Text Lineages

Earlier this week, I was reading some fascinating research.  The article was by Dr. Afred Tatum, and he was discussing the ways the educational system in the United States specifically fails to meet the needs of young black male students.  Within his research, he talked about such issues as students feeling that their teachers expect them to fail and the ways schools do a disservice by not selecting relevant texts.  

At the heart of Tatum's research is the concept of the Text Lineage, that is those things that we read that shape our lives.  He calls them "trajectory-altering", which is a term I love.  

Trajectory-altering texts.  

Tatums went through the writings of hundreds of famous Black writers and looked for references to books or writings that had been important to them. Then, he created a text lineage, charting those writings, like a family tree, showing how one text lead to another and another. 

He found that the same books kept showing up, though these were often ones the person had read independently, not as part of school work. 

Tatum's premise is that we should use these text lineages to help us provide meaningful texts for students to read.  Looking for those items that appeared in many of the text lineages of these great minds. These sequences, for many of the people he studied, were profound. 

Trajectory-altering. 

Which made me think of my own textual lineage.  

I tried to think of those books or texts that had, at pivotal moments of my life been present. Or the ones I recall being powerful or shaping.   

As is my tendency, most things I think through turn into a list or a diagram. Or both.  This began as a list, then was turned into a diagram. 

I have said before how powerful the Little House books

were for me.  A female protagonist. A female author.  We shared a name.  We were both middle children. We both had long brown hair.  I felt such a profound connection to those books that it is hard for me to even explain.  

(Full disclosure: When I went back as an adult to read them to my children and realized some of the deeply problematic racist elements, I was stunned. It was hard for me to even think about because my childhood fondness for the texts in no way included any of these racist depictions or comments, but then I realized, hindsight being 20/20 that I had likely, in my white-middle-class-privilege glossed over them, which is another day's discussion.) 

The Little House books meant that I was always able to see myself in books. I could always see myself as a potential writer and a reader.  It was foundational for me.

Thinking of those foundational texts, I was surprised by the ones that came to mind.  The first was a Spanish textbook, level 1.  

I know.  What an absurd thing to think of.  But I can remember spending hours just soaking it in. Looking at the pictures labeled in Spanish, examining the spelling, noticing every tilde. My naive little self somehow believed that if I could absorb everything in that book, I could learn Spanish.  I know that is bananas now.  But at the time, I really really felt it.  

Thinking of my textual lineage, I realized that even then, as a young child I believed that books held knowledge. There was something to learn from them. I could read a book and somehow know more than I did before.  Which I think is a powerful thing for a young mind to believe.  I was always deeply disappointed every time I didn't know Spanish, and I figured I just needed to absorb more.  

It is not a secret that I don't read much non-fiction. My

whole life is non-fiction, and all of my academic work is non-fiction, so my pleasure reading rarely includes it.  But when I do choose a non-fic book, it is almost always something I believe I can learn from.  Lab Girl is the most recent one I finished; I learned so many things I had never even considered, things about plants and the natural world, about the funding of research and government policy.  They were virtually all things I would never have encountered anywhere outside of that book. 

But I have always believed--or at least I can't recall a time

when I didn't believe--that I could learn things from books, even if they were fiction.  On my book list, The Kite Runner struck me as part of that line.  I learned so many things from The Kite Runner that I can clearly remember spending days in a fog, thinking wondering, speculating.  Yes, it was partially emotional--the book is powerful that way--but also intellectually.   It dealt with geography, politics, history, and culture some of which I knew about, much I did not.  I left The Kite Runner, in the truest sense, knowing more.  That sort of experience changes you. I think my appreciation for that idea goes back to the time I spent reading through that Spanish textbook. 

Two of the books I loved as a child--Barney Bipple's Magic

Dandelions and Curious George Goes to the Hospital--are fiction in the best possible way.  Barney Bipple is a kid who doesn't like being 6. His odd neighbor gives him some dandelion puffs as a reward for honesty (he returns a huge diamond he found on her lawn), and he is given three wishes.  Zany antics ensue.  

But more than that, there is just no possibility that the events in Barney Bipple could really happen.  But that didn't make them any less amazing.  

Similar to Curious George swallowing a puzzle piece and having to go to the hospital to have it removed (in my mind's eye, I can vividly see the drawing of the piece showing up on an X-ray), only to have it nicely fit in the puzzle at the end.  The wacky things that happen throughout are just not possible. Not in this world with its rules and restrictions.  

But both Barney and George gave me a taste for the fantastic.  

I spent many years putzing around in realistic fiction eventually finding my way into dystopian. (I LOVE a good YA dystopian.  The world is about to end, and we need a teenager to save us!)  

But a few years ago I stumbled into high fantasy (Patrick Rothfus, Garth Nix, and Brandon Sanderson), and I found where I belong. 

The magic.

The impossibility.

The world-building.  

And all of it so very impossible while also being so vividly real. Just like Barney in that courtroom full of cats and dandelions. 

The gap in my life between Barney Bipple and Mistborn is probably 40 years.  But that feeling, that beautiful impossibility swallowing you up, that is coming home to a feeling that books can bring. A feeling I hadn't known I had missed, until I stepped back into it, into that section of my textual lineage. 

For me, reading is, in large part, an interaction.  At times between myself and the author; at other times among an audience, the book, and myself, since I am often reading aloud to others.  When I was young, I remember loving reading aloud, mostly because I felt I was good at it.  I was that kid always raising her hand to volunteer to read.  

But the first text I can clearly remember reading aloud was

a play version (in a textbook) of Charlotte's Web.  My reading group had finished it on a Friday and was going to read it to the class on Monday.  So, like any overachieving nerd, I told my mother that I needed a spider costume or Monday. (You can imagine how thrilled she was.) But after a weekend of diligent work, I had a spider costume. It was sort of a black pillowcase with attached long socklike legs stuffed with pantyhose and wire hangers.  I was SO PROUD.  I put on my costume, climbed up on a chair (the web was in the corner of the barn, after all) and read my piece with all the love and emotion Charolette herself had. 

The entire thing lasted maybe 10 minutes.  Everyone was mostly surprised since, and I can't emphasize this enough, nobody else had a costume. Also, I wore the costume for the rest of the day.  

But I didn't care. I KNEW the audience loved the performance.  I had read something, and it had moved them. I saw firsthand the power of a text to affect someone else. 

I don't think I ever lost that feeling, of being able to affect other people with words.  Now, my words won't do that, but someone else's can. So, from third grade, fast forward to 5 years ago, I step into an elementary classroom, book in hand, and I get to read to students.  I get to be the oasis in a stressful day when they can set aside their work or worries or fears and listen to a book about overcoming or friendship or digging a hole or showing compassion or haunted underpants (that one was a big hit).  

Books can move people. 

Words can move people. 

I saw that when I gave a copy of Les Miserables to someone I knew would love it, only to have him tell me not long after that it was the best book he had ever read.  That is a great feeling. And one I first felt with Charlotte's Web. 

But it was the Berenstain's B Book that first made me feel like I was a capable reader.  It was the book that made me feel smart.  

Last semester, I did some research on reading self-concept and self-efficacy.  So much of the literature points to the idea that at a young age (about second grade), kids develop a sense of themselves as readers. 

I can read. 

I can't read. 

I am a good reader. 

I am not a good reader.  

And those feelings of self-efficacy--I can accomplish this task--are what lead them to try harder, persist longer, and succeed. Or not.  They don't have a connection to skill or IQ.  It is a feeling, based on successes and failures and experiences. And a positive feeling of self-efficacy leads kids to read more, thus becoming better readers. 

The B Book made me believe I was a good reader.  I read that book so many times that I memorized it.  I took great pride in my ability to recite the book.  I can still do it to this day.  

Was the book hard? No. 

Was it a classic? No. 

What was its Lexile level? No idea. 

I know I read that book and read it and read it until I knew it.  All of it.  

And it made me feel so capable.  And smart.  And really, deeply believe that I could read. 

To this day, I feel like I am a good reader.  

Now, I am a SLOW reader. Glacially slow.  But I believe I am a good reader.  And that residual feeling is carried over from 40 years ago when I conquered The B Book.  

So now, when I read something like A Tale of Two Cities (it is in my top five), a book I know is challenging, but one I always feel I am capable of understanding, reading deeply, truly appreciating, it is like a wave of satisfaction washing over me that started years ago with the B Book.  

Tatum's idea of Text Lineages has lingered in my mind since I learned of it.  

I am entirely certain that my text lineage, for example, is nothing like that of my children. Or my husband. 

Or my students. 

And that is part of the problem. 

I love A Tale of Two Cities deeply.  I could sit here right now and think of the final two chapters and start to cry.  

Most of my students would probably prefer to have their eyeballs ripped out rather than reading A Tale of Two Cities. 

The same goes for Les Miserables.

And a level 1 Spanish textbook from 50 years ago? 

Which makes me think about the texts we put in our children and students' lives.  

Yes, there are parts of the canon that everyone needs to know for cultural value.  But when we are talking about ways to get kids loving reading and having texts influence them, become trajectory-altering, what moves me is not the same as what moves them.  And what I had to deal with, persist through, or overcome is not the same as what they are dealing with. 

It seems that my text lineage is helpful for me to understand myself.  But it is also an interesting examination of why we need to diversify the texts we use.  

My text lineage is not enough. 

And, at the same time, it is my responsibility to help my students develop their own text lineage. This means they need those trajectory-altering texts, not just in class but in their independent pleasure reading time.  

Which means access.  Access to books and authors and ideas. And conversations about books that matter and ideas that are important.  

It is all so much. So much to do and get and be about. 

There really is no time to waste.