There are times I hate being a kid. Here I am waiting to see which team will choose me for some pick up basketball. And the decision rests on some stupid game of Rock Paper Scissors.-Just Kidding by Trudy Ludwig
Last month, I wrote about The Empathy Project, a year-long action research project that a colleague and I designed (you can read about that HERE). With our school year well under way, we tackled our first book, Just Kidding by Trudy Ludwig.
Then, we completed our first read of Just Kidding. Students' initial reactions to the text were varied. Some sat, knowingly nodding their heads. Others groaned when the bully uttered the words "Just kidding," the first time.
This was my first time sharing this book with a class. If you don't know the book, please accept this blog post as my hearty recommendation. D.J. is the main character who is repeatedly bullied by Vince. Vince makes fun of his name, his soccer prowess, his clothing. When D.J. protests, Vince always adds on, "I was just kidding. Can't you take a joke?" This further demoralizes D.J., and he feels confused and doesn't know how to respond. He eventually gets help from his dad, older brother, and his school principal.
What really makes this book special, is the way D.J. is taught to deflect Vince's statements. He learns to deflect Vince's taunts without meanness, or aggression. By doing so, Vince loses his power over the situation.
In our discussions of the book, my students practiced using the technique that D.J. learns. They really focused on how he is able to turn the situations around. Because I wanted my students to really process the story, I led them in a 4Cs thinking routine from Making Thinking Visible by Church, Ritchart, and Morrison.
The 4Cs thinking routine uses four quadrants, and I think it's one of most powerful thinking routines for reader response. The first quadrant is "Connections." My students talked and wrote about their personal connections to the story. However, I required that they also use evidence from the story to strengthen their connections. In fact, using evidence is my grade level's SMART goal this year, so we worked hard to do that for each quadrant.
The second quadrant is "Challenge." What do you challenge about the character's actions or reactions? Do you agree or disagree? The third quadrant is "Concepts." What are the important concepts from this story (think: THEME)? And lastly, "Change." How has your thinking about the story changed? We used the "At first I thought...but now I think...because..." sentence stems for this response.
We read Just Kidding a total of five times by the time we were finished with the 4Cs thinking routine. We explored one quadrant per day. Because of this, when it came time to meet via Google hangouts with our buddy class, our discourse was rich and deep.
On our meet up day, we met our fifth grade discourse buddies online right after lunch. Both classrooms of fifth graders had prepared at least two questions they wanted to pose to the other class for discussion. Since it was our first meeting, we met as a whole class so that my teaching colleague and I could make introductions and help facilitate.
Nancie's students had prepared their thoughts and questions on notecards, while my students had their reader's notebooks on hand. Both of us had discourse stems displayed for our students to use when introducing questions and responding. They were over-the-moon-excited! We discussed the book and shared our understandings of empathy for about 20 minutes. After umpteen million years of teaching, I don't think I've ever seen students more engaged in a literature discussion. After we finished our meet up, my students returned to their reader's notebooks to write a second definition of empathy. We shared how our thinking had changed as a result of reading Just Kidding engaging in discourse with another class.
We meet again at the end of October. We'll be reading and discussing Each Kindness by Jacqueline Woodson. This time, however, our students will meet online in partnerships or groups of three for their online book discussion. Stay tuned! I'll be back in a couple of weeks to fill you in!
Interested in learning more about visible thinking? Check out this website and resources:
For other great book recommendations about bullying and empathy, check out the We Teach So Hard podcast. Our newest episode showcases three more books! Click the picture below.
This month I've linked up with some fabulous Teacher Talk authors. Check out their ideas below!
