Writng about Reading - A Handful of Stars by Cynthia Lord

A huge thank you goes to Julieanne Harmatz! She organized an online book club for teachers to practice what we want our students to do - write about reading. We used Cynthia Lord's new book, A Handful of Stars. Julieanne set up a Google Doc for each set of chapters we read and shared it with us so we were able to comment. It was like having a great conversation with friends!

First, let me just say this book is awesome. Second, sharing with this group of teachers was invaluable! It definitely reminded me how much better a book is when we get to share our thinking with others. By reading the thoughts of these smart women, it opened my mind and broadened my thinking into areas I didn't go on my own. It also made me think deeper when someone thought along the same lines about something that I did.

Julieanne asked us to choose one thing that really stuck with us through the book and to write about it, as this might be something we have our students do.

I'm including the picture of the front cover because my image of choice is Lucky. I think Lucky represents so much in this book. I'd like to focus on the theme of invisible vs seen/seeing. Lucky is going blind, and yet he sees clearly and opens the eyes of those around him, especially Lily. Lily says everyone knows the migrant workers are there, yet they're invisible to the townspeople, until Lucky goes charging off and Salma saves the day by enticing him with her peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Lucky opens the door for friendship between Lily and Salma and Lily truly sees Salma, her family, and the workers. There is a conflict that continues throughout the story and resolved at the end having to do with friendship. Lily says at one point when she's with both Hannah and Salma, "I didn't know exactly who to be - the person I was with Salma or the one I was with Hannah." (78) Lucky just knows who is truly there. We see this again and again when he responds to someone entering the store or when Lily takes him somewhere. Lucky removes this cloak of invisibility of the character so the reader then gets to truly "see" the character. This theme is developed further when Salma enters the Downeast Blueberry Pageant, and the whole town "sees" Salma when she responds to the questions.

There is so much in this book. This is just a small snippet of the thoughts I had while reading. I found it valuable to figure out how I like to jot ideas/notes while reading, as well as see what worked for others. This, like so many other things we do, reminds me to give my students choice. What works best for them? I need to model different ways of jotting my thinking while reading, let them practice, and then let them choose what works best for them - and perhaps that might change, which is okay, too. I also realized that as much as I really enjoy writing about my reading, I really enjoy talking about it more. It takes a lot of effort to put my thoughts and ideas into writing, and honestly, sometimes I want to stop before I'm finished with my thinking. I need to remind myself of this, too, when I'm having my students write. I think I see this often when I know I can have a great discussion with my kids about our reading, but then when I read their writing, it's surface level. I am thinking about how to focus their writing which might make it more manageable for them and not overwhelming.

This has been a great experience. I have really loved the sharing of ideas and collaboration. We're continuing with a final Twitter chat to discuss this idea of writing about reading on Tuesday night at 7:30 EST #WabtR. Join us!