Students Engaging with Content and Each Other
Teach for Authentic Engagement
By Lauren Porosoff
(ASCD, 2023 – Learn more)
Reviewed by Laurie Miller Hornik
I came to read Teach for Authentic Engagement with particular interest because I had the privilege of teaching English with the author, Lauren Porosoff, for 10 years. I learned a lot from her during that time and was excited to learn more from reading her thoughtful and well-researched new book.
The word “Engagement,” is a common one in education today, and it is used to mean many different things. At its worst, it is a substitute for “compliance”: engaged students sit nicely and quietly. More frequently, it is used to describe a transactional behavior and an imperative: “Teachers, engage your students!”
But Porosoff means something entirely different, describing the role of the teacher as “creating the conditions for students to engage” (3). This does not eliminate the teacher’s responsibility, but it shifts it to being more relational with the students and more focused on what the students – who should be at the center of their own learning – are doing.
The book is divided according to the three spheres in which the student can engage: they can engage with the content, with their work, and with each other.
Part I: Engaging with the Content
In this section, Porosoff focuses on the “what” of students’ learning: what books they read, what concepts they learn, what information they memorize. In all of her books, Porosoff includes protocols that teachers can use for themselves and for their students. For instance, the first protocol in this book is the “Functional Replacement Protocol” (19), which can help teachers examine why they are using a particular text or material (what its “functions” are) and how to consider replacing it with a text or material that might better help students engage while still serving the same functions as the original.
These protocols also model what Porosoff means by engagement: in the book, the protocols create the conditions for the teacher who is reading the book to engage with the content of the book itself. Similarly, using protocols in the classroom can create conditions for students to engage with the content of the class.
Part II: Engaging with Their Work
One of my favorite parts of this section is in Chapter 6, “Empowering Work Processes,” when Porosoff points out that teachers can teach students how to choose meaningful topics. I’ve watched my own students often gravitate to the topics they think of first or that seem easiest or most obvious. I love the long lists of prompts Porosoff offers for how to help students generate more possible topics as well as her methods for helping students evaluate and choose between the topics.
Part III: Engaging with Each Other
This section begins with a discussion of what it means to be “respectful” in the classroom. Too often, this is defined for students by what they should NOT do: don’t talk over each other, don’t be mean to each other, and so on. But Porosoff explains ways that respect can be a set of positive behaviors that students enact, as well as how teachers can teach these behaviors. Porosoff describes eight different student tasks that can help establish and maintain respectful student discussions.
Many middle schoolers love to engage with each other through group projects, but group work can be tricky for both the teacher and the students. Porosoff describes the possible pitfalls, and instead of avoiding them, suggests ways to lean into them in order for students to have authentic collaboration experiences. For this to be successful, the classroom must have a clear, predictable structure and a strong feeling of trust. Throughout the section, Porosoff describes different ways to achieve both of these important aims.
Final Thoughts
Porosoff’s book contains plenty of specific protocols and actionable advice, but even more importantly, it describes a relational and generous stance teachers can take with their students. Some books are great at explaining the big picture, the philosophy or psychology behind the ideas. Others are great at giving specific directions, almost like “recipes” for cooking up terrific lessons. This book does both, seamlessly tying together the big ideas with easy-to-follow protocols.
Most of Porosoff’s experience is in independent schools with relatively high performing students, so some of her examples are about students who are doing very well academically and whose behavior is excellent. For teachers who work with more diverse or needy populations, it may seem that “authentic engagement” is a luxury. It is anything but that.
In top independent schools, there tends to be more immediate buy-in from students and families that school is important. For students and families in more diverse, lower performing schools and districts, this might not always be as obvious. For students in these populations, it can be even more important that they feel authentically engaged as a reason to come to school and try every day.
Laurie Miller Hornik is a K-8 educator with over 30 years of experience. Currently, she teaches seventh grade English at the Ethical Culture Fieldston School in NYC. Laurie is the author of two middle-grade humorous novels, The Secrets of Ms. Snickle’s Class (Clarion, 2001) and Zoo School (Clarion, 2004). She writes a weekly Substack of humorous essays called Sometimes Silly, Sometimes Ridiculous and creates mixed media collages, which she shows and sells locally and on Etsy.
