Revolving Literacy with Lorraine Radice
Lorraine Radice
Ross Romano: [00:00:00] Welcome everyone. You are listening to the Authority Podcast here on the Be Podcast Network. Thanks as always for being with us, and it's a pleasure today to have a returning guest, Dr. Lorraine Radice. We are going to be talking about her new book, Revolving Literacy. You may remember she was previously on the show to discuss leading a cultural reading during our National Literacy Month series that we partnered with Reading is Fundamental on.
But to reintroduce Lorraine, she is an educator, author, speaker, and professional developer. She's currently an assistant superintendent for Curriculum and Instruction. And previously was a pre K 12 director of literacy. She also is an associate assistant professor at Hofstra [00:01:00] University. Her book that we discussed last time, Leading a Culture of Reading, was a 2023 gold winner for education in the Forward Indies Book of the Year awards.
And she has a brand new book called Revolving Literacy, How to Connect to Relevance and Future Ready Skills to Secondary English Instruction. Lorraine, welcome back.
Lorraine Radice: Hi, Ross. Thank you so much for having me.
Ross Romano: So, with this new book, I think a great way to start would be to have you talk about what the big idea is of the book. What's it kind of all about? What yeah what sparked this new book?
Lorraine Radice: Revolving literacy is about two of the most important things that we can consider as educators, which is relevance to students and engagement. And while the leading our culture of reading book that we talked about last time was really a district wide or school wide approach to building literacy culture.
Revolving literacy is focused on a student's secondary experience. So for some school [00:02:00] districts that's grade six through twelve. For some, it's seven through twelve. And it does target instruction in the English classroom. But the idea of revolving literacy can be applied to other content areas.
And In the book, I talk about this framework called the revolving literacy framework that really bridges what it means to be a teacher of English and a teacher of literacy because when pre service teachers are in school, those actually are two separate certifications here in New York, I'm from New York but to be a literacy or a reading teacher is, you different than being an English teacher.
And having had the experience of both personally, and then working with literacy specialists, reading teachers, secondary English teachers there's so much in both of those domains that I have found in working with my teams to really merge ideas [00:03:00] together. So that, Students are at the center of instruction and relevance and engagement is prioritized to get kids ready for the future.
So revolving literacy really captures the essence of what it means to be literate, especially moving forward into pathways beyond high school. So the curriculum framework includes our traditional content that we teach as English teachers, usually derived from regional standards. And then also planning units around future ready skills to get kids ready for whatever pathway they choose beyond high school honoring student identity.
So to integrate aspects of who our students are in the classroom and the choices that they want to make about their learning community belonging to a community and community participation is such a big part of what it means to be literate. Today, especially with all of the digital communities that people belong to, whether it's social media, gaming [00:04:00] networks, and so forth.
And then finally, honoring multi literacies and multi modality. So, how do we coach students to make meaning and produce meaning of texts and experiences through a variety of modalities? And, in the book that sounds like a lot to consider, and it is. But I introduce a lot of resources and templates to support teams in developing their curriculum so that it captures all five of those aspects of what it means to build literacy competency and future readiness in kids.
Ross Romano: Yeah, I think part of an in alignment with what you were just discussing question, I guess, of what's new about this, right, or what what's new about this revolving literacy approach in this book compared to, I guess, what would be called traditional literacy. It seems fair to say, obviously correct this as it's wrong, but that there's a, an expanded definition of literacy in the areas in which You know, literacies are developed as [00:05:00] opposed to.
A changed or replaced definition of literacy, but talk more about that, say, if that's right, wrong, or and how that is the case.
Lorraine Radice: Yeah, and I'm so glad you bring that up, because one of the first things that I write about in the introduction is that educators are going to arrive at this book with very different experiences you know, whether that be the types of courses that they teach, how long they've been in the profession, and what I really try to do is to respect the traditional aspects of secondary English classes, because there is beauty in teaching kids about the human experience and so we're going to be exploring the learning experience through shared texts.
And shared writing experiences. What I do propose in the revolving literacy framework is to really prioritize process oriented instruction in both reading and writing and to introduce future ready competencies as an equal partner to content objectives in terms of how we design [00:06:00] lessons. So what I mean by that is theme.
You know, teaching kids to identify themes in text and how authors develop themes in text and what they mean to us as readers, that's often an objective, right, in several units of study in a secondary English classroom. But what would English class look like if the objective of a lesson was about.
Persevering through challenging text, or what it means to be an influencer in a social group, or what it means to analyze that's both a traditional and a future ready skill, but talking about analysis in the context of not only English coursework, but what that means for kids as they move beyond just what they're doing in English.
And that's that relevance piece that there's a reflective component to all that we teach and to really coach kids to think about how am I learning [00:07:00] to persevere in English class? How am I learning analysis? influencer within my community? And to Really capture those reflections and think about how they could be applied to other contexts.
So how we frame lessons depending upon the current curriculum in a school or the way that things are planned might look a little different than what is traditionally designed in the English classroom. (ad here)
Ross Romano: So, I read the definition or the title of the book that it's really applying to secondary English and I think specifically grades 6 to 12 to put that in context. So within the great span of the the educators and students for whom this is designed, what are the future ready competencies and goals that are most relevant to what you're kind of targeting?
Lorraine Radice: You're going to edit this, right? I just want to, I just want to pull something up just to make sure. Sorry about that. So the future ready [00:08:00] skills are derived from several resources. One of the main resources that I use is the future of jobs report from the world economic forum. I also looked at studies from companies like Google to see what kind of skills they see emerging as most valuable in organizations. And you could also look at the U.
S. Census report to see what jobs are becoming more and more necessary as we move into the future. And what I notice is common among all of those resources and the way that the World Economic Forum breaks down the skills is they do rank them. And they give a top 10 list, but there are hundreds of skills that they've derived from the research that they've done within different Organizations.
So the top skills that I feature in the book are our top skills moving into the next five years. So things like analytical thinking and innovation [00:09:00] complex problem solving, creativity and originality and taking initiative over projects, resilience, stress tolerance, flexibility. Use of technology and what I've done is in the areas of reading, writing and research instruction is I have defined what those skills could look like in the classroom and have provided resources for planning lessons or units of study.
And utilizing student reflection tools with those skills so that all of the planning is kind of at the teacher's fingertips within the book. They just need to choose what kind of direction they want to take a particular unit of study in. But all of the explanations and the connections to traditional English content and future readiness are outlined in Throughout the book.
And like I said in the area of reading, writing and teaching the research process. So those are you know, [00:10:00] the skills that are featured. One of the things that I talk about, though as part of the revolving literacy framework is a commitment from literacy educators to constantly evolve and be malleable because while I was writing the book I focused on the projected five years From the time that I was writing, and those are the skills are going to change and evolve.
So it does require literacy educators to still use some of the same resources that I did, but just keep up to date with the information that's coming out. And the only thing that would have to be done is to plug the new skills in that emerge as time goes on, but all of the resources and the planning templates would still remain.
intact, you would just put in different content.
Ross Romano: Yeah. So and the design there, right, the answer you just gave about the sources of these skills and then their relevance to future of work and the organizations involved clearly. indicates [00:11:00] the relevance behind it and why these skills are valuable and what that should mean to students.
What's your recommendation for educators as they are approaching this and Aiming for student engagement in communicating that relevance, I guess, to the students and in fostering authentic engagement because there's an understanding of the relevance and a belief in it, I think beyond saying that it's relevant.
Lorraine Radice: right. So a lot of what I propose in the book, in the areas of reading and writing and research is teaching through student choice. You know, there's a time and a place for a shared experience. And there's a time and a place for preparing students for standardized exams and academic work in that vein.
But the identity part of the revolving literacy framework is really about kids choosing topics that they want to read about, write about, and research. So, right there is a direct connection to [00:12:00] relevance because kids are choosing things that they are passionate about. And there are scaffolds to help kids to get there to make informed choices.
And then also, right from the start, there's a, like I said, a unit planning template, a specific lesson planning template. But when communicating the focus statement or the objective of a lesson to students at the start of the period, is to use the language of future readiness and relevance when talking with kids.
So, if they are in the middle of a writing unit of study and they're in the revision stage where that often can be tedious for students to have them to go back and revisit their writing several times with a different lens. The focus of the lesson is not only revision, but it is about perseverance and flexibility and to use that language when instructing so that kids are hearing it, it's becoming normed, and then that's the way that they start to think about their [00:13:00] learning behaviors and their work, and then as they reflect, as they progress through a unit, and then finally at the end, The objective is for kids to use that language of future ready skills and how they've developed those skills and how they're going to apply them moving forward and to have honest conversations, especially with kids when they're in high school about if they go on a job interview or a college interview, and somebody asks them what are three skills or two skills or one skill that you really have developed?
Over the course of maybe your high school career that you'll bring to this college or you'll bring to this job, then they have that link language repertoire to be able to talk about themselves as a learner and not just a student.
Ross Romano: Yeah. Yeah, I, and I think that also leads to envisioning like what an authentic form of engagement should look like in this learning and mindset and approach that [00:14:00] students are having toward their learning and how their educator would ascertain whether or not that engagement is happening and it's reminding me of a conversation I had recently about a a certain learning platform that.
Promotes itself based on the supposed engagement, but I think another way of looking at it is, I feel like there's a high level of attentiveness and compliance, but not necessarily engagement and that kind of compliance based definition, I guess, of engagement is you know, in some ways, like, Understandable why sometimes that feels good in a classroom where there is a challenge to get the disruptions down or to minimize the chaos, but broadly without overgeneralizing, I would probably say that, compliance as a skill is important.
Thank you. probably less valuable now than it ever has been. Right. And like in the economies of the [00:15:00] past, there were a fair number of career paths that if you were able to follow along with the steps to that, it was something you maybe could reliably follow from the end of your secondary education through retirement in a lot of ways.
And there are fewer and fewer of those things, not to say that there's zero, but The rapid evolution of the economy, the way jobs are changing, the skills that are necessary to be successful in them, the number of career changes that people are already going through, and will likely only become more and more is going to require a different type of engagement, one that positions Students not only to have what we know, I think now are the future ready skills and you referenced right looking at the next 5 years, but it's going to evolve what we believe are the future ready skills, but also the ability to then learn the next set of future ready skills and to continue.
Right? So, as [00:16:00] far as determining what should it really look like when students are engaged in a classroom where we are trying to help them learn in this way. How would you illustrate that?
Lorraine Radice: Yeah, the term for that is re skilling. You know that even people who have been in their jobs for maybe just five years currently will have to re skill in the next five to be responsive to, like you said, how the economy and jobs evolve over time. And You know, you talk about compliance versus engagement, and I think that's one of the most challenging things that educators really grapple with.
And at the heart of teaching is wanting students to be engaged, right? And the you know, I'll give you two examples of what what I saw as real true engagement that was, It's derived from using aspects of the revolving literacy framework and really honing into [00:17:00] that community piece of it because as you alluded to, kids have so many creative opportunities now beyond high school and a lot of times innovation and creativity Is about contributing to some sort of community.
And whether that be the community in the workplace, the community of the client that your job works for or toward whether that's an online community. So, one example is, came from a research unit of study that I worked with teams on, and the whole purpose of the unit was for kids to design something, whether it came to fruition or not that resulted in some sort of community.
community. outreach or advocacy in some way. And there were a group of students who I worked in a beach community previously, and there were a group of students who chose to research the rate of skin cancer in their immediate community. [00:18:00] And actually created a whole proposal for administrators and board of education members to put sunscreen dispensers in the playground of the schools.
Another example for older juniors in high school that actually came from a fiction book club unit of study. So a little bit more of a traditional aspect to teaching English, but the unit was designed using the revolving literacy framework, and the students had to choose a social issue from that book club, and research it, so we went into a research portion, and then develop something that would To a group of people that were associated with that issue.
So college mentoring came about and students created infographics that were then contributed to the high school guidance department. So those are two examples where There may be a little compliance because the reality is that kids are in school and teachers design lessons and [00:19:00] units of study that's their job, but to the best of their ability to create something where it can be authentic.
That kids are thinking about the possibilities of how their work in school could really influence other people. And it's about something that they care about. And I think that's the heart of engagement in school. So. Those are two examples of where I really saw a real authentic form of engagement and kids really caring about and showing interest in the topics that they chose and the groups that they were trying to contribute to. And that came from careful planning from the teachers, you know.
Ross Romano: Right. Yeah. I think that leads into the student agency piece, which I know is a part of this and we're going to get into more of making this revolving literacy framework tangible. But since we're here, like, Let's lead into that with the the injection of student agency or how that is critical to what this framework and the lesson [00:20:00] structure and kind of the end of the classroom environment is going to work toward.
Lorraine Radice: Yeah I mean the whole goal really is student agency. You know, to foster independence in students and to really inspire them to see why what they're doing in school matters. I've had many conversations with middle school and high school students. It was actually part of my research in writing this book.
Where they say why are we doing this? This doesn't make any sense. And they give me examples where it was kind of a little tough to, to argue like. My teacher posts the same questions every year, and I can just my friend who's older than me can go on to Google Classroom and just give me the answers kind of thing and that's not a slight at any teacher at all, but it's, I think it's, that's what students reported and in part of my research, but I also, in my research, learned some really valuable things from kids, and this is part of You know, one of the chapters of the book [00:21:00] where I introduce what some things that have mattered to kids and in the research behind the revolving literacy framework, and they did highlight how supportive and inspiring units like book clubs.
Were to them because they got to choose a book and remain in conversation with peers and be exposed to genres that they've never read before, or being engaged in a Socratic seminar as an assessment rather than a multiple choice test. So. You know, when we talk with kids and get feedback from students, just that process alone of asking them what they think and why this matters increases the agency in the room because they can be contributors to how curriculum is developed in school.
And then really listening to them and looking for patterns in what they're saying is You know, palatable interesting I'm not going to say everything is always a party for kids in school, but where they do show some interest and where some [00:22:00] ideas and relevance has sparked, I think that is, is, and teachers being responsive to that and curriculum developers, that, that really celebrates student agency at the heart of why we do what we do in the classroom. (ad here)
Ross Romano: Yeah. Yeah. It's a whole meaty topic. Maybe I have to do a whole series on this at some point, but learning how to choices, right? I mean, not just presenting choice and presenting a scope around that, but understanding that in Okay. Life now as you know, it's always been true in some way but I think so much more so now with respect to the literacies and understanding and not just having reading comprehension, but having.
You know, information literacy and media literacy and understand. Okay. I totally understood what this said, but is there any validity to it? Right? That those are different skills and [00:23:00] that kids already have it. And certainly as they become adults are going to have choice in what they choose to engage with and pursue.
And the earlier they become comfortable with evaluating those decisions, and what did I think about this, and did it serve me, and what was the perspective that it was coming from, and why, and and comparing different media and texts and seeing the contrasts and starting to really latch onto that perhaps there's some Hope that, the internet can actually can make us smarter, the promise of it, that in some ways.
You know, we have Wikipedia and things at our disposal that we can learn things immediately and have access to information and a lot more easily even the type of stuff that you used to have to get at the library. Right. And all that but just as easily you can avoid engaging with any high quality information or choose to [00:24:00] really isolate yourself in certain perspectives and and we, but we have to you know, I'm sure it relates to the future writing skills in a way, but, establish the value of that, I guess.
Right? Because I think a lot of people feel that there's value in being able to only engage with what they want to engage with, only listen to this podcast or this TV station or this book or website or whatever the case may be, right? Only the things that they have predetermined that they either agree with or that they think is good or not read on something that they may not be sure about and then be able to evaluate.
Okay. Did that change my mind? Do I still think this way? All that kind of stuff. That. But we need to establish that that's a valuable thing, that there is, that it's good, it makes you better, smarter, more able to succeed if you are able to make smart and strategic decisions [00:25:00] about those things and really understand what quality is and what that means and how that helps you make determinations.
So, very long, question there, but but it, yeah, it's kind of striking me that even something as small as starting in kind of the middle grades, having some agency over which book club you join, right, can lead to Larger foundations around really being able to reflect on and have self evaluation of the choices that you made and what you think about them and what you know what that meant and what you would do next time and all of that.
Lorraine Radice: Right. The whole premise of the framework and each of the later chapters, one each focused on, as I said, reading, writing, and the research process, is that we are teaching kids to go through a process of thinking, a process of reading, a process of writing, a [00:26:00] process of analysis and to teach the process and have them to think through what they're doing and why they're doing it, Sometimes even more important than the content, right?
Because the content can be swapped in and out or gained from some external source. But it's really the process of thinking and evaluation that they are going to go through repeatedly and in an age appropriate way and as they go through the continuum of six to twelve or seven to twelve.
Articulation is a big part of the book. You know, I talk in single grade level terms, but I also talk to teams in the book that if you are articulating throughout the grade levels you know, what does Let's say writing a review look like in 7th grade versus writing a review look like in 11th grade.
How do we articulate those skills in terms of future readiness? And then also the writing and the thinking skills that go along with it. You [00:27:00] know, you mentioned media, the multiliteracies portion of the revolving literacy framework does definitely cover that. And there's nods to that throughout the book of thinking protocols, analysis protocols, that again, not only could be appropriate for English class, but other content areas that kids are involved in looking at source material and even artificial intelligence.
So in the chapter about writing I do talk about AI. And how that is going to be a tool that influences the way kids approach their work the way teachers may approach teaching parts of the writing process. And that, that continues to evolve as new technology comes out. But again, that's kind of the whole point of revolving literacy is that we're staying kind of current with all kids have at their fingertips, but with a framework that allows for including the evolution of tools and technology and new things that [00:28:00] kids are that are available to students and how to approach them.
Ross Romano: Yeah. Yeah. It's so, so important to start early. It can really be fatiguing as you know, when you, when there's so much information and so many things out there just to keep that part of your brain on that is evaluative and is really critically engaging with the context around information and trying to make The best decisions about it could be about determining what skill sets to develop once you are in the re skilling phase or what.
What to invest in financially, anything like that to say, okay, these are high stakes decisions and there's a lot of stuff out there and it can be really challenging to not sometimes just forget to write and to say, okay, I went down a whole thread here of. [00:29:00] Of stuff that I'm not sure it was well thought through and I followed up on it and it is.
You know, it can certainly be difficult, but that's why this is so, so important.
Lorraine Radice: I think educators have to be kind to themselves there's so much change and so much fast change you know, when I was a director of literacy I went through a pandemic with my teams I went through the introduction to chat GPT with my teams, and we thought we had one thing, it's like, okay, Google Classroom, Google Meet, Zoom.
We got that. And then all of a sudden we have chat GPT and what do we do about that? And so it's definitely not easy. It keeps things exciting and fresh. But sometimes things feel like they're changing faster than you can plan for them. Especially. We have to be careful and intentional planners of curriculum in schools, and that, that's another piece that really helped the revolving literacy framework come to fruition [00:30:00] that I put all these pieces together that I've been working with myself as a teacher when I was in the classroom, and then my teams of secondary teachers, and The importance of stability educators like consistency and stability and change can be exciting, but sometimes uncomfortable.
So that's why I felt like developing a framework that. can be stable and consistent and allow for things to change around us with, and then use that framework to kind of nurture the change I felt was really important to provide for teachers.
Ross Romano: yeah. Yeah. And to that point of making some of these ideas tangible. So you have the revolving literacy framework. There's a lesson structure around it. One thing I haven't mentioned yet to listeners, this. Book is written as a practical workbook style guide, right? So while we're discussing a lot of big ideas and the ideas around which this is written and [00:31:00] developed it's written in a way to be practical, to put the framework around it and that structure can you kind of speak to what, I mean, one, like why it was important to write it that way.
And then what does some of that structure look like?
Lorraine Radice: Sure I think practicality and accessibility are, well those are two of my priorities when designing professional development and then certainly when writing. I think that teachers need practical resources because there is so much to do in their job. So I don't, the last thing I want to do is and it can be overwhelming or maybe add to things that are overwhelming for individuals.
So each throughout each chapter and at the end of each chapter, like you said, it is written in a workbook style where there are a lot of I call them stop and thinks it's a strategy I used to use with my students. So I applied it to this book where, you know I share some information or I propose an idea And then after that, there's a little stop and think [00:32:00] section for people to either reread look over the content, and then it's always about, like, what does this mean for me, what does this mean for maybe my team, my, my grade level team, or my department team that I'm working with, and then what are our next steps so throughout the book, there are those stop and think portions, and then most of the content, especially in the reading, writing, and research parts of the book, you Is organized in chart and table form, so that people can pull whatever they want to use as a resource for planning, so that it's written in a way that's very digestible.
So I mentioned before, linking the future ready skills to let's say the parts of the writing process, so there is an image for that, that clearly shows if I'm going to teach generating ideas, then I'm going to also teach creativity and originality. If I'm going to teach a lesson on revision and editing, then I might also [00:33:00] integrate flexibility and resilience or perseverance.
So everything is clearly. All of the parts of the Revolving Literacy Framework are all clearly connected for teachers, so that they could lift it up out of the book, and then put it into the context of their work.
Ross Romano: And. There's a few different chapters around what we're teaching students to be readers, writers and researchers. How did you determine to pull those 3 out and address them each directly? And you know, that they were, of course. High degree of overlap, but also worth really directly addressing individually.
Lorraine Radice: So the book is laid out almost has like a part one, part two feel. So, the first three chapters, And what we're going to talk about are introductory material and the content information that is needed to make sense of the revolving literacy framework within those three bigger domains of reading, writing and research.
So [00:34:00] chapter one defines literacy and revolving literacy. Chapter two offers practical tools for the process of planning to do this work in your curriculum. Chapter three offers and explains the revolving literacy lesson plan template. And I make a connection to actually a lesson in a physical education class or any performance based course where kids have to demonstrate independence.
And then, like you said I go into a chapter on writing, research, and then reading. The reason why I chose writing, research, and reading is because those are the three areas that typically dominate a secondary English curriculum. And while they do all overlap, right, there are some instances where there's heavy instruction in the reading process and writing is kind of secondary.
There's instances where writing is the main focus of instruction and reading is [00:35:00] kind of secondary and supportive to the writing process. And then very often we have you know, full research units of study where kids are learning to be researchers while exercising reading and writing skills. So I felt that those would be the most universal and applicable to all curriculums.
Within the reading, So the writing chapter is about teaching the process of writing and all stages. The research chapter is about teaching the research process, all stages of the research process. And then the reading chapter integrates three different curricular models for reading. So there's the student literacy driven model, I'm sorry, two models, and then three structures, the student literacy driven model, and the text driven model.
And I kind of challenge educators to think about how much of the reading curriculum is text driven, where all students are reading the same book at the same time, and how much of the curriculum is student literacy [00:36:00] driven, where we might have some choice reading, like a book club structure or independent reading.
So those three pieces of shared reading, book clubs, and independent reading frame the whole chapter. And I talk about how balance in those models in a classroom is important, that shared, independent, and book club structures all bring value to your curriculum, and to be intentional about when and why you put them into a curriculum map.
Ross Romano: Yeah. So a lot of this of course, is happening. I mean, it's happening at the classroom level, it's happening in collaboration with instructional leadership and all of those pieces. But we had our previous conversation around leading a culture of reading. Right. So what, like, what would a.
a school culture around the revolving literacy look like? What elements would the school leadership need to be thinking about to really implement this approach and and prioritize around the goals of [00:37:00] it, right? At the school level.
Lorraine Radice: So the idea actually started as more of a school wide initiative when I originally was writing it out and thinking it through. When the idea turned into a book it's focused on secondary English because you know, English and literacy is my personal area of work, and I felt I could develop a whole book resource.
But at the school level, I think it's important for principals, curriculum leaders, district leaders to they could embrace the revolving literacy framework and the concept really in all areas of study. Because the five pieces, the content, the future ready skills, student identity, community, and multi modality, those are not unique to English class that first part of content.
English standards are inputted there, but you could put social studies standards, you could put science standards and the future ready skills are not English [00:38:00] specific either. They are universal, right, to what kids are going to need to put forth in a variety of pathways beyond high school.
So, the vision is that a principal or a district leader, some central team of leadership would get together their departmental leaders or teacher leaders within departments to really study the future ready skills together and to think about how they could integrate explicit instruction with those future ready skills, pairing it with the content that is taught, right?
Because we can't, and we don't want to ignore curricular content, but how do we create an equal priority partnership between the content and the future ready skills? How are student identities honored in social studies, in science? How is community honored in FizzEd in art. And the idea is that the whole school commits to designing [00:39:00] curricular experiences around future ready skills so that when kids go from class to class, they're hearing the same language and they're working with teachers who share the same philosophy.
Part of what I explain in the beginning of the book is Our model of education currently in most areas is still the model that was in response to the industrial era. Kids very often, secondary schools, they still learn in silos of time about 40 minute periods, 45 minute periods, silos of space.
Sitting at one desk or one table in one classroom for social studies and silos of content, right? So there's the science teacher, the social studies teacher. Learning and productivity doesn't really look like that beyond high school. It's very rare to sit down and accomplish something significant in only 40 minutes.
Sometimes it takes 40 minutes to even get into a project and to think and then all of a sudden a bell rings and you lose [00:40:00] concentration and in, in occupations and creative fields, it's not only one area that we're focusing on. It's integrating many skills at one time to put together a product.
So that school structure that sometimes doesn't match up with what kids are doing beyond high school, but that's a much larger lift. I That's not a book that I could write at this point but even within that traditional structure, if we can get people together philosophically and through curricular design to be a little more aligned with what kids are going to face beyond high school I think that can make a big difference.
Ross Romano: You know, so my final question here, and this is one that it's probably a little hard given that you wrote the book and you know exactly what's in it. But I think my question is for. Listeners here who even have heard this conversation and heard what this is about, and about revolving literacy, what's something that they'd be [00:41:00] surprised to find in the book?
What's something that you wrote about, either as far as the newfound literacies, the evolution of this, all the various angles, right? That just by the title of it, or what people may expect to find they would still be surprised and delighted, right, to see is in here.
Lorraine Radice: Well, I think the name Revolving Literacy, and I'm thinking I didn't, I explained what the five components are, but I didn't explain the actual vision of why it's named what it is. So might be a surprise to people when they read the book and there's an image in the book to support this, but the name Revolving Literacy comes from The concept and the image that I always have in my head when I think about the relationship kids should have between home and school, or outside of school life and inside of school life, and I picture it like a revolving door at an [00:42:00] airport or an office building that there's no hard and Steady stop or a traditional store you go door you go in one way and out the other it's like very binary.
But I think that kids and teenagers especially should have a very seamless experience so that they see going back to where we first started the relevance of what they're doing in school to their life outside of school. And you know, And the other way, too, that we want to encourage them to bring their identities and their lives outside of school into the classroom through that choice piece so that it all makes sense for them that it should be seamless, that there's a reciprocal nature between life and school, and that gives school purpose so that, that might be something that, a little surprising or just kind of new for people when they get into the book, that it's not just called literacy, [00:43:00] it's revolving literacy, and to keep that revolving image in our mind.
Ross Romano: Excellent. Well, listeners, we will put more information below where you can find the book, Revolving Literacy, from Solution Tree or wherever you get your books and learn more about Lorraine and her website. We'll also link to our previous episode here, in case you want to go back to that whether you've heard it yet.
Or want to just revisit it. So we'll make all of that easy to find. Lorraine, is there anything else in particular people should check out?
Lorraine Radice: No, you can check out my website. There are some links to articles that I've written, and then of course my first book, which is Leading the Culture of Reading. So, thank you.
Ross Romano: Perfect. Well, that's great. Yeah. So listeners, we'll put all those links below, make it really easy for you there. You can follow through, find more resources. You can also please subscribe to the authority if you've not already. We'll continue to bring you more conversations about all of the topics that matter in leadership in schools and more.
[00:44:00] Lorraine, thanks again for being here.
Lorraine Radice: Thanks, Ross.
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