2019 Read For Empathy selections

After thoroughly enjoying my experience of being on the selection panel for 2018's Read for Empathy guide, I was delighted to be invited again to help select the books that would appear on this year's lists. As one of EmpathyLab's twelve original pilot schools from 2015, we've invested a lot of time and effort into developing our children's empathy skills at Moorlands. Much of our work has been centred around the use of high quality books, which studies have shown can have a positive impact on developing empathy, and it was a privilege to be able to help provide other schools with a similar opportunity.

Along Came A Different

a delightfully appealing picturebook about friendship

The first stage of the judging process involved spending a significant chunk of the summer holidays reading approximately 70 books which had all been nominated by their publishers and making notes about the suitability of each. Several books were discarded at this stage, not because they were poorly written or weren't enjoyable to read, but because it was felt that they didn’t quite deliver the specific empathy criteria that we had been tasked with finding. Each book was judged on whether they contain characters that readers can empathise with, the insights into the lives of others that are provided, how emotional vocabulary is used and how the book motivates the reader to put empathy into action.

The seven judges (more information here) met at the CLPE in London in early December to finalise a list of 30 books for primary schools and a list of 15 books for secondary schools. The final lists caused much discussion and occasional (highly professional) disagreements but, as the overall quality of the books was so high, a consensus was reached on the majority quite quickly. Both lists include an exciting combination of picture books, novels, poetry and graphic novels and the panel feel confident that the books selected provide a broad appeal to a wide range of readers.

Ella On The Outside

a very popular read with Deer Class

Some books I read by myself, some I relished having the opportunity to share with my class or my own children. Ella On The Outside, the debut novel from Cath Howe, was an absolute pleasure to read aloud to my Year 6 pupils. There were so many things about the book that the children could relate to and it led to several spontaneous discussions on a variety of subjects. The main character, Ella, suffers from psoriasis, as does a girl in my class, and every time we sat down to enjoy the book, she would shuffle to the front of the carpet and literally hang on to the bottom of my leg as I read. Speaking to her after we finished reading, I asked what she'd enjoyed about it the most and she replied, “It could have been about me. I haven’t read any books like that before". As soon as it went on the class bookshelf, she immediately borrowed it to take home and reread. She's become a real advocate for the book, recommending it to her friends in other classes and always moving it to the display shelf in the school library.

The 2019 Read For Empathy Primary Guide selections

As the above example demonstrates, all children love to see themselves represented in what they read, which is why I'm so delighted that, of the 45 featured titles, 44% have a BAME protagonist or cast of characters. This is significantly more positive than the recent Reflecting Realities study from CLPE, which found that only 1% of children’s books published had a lead BAME character. The selected books include the heartwarming Love From Anna Hibiscus! by Atinuke, the beautifully engaging If All The World Were by Joseph Coelho and Allison Colpoys, and the powerful verse novel Booked by Kwame Alexander.

Love From Anna Hibiscus

a wonderful series to share with younger children

Another book that I really enjoyed, and which has been making its way around the class since September, is The Distance Between Me and the Cherry Tree by Paola Peretti. It's based on the author's own experiences of Stargardt's disease, a progressive illness which causes a gradual deterioration in eyesight, ultimately leading to complete blindness. It tells the story of Mafalda, who measures her failing vision by the distance from which she can see her favourite cherry tree on her morning journey to school. It's an emotionally powerful book and highly recommended. For my full review, please visit the Just Imagine website.

The Distance Between Me and the Cherry Tree

an optimistic book full of hope and joy

Each year, I try and read a couple of verse novels to my class, with Cloud Busting, Inside Out and Back Again and Love That Dog all being among the regulars. Everything All At Once by Steven Camden (aka Polarbear) is a verse novel about adjusting to life at secondary school, an experience common to us all. Every poem is a beautifully observed insight into school life, and the book provides numerous opportunities for discussions about empathy and understanding with students across Key Stage Three.

Everything All At Once

a poignant verse novel

I’m also absolutely thrilled that the collection also contains some well known ‘empathy classics’, including Elmer by David McKee, Noughts and Crosses by Malorie Blackman and one of my all-time favourites, The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane by Kate DiCamillo. I’ve read this book to almost every class I’ve taught over the past seven or eight years and it's been one of the highlights on our reading journey every time. After the first few chapters, the children tend to decide that Edward is a self-centred and dislikeable character but, by the end of the book, they all adore him and can fully empathise with his emotional experiences. It's an absolutely wonderful book that should be on the bookshelf in every Key Stage Two classroom, and I genuinely look forward to my annual read.

The 2019 Read For Empathy Secondary Guide selections

If I had the time, I'd happily sing the praises of each book on the 2019 Read for Empathy lists as they all deserve to be celebrated. They all have the potential to change a child’s outlook on the world, and it’s so exciting to know that such a high quality collection of literature will be having a positive impact in classrooms across the country. I’m looking forward to finding out all the creative ways that they'll be used in the run-up to National Empathy Day, which takes place on Tuesday 11th June 2019, and can't wait to read and enjoy even more of them with the pupils and staff at my school.

More information about the selections that make up the two lists can be found on the Empathy Lab website.

The combined lists

Promoting poetry in primary schools

Poetry has been the poor relation in the teaching of English at primary schools for as long as I can remember. In the staffroom, you might occasionally overhear the Year 4 team quickly discussing whether it's time for the infamous annual 'poetry unit', or Year 6 teachers swapping 'fantastic poetry comprehension worksheets with loads of inference questions that'll definitely help the kids with their SATs', but that's not really teaching poetry as far as I'm concerned. For children to genuinely have an appreciation of it, it needs to be a regular, high-profile part of the classroom routine, not just a bolted-on extra.

Our classroom poetry collection

Over the past few years, we've tried to nurture a love of reading, writing and performing poetry across the school and make poetry a more integral part of the school day. Below are some of the ideas that we've introduced over recent months.

Three minute poem
At the start of every half-term, the children all write down some potential poem titles (eg Lonely Giraffes, The Cinema Trip, Beyond The Sky) on to slips of paper. We collect them in and then, two or three times a week, one of the titles is randomly selected and shared. The children (and staff!) have three minutes to write a poem based upon the title given. The only rule is that nobody can stop writing until the three minutes are up. It was a real challenge at first (I can't think of anything, It's too hard, I've got an earache, etc), but they soon realised it was a fun way of writing without rules and that it allowed their imaginations take off in strange directions. We always make sure that we read a few at the end of each session.

Poem of the Day
I've written about this before (here), so won't go into too much detail, but basically the children sign up at the beginning of each week to perform a favourite poem to the rest of the class.

Practising for Poem of the Day

Blackout Poetry
We attempted this for the first time last week. It's a good way to squeeze a final bit of use out of any books which would otherwise be destined for the recycling bin, although if you're lucky enough not to have any books in such bad condition, photocopies work just as well. Everyone is given page or two from a book to work with. First, they read through the page to get an overall view of the text and then select two or three words that they want to appear in their poem. The children then read the text again and start to black-out surplus words with a marker pen. They found this difficult to start with, until they realised that they weren't trying to create 'lines' of poetry, but just groups of words that looked and sounded good together. A lot of them started by removing only one or two words from each line. However, they soon noticed that the more ruthless they were, the more the poem would have an identity of its own, rather than simply being a shorter version of the page they started with. One of the children ultimately ended up with a poem of nine words from a full page of text, which sounded great when read aloud.

Our class blackout poems

N+7

Writing N+7 poetry is perhaps one of the most well known examples of applying an Oulipo (constrained writing) technique and is certainly the one that's been most enjoyed by my class. The children started off with a poem (they actually used their favourite song lyrics the first time we attempted it) and went through it highlighting the nouns. Once they'd finished, they then found each word in a dictionary and replaced it with the noun that appeared seven nouns after it. It's great fun and completely removes the 'I don't know what to write' option. When we'd tried it a few times, the class were all full of ideas about how to adapt it, including changing the number, replacing verbs and adjectives, using antonyms and simply swapping nouns around.

Leo's N+7 poem, based on No Money by Galantis
Sorry I ain't got no mongoose I'm not trying to be funny but I left it all at honey today.
You can call me what you wanna I ain't giving you a dolphin  this time I ain't gonna run away.
You might knock me down, you might knock me down, but I will get back up again
You can call it how you wanna I ain't giving you a dolphin this time I ain't gonna run away.
This tinsel.
This tinsel I ain't gonna rush rush rush rush rush...
Not this tinsel, not this tinsel.
This tinsel I ain't gonna rush rush rush rush rush.
Not this tinsel, not this tinsel.
Not this tinsel, not this tinsel (tinsel)

Nursery Rhyme mash-up
Even with a Year 6 post-SATs class, this activity went down a storm. The children were given copies of about a dozen nursery rhymes and then simply had to create their own, either by mixing up the lines from one nursery rhyme or by selecting and adapting lines from different nursery rhymes. It's quick and can produce some amusing and imaginative combinations. Nursery rhymes also work very well with activities such as N+7.

Humpty Dumpty went up the hill
To fetch a plum pie
Along came a spider
And bumped his head
Then down came a blackbird
And went wee, wee, wee all the way home
  

Some of our recent purchases

The Room of Stars
This fun game came directly from Jumpstart! Poetry by Pie Corbett. It's an easy way to produce a whole class poem and can be hilarious. Half of the class need to write down five places (castle, river, shed, village, desert) and the other half of the class need to write down five nouns (we started with concrete nouns but they much preferred using abstract nouns). We then selected one child from each half of the class to choose one of their words to pair and create a line of the poem (eg the room of stars, the mountains of desperation, the cafe of misery). Most of the lines worked really well, some were a little dubious (the toilet of stress) and some were very quickly discarded (the bedroom of ecstasy!). We then put the lines together to create the poem.

We're going to spend a lot more time on poetry over the next few weeks, and will be sharing some of our work with other classes and with parents. If you've got a fantastic idea to share, or have tried anything in your class that's been a huge success, please let me know. Equally, if you've tried anything that's been a massive flop, let me know that too, so that we can avoid it.

Below are some the books which have provided the ideas above. I'd also recommend that you visit the blogs of Michael Rosen and Brian Moses, as they're both absolutely full of great ideas for developing a love of poetry.

Useful books

Jumpstart! Poetry, Pie Corbett

What Is Poetry?, Michael Rosen

Rose, Where Did You Get That Red?, Kenneth Koch

Poems To Perform, Julia Donaldson

Published in September 2017: How To Write Poems, Joseph Coelho