Book, Head, Heart

Book, Head, Heart is an excellent strategy to use to do more than just scratch the surface when reading. It really involves students to answer questions about the text they are reading that they are not used to answering. Usually students never get asked what they think of an academic text, it tends to be only based on finding a definite answer for comprehension questions. 

While discussing the first book from our book club, there were certain themes that were presented in the book that I immediately connected to. The main character dealt with certain challenges that students of minorities deal with daily and those challenges sort of become an unspoken truth. Constantly having to deal with discrimination or being looked at differently just because they don't match with the crowd. In the schools that I have observed in and taught in the students are predominantly Hispanic, so these students may have not necessarily experienced what it's like to be the minority since they're the majority. Back when I was growing up, I was zoned to a school were I was the minority and the lines of race started to blur for me. I couldn't tell anymore whether or not I was still Hispanic or the things I did were considered Hispanic culture. There was a point where in the classroom no one cared if you were black, brown, white or purple I was just Eneri Martinez. Going through the process of Book, Head, Heart I was able to reveal that truth inside of me, and how my experiences are stepping stones for students of any race or color can enter any room and not be judged based on their appearance or background.

I have personally used the Book, Head, Heart strategy in my classroom and I was able to help my students reflect on what they're reading. No one had asked them what they thought while they were reading it was usually just give me a summary and what's your favorite part of the book. Their reading perspectives didn't run as deep until I started to introduce the BHH strategy. It became a new norm in the classroom and when we adapted it to academic texts, the students were able to connect personally in some way to what they were reading. There was one informational text that the students read about Uncle Wiggly Wings. When the students started to read the text, they couldn't believe that there was an actual plane that dropped chocolate. They placed themselves into the text and imagined how it would have been like if they were seeing candy parachutes from the sky. At the end of the text there were instructions on how to make their own parachutes, and after we had finished testing they begged me to take some time and let them create their own parachutes. It was something that I never expected to happen, especially since it was a district assessment, and they wanted to reread the text and do more reading about Uncle Wiggly Wings. I finally saw a change with my students and how they learned how to love reading instead of seeing it as a task.