It is always my honor to discuss my work with book groups. I am frequently asked if there are certain questions and/or topics that the group members should consider in advance of our session. Following is a guide that I have developed after the many discussion sessions I have led. I hope you find it helpful in your conversations! If you would like permission to distribute hard copies or digital copies of this guide, or if you would like to arrange for a book group discussion, please simply email me at chuckwrites@hyahoo.com. Thank you...and enjoy reading!--Chuck

DISCUSSION GUIDE FOR—

THE FIRE ESCAPE STORIES, VOLUMES I & II

By Chuck Cascio

1) What does the opening episode of Volume I imply beyond what is stated in the text?

2) Have you ever sat on a fire escape? What did it feel like to you? What did you do there? If you have not ever sat on a fire escape, based on Volumes I&II what is the closest comparison you can make from your own life?

3) What does the fire escape symbolize in these stories? Does the symbol change over time? If so, what does it come to symbolize?

4) Describe how you picture the main characters--the narrator (Mikey), Sally-Boy, Big Sal, Massimo, and any others who stand out to you.

5) Single out one secondary character whose role seems particularly significant in her/his impact on the boys' lives.

6) When Mike's family moves at the end of Volume I, what concerns for him  and expectations do you have of him as the family drives out of Brooklyn?

7) How does the tone of the narration change in Volume II and what is the impact of that change on the reader?

8) What does the narrator's reaction to various life events in Volume II such as racism, discovering that his neighbor is a female, seeing the increasing popularity of the Panificio and Sally-Boy's reaction to it, the JFK assassination, etc. affect you as the reader? How do those events seem to be shaping Mike's life?

9) Identify at least three subtle events and/or passages that are most telling about the split occurring between the lives of the two boys.

10) Has the fire escape saved anyone in these stories, symbolically or otherwise? Or does the fire escape imply the failure of attempts to save lives that are impacted by forces either outside of their control or forces that people refuse to accept?

Copyright, Chuck Cascio, all rights reserved. For permission to make or distribute copies of this guide, please email chuckwrites@yahoo.com.

Recognizing the Sounds of Progress in Reading Fluency

(Comment by Chuck Cascio, owner of Blog On!: This piece is extremely important to consider in the ongoing discussion about how to creatively address the ongoing challenges of engaging students in reading and measuring their progress. I am honored to reprint it here. For more information about the unique work being done by Riveting Results, go to https://www.rr.tools)

Jessica Tess is the Assessment and Student Work Coordinator at Riveting Results. Prior to joining Riveting Results, she was a teacher and teacher-leader for 10 years in the Milwaukee area. 

In her role at Riveting Results, she directs a team of former teachers who score Fluency recordings in which high school students read complex text aloud. Within 24 hours, Jessica and her team of scorers return quantitative and qualitative feedback to students.In this post, Jessica discusses what happens to a student’s understanding of a text when they practice emphasizing certain words as they read aloud:

At Riveting Results, we score each recording based on just one feature of reading fluency. One of these features is the ability to emphasize certain words. We have found that students need to be able to show emphasis in order to ultimately read complex text with prosody, or expression. 

When teachers first utilize the Riveting Results Fluency Tool with their students, they are often confused by a positive score on an emphasis recording: “This doesn’t sound fluent to me—she overemphasizes the words—she sounds unnatural.”

That’s a totally fair comment. Teachers are used to looking for mastery—and, its opposite, any sign of a mistake.

Yet at Riveting Results we have found that practicing emphasizing words—even to the extent of overemphasizing them— helps high school students recognize how to change and manipulate their voices in a way that allows for more nuanced expression later on. 

Take, for instance, what we hear in Nicole’s First Recording, when she reads from page 304 of Langston Hughes’s The Big Sea. In it, you can hear her emphasize three words: “book,” “dormitory,” and “characters.” She emphasizes these words in a way that her teacher initially saw as signs of disfluency. 

But, if we aren’t so worried about Nicole’s mistakes, we can hear her start to show signs of expressive reading. Hear how she adds a syllable to “book” by rippling her voice. Hear her volume surge when she encounters “dormitory.” Finally, notice that her pitch heightens when she gets to “characters.” 

Nicole’s experimentation and practice, like jotting on scratch paper in math class, isn’t pretty yet, but it enables her to understand the impact of modulating her pitch, pacing, and volume. Over a couple of weeks of practice, she gains more and more control over her breathing and more ease in her expressive choices.  

Listen to this later recording in which Nicole emphasizes the words “ill,” “hated,” and “stomach.” Her confidence draws you in. She almost sounds sick herself when she emphasizes the word “ill.” Nicole’s bitter tone shows that she understands how much Langston Hughes hated his father. 

Practicing emphasis has enabled Nicole to build a bridge between reading the sounds of words on a page and the feelings that these words and phrases evoke in her. 

So let’s revisit that question: “What if the emphasis doesn’t sound natural?” My answer is: Practicing emphasis is part of a longer process of experimenting with reading aloud. Making these sometimes awkward recordings help students connect the sounds of the words to their meaning, and ultimately to their impact. Students who keep practicing reading with emphasis soon become better able to read fluently in a way that reveals the meaning and power of the text.

Copyright: Riveting Results, all rights reserved.

Questions? Comments? Write to chuckwrites@yahoo.com