One School Two Books The Bully and The Gun

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One School - Two BooksThe Bully and The Gun

• Susan Berg, Ph.D.
• Wright State University
• OELMA Oct.2006

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The project

• Each day for 5 weeks, everyone in the school read
  the same book at the same time.
• Theme bullying
• Standards based

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Goals

• Language arts chairperson suggested doing a big
  read
• Great project to show the power of reading
• Great project to show how school library program
  can make a difference

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Fairview Middle School

• Dayton Public Schools
• A school with some great teachers and a
  supportive administration

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Fairview Middle School

• 630 7th and 8th graders
• Low socio-economic backgrounds
• More than 20 of students on IEPs
• Academic Emergency
• Severe discipline issues
• 7th grade class began year reading at 3rd grade
  reading level

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Picking the right book was the key to success

• Actually this was easy

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Book Selection

• High Interest
• Reading level appropriate for most readers
• Larger theme
• Affordability

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Bluford High Series

• Tremendously popular w/ students
• Identify with characters and setting
• Attractive covers
• Short, pretty easy to read
• Excellent teacher guides
• 1 per book!!

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Martha Holden Jennings Grant

• http//www.mhjf.org/grants_educators.html
• Max 3,000
• Evaluated monthly
• Fairly easy application

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Grant purchased

• 800 copies each book

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Each Teacher Got

• Appropriate for use with bullies, their targets
  and bystanders
• Respectful and empathetic
• Practical

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Each Language Arts teacher got

• Comprehensive 403 page guide book
• Activities for each book

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Great Teachers Guide

• Free with order of 30 books
• 7 if purchased separately
• Writing skills handouts
• Activities for each book

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Teacher Guide

• Reading comprehension
• Vocabulary enrichment
• Critical thinking
• Paragraph/Essay writing
• Guided paragraph assignment
• Guided essay assignment
• Creative assignments

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Activities for each book

• Summary
• List of characters
• Units (cover 3 chapters)
• Final activities

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The library collection got

• Additional books on bullying
• Nonfiction
• Fiction
• DVD on bullying

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Additional Bluford book sets

• Prizes for multimedia contest

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Collaboration

• Principal supported
• Met with LA teachers to figure out how to
  schedule- they decided everyone should read at
  the same time
• Worked extensively with schools literacy coach
  (school improvement grant)

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Scheduling a challenge

• Block schedule
• 3 classes a day, A/B day
• Decided on second block when all students were in
  an academic core class
• 20 minutes right before lunch began (3 lunches
  beginning at 1000!)

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Scheduling

• Some students read one day in language arts and
  the next day in math
• Some students read one day in social studies and
  the next day in science
• Books stayed in classroom

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Kicked off

• Talked about at staff meeting
• FAQ handout
• Standards-based units
• Popular teacher read first chapter over PA
• Board member read second chapter over PA

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Standards-based units

• Important to show that The Big Read was not an
  extra
• Supported state standards
• Engaged learners
• Literacy coach developed EXTENSIVE
  standards-based unit using teacher guide and
  matching to standards
• Every core academic teacher got one, not just
  language arts

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Multimedia contest

• Way to include Expressive Arts teachers
• Rubrics developed by Literacy Coach
• Powerpoint
• Marketing campaign video
• Short story
• Essay

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Classrooms

• Teacher read, student read along
• SSR
• Students took turns reading aloud

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I liked when teachers read the book out loud
because while they were reading the students can
think of a picture of what they are reading. -
Fairview student
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After completing The Bully, teachers were
surveyed

• Need a break?
• Continue?

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Everyone wanted to go on to sequel, The Gun
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Reading Jamboree

• Huge district initiative, each school has booth
• Big Read Theme
• Video made by PE class, demo of Darryls
  wrestling moves
• Beautiful poster made by student art teacher
• Anti-bullying posters made in computer lit class
• Home family teacher raffled off Darryls
  favorite, sweet potato pies

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Highly successful

• Had students and teachers do an evaluation
• 101 students said we should do it again
• The student voice

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We loved it so much we couldnt stop talking.

• -Fairview student

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Writing helped me learn about the book even more.

• -Fairview student

32
Students took turns reading aloud. It was really
fun that way.

• -Fairview student

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The teacher read with heart.

• - Fairview student

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It changed a lot of peoples attitudes.
- Fairview student
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In the book its like word after word and in your
mind you are just saying, What is going to
happen next?
- Fairview student
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We talked about the book on our own usually with
peers.

• -Fairview Middle School

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Do you think the books were true to life?

• Yes because we do have bullies at FMS. And people
  do try to do crazy things like kill each other.
• I can relate to The Gun most because my cousin
  had a gun when he was 14. But now he is in jail.
• It seems like the characters went to our school.

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Which book did you like better?

• The Bully. I liked Darrell because he is short
  like me and gained confidence.
• The Gun because after reading The Bully we found
  out what happened to Tyray and his side of the
  story and we know why he is like that and stuff.
• The Gun because Darrell and Tyray are not enemies
  no more.
• The Bully because it was longer.

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Should we have another Big Read next year?

• Yes, students need to read books like this.
• Yes because it calms you down.
• I wont be here so dont ask me!
• Yes, it helped me break out of my fear of
  reading.
• Yes because it gives students something to do
  besides just work.
• Yes because it helps students change their ways.
• Yes because some people never read anywhere else.

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The kids really looked forward to reading daily.

• -Fairview Teacher

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The best part was the sense of everyone headed
the same direction with SOMETHING (for a change.

• -Fairview teacher

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Im constantly referring back to the characters.

• -Fairview teacher

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The students and I were engaged in each chapter.

• -Fairview teacher

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The students loved it.

• -Fairview teacher

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Thank you to Townsend Press

• Absolutely great to work with
• Contributed the books and posters for today