher comes into play as one who can help them comprehend their characters' goals and motives, so that students can bring those characters to life.

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Valerie Lee: Next slide.

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Valerie Lee: And so, on this slide, we have some performances, and so we'd like to give you a taste of what this performance of a life history might sound like. We're going to start on the right-hand side, Carly, with the link that says Daniel's Story, and this is an example of a 5th grader

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Valerie Lee: Performing a life history from the Holocaust novel, Daniel's Story. Oh, no.

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Karly O'Brien: Making me log in.

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Valerie Lee: Yeah. Do you want me to share my screen?

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Karly O'Brien: Yeah, yeah, I'll just stop sharing for a second, no worries.

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Karly O'Brien: It's the digital age, I'm sure folks are used to it.

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Valerie Lee: Yes.

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Valerie Lee: Okay, we will give this a shot here.

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Valerie Lee: I'm going to share my screen.

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Valerie Lee: Looks like I'm gonna have trouble with that, Carly.

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Valerie Lee: Not letting me share my screen.

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Karly O'Brien: Here, let me try. Hold on.

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Karly O'Brien: Alright, folks.

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Karly O'Brien: Try now, Tyler?

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Valerie Lee: Try to share it.

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Karly O'Brien: Yeah, try again.

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Valerie Lee: Yeah, I'm getting some weird setting.

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Valerie Lee: Mine.

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Susan Browne: I have it, I did have it.

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Valerie Lee: Let me try also… yeah, if you want to try, Susan, I'm going to also try putting this link in the…

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Valerie Lee: See if I can get it this way.

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Valerie Lee: Okay, I think… but I still need to be able to share it.

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Valerie Lee: Carly, in the, in the notes section, there's the link to the video. If you just put that in another tab, it'll play.

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Karly O'Brien: Amazing. Let me do that right now.

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Karly O'Brien: Sorry, folks, thank you all so much!

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Valerie Lee: Thank you for being patient.

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Karly O'Brien: It's so worth it.

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Karly O'Brien: Yeah, let me try that.

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Karly O'Brien: Yeah, it's still making me sign in.

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Valerie Lee: Still making you sign in. Okay, we worried about that one. We'll try to get that link fixed, folks, so that.

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Susan Browne: Thank you.

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Susan Browne: Are you able to share, Val? Because I do have the clip right here.

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Valerie Lee: Why don't you try to share your screen?

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Susan Browne: And if not, we'll just, move on, let me see.

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Valerie Lee: Yeah, sounds great.

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Susan Browne: Alright, so… am I sharing?

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Valerie Lee: Yes, you are.

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Susan Browne: Okay, and then here is… the clip…

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Susan Browne: And if I can make it bigger… You should give up hope, grab the guns, fight and die proudly.

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Susan Browne: being tortured, or do I hear of your people? How can you look around and see the people

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Susan Browne: You love being murdered and tortured. Tell me that. You can't cameo.

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Susan Browne: Just imagine if we all got together and turned against the Nazis.

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Susan Browne: Realize that this system only prolongs our suffering.

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Susan Browne: That is a forced labor camp, but in the end, we'll have helped the Germans. Look at all the uniforms and equipment we are making for the German war machine.

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Susan Browne: ourselves unless we do something about it.

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Susan Browne: All of the German instructions are not, you're going to die! Don't think there will spare your life because they hate our kind.

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Susan Browne: This war has darkened me. I became something I never wanted to be.

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Susan Browne: But Erica brought out the good in me. She changed me in a way I didn't know I could be changed. She changed my heart, soul, and mind. I used to only think of destruction and revenge, but now I know you must choose love. Always choose love.

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Susan Browne: When I first met Daniel, I knew his love at first sight. Without him, I don't think I could survive. I hope that one day we meet again. Is he dead? Is he suffering? Did he forget about me? These are the questions I have need at asked. Does he still love me?

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Susan Browne: Later in my life, Daniel came back for me. It was over. The horrors and evil we had seen was over, and the Jews were free. I was free.

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Susan Browne: And that's it.

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Valerie Lee: Always gotta love students don't know how to do an ending, right? But you can see from that video, obviously, is the passion that student has for, for,

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Valerie Lee: her script, and you can see the two students in the background right here are the ones that were part of her group in, collaborating on that script. And so, oftentimes, in a life history, one student chooses to do the monologue, but we have also seen multiple students in a group, present their life history. But just very powerful.

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Valerie Lee: Carly, if you want to try, in just a second, we're gonna try, showing a couple teacher clips.

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Valerie Lee: So, as we shared earlier, we've engaged educators all over the world in doing life histories, and we believe, you know, as part of the writing project, we believe teachers as writers have a power to transform their own students' writing, and we find it very valuable for educators to engage in life history processes themselves, oftentimes before they try it with students.

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Valerie Lee: And so, we have two examples here from educators that took part in our, Summer Institute… Writing Institute, and we actually paired Long Way Down with Goldie Muhammad's, Cultivating Joy book.

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Valerie Lee: And to look at educators as also culturally responsive. And so we're gonna play two clips, both coming from Long Way Down, both with a very different, very different feel. So go ahead and play one of them, Carly.

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Audio shared by Karly O'Brien: 3, 2, 1. And we're rolling.

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Audio shared by Karly O'Brien: Do you think you can?

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Audio shared by Karly O'Brien: Or… Can you kill?

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Audio shared by Karly O'Brien: Because there is a difference.

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Audio shared by Karly O'Brien: There's the revenge, The reason… Oh, sorry. There's the rules, the revenge, and the reason.

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Audio shared by Karly O'Brien: And that's the true vicious cycle. A fatal concoction of anguish.

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Audio shared by Karly O'Brien: And blood splashed and splattered onto the street, onto the sidewalk.

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Audio shared by Karly O'Brien: But save your tears!

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Audio shared by Karly O'Brien: Because that's a part of the rules.

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Audio shared by Karly O'Brien: When will it stop?

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Audio shared by Karly O'Brien: 3, 2, 1.

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Valerie Lee: Carly. So you can see there, that teacher actually attempted to memorize the script, and we often don't see that with students. They feel very comfortable having a script in front of them. And we have our last, example from Long Way Down.

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Audio shared by Karly O'Brien: Hands.

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Audio shared by Karly O'Brien: Big hands.

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Audio shared by Karly O'Brien: For handshakes, headlocks… And hugs.

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Audio shared by Karly O'Brien: The ladies love my big hands.

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Audio shared by Karly O'Brien: Haha!

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Audio shared by Karly O'Brien: But the size of your hands don't matter when you can't mold your circumstances, can't weave your story into the white tapestry that suffocates us, its tangled patterns wove so tight.

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Audio shared by Karly O'Brien: Bound. We lay on our backs, sometimes staring at the patterns, like constellations, trying to connect the dots, figure a way out while trying to catch our breath at the same time.

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Audio shared by Karly O'Brien: Tired. Hands.

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Audio shared by Karly O'Brien: Big hands.

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Valerie Lee: And stop there.

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Valerie Lee: So again, two very different approaches, but two great examples of teachers who have gone through the life history process, and from surveying them afterwards, the overwhelming response was that they saw this as a very valuable, activity to do in their own classrooms with their students, and it did really help them go deeper into the long way down text.

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Valerie Lee: Next slide.

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Valerie Lee: Here's an example from, our All American Boys,

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Valerie Lee: book, and here we have an example of a collaborative script where the students selected Spoonie, who was Rashad's older and protective brother, and he understands what it means to be male with black skin. He knows Rashad is not to blame for the events that led to his beating, and channels his anger about situation into organizing a protest.

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Valerie Lee: So, this is an example of a monologue two students crafted as Spoonie speaks to his father, a former police officer.

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Valerie Lee: Why aren't you listening? I told you this would happen. It doesn't matter what you do or how you present yourself. People are still going to judge us by our skin color. The cops are not on our side, and y'all know that.

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Valerie Lee: For some reason, no one is taking this situation seriously at all. Rashad just was wrongly accused of a crime because of his skin color, and it's like, y'all don't care.

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Valerie Lee: I will take matters into my own hands, and you all aren't gonna stop me.

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Valerie Lee: I'm going to do it. If you weren't going to care about Rashad, then I will. Spoonie storms out, and Dad follows. I don't think you understand, Dad, this is serious. We need to protest, fight back, stand up for Rashad and the Black community. I'm the only one who knows how Rashad might feel, and you all aren't listening to him at all.

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Valerie Lee: So here we again see the, unique nature of life history process and the scripts that can result.

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Valerie Lee: Next slide.

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Valerie Lee: So, what we've learned, you can see, our work with Life Histories over the past 15 years, we've seen students engaged in deeper understanding of texts, witnessed questioning of their own assumptions and biases while growing their empathy. We've seen students engaged in books that give voice to their own experience, not always found in curriculum. And by the way, Jason Reynolds always says that, he didn't read

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Valerie Lee: in high school because he never saw his neighborhood in the books that he read, and that's why he started writing books like Long Way Down.

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Valerie Lee: We also recognize, though, that there are teachers in states with stricter educational laws for what is deemed quote-unquote controversial. And so we're coming from the state of New Jersey, but we recognize you all might be teaching in states that have more policies.

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Valerie Lee: We turn to researchers and educators who've engaged in this work, and they provide excellent guidance to help educators in challenging times.

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Valerie Lee: Elena Gonzalez, if you don't know her, she does a lot on culturally responsive, teaching, and a couple of the things that she said about teaching diverse literature to help… help you avoid potentially running afoul of state and local education, policies, she says things like, you know, begin with themes. Rather than text, tell yourself.

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Valerie Lee: Instead of saying, I just wanted my students exposed to more Black female writers, that could get you the most well-intentioned teacher into some difficult situations. So, Gonzalez says, maybe start with the question, what do I want my students to understand on a deeper level? And of course, those Black writers are going to come into that. She also talks about, you know, if you encounter

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Valerie Lee: An unfamiliar concept while guiding your student's reading, such as racism, for instance,

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Valerie Lee: Asking, what do we think the author means by blank, is a good, simple way to avoid forcing

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Valerie Lee: the teacher or the student into taking the daunting responsibility of speaking on behalf of an entire race or ethnic group. So there are some really great guidelines out there for teachers who might be teaching in states where it's more challenging.

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Valerie Lee: Next slide.

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Valerie Lee: We also recognize that ELA teachers are under enormous pressure to teach the standards and the mandated curriculum. It's clear from our work with ELA classrooms through the years that life histories promotes greater motivations for students to read, and encourages creative writing, and engages students. But oftentimes, you know, those aren't the things that are necessarily on the test.

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Valerie Lee: So the standards here, we've provided an example of how life history and the RISP model fits very well with the reading, speaking, and listening standards. And these are the Common Core standards, but they mimic almost exactly our New Jersey standards.

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Valerie Lee: Next slide.

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Valerie Lee: We're always conscious about introducing new voices and new texts to the life history process, so here we present a list of more current texts that would present excellent,

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Valerie Lee: opportunities for life history work. We selected texts that would introduce more identities and cultures, such as disabilities in the book Invisible and Fish in a Tree. You'll also notice we've included some texts that could be read in shorter timeframes. One of the things that was nice about Long Way Down, it's written in verse, and so therefore it's a faster read. So there are books here we included

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Valerie Lee: Such as, the invisible, the graphic novel. We've included a graphic novel here, in The Invisible, and also Poet X is written in free verse.

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Valerie Lee: Next slide.

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Valerie Lee: All right, that brings you through the entire life history process, from reading, to, interpretive, to collaborative script writing, to the performance. And so, we hope that you all have seen,

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Valerie Lee: where this might play into your own classrooms, and we'd love to hear from you. Now that you've seen the life history in action and have learned about the kinds of texts we use, what are texts you're currently using in the classroom?

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Valerie Lee: that would make great life history books. So, some things to think about. Why do you think it would be a great selection? Does it include opportunities for students to give voice to characters, like Clarissa the Nurse, who aren't heard as much in the book?

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Valerie Lee: Is it a book that's told by multiple narrators? Seed Folks, Balpaolo Fleshman's a great example of every chapter is a different narrator.

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Valerie Lee: Or is it just a critical text that would allow students to question assumptions about poverty, race, and other biases? You can also suggest books you'd like to teach, after hearing this tonight. Texts that might provide either a window or a mirror, to quote the great Dr. Sims Bishop, for your students into their identities, or maybe the identities of others. So, we've included a,

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Valerie Lee: QR code here for you to scan that will take you to a Padlet.

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Valerie Lee: Where you can post some ideas for your classroom. And be sure to include grade levels, in your posting so that other teachers, can, benefit from that. If you have any trouble, you know, accessing the code or anything, you could certainly type them into the chat as well.

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Karly O'Brien: I also just shared the link directly to the Padlet for those of you that, just want a nice little click, it's in the chat as well. So feel free to continue to share your thoughts and reflections on there as we wrap up. But, thank you all so much for those of you that joined. Thank you, Midge, Susan, Val, could not have done this, obviously, without you all, so thank you so much for bringing such

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Karly O'Brien: a, you know, wonderful topic to the community. I know, folks were writing in lots of questions beforehand, and I saw you answered a lot of them. One question, if you don't mind, that I would love for you all to share some thoughts on is folks were writing in wondering how

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Karly O'Brien: to scale this down for grades that might be below 5th through 8th grade, more so when thinking about those super-duper challenging topics, like Long Way Down. Maybe that's not a book that you would use with maybe 3rd or 4th graders, but I do think

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Karly O'Brien: obviously this is… you all are the experts here, but I do think that you could still use the… the risk model for younger students as well, so would love to hear, you all's thoughts or perspectives on that.

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Valerie Lee: Yeah, I mean, I'll start just because I'm unmuted, but I think you could do life histories with any picture book. You know, if you're thinking of elementary grade levels, you absolutely… all it takes is a book where you have

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Valerie Lee: some deep plot, right? So some picture books may not have that, but has some deep plot character development, multiple characters in the text.

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Valerie Lee: A life history does not always have to be around a topic such as race. You know, it could be around a lot of different cultural identities, but picture books make great ones, and I don't know, Midge and Susan, if you have some examples you want to share.

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Susan Browne: Well, I do have the, example from Kwame Alexander's Undefeated, and that's a,

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Susan Browne: A picture book, but it's actually a poem that he, you know, has been turned into a picture book with, incredible.

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Susan Browne: illustrations, and I actually use that with, grad students, where they actually researched just one page of that… it was a double spread of jazz musicians, and so they actually went to the internet

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Susan Browne: and other sources to find background information on the characters, and there were characters such as, Billie Holiday, Thelonious Monk, Miles Davis.

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Susan Browne: And they created life histories for them. I could see doing something very similar to that with younger children. And just one interesting caveat of that particular, experience is

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Susan Browne: that, folks responded when they actually performed those life histories that they'd never seen Billie Holiday portrayed that way. Usually, Billie Holiday is portrayed as

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Susan Browne: you know, tragic, and in this life history, they gave her, they… she was empowered in telling her story. So yeah, that's one example of a picture book that… that's been used.

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Marjorie Madden: I'm thinking, too, I talked for 4th grade for a number of years. You could use the chapter books that 4th graders do read, such as an older one, which is called Out of Dust by Karen Hess, but it, again, is versed, so it wouldn't take, you know, 6 weeks for your students to get through the book.

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Marjorie Madden: And then there's, there's a bunch of little short novels that you…

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Marjorie Madden: definitely could have students delve deeper into the character. And what's really cool, what we found, is that the students can actually go in and use quotes from the character in building their monologues, so they don't have to paraphrase everything.

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Marjorie Madden: And they… they really work together and learn, learn well how to do that. And I think Val mentioned it, or Susan did, that

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Marjorie Madden: they all don't have to be good writers. One person is described, another per- and then the idea… you could even have, you know, in an inclusive classroom, because some of our challenged readers and writers are good thinkers and have great ideas. So, I think the sky's the limit, you know? You as a teacher.

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Marjorie Madden: Pick your book. Give it a try.

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Valerie Lee: scribing for the students, you know, even helping them by being the scribe for them, is an excellent way to do that as well. And right now in our clinic, we have our tutors are trying to help their elementary students, grades 2 and 3, inferring about character, right? Character motivations, character actions. And so, in order to take on your character's persona in a picture book or an elementary chapter book.

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Valerie Lee: you have to be able to infer about why the character is doing what they do when the book does not always say. So, we see it as a really powerful opportunity for elementary students.

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Karly O'Brien: So, thank you all.

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Karly O'Brien: well, here are a bunch of… all the research, and lots of, lots of, they have posted lots of articles themselves, our wonderful guests, so please feel free to check out any of the publications as well. Their contact information will be shared, and then while I have you all here, we are wrapping up the, our webinars for the school year. We have 3 left, 2 in April, 1 in May.

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Karly O'Brien: And then be on the lookout, if you haven't already listened to our new podcast, please do that, because our wonderful facilitators this evening will also be featured on our podcast to talk a little bit more, about everything we shared tonight, as well as their wonderful book that is coming out next month, so…

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Karly O'Brien: A quick thank you again to the three of you all, I appreciate you so much. Side note, just for all of the folks that are still here listening to us, these three lovely ladies helped me so much in my professional career, so thank you all so much for teaching me

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Karly O'Brien: so many things, and because of you all, I get to help out the RIF community, so thank you for teaching us such wonderful things, and I know that we will be lifelong partners, so thank you all.

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Susan Browne: Thank you, Carly. Thank you, Carly.

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Valerie Lee: Thank you, everyone who attended.

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Susan Browne: Yes, thank you.

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Karly O'Brien: Thank you all, and be on the lookout for a follow-up email with everything. So, thank you all, have a great night, and take care!

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Susan Browne: Good night.

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Karly O'Brien: G'day!