Exploring Practices in Teaching and Learning
The Power of Re-Reading
Greetings WOL Friends!
This episode of We Do This Everyday kicks off a new season for the World of Learning. Olivia Grugan, will take the lead in our blog and podcast. Her first episode is about the Power of Re-Reading.
Look for regular weekly installments on strategies that spark thinking for both students and the people who influence them the most - their teachers!
If you have any ideas or would like to contribute - email Olivia at ogrugan@IU08.org.
This is a really fun hand-off! It’s going to be a lot of fun to read.
Best,
Pat
January 28, 2025
In college, I became enamored with the idea of re-reading certain powerful texts regularly—a kind of literary ritual. The only text I have consistently returned to is Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s “Letter from a Birmingham Jail”, which I read annually around his birthday. This past Monday, as our nation honored his life, I lay on my living room floor, surrounded by infant toys, and read it again, this time to the gurgles of my three-month-old.
I read this letter as a young college student, just cresting from childhood into adulthood; as a teacher abroad, examining English literature with Palestinian students; as a graduate student, stumbling through urban education classes; and now, as a sleep-deprived mother of two.
How do life experience and current context shape our understanding of a text? How might we draw on our students’ experiences to enrich our collective understanding of class texts?
Context shapes understanding
Reflecting on my own readings of Dr. King’s letter, I can identify the parts that resonated at different times:
As a college student contemplating my vocational path, I was compelled by the idea that “time is neutral” and can be used either “destructively or constructively.”
As a teacher in the West Bank city of Ramallah, surrounded by histories of violence and nonviolence, I wondered about my students’ “urge for freedom” and how to help them develop their sense of “somebodyness.”
Now, as a parent to a four-year-old navigating his nascent understanding of right and wrong, I reflect on the passages discussing unjust laws. How can I teach my child to follow the rules while also acknowledging that some rules are unfair?
This single letter has offered me challenge and inspiration in every phase of my adult life. It is, of course, a rich piece of literature, written at a critical time by one of the most formative figures in our nation’s history. But its ability to thread a commentary through my life also speaks to the power of re-reading in different times and contexts.
What are your re-reads?
What have you re-read in different periods of life, and how has context shaped your understanding?
I asked my teacher colleagues this question and they shared their “re-reads”:
Animal Farm (for a “reminder of how precious freedom is”)
The Little Prince (for the “value of leaving pieces of myself everywhere I go”)
The Courage to Teach (for a “Roadmap of studentship” and a “reminder to be a learner in the teacher role”)
The Throne of Glass series (for the “random acts of kindness” of its main character)
Fish! (for a reminder of “how important it is to build a vibrant and motivated team”)
Mindset; The New Psychology of Success (to help “undo our perception of abilities” and “do the undoable”)
Forged by Reading (yes, from one of the reading teachers among us… but we are all to be reading teachers, right?!)
What would you recommend your students read and re-read throughout their lives?
Ideas for Teachers
As I reflect on the power of re-reading I have two ideas for teachers:
Consider reading a text with your students at the start of the academic year and revisiting it near the end. How might the learning that happens in between shape their understanding of that text, just nine months later?
In programs like the World of Learning Institute that operate in a digital space, prompt students to share something from their physical surroundings connected to the class reading, or encourage them to read in a favorite outdoor space. How might diverse physical contexts shape their learning?
Share your Favorites
Share your favorite re-reads below. Tell us what is so worth your time that you’ve read it twice—or more! Maybe we’ll join you in reading it too!
Want to know more about the World of Learning and how we can help you or your district - be in touch!
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