Disrupting Thinking

Bibliography
Beers, Kylene and Robert E. Probst. Disrupting Thinking. Scholastic, 2017.

image from: personal photo

Summary (from Amazon.com)

In their hit books Notice and Note and Reading Nonfiction, Kylene Beers and Bob Probst showed teachers how to help students become close readers. Now, in Disrupting Thinking they take teachers a step further and discuss an on-going problem: lack of engagement with reading. They explain that all too often, no matter the strategy shared with students, too many students remain disengaged and reluctant readers. The problem, they suggest, is that we have misrepresented to students why we read and how we ought to approach any text - fiction or nonfiction.

With their hallmark humor and their appreciated practicality, Beers and Probst present a vision of what reading and what education across all the grades could be. Hands-on-strategies make it applicable right away for the classroom teacher, and turn-and-talk discussion points make it a guidebook for school-wide conversations. In particular, they share new strategies and ideas for helping classroom teachers:

--Create engagement and relevance

--Encourage responsive and responsible reading

--Deepen comprehension

--Develop lifelong reading habits

“We think it’s time we finally do become a nation of readers, and we know it’s time students learn to tell fake news from real news. It’s time we help students understand why how they read is so important,” explain Beers and Probst. “Disrupting Thinking is, at its heart, an exploration of how we help students become the reader who does so much more than decode, recall, or choose the correct answer from a multiple-choice list. This book shows us how to help students become the critical thinkers our nation needs them to be."

My Thoughts

This was the PD book provided in the Book Love Foundation Summer Reading Book Club.

The reading of this book fell during the time I was on vacation, so I brought it with me and hoped I could get it read. It was great! The chapters are manageable to read in the schedule of fun, walking, eating and just enjoying vacation. I wrote several pages of notes. While I wasn't able to participate in the discussion with the book club, (no WiFi), once I got home, I read through the posts as well as watched the supplemental videos that are included with each chapter. At the end of each chapter are some "Turn and Talk" questions the authors include to get the reader to think about issues raised in the chapter or how the ideas might be applied.

Beers and Probst talk about using a BHH framework with reading (especially for beginners). I intuitively do this (which is why I even keep a blog about the books I read). They discuss it, and then give the reader an opportunity to practice it (LOVED that inclusion!).

I liked that what I'm reading in this book correlates to what I'm learning in other areas. I just had a 3 day training that talked about students having CHOICES in their learning. This book promotes the idea of CHOICES in reading!

Within 20 pages of the book, I made a note that I wanted to share this book with the English Dept. This will be one of my goals this year--get them to read it. But, I also made a note that I needed to share these ideas with my own daughter!

Some key points: there should be 3 big questions asked when reading

1. What surprised me?
2. What did the author think I already know?
3. What changed, challenged or confirmed my thinking?

I'm going to use these as a librarian to help reinforce thinking while reading. 

I liked the concept of NEXT practices, not best. We can always make things better, including incredible lessons. 

I liked the idea that "we have confused the words interest and relevance....Something that is relevant is inherently interesting, but something that is interesting isn't always relevant" (Beers and Probst 114). Hmm...

I liked the comment when discussing the whole class novel approach to teaching. "Neither of us can think of one novel we want to read for eight weeks" (Beers and Probst 142). Ouch! I've done this in the classroom thinking I was great in giving students time to read. I never really thought about it from this perspective. I was breaking up the novel into manageable pieces, not thinking about the kids who would devour it and need to move on or the kids who struggle through and needed more support.  

I've said before, "As Maya Angelou says, 'when you know better, you do better.'" Well, this book has challenged me to do better. I have the opportunity in the library as well as with my Upward Bound kids. I'm very excited to try what I've learned from this book.