The Gradeless Classroom: An Update on David

Back in February, I wrote this post about a student of mine. It generated a lot of response, in comments and readership, and as I was flipping back through the posts I have written this year, I thought this would be a subject that's worth revisiting. We are in the second week of our last quarter, and David is in the running for most improved student (not just in my classroom). We actually had a conversation about him today at the lunch table. His attitude and general engagement with school is light years away from where he started. But, of course, I can't take credit for any of that, but I can tell you about his reading.

David is currently reading his 11th book of the year (which is amazing). When we sat down together in January and set goals, neither of us expected him to make it past 10. Since our conversation in February, the whole tone of our reading conferences has changed. He is more positive about reading, less likely to answer questions with "Idunno," and more able to talk about books in terms of character development and plot lines. This is not to say that he is a perfect Language Arts student, and we still butt heads frequently about not getting work done or not getting started in a timely manner, but our relationship is so much better now than it was!

Two things have happened this week that signaled to me that it was the right time to revisit and update my thinking. David is reading Orbiting Jupiter by Gary D. Schmidt right now.  He came in to class one day last week and announced to me, "Mrs. J. I had an emotional response to this book. It was like, the first time ever. But I cared about what happened in the book! I mean, I didn't cry or anything, but I was worried about that dog when it fell through the ice!" I had to chuckle a little! If you've read Orbiting Jupiter, you know that the dog is the very least of the things the author gives you to worry about! So on Tuesday during workshop, when he got a little further along, he looked up at me with wide eyes and said, "This book...I mean, I like it. Do you have any other books like this one?"

I had to smile and catch myself for a minute before I could answer his question. Readers have plans. They plan to read books that stem from other books they love. David, in that moment, was a reader. Not a fake one, not a just-during-independent-reading one, not a school one, but a real reader who loves a book and wants to read more books like it.

And the second thing happened yesterday. We were working on book tweets for our class Twitter account (follow us @mrsjsreaders!) when I told them we would be using the hashtag #booklove for our tweets. David raised his hand. "Uh, I mean that's kind of not true. I don't love books! I mean, I like them a lot better now than I used to, and I like the books that I've read this year, but I don't LOVE them!" After I explained how a hashtag functions for the Twitter noobs, I reflected back on how different that response was from three months ago when he was just waiting for independent reading to end. He doesn't love books, but he likes them more now than he used to.


Sometimes I get to beating myself up about the attitudes kids bring to my class about reading. I get so down that I can't change everyone's mind immediately. But this story is a real testimony to the tone our classrooms can have if we work to find the right questions. If we make it our mission to break down the walls students build to keep us out. At the beginning of 2018, I made a resolution and a promise to myself that I would be kinder to me, and that I would intentionally celebrate small victories. This was one of those small moments. He doesn't love books, but he likes them now more than he used to.

And that's good enough for me.

This is a post in my Gradeless Classroom series. All posts in the series are tagged with "The Gradeless Classroom." I'd love to connect with you! Find me on social media: follow me on Twitter (@Mrs_J_of_EAMS), or follow my students (@mrsjsreaders), or find me on Facebook (Cristi Lackey Julsrud). Thanks for reading!