In Kylene Beers and Robert Probst’s 2013 book on strategies for close reading entitled Notice and Note, they suggest that our current method of teaching students to read is flawed. They claim that the problem is we have made reading too much about comprehension, at the expense of many things that make texts more interesting and powerful. We focus far too often on the “what” of the text, not the “why” and “how.” They offer the process of noticing and noting. For this month’s newsletter, I would like to discuss the strategy as one we can apply both to reading and to broader issues of justice.
To start with, “notice and note” is a framework where we teach students to interact more deeply with their texts. Beers and Probst unfortunately limit their process largely to texts of fiction. But it really does not take any imagination to apply these strategies to nonfiction.
In the book, Beers and Probst outline six types of “noticings.” Beers and Probst call these noticings “signposts”, and show how teachers can help students to first see them within the text, but then to also make note of them through annotation. They suggest spending a lesson or two on each of the signposts to train students in first, the strategy of annotating the text; then second, the practice of the specific “noticing”.
The signposts / noticings include “contrasts and contradictions,” “aha moments,” “tough questions,” “words of the wiser,” “again and again,” and “memory moments.” Most of them are self explanatory, but some, like “words of the wiser” refer to times in the text when someone imparts knowledge or wisdom on other characters (or the reader more generally). Or “again and again” which refers to repetitions of phrases or concepts within a text. Or “memory moments” which are moments in the text when the narrator or author interrupts the moment to recall a previous event. Again, the use of the signposts fits a little better with fiction, but they could be applied to nonfiction as well.
Beyond using them as a strategy for the close reading of text, I think (with a slight tweak) we can use the process for a closer reading of our world and what happens there. Instead of “notice and note,” however, I encourage people to get better at Noticing and Naming. Speaking as a white teacher, I believe it is something that we have not been very good at in the past. Too often, we have not noticed or named the things happening in our classrooms, our hallways, and more broadly our communities. Perhaps we justified our silence on these events because we felt like it was not our place, it didn’t fit our lesson or it just seemed too difficult to do.
When we haven’t noticed, and when we haven’t named the racism of our community, we have done all of our students a disservice. For our Black students, we have rendered them invisible. For every major event that we ignored, every day where we jumped over that national event or moment and moved directly into our day’s lesson, we sent the message that those events and moments-- along with the feelings of grief, pain, and anxiety they may have felt-- were really not that important. And for our white students, our unwillingness to notice and name became equally hurtful because in doing so we ensured that their lives would continue without disruption, and on some level we have prevented them from becoming fully human in their understanding of the world in which we live.
I need to remember to read my world as closely as I read my texts. To first notice the pain and suffering of those around me and to name it. On Thursday and Friday of last week, I gave my best attempt at it. I told my students that I wanted to start class by noticing what had happened in Louisville with the Breonna Taylor decision to charge the officer with the lesser crime. And I named both the pain and injustice that exists today because of our racism. I spoke briefly to my Black students telling them that I could not -- as a white man-- truly understand or imagine what they might be feeling, but I said that for today especially, I held them in my heart, and hoped that they would find some comfort. To my white students, I encouraged them to be good allies. I told them that for the moment, it was a time to simply listen. They didn’t need to apologize or take responsibility for something they clearly did not do. They didn’t need to get defensive or feel attacked by the pain and grief their Black friends expressed. They just needed to listen with an open heart, and to sit in the pain and discomfort for a while.
I have to tell myself, “Notice and name. Be present and available. Be vulnerable and open. Be willing to make mistakes. Be full of grace and strength. Just, don’t be silent.”
Read the full newsletter here.
