CHAINED by Lynne Kelly

Caroline's Classroom Connections: CHAINED by Lynne Kelly + Links of Note

Lynne Kelly has written a story that unwraps the heart and asks it to be brave, loyal, and above all, kind.  Readers of all ages will worry for Hastin as he marks the wall that records his bondage to a cruel master, but they will ultimately celebrate his jubilant triumph.  This story unwrapped my own heart. 
–Kathi Appelt, author of the Newbery Honor and New York Times bestseller THE UNDERNEATH

reading level: 10 and up
setting: Northern India
CCSS study guide

Please tell us about your book.
CHAINED is a midgrade novel about 10-year-old Hastin, who lives in a rural village of northern India with his mother and sister. To help pay off the hospital bills from his sister's illness, Hastin takes a job as an elephant keeper at a run-down circus far from home. Life at the circus isn't the adventure he expected, but he and the elephant, Nandita, become best friends. They're both captive workers for the cruel circus owner and elephant trainer, and Hastin wants he and Nandita to escape and return to their homes, even if it means saying goodbye to each other.

What inspired you to write this story?
I've always loved elephants, but I got the idea for CHAINED when I was at a presentation and heard the tale "Don't Be Like The Elephant," about how a small rope or chain can hold a full-grown elephant because once they give up trying to break free, they never try again. It's meant to be an example of learned helplessness or self-limiting behavior, but I got the idea then to write a picture book about a captive elephant. I didn't know at the time it would grow into the novel that it is now.

Could you share with readers how you conducted your research or share a few interesting tidbits you learned while researching?
I read all I could online and in books about India, and corresponded with or talked to people who'd lived there. For example, when I came across an article about homes in parts of India where poverty is high, I emailed the reporter to find out about what kind of house Hastin would live in.
One of the most interesting things I learned was that India itself is so diverse—if I read about a folk tale I wanted to use in the story, I had to find out first if it was a tale that would be told in the northern part of the country where CHAINED takes place. Same thing with the food and names—I'd choose a character name or a favorite food that I'd later find out isn't found in that region. That's the kind of information that was hard to get just by reading; it took talking to people from India to find out about the regionally appropriate stories, foods, names, etc. With all its languages, traditions, and customs, India seems in some ways like many different countries in one.

I knew more about elephants since I've always been interested in them, but I still had to do more research to make sure the behavior of Nandita and the other elephants in the herd was accurate. Again I did a lot of reading (and recorded every elephant show I could find on Animal Planet), and also talked to experts who've worked with elephants. Once in a while our zoo has an elephant open house event, so I've gone to those a few times so I can see the elephants up close and ask questions of the keepers.

What are some special challenges associated with introducing a setting your audience might be unfamiliar with?
Writing the story in a way that would be clear to readers not familiar with the setting and culture, but not annoying or over-explained for those who are familiar with India.

What topics does your book touch upon that would make it a perfect fit for the classroom?
The setting – the desert and forest regions of northern India
Indian culture, although India itself is very diverse
Child laborers in India
Elephant behavior, communication, and habitat
And math too! Students can figure out how much time Hastin has left in his year-long service at the circus, and how large a circle Nandita wears into the ground given a certain length of chain, for examples.

Please visit Lynne's blog and website for further information.



Links of Note

Library News
S.O.S Librarians -- a blog celebrating and supporting school and public librarians (part of the Children’s Literature Network)
Inside the Industry: Librarian :: The Page Sage

Characters
But Do You Love Her? :: Marion Dane Bauer
Developing Characters: Blog Break Series :: Dawn Malone

THE BOOK WHISPERER, Our Final Interview with Donalyn Miller

Click through to read parts one, two, and three.

 

I find your approach to standardized testing to be refreshing. Can you explain how you discuss testing with your kids? (I won't ask how you prepare them; that takes place in your room all year long.)

It is February and I haven't talked to my students at all about our state tests. My district conducts benchmark testing that mirrors the format of our test, so I don't see the value in spending more days on it. 

As we near the time for the test, I will show my students sample questions and evaluate how the test is formatted, but that is all.Tests are just another genre of reading with its own specific vocabulary, format, and purpose. That's all. 

Do you think a lot of the "extras" that are attached to traditional reading instruction come from fear, the worry that kids can't make connections unless we spell it out for them or that reading without the hoop jumping somehow isn't enough?

Honestly, I think that a lot of what we ask kids to do are grade generators or efforts to motivate kids to read because we think they won't if we don't give them an assignment. We don't know how to effectively assess students' mastery and growth, so we attach assignments to reading in order to have some proof.

Can you tell us about the difference between managing and controlling -- both a classroom and students themselves?

Managing a classroom requires organization, planning, structure, and expertise. Controlling involves keeping most of the power. I give a lot of my power over to the children. Does it matter to me where they sit when they read? Does it matter to me if they organize their notebook differently? Does it matter to me if they chat while they are working? Does it matter to me if they want to sketch their rough draft as a storyboard before writing an essay? No.

I don't have complicated procedures for classroom routines, either. My students take down chairs, take lunch count, shelve books, restock the Kleenex, empty our pencil sharpener-all of it without asking. Whenever a student mentions a needed job, we discuss it as a class, ask a volunteer to do it, and we are done. 

  

I want my students to learn what life readers know: reading is its own reward. Reading is a university course in life; it makes us smarter by increasing our vocabulary and background knowledge of countless topics. Reading allows us to travel to destinations that we will never experience outside of the pages of a book. Reading is a way to find friends who have the same problems we do and who can give advice on solving those problems. Through reading, we can witness all that is noble, beautiful, or horrifying about other human beings. From a book's characters, we can learn how to conduct ourselves. And most of all, reading is a communal act that connects you to other readers, comrades who have traveled to the same remarkable places that you have and been changed by them, too.

- Donalyn Miller, THE BOOK WHISPERER

Thank you so much for sharing your book and ideas with us, Donalyn!

Learn more about Donalyn and her book atwww.thebookwhisperer.com. 

An Interview with Donalyn Miller, Author of THE BOOK WHISPERER, Part II

"Reading is both a cognitive and emotional journey." Can you speak to this idea?

At one level, reading is a skill that can be taught and learned. How to locate information, analyze a plot, or decode vocabulary-these reading skills are necessary and can be learned. Everyone who is literate has these skills some to some degree. Beyond reading skills, we cannot overlook or discount reading's emotional, spiritual, and intellectual value-discovering things about ourselves and the world that we didn't know, learning from the accomplishments and failures of others, inspiring action, and expanding our knowledge. If children do not develop this aesthetic connection to reading, they won't see reading as anything but a skill. I believe that basic literacy is important, of course, but I think education should do more than teach workplace applicable skills. Education should teach students to question and provide them with the tools they need to find their own answers.

How might a teacher with a heavily scheduled day find time to add in independent reading?

I know that there is never enough time to teach what we are expected to teach under the time constraints given. I get it. If I cannot find evidence-based and research-proven reasons for using a particular activity or tool, I don't use it. I don't have time to waste on activities that don't benefit students' growth as readers, writers, and thinkers. I take the minimum number of grades my district requires. There is no busy work. We read. We write. We share and talk about reading and writing. That is it.

It is very liberating, actually. I suggest that all teachers critically evaluate every activity they are doing to determine whether or not it moves students toward independence or just more school. Independent reading has more influence on students' long term reading achievement than any other activity. Why would we put it last? 

I recommend that students read every day for a minimum of 15 minutes. Divide your class into thirds-1/3 for independent reading and conferences, 1/3 for mini-lesson and guided practice, and 1/3 for more reading and more writing.

Catching the reading bug: I loved hearing about all the ways your kids bring reading into their everyday lives. Tell us about your student who once read in the shower!

Ah, that was Molly. She was desperately trying to finish a book, but her mom kept calling down the hall for her to get in the shower. Realizing that she couldn't hold off her mom until she finished the book, Molly held the book out of the shower to keep it dry and kept reading it.

You have an extensive classroom library largely run by your students. I'm curious if you find certain titles "have legs" -- seem to wander away more so than others. In my room my Shel Silverstein and Sara Holbrook poems had to be replaced often. What about you?

When I taught middle school, the books that "walked" the most were: SMILE by Raina Telgemeier, the Skeleton Creek series, Bone graphic novels, CLIQUE by Lisi Harrison, HATCHET by Gary Paulsen, and innumerable copies of THE HUNGER GAMES and THE LIGHTNING THEIF. I imagine that many of these books are sitting on shelves in a former student's home. I hope they are. Every once in awhile, a younger sibling returns books that were discovered. I enjoy reading the apology notes attached. I think my books have more adventurous lives than I do.

When I taught I hosted an annual Book Auction. Kids would donate books they no longer wanted. I gave all my students five "dollars," whether they donated or not, and those who donated got an extra dollar for each title they brought in. At the end of the day, everyone went home with a pile of new-to-them books. 

What are some other creative ways a teacher might get books in kids' hands?

I love your book auction idea. We held school-wide book swaps at my previous school. Students and families donated books and received coupons for each title. During the swap, kids could take home a book for every coupon. We gave away extra coupons, so that every child had one. Extra books were donated to charity book drives.

As I read THE BOOK WHISPERER, I kept wondering if you'd read Daniel Pennac's THE RIGHTS OF THE READER. And you have! Which of these rights do you think are hardest for kids to embrace? For teachers?

 

For students, it's hard for them to see these rights as normal reading behaviors. They have been told by adults that skipping pages, abandoning books, rereading favorites, and not reading sometimes are negative behaviors. We spend a lot of time during the early weeks of school discussing these rights and sharing our experiences with them.

For teachers, I think that accepting times when students just don't feel like reading is normal. When a student actively avoids reading all of the time, this is cause for concern, but some days are OK. I notice that my students don't want to start another book right away when they have recently finished a great one. I encourage students to spend their reading time writing a recommendation or reflection about the book instead, or researching the author's other work. 

"Every lesson, conference, response, and assignment I taught must lead students away from me and toward their autonomy as literate people." Can you talk briefly about the ways you use reader's notebooks and one-on-one conferences in your room and how they build autonomy?

John Dewey said, "We do not learn from experience. We learn from reflecting on experience." I think that notebooks and conferences provide a formal way for students to collect information about their reading and reflect on their experiences. In their notebooks, students record the books they read, notes from lessons and research, and their reading responses. When we confer, I usually begin the conversation with what the students are currently reading and move into looking through notebooks for trends in reading behavior, as well as strengths and goals. My students and I develop individual goals for their reading during these conferences.

  

Learn more about Donalyn and her book at www.thebookwhisperer.com.  

Donalyn Miller's THE BOOK WHISPERER

I'd describe your beautiful book, THE BOOK WHISPERER, as a reading teacher's manifesto for free-choice reading. You state "students in free-reading programs perform better than or equal to students in any other type of reading program" and that students' "motivation and interest in reading is higher when they get the opportunity to read in school." Could you briefly walk us through the changes you experienced as a teacher that led you to embracing this mindset?

When I first began teaching, I followed the other teachers in my department. I passed

out reading logs, taught whole class novel units, and assigned book reports. I didn't know any other way. I knew that there was a disconnect between what readers do away from school and what I asked my students to do, but I wasn't sure what I could do about it. School reading and the reading I did on my own never overlapped when I was a kid. When I began questioning why this was still true for my students, I began to read and study reading workshop and look for ways to make school reading mirror what readers do "in the wild" as I call it.

I gut check everything we do against these questions: 

Does this help my students become more independent readers? 

Do readers actually do this (or something similar)? 

If I can say, "No," then what's the point? 

Students in your class are expected to read forty books from a variety of genres in their year with you. How do your students first respond when hearing this? How does this compare to what they feel about their reading at the end of the year?

I am known as the teacher who expects students to read a lot, so I think my reputation precedes me now. In the past, my students (and their parents) were shocked and worried about my reading expectations. I urge my students to try reading more at school and home. In turn, I promise them that I will do everything I can to teach them how to read and enjoy it more. We start with these mutual commitments. After a few months, students are amazed at how much they have read and feel more confident. By the end of the year, most of them have read substantially more than 40 books. For the past four years, our class average is 56. 

My students also discover that I don't really care about the number of books they read. I just want them to find books that mean something to them. I want them to enjoy reading and find personal value in it. The children who read 20 books matter just as much to our class reading community as those who read 100.

One of the things I love about your classroom is the way you read alongside your students. In giving your students choice, you have shifted the power from the all-knowing teacher to a place where readers meet and learn together. While your young "apprentices hone a craft under the tutelage of a master, " you feel strongly that "meaning from a text should not flow from my perceptions... [but] from my students' own understandings, under my guidance."

This is a huge shift for children. How do you teach them to take the reins and trust their ideas? 

It takes time to build a classroom community where everyone feels valued. The children don't trust me at first because they think I don't mean it when I say they can choose their own books, writing topics, and methods for responding. I work hard to encourage every student. I try to listen to them as a person before I respond as a teacher. When a student tells me he cried reading LOVE THAT DOG, he deserves to get an authentic reaction to his emotions before I ask him to evaluate how Sharon Creech crafted the story. I cannot tell you how many students tell me that they think adults don't really listen to them or see them. 

Through feedback during conferences and one-on-one conversations, I encourage students to set their own learning goals and evaluate their work against standards and class-developed rubrics. Teaching students to critically look at their own work before turning it in for my evaluation is hard for many of them who seek my approval as indication that they are successful. 

I love how you play book matchmaker for your kids throughout the year. Can you explain how you learn of their interests and pair books with readers?

I learn about my students because I talk to them constantly-about their life experiences as well as school assignments. I know who plays sports and who likes origami. I know who has a new baby brother and who is an only child. I also keep an endless database of books and authors in my head (and use Goodreads), and I read several books a week. If I see that a book is popular with my students and I haven't read it, I get a copy and read it immediately. When I can't find a book that matches to a student's specific interests, I fall back on titles that have wide appeal to most kids like HOLES or NUMBER THE STARS. I also ask students about the other books they have read and enjoyed. 

I read a lot of book reviews, reading blogs, and book lists, too. Remaining current on the newer books helps me provide titles that are relevant to my students. I also talk to a lot of teachers and librarians on Twitter who recommend books to my students and me. 

Knowing my students and knowing books-there's no shortcut. I often joke that I spend my life introducing my shelf children to my classroom children and facilitating friendships between them.

Learn more about Donalyn and her book atwww.thebookwhisperer.com. Join us next month for the second part of the interview.  

Classroom Connections: Gae Polisner's THE PULL OF GRAVITY

Gae Polisner's THE PULL OF GRAVITY YA contemporary fiction Farrar, Straus, and Giroux released May 2011 paper back edition February 2013 "Polisner's first novel begins with a bang and ends with another . . . . There is a great deal to enjoy throughout, and literary kids will surely enjoy a subplot involving John Steinbeck." -Booklist "Characters feel real . . . and the plot zips along, championing strength in adversity." -School Library Journal "She [Gae Polisner] is a writer young adult readers will surely want to hear more from." -examiner.com "Although the teens' best laid plans go oft awry, they discover that the force of the universe is with them-or at least friendship, family and romance. Pulls the heart in all the right places." -Kirkus Reviews   Please tell us about your book.   The Pull of Gravity is about two teens who, armed only with the wisdom of Yoda and a rare, first-edition copy of Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men, set off on a secret, whirlwind journey to keep a promise to their dying friend. I wrote it as an homage to the character-driven fiction I loved as a tween and teen. I hope I've done those wonderful books justice.    What inspired you to write this story?  First and foremost, my own boys. We had always read aloud nightly from the time they were babies into their early teens (they're 15 and 13 now. I still read aloud with my 13 year old once in a while; the 15 year old, not so much).    From the time we started chapter books and then novels, they loved realistic, contemporary fiction, and weren't really interested in most of the genre fiction (sci-fi or fantasy or magic like Harry Potter which frightened them). We enjoyed endless Kate DiCamillo, Sharon Creech, Deborah Wiles, Lynne Rae Perkins, to name a few. But the older they got, the more they wanted their books to have male MC's - characters they could directly relate to in body and mind. And, outside of genre fiction, it got harder and harder to find those relatable male protagonists in contemporary MG and YA. So much was told from a female lead character. So, I decided to write a book for them, narrated by a teen boy. Your average teen boy, who is extraordinary only in the quiet way we are each capable of being.    Could you share with readers how you conducted your research or share a few interesting tidbits you learned while researching? I did two sorts of research for the book. The first was on Hutchinson-Gilford Progeria syndrome - a rare genetic disorder that causes a body to rapidly age so that, by the average age of 9 - 13, most children affected die literally of old age. I had read an interview of a 15 year old boy with the syndrome and it really moved me - his spirit and matter-of-fact nature. The rest of the research was medical and on-line. I didn't need to go into depth, just have a general understanding of how it works and looks and what medical information exists on it - which is far too little.    Secondly, because Nick's dad walks from upstate NY (a fictional town near Saratoga) to NYC, and furthermore, because Nick and Jaycee venture from that town to Albany and then Rochester, NY, I had to do a lot of mapping of mileage and streets. During the writing and revision of TPoG, I often had Google maps and walking directions and a calculator spread out before me.   What are some special challenges associated with paralleling your book with a classic?  The biggest challenge was to make Of Mice and Men sound interesting without giving away too much! I didn't want to ruin the book for kids who will read it after TPoG. It was also a challenge to just find the balance of how much to include for it to feel integral to the story without including so much that it bogged down my own story. I really loved that part of writing the book, though.    What topics does your book touch upon that would make it a perfect fit for the classroom? In addition to the many Of Mice and Men ties that are there for the finding if a teacher wants to do so (here's a link to an essay I wrote on the same), there are themes of friendship - and what it means to be a good friend - taking responsibility andindependence, and my favorite theme to explore: that we can be flawed individuals, our families can be flawed, our parents can be flawed, but that doesn't make us bad. Flawed and bad are not synonymous. That message is important to me. Being perfect is a big old bore. ;) What are you working on now? My next book comes out in 2014 (but is currently without a title). Here's the premise: Still reeling from her little brother's drowning death, a girl finds herself holding back -- from summer trips to the ocean, friendship, budding romance -- till she meets a young boy who may be her brother's reincarnation, which awakens her to new possibilities. To learn more about Gae Polisner, visit her at gaepolisner.com.