Hitting the Books

Teacher book groups are gaining traction as a way for educators to reflect on ideas and create change in schools.

On media-center couches and at conference-room tables, downing Cokes and sipping coffee together, teachers around the country are cracking open books to get better at what they do—and, often, relishing the experience.

The pairing of books and teachers might seem natural, but it has taken the convergence of at least two trends to move “book study” far up the list of the way teachers spend their professional development time.

For one, many observers, including teachers themselves, feel that today’s teachers need continually to improve classroom skills to meet the challenges facing schools. For another, a growing chorus of educators believes that the most effective teacher training is done within schools, conducted among colleagues, and, above all, well integrated with teachers’ day-to-day work.

Enter book study—easily localized and collegial, and hugely adaptable. It is also relatively cheap at a time of rising costs and declining revenue.

“My district is finding teachers are already involved [in book groups],” said Wendy A. Rothman, who introduced book study to her fellow kindergarten and 1st grade teachers at Wines Elementary School in Ann Arbor, Mich. “Now, districts are moving toward using these book groups for professional development.”

At her school, Rothman persuaded her colleagues to use part of their common planning time this semester to discuss The Continuum of Literacy Learning by Irene C. Fountas and Gay Su Pinnell.

“When I started reading it, I said, ‘This is a secret I can’t keep to myself,’ ” the kindergarten teacher recalled.

She and others said one beauty of book study is that, kept to small groups, it can foster new insights and change even the most guarded teachers. “They have their own private learning experience with their group,” said Rothman, “[where] they don’t expect to be judged by colleagues and they hope to learn from them.”

Changed by Books

In fact, teacher book study is not new. It has been used for years by principals to build awareness of directions for change in a nonthreatening manner, said Stephanie Hirsch, the executive director of the National Staff Development Council.

Once established, Hirsch said, the approach can help faculties make decisions about where they will put their energy and commitment. Books by Phillip C. Schlechty, such as Creating Great Schools, or Robert J. Marzano’s The Art and Science of Teaching, for example, have paved the way for changes in practice.

Finally, book study alone can be used to “promote deeper understanding of concepts and actual transfer of ideas to practice,” Hirsch said.

Natalie Elder, the principal of Hardy Elementary School in Chattanooga, Tenn., was so awed by the pertinence of consultant Ruby J. Payne’s message for her school that she started her first book study with Ms. Payne’s A Framework for Understanding Poverty. Hardy’s 50-member instructional staff discussed the book and a companion volume monthly over a year and a half.

Book study is now woven into the school’s professional development, which the 40,000-student district has seen as a lever for improvement at Hardy and eight other inner-city elementary schools.

At Salem Middle School in Cary, N.C., teacher teams have each taken up a title from a book list compiled by administrators, allowing the teams to address weaknesses but stick with common school goals, according to teacher William Ferriter.

As social studies and English teachers, members of Ferriter’s team were concerned that they were not collecting enough data on students’ mastery of more advanced skills in the required curriculum. So they settled on Richard J. Stiggins’ Classroom Assessment for Student Learning as their text. With parts of the book as a guide, this year the group broke each social studies standard into measurable parts and wrote assessments for each.

“Sounds like an easy and logical task—but it was one we’d never considered and never had the time to tackle!” Ferriter wrote in an e-mail. “We’re proud of what we have now—and already have the next part planned—rewriting standards into kid-friendly language that starts with the phrase, ‘I can.’ ”

Ferriter, a member of the Teacher Leaders Network, which fosters enlarged roles for teachers, said that the key to the success of book study at his school is that it is not an add-on to more central endeavors. “Book study—combined with regular [team] meetings—is the professional development in our building.”

Teacher Inspired

One appeal of book study is that it lets teachers take the lead in informing colleagues and seize a moment in the life of a school.

That happened at Valley Middle School in Grand Forks, N.D., after teacher-mentor Laurie Stenehjem read Mosaic of Thought by Ellin Oliver Keene and Susan Zimmerman, a book on reading comprehension. After some of its ideas helped an English teacher, that teacher organized a study group around the book and several related ones. This led to a similar districtwide effort and later an online course with Ms. Stenehjem as one of the teachers.

“I am a big believer in the need for both bottom-up and top-down change,” the veteran teacher said. “Book studies are wonderful because they build this bottom-up direction.”

Some teachers prize book study, at least in part because it knits together staff members. “We have really gotten to know each other as teachers and friends,” Heather Ferris, a literacy teacher in the elementary grades at Portville Central School in rural Portville, N.Y., wrote in an e-mail. As a result, she added, “you will see teachers more apt to share their ideas and questions about what they are teaching.”

The Reading Life

While most of the books that show up as the subject of study seem to have to do with teaching practice or school reform, they can range more widely, with a variety of purposes.

At Chets Creek Elementary School in Jacksonville, Fla., for instance, the book-study program last year gave teachers a choice of seven books, fiction or memoir, all dealing with the lives of children as they cope with autism, poverty, divorce, abuse, and other realities of contemporary life. Dayle M. Timmons, a literacy coach at the school and a former state teacher of the year, wrote in an e-mail that the activity gives teachers a way to “live the life of a reader.” In that spirit, the groups will discuss not only the books’ themes, but also the author’s craft, Ms. Timmons wrote in her blog.

While Chets Creek’s effort is required professional development, two high schools across the country from each other have found value in offering voluntary book groups to teachers who want to explore issues pertinent to the lives of teenagers. Sherry L. Annee, the science department chairwoman at Brebeuf Jesuit Preparatory School in Indianapolis, has introduced her school to two books that address the pressures on high-achieving high school students like the ones at Brebeuf: Edward Humes’ School of Dreams and Overachievers by Alexandra Robbins. More than half the staff members have read and discussed the books, which also sparked student panels and a visit from Ms. Robbins.

Similarly, at Palo Alto High School in California, a group of teachers has tackled Beverly Daniel Tatum’s Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria? and Carol Dweck’s Mindset: The New Psychology of Success.

The book “is informing our teaching in how we give feedback to students: praise for effort, leading to increased growth, rather than praising on what might seem to be innate qualities,” Elizabeth Brimhall, who organized the project, said in an e-mail.