Transcripts of ReadingTheGiver_ChangesINaCatholicSchool

My name is Ashley Dallacqua, and this is my literacy story. Um, I guess it starts, um with me as a fifth grade teacher. I taught fifth grade at a private Catholic school for seven years, um, and I loved it. I think fifth graders are completely magical. Um, and about two years into it, I was able to negotiate some book switches so that I would be able to teach The Giver, by Lois Lowry. which was, is still my favorite book of all time. Um ,I got teach it when I was student teaching. I read it as an eighth grader, um and the opportunity to... finally I have my own classroom and I get to teach my favorite book. I was living the dream. Um, so I taught this book, then, for the last several years of my teaching And, um, every year it was, it was my favorite time of year. Year just, for me, we just did some of my favorite lessons, um, and I could tell the kids really loved it too. Uh, they would sneak read ahead. They would go on line and try to find out what happened next, and they would come up to me and whisper, like, "I found out what happens in this chapter, but I won't tell any body." And, um, they, I had, like I had my copy which is so old and written, written in and beaten up. And I had one class where a couple of boys pulled allowance money together to buy me a hard cover, cause they knew how much I loved it, um. So it's from my "favorite students" 

[ read from the inside cover ]. So this one I've kept. um, as well. Just, it's just special to have, to read from it. in class cause it was from them. Um, so the kids knew it was my favorite book, and I know that they developed a love for the, for the book as well when we would read it together And um, my last year teaching there Well, I guess leading up to that, my sixth teaching, we had some administration changes and then, the following year, which ended up being my last year teaching there, um, the administration changed again and um, which really changed the school Um, the level of... free thinking and being a little more liberal changed, Um, it became much more conservative. I felt, my voice felt a little choked, and I started to really struggle with that. Connecting that to The Giver, the last, it was last unit of teaching, and um, I actually had a family pull their child from my class because I was reading this book. And they felt that it was much too controversial and much too complex, uh, for fifth graders, which for me I loved that challenge. And I felt like what I saw from them, they enjoyed that challenge. But, um, for this family, it was more important for them to pull their child and have them not be in my class for a fourth of the year because I was reading this book. Um, And so that was kind of the direction that, that the, that the school was going in, um, which is one of the reasons I decided to leave. I'm currently a full-time PhD student at OSU, which is also a dream, um. But I have found myself you know, I'm in the middle of that transition of not being a teacher anymore um, and being a full-time student, um, and still holding on to this love of this book and the connections that I have reading it when I'm teaching it. So, this year, Lois Lowry, Lois Lowry put out the fourth book, um, called Son in The Giver series. And I had shared this with my class at the end of the year. I'd pulled it up and showed them the date, we'd all talked about, over the summer we were going to try to read those books And I was able to e-mail with students as they read them all summer, which was really great. Um, so there was a Friday night were my husband and I got to get out of the house, um we were on a date, and we went to Barnes and Noble. Um, and I realized the book would be there. And, um, this was also probably the furthest away I had gotten from some of my current course work. So my brain was kind of free to lots of emotions and things wrapped up in a lot of reading of theory and writing papers. Um, so I, so I asked if they had copies of the book. And um, and they, they led me over, and they handed me, so they handed me the book So I got it. Um, and uh, having having it in my hands. You know, like having that piece of literature in my hands, it, it suddenly felt very powerful. Um, and the guy who had led me to it turned and walked away And wasn't five feet away, when I'm standing in the middle of Barned and Noble, holding this book, and he's going to get more copies for me because I said that I wanted more copies, so I could bring them to my kids. And he walked away, and I just started bawling in the middle of Barnes and Nobel, because, one, they weren't my kids any more. And I, and I was, you know, dealing with that and starting to realized I didn't have that place to connect with this kind of literature with those kinds of people. Um, but I had also just been told the same dat that since my leave, they won't teach The Giver in fifth grade anymore it's been dubbed too complex a text for fifth graders so they missing out on something that had been a milestone marker for fifth grade Um, so I , you know, I'm standing in the middle of Barnes of Noble crying holding this book, and it feels, it feels so powerful in a, you know, because of the literature, but also just because of all the memories I've had with it, you know for the last, really, eight years, you know, of teaching it and interacting with it with some of some of my favorite people, you know, my fifth graders Um, and so I did end up ordering, so I have three copies now Um, so I'm hoping that I can go and visit my students soon. Um they're sixth graders now, so that they can have copies in their classroom. Um, so even thought the book isn't, isn't allowed in fifth grade any more I'm hoping that I can still kind of leave my mark, and and encourage encourage, you know those kids who, I still feel like they're mine, um, you know to read something that's fabulous and something they enjoyed with me, you know, to keep them going. So, So yeah, so that's where I'm, where I'm hoping to leave my mark on that one. And hopefully it'll just keep pushing them further, to keep reading you know, challenging, you know critical texts. And, again it's our way to stay connected as I'm working through you know, the transition of teacher, back to student. So, um that's my story.