Episode 5: Beyond Middle School: Building the High School Series

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Speaker B: Uh,

Speaker A: welcome back to Serb Stories, a podcast where we pull back the curtain on research, practice partnerships, transforming education. I'm, um, your host, Dr. Kayla Jones. Today we're taking you behind the scenes of something special. Staari Series 4, our first series specifically designed for high school. If you've been with us since episode one, you know that the Story of Starry, the Strategic Adolescent Reading Intervention, began two decades ago when the Boston superintendent, Tom Payson, asked for support with the challenge secondary students who couldn't read their textbooks. SERP did help, and since 2014, Staari has been out in the world. But the STAARI story has continued to evolve, and today we share the latest chapter, Our Expansion Beyond Materials primarily Intended for Middle School. Today you'll hear the story of how listening to teachers, collaborating across disciplines, and staying committed to what students need led to the creation of Series four. For this episode, I'm, UM joined by serp's creative director, Matt Ellinger, Sara Belkier, a Wisconsin high school teacher, and my starry colleagues, Margaret Troyer and Emily Hayden. We're going to take you through the entire journey from recognizing the need to creating the content and design to seeing it come alive in real classrooms. And we'll end by discussing our hopes for sari's future. Let's begin with the why.

Speaker C: Um,

Speaker A: Margaret, let's start with the most basic question. Why did we decide to do this? Why Series four?

Speaker C: We had heard feedback from some of our SARI users that they really wanted one intervention for grades six through 12. You know, that they didn't want to have to do one thing in middle school and then find something else for high school. We'd also heard really resounding feedback from our users that there wasn't anything good out there for high school. Um, that there was not a curriculum that supported high schoolers foundational literacy skills while also respecting their age and their developmental level and engaging them with real texts and real issues. Um and that's what Starry does. And so they wanted that for high school.

Speaker A: But hearing from teachers is one thing. Can you tell the listeners how you concluded that the challenge was important enough to start developing a whole new series?

Speaker C: We were able to conduct a series of surveys of Starry users. And when we saw in those surveys how many people were using Starry in high school, even though we were saying it was a middle school curriculum, that's when we really knew, like, there is a need out there for this. We need to meet this need. And that's how we decided to develop Star Series 4 of Starry Emily.

Speaker A: Once the decision was made to move forward, can you describe to the listeners how the development process got underway?

Speaker B: Well, the first big challenge was finding the novels for each of our units. Um, and so what we did, uh, because we knew we were going to follow the same format of three units in this series four year, um, and so we had to choose the novels to focus around those units around.

Speaker A: And that was harder than it sounds. Right? Especially once we started narrowing in on Lexile requirements.

Speaker B: We wanted books that were engaging and age appropriate for high school students, but still accessible. So they had to be in that 500 to 800, 900 Lexile.

Speaker A: Let's take a pause. For listeners who don't live in our world, that's roughly third to fifth grade reading level for high schoolers. Emily. Um, talk more about how we found books that hit that level without feeling like baby books.

Speaker B: We wanted diverse, uh, authors and diverse characters, um, and we wanted of course, novels that could be paired, you know, with nonfiction. So novels that sort of had, uh, topics and themes that lent themselves to some nonfiction work as well. They had to be, of course, because Starry is very discussion based. There needed to be things to talk about in these books, um, and also sort of aligned with the grade level skills and standards that students, uh, are working on in, in high school. And then of course, not too long.

Speaker A: Those are a lot of criteria. Can you walk the listeners through how we went about actually finding books that met all of those constraints?

Speaker B: So what we did is we reached out to, um, not only Star users, but also people we knew, personal contacts who worked in the high school space. We hosted a couple of just drop in chat zooms. And so through those focus groups, um, we came up with a big list of, of possible books for Starry. So from those lists of books that we got from those two drop in zooms, we selected, uh, two books and we did some deeper dives with our focus groups. We Invited a, uh, diverse group of teachers from across the country. So we had some teachers from New York City, some from Ohio, and some from Nebraska that participated in our deep dive into these two different books. We sent each person the book and we had two meetings on each book to really kind of get their feedback for what ended up being Unit one and Unit three.

Speaker A: So we leaned heavily on focus groups, not just at the selection stage, but throughout creation, coming back to teachers again and again through pilot conversations to really pressure test those choices and make sure the books would work for high school students, that groundwork mattered. Now let's shift to how Series 4 was built from the content decisions to the design choices that brought it all together. Um, so we discussed the need and the book selection process. It's only right that we transition into talking about these amazing stories. Emma let's start with unit 4.1, strength and struggle. Tell the listeners about the books.

Speaker B: The novel for Strength and Struggle is Yaqui Delgado Wants to Kick youk Assignment. Um, great book written by Meg Medina, who, um, not too many years ago was the US Ambassador for um, youth fiction, um, with a controversial, ah, title. So right away, like, this book kind of hooks kids interests, high schoolers interests, I think, because it's an in your face kind of title. In this book, uh, the main character, Pittie, uh, changes high school. She lives in Queens, changes high schools because of a move, her family's move. And um, right away encounters a, uh, bully, Yaqui Delgado. Pitti has no idea what drew Yaqui to hate her so much. And really there's not really a reason, uh, as often happens with bullying. So Pitti has to kind of navigate this new school, this bullying that escalates over the course of the book and culminates in um, a really serious attack.

Speaker A: And as a note to the listeners, one of the reasons we leaned into this book for this unit was because it handles that so realistically. Please continue.

Speaker B: Emily Pitti doesn't tell her mother right away what happened. She kind of quits going to school for a while. And when she goes back to school, the book handles this situation in a very realistic, um, way. While Yaqui the bully is expelled at the time that Pittie and her mother finally go and talk to the school, that a school cannot guarantee that Yaqui won't be back. And that's the way it works in public education. Education. Right. Um, and so Pity has to make the choice of, uh, does she stay at this school where she's got this, this really problematic person, or does she go back to, uh, the school she was at previously. The district makes that option available to her. And that's a question that is debatable among students. You know, should she stay? Should she, should she leave?

Speaker A: And that's such a high school dilemma. You don't have full control over your life yet, but you're old enough to see the stakes clearly. Anything else you would like to add?

Speaker B: There's all the normal high school stuff, the, you know, kind of normal teenage, um, conflicts with her mom. All of that good stuff is rolled up in here, and it's a really good read.

Speaker A: Yaqui Delgado serves as a strong anchor for the unit, but in Starry, we also look at other types of texts to be thematically related. Margaret, what about the nonfiction text?

Speaker C: So Emily's just told you all about how hard it was to find a novel that hits that sweet spot of being age appropriate and engaging and debatable and also accessible to students who read below grade level. And then once we finally find that novel, then we have to find some nonfiction to pair it with. The Yaqui Delgado unit is the novel's sort of all about bullying. And we thought about finding a nonfiction text that had something to do with bullying, but we didn't really want to lean into that too hard with high school kids.

Speaker A: Yeah, we definitely had to think about what will feel patronizing versus what will feel relevant.

Speaker C: So we were thinking, you know, okay, what other themes in the novel could we pursue with the nonfiction thread? And the main character, Pity, is Latina. She is, um, Dominican and Puerto Rican, and she's a really good student with a strong interest in stem. So we were like, okay, maybe this is a direction we could pursue. So the nonfiction book that we ended up with is Mario and the Hole in the Sky. Um, it is about Mario Molina, who is a Mexican chemist who discovered that. That aerosol sprays were making a hole in the ozone layer. Once we dove into this book, we felt like, thematically, it really does relate to Yaqui Delgado and to the theme of strength and struggle. Because when Mario first started trying to tell the world, we gotta stop using these aerosol sprays, they're killing our planet, people did not want to hear it. They accused him of lying and making this up. And so the story is about how he persevered through that, made his case, got listened to. Eventually the aerosol sprays have been banned and the ozone layer is actually healing. So it's an incredibly optimistic book, um, that ends by talking about, you know, we solved this problem, we can solve the other problems. Of climate change, um, which is, you know, a great message.

Speaker A: And I'm gonna flag something that often raises eyebrows in high school. This is a picture book, right?

Speaker C: It's a picture book. Um, and sometimes we get a little pushback from students, and sometimes we get a little pushback from teachers about reading picture books in upper grades. Um, so why do we do that? Well, for one thing, we need our nonfiction text to be short, um, because we try to have our units about 40ish days, um, so eight full weeks of school, and the novel takes at least half of that. Um, and in unit one in particular, we gotta put in a big amount of time upfront teaching the fluency routine, um, and doing the sort of culture building and community building activities that are going to be really important to make the Starry class a safe space. Um, so we need a short nonfiction text. And the other thing is, just because there's pictures doesn't mean the text is not complex. Um, this is a complex topic. The sentences and the vocabulary are all high school appropriate. There's lots of scientific terms in here like chlorofluorocarbons and diagrams of, um, you know, the molecules and how they're affecting the ozone layer. So there's a lot that is in here that is age appropriate and engaging for high school kids, along with the pictures that are also in there.

Speaker A: And for anyone listening who's responsible for adoption or implementation. Picture books and visual text are not a step down in rigor. There are different pathways to complex thinking, and that's just unit one. We haven't even touched units two and three yet. We're talking labor unions, first part time jobs, the Kent State shooting of 1970, the Vietnam War, and in nonfiction texts, we actually co created exclusively for unit three. But in the interest of time and giving each of these units the attention they deserve, we're going to save those for future episodes. Trust me, if you think unit one selections are bold, you haven't seen anything yet. Now, after we piloted these units, we've made some changes based on teacher feedback. One of those changes was incorporating what we call a, uh, vocab catcher. Margaret, can you talk a little bit more about what teachers said?

Speaker C: So they expressed that they felt that the treatment of vocabulary was not in depth enough to meet the needs of high school students. Um, that high school students who are reading below grade level really need to build up their vocabularies in order to be able to comprehend the grade level text. So we decided to revamp the way Starry addressed vocabulary using a strategy called the vocab catcher. Um, so in the previous version of staari, we had a interactive vocab preview where prior to each section of text that students read, the teacher would go over the definitions of three to five words, but they didn't record the definition. And there wasn't really an intentional revisiting of those terms throughout the course of the unit. And we know research tells us that the way that we actually learn new vocabulary words is through repeated exposures over time, ideally repeated exposures in different contexts and different forms of the word over time. So in the vocab catcher structure, we have selected 20 to 25 words, um, in most units. So a couple of words per lesson that the teacher's really going over in depth. So the teacher's previewing the word, discussing the word with the students, um, asking them where they've heard the word before, building their knowledge of the definition and context the student is recording in the vocab catcher section of their workbook. And then when they see the word again later in the text, in a few days or a week or two, two weeks or three weeks, they will revisit that page in their vocab catcher and they'll say, okay, you know, two weeks ago, we learned the word flinch. And in this chapter, Yaqui didn't flinch. Why didn't she flinch? Why is it a big deal that she didn't flinch? What does it show us about her character that she didn't flinch? And so students will revisit that word over and over again throughout the course of the unit, um, and really build their vocabularies in that way.

Speaker A: We also added some letters to the teachers, if you want to talk about how did that come to be and how did that evolve with the focus groups?

Speaker C: Sure. So in Starry, we deliberately choose books where the content is a little edgy. Um, we firmly believe it is a part of our theory of change, that it is because students are engaged by these edgy topics, because we ask them to debate these questions that are meaningful and relevant and real life and age appropriate. That is what draws them in and makes them willing to engage in the decoding, fluency, and comprehension building practices that we have in the curriculum. Now, the thing about edgy content is sometimes it can create a little pushback. The title of our first novel in unit 4.1 is Yaqui Delgado Wants to Kick youk Ass. Now, I know for a fact that ass is not the worst word these high school kids have ever heard. However, I get it. It's a little Controversial. It's a little edgy to, you know, have a bad word on the COVID of a book, um, in your classroom. So in the letters to the teacher, which are now at the beginning of every set of teacher lesson plans for all 12 units, we explain why did we choose these books? So we say things like, yaqui Delgado has won the Pura Belpre Award. Um, the author, Meg Medina, was the ambassador, ah, for young adult literature in whatever year that was. Um, we talk about, you know, other reasons why this particular book is a great book. And then we say, here are some issues that this book might raise in your classroom. And we talk about some of the controversial things that come up. And we say, you know, here are some ways that you might support your students in dealing with this. So when they do read about an incident of domestic violence, as a teacher, it would behoove you to be aware of whether any of your students, um, are struggling or have struggled with domestic violence at home, um, so that you can be ready to support them with resources, um, if something may be upsetting or triggering to them. It also can offer sort of some talking points. If you get pushback from parents, um, or other stakeholders saying, why would you have my kid read this book? You, um, know, you can say, well, here are all the reasons why, um, we're having your kid read this book. Um, so we hope that that letter to the teacher, um, can empower the teacher, um, to smooth over any pushback that may arise in regards to some of the edgy content that we include.

Speaker A: Now let's talk about the design side of things. After all, the SERP mission is to bridge research, practice and design. Matt, as a Creative Director for serp, you've overseen the designs of series one, two and three, which were mainly focused on middle school. How was the design for high school series the same or different?

Speaker D: Well, I think it's largely in the same vein. I think that though there are some situations where we had to be doubly sure not to, um, become cute or cliche, um, because I think that students, the older they are, the more sensitive they are to that. And then similar to what was said before about it appearing remedial, I think that there is a, um, uh, dignified, um, the selection of topics that have gone into this. Labor issues and the Vietnam War. These are really, um, not lightweight. These are. These are super important. And so I think that, um, matching that visually has. Has been important. I think it's really important that the visual design reflect that and that we stay away from cliched images and things that they may have a lot of fatigue around because they've seen them in younger grades and they certainly have no interest in these sort of cutsy, um, pastel colored images that um, they may be, um, grown sick of in reading instruction in past years. Idea of protest and the idea of military, um, service and all these things. I think for middle school, uh, you know, I would say that it's still very much over the horizon, but in high school it seems like it's not so much over the horizon where there are workplace issues that they're very familiar with. Either themselves or friends of theirs have been treated very unfairly in the workplace or they have siblings that are already in the military and they look at these images of the Vietnam, um, soldiers who are, you know, neck deep in m mud or whatever it is and they can have this, um, real visceral, um, empathy for those in a way that I think supports the work of the program that is so based on students being um, pulled into the. The, the information and the stories that are being presented in, in the fiction and the nonfiction instead of being um, sort of forced into um, wrestling with the concepts.

Speaker A: Listeners, we did have a longer conversation about color and design. If you'd like to hear it. Stay tuned to the end of this show. But one more question for Matt here. Matt, what's your philosophy when it comes to working with the content team and getting feedback on design?

Speaker D: It's all about getting the UM program supported through its visual representation. And it's not about trying to get, you know, your favorite font or your favorite image or your favorite color into the program. If you are working with a graphic designer who gets their feelings hurt, fire them and get a new graphic designer because there's just no room for that.

Speaker C: I love working with Matt because he's so open to feedback. I remember once Matt and I were talking about something on a workbook page and he said, I think it should be this other way. And I said, well, the reason why it's the way it is is because. And he said, oh, well, if there's an instructional reason for that, then that trumps design. Um, and I just really appreciate that, having been an educator, that Matt brings that lens as well.

Speaker A: So we've heard about how the need was identified, how the content was created, how the books were selected, and how the design came together. Now let's hear from someone who's actually using Series four in their classroom.

Speaker B: Uh,

Speaker A: I spoke with Sarah Belkier, a high school teacher from Wanakay, Wisconsin, who's been using series four with her students. Sarah, thank you so much for joining me. So describe the need for tier two interventions in the high school setting.

Speaker E: This is my third year in this district. I work with a lot of EL students who are just graduating out of the real EL services. My tier two is sort of a support for their integration into the regular English classrooms. I also work with some students who have, so to speak, also kind of graduated out of the special education tier 3 reading services. And then, um, I'm also, again, kind of integrating them into, like, less support, sort of stepping them back into the regular classroom, um, as well as just those students who then just were struggling readers like you'd have for whatever varying reasons that are not severe enough to have been special education, but don't necessarily have any one reason other than the fact that they are just struggling readers.

Speaker A: So why did you feel that STAARI was a good fit or is a good fit for your students?

Speaker E: Um, I was introduced to the program from our district, um, curriculum director, the secondary curriculum director. I don't know how he found out about. He said, well, can you just give that. Give it this a try? You know, we'll buy you the materials. Um, like, buy the books that are needed and such like that, since the materials are free. Um, we'll buy you the materials and just, um, give it a try. See what you think. And he knows that I'm a. He knew that I was a reading specialist so that I could also have designed things on my own. But on the other hand, you know, why we invent the wheel when someone else might have had something that was wonderful produced. Um, and then I looked at it, I'm like, yeah, that looks like it's a good fit. I liked the fact that it included a lot of the basic literacy skills that students needed. I, um, will say I'm particular. That was before the series four. Um, when I was trying more of. I used, I think, series 1.1 and then 3.1 for my two different levels of students. Um, and I like the level 4 a lot better for the high school. Um, I think the books are better for high school students. I do appreciate that. I mean, that they're reading through an entire novel. I like this, the fluency and how those topics are connected. That there's all sorts of things that are brought in without it seeming too. It's very accessible for the high school students. It doesn't feel like they're being babied or like something that they may have done when they were Little, um, because it is especially with the topics that are being dealt with. They're mature topics, um, and mature books. So that they can.

Speaker A: They.

Speaker E: They appreciate that those are at their level.

Speaker A: Okay, you are already thinking ahead because I do have a question about how your students feel about it. So you've been talking about the books. Have there been any, uh, comments that you can recall that your students mentioning about the books or about aspects of the program?

Speaker E: Well, in particular last year when I immediately jumped on board to read the Yikida Gato, which was, I must say a humorous thing. When I had to ask the director, Mike, is the title going to be an issue? Um, he said, oh, good grief, no. Anyway, um, in particular last year my blend of students in the level that I use that with my sophomores, um, was half el, Spanish speaking and half English. And they really enjoyed the idea that there was so much Spanish in there that they felt like we're gonna be beneficial to our classmates. It spoke to them and it was like from my population, we don't. In my little town in um, Wisconsin, we don't have the same amount of diversity. Like for example that I've seen in the videos from. From Starry, that we're, we're very white, um, very upper middle class kind of community. Um, and they really like that. Oh wow, it's talking about our culture. It's talking about, you know, there's Spanish in there that they could include. Um, and the fact that it was like, like oh my goodness, what is she doing with whom? And like different things that it really spoke to them as high schoolers. Um, and actually last year when I got started the 4.2 with the book that's based from the Wisconsin author, um, 15 and Change. First of all, they thought it was cool that it was somebody that was from Wisconsin that it.

Speaker A: But.

Speaker E: But the setting of the book itself is vague. Um, but I actually had boys that they came in, grabbed the books and wanted to start reading it out loud, poetry reading out loud, before I even could ask them to start. Um, really spoke a lot to that selection that they enjoyed it. Um, so yeah, those two units have been very successful in the materials that are that come with it.

Speaker A: Can you share a story of a student either this year or last year and how they were impacted by Starring Series four?

Speaker E: I've seen a huge growth in their stamina of reading overall. They've all improved in their fluency and especially this year with uh, my high degree of um IEP students that are in the course, um, they really need that fluency work. Um, so that's helped a lot to have things that are partnered up with the book using, um, the fluency and not having to create those things on my own. Um, which is kind of nice. I mean, I would have some other strategies, but it's nice to have those things that are connected and then leveled for them. Um, um. I think I've seen the most in. Yeah. In that reading stamina and the fluency. There's one student this year I don't think he'd want to admit. He would never really tell. You wouldn't say he likes the book. You wouldn't say that. I, uh. He actually maybe wants to read it, but he's the first person to always say, oh, good grief, I understand this. I, you know, why aren't you paying attention? Look, it's on the book. We know what you do every day. It's a system. Come on. And he's. And he'll hassle the other students about, um. And this is a student who, over the course of the semester now, the structure, the, um, having a book that I think speaks to him a little bit as a person, as a student of color in our district that I think he's grown into almost like a leadership for the class that I had him last year as a freshman and he would have never been like that. Um, so whether it's just the growing maturity naturally, or whether it's also just having a book that he. That he just really connects with, um, has kind of flipped him a little bit in his willingness to read or desire to read, even though, like I said, he would never admit that he actually likes it.

Speaker A: I don't think I taught high school. They're never going to tell you, but you'll see this.

Speaker E: You could tell when all of a sudden, you know, when he's talking back to his buddy and saying, come on, dude. I mean, how hard is this? And it's like, wow. For someone who's really a struggling reader to then feel empowered by something, um, is pretty cool.

Speaker A: Have you seen an increase in, um, percentages or proficiency with your students who are doing starry?

Speaker E: Yes, I have seen, especially with fluency, and I do, um, I use AIMSweb as a benchmarking tool and as a progress monitoring tool, um, for them, um, and have seen gains, um, both last year, this year, series three and series four have seen that they do make gains.

Speaker A: That's awesome. That's awesome. So what would you say to someone who's never used starry before and wants to Use series four.

Speaker E: The level four is definitely very, very good for high school level. And as far as things, as far as the materials and such are definitely the best for the high school level. As long as you have a dedicated course for that intervention, that tier two work, um, it's pretty ideal and it also probably is public. It's so I can take it as a resource, use a lot of it, and expand from my knowledge base. But I could also guess that if for some reason, say I needed to be gone for a while, the materials are planned well enough that you could even just have any English teacher or world language or el teacher, Someone who's like a language based educator could probably take the materials and it's detailed enough that they could use it. Most of my colleagues really have no idea what I do. They don't understand. Well, what do you mean is teaching reading at a high school level? What do you mean teaching reading? I mean high, uh, school teachers don't teach reading the same way. But this would make it accessible for someone if they said, oh, I suddenly have to teach a reading class, okay, this will teach you or help you with what you need to know. And then you'll be figuring out, oh yeah, that's what it means to teach reading. If you were a high school person without that literacy background, it would, it could work probably not as well as someone with a literacy background, but it would be able to be work which is, which is pretty good. I mean that's something that's. I would say, um, I definitely applaud the research and the detailed nature of all of the notes for teachers. I mean, I must admit I don't always look through the teachers step by step things as well because I just know what to do. But if I didn't know what to do, it would be amazing.

Speaker A: And the other side of a teacher who's used starry, uh, series one or two and they're a bit hesitant about using series four with their high schoolers. What would you say to that teacher?

Speaker E: I mean, 4.1 and 4.2 are my favorite two units of any of the units that I saw of any of the levels. As far as the, the books and the um, the topics and such. I would say give it, I mean, read them, give it a try. If you're, if something about it seems hesitant. I could see some teachers, if they didn't have that knowledge of um, of language, that maybe if they previewed the Yaqui Delgado and saw the amount of Spanish it was in it, they might get nervous thinking Oh, I already have struggling readers. Now you're adding in a different language to this a little bit more. They might be hesitant, but on the other hand. Well, why. I mean, that's what's around us anyway in the world. So, uh, I would encourage them to give it a try and be flexible.

Speaker A: And the last one on that one is, what would you say to an administrator who is hesitant about, you know, having their high school teachers use Series 4?

Speaker E: I would say if someone does have any hesitation, because, I mean, it was sort of funny when I mentioned the title and said, well, it does have to do with some bullying and some abuse, and there's some things in there that are pretty mature topics. But on the other hand, it's not what students don't see on a regular basis anyway, and it is those real, real life, realistic things that they encounter that makes it, uh, accessible to the students and that you can't. I mean, it's. I think it's really difficult for a high school to find, um, for a struggling reader, things that they will be interested in and to have found some things that the students are interested in. You have to grab at it no matter what, if one's hesitant or not.

Speaker A: Is there anything that I didn't ask or that you would want to share about Series four before we end this?

Speaker E: I appreciate the fact that it is something that takes place or that references a rural setting and the conflict between rural, like in his mind and the character, the rural versus the urban setting, and him having to adjust to that. Because my only critique for some of the previous units in the other series was that I can totally understand that where Starry is coming from and was founded in, in the populations that have been, that I've ever seen, being examples. It's a very urban setting. It's a very diverse setting, um, which doesn't apply to necessarily the entire country, unfortunately. I mean, that's just kind of not the way that it is. So they. I mean, my students have. They do struggle a little bit. For example, relating to Drew in Game and the idea of going around New York City, or even with the key a little bit with going around New York City, because those kinds of things they can totally not relate to at all. Um, whereas having something where, oh, I can relate to the idea that he's not familiar with using a bus or like a city bus or certain things they can really relate to.

Speaker A: Uh, so we've heard about the need, about how Series four was created and about how it's working in Sarah's classroom. Now I want to bring it all together and look forward. I'm back with Margaret and Emily. All three of the texts and nonfiction texts and novels all have, like, messy endings or they're not wrapped in a little bow. Um, I know that wasn't a top of mind when we were thinking about these books, but none of these books, novels or nonfiction texts, uh, the stories don't end in a pretty, you know, fairytale type of way. And what do you think about that for our first high school unit high school series?

Speaker C: I love that, and I think that's part of what makes it age appropriate, because life does not have fairytale endings with everything wrapped up with the bow. Um, and I think that the ending of Yaqui Delgado, where Yaqui's not kicked out of school, pity's the one who leaves. Uh, that could resonate with high school kids. You know, the ending of 15 and change where he thought he was gonna make money to get him and his mom back to Wisconsin. And his mom's like, actually, I'm getting married. We're stay here. You know, kids don't have the power to make those decisions. Even when their parents are making bad decisions, kids don't have the power to make a different decision. And that may resonate with some students. Um, so, yeah, you're right. I love it that you pointed that out, because we didn't choose the books intentionally with that in mind. But I do think that's part of what makes them age appropriate.

Speaker A: I can just add to that, as a former high school teacher, the messy endings students relate to a lot more. Oftentimes, their life isn't a fairy tale. Everything doesn't end up perfect for them in the end, and it all works out and everything. You know, I think that resonates with high school is a little bit more about, like, this is real life. Sometimes you don't get your way, but, you know, you learn from it somehow.

Speaker C: So I remember talking with a sari teacher about some of the topics that we have kids read about. Like, I think in particular, it was, um, a kid who's being raised by an older sibling, um, rather than a parent or some other things, like, you know, families struggling financially to get by or kids in foster care. Um, and she was saying, you know, there are kids in my class who are dealing with these issues, and they feel like they're the only one. So then when they read about it and they're like, oh, here is someone else dealing with this. It's not just me. It's not something that's wrong with me or something that I did wrong. This is a universal problem. I'm not the only one. Um, and that, that just makes them feel, you know, seen and supported in a way that a happy ending tied up with a bow might not resonate in quite the same way.

Speaker A: What are your hopes, goals? What do you see the Future for Series 4 and Starry Beyond?

Speaker B: Well, despite our best efforts, there are a lot of students in high school years and high school spaces that are still really working on developing these m not only foundational reading skills, but sort of the critical comprehension skills that we all know they need, um, regardless of whether they go to college or straight into the world of work when they finish. I also think that the publishing community is doing a much better job in recent years on putting out books that sort of fit the profile we're looking for with staari. So engaging topics for older students, but still accessible in that accessible Lexile range. So I think there's more and more material out there and a growing awareness that there are more kids that need this kind of intervention. Um,

Speaker A: Series four shows what's possible when researchers, designers, and teachers collaborate to meet a real need in the field, creating literacy interventions that high school students actually want to engage in, that build skills while building confidence and that show students they're not alone in their struggles. This is the work we're committed to at serc, creating tools that support both students and teachers that are grounded in research but shaped by practice. And then meet students where they are while respecting who they are. Before we sign off, I asked every guest this season one question. How did you learn to read? Here's a snippet of Sarah's story.

Speaker E: My parents read to me out loud, um, every single night. I never went to bed without a bedtime story. Um, especially from my dad, who was amazing at reading stories. And then I just. I grew up with two parents that read a lot in the home, and I was a library kid, so I was an early reader.

Speaker A: I want to extend a special thank you to Margaret, Emily, Matt, and Sarah for sharing their stories of Series four with us today. And thank you to all of our listeners for joining us on this journey behind the scenes of Starry.

Speaker C: Um,

Speaker A: thanks for listening to this episode of SERP Stories. If you want to learn more about Staari, visit serpinstitute.org staari and if you believe like we do, that middle school readers deserve better, share this episode, leave us a review, and follow along as we bring more research with purpose to the mic. I'm Dr. Kayla Jones. See you next time. SERP Storage is produced by the SERP Institute, where educators, researchers and designers come together to tackle school's most pressing challenges. Explore our work@serb institute.org. And now back to Matt M. Ellinger, SERP's creative director. Let's talk about color for a moment. Your intentionality with the series and all others is evident down to the color chosen. Each series has a corresponding color and the color for series four is purple. What was your thought process with that?

Speaker D: So there are lots of things you have to, I mean this is partly an organizational, um, decision in trying to keep the material sensible to people who are becoming oriented with the different series. But also the sort of majesty of the purple, um, is pretty, I don't know, significant. And I think that when I offered the team a selection of a number of colors and they picked the purple, um, they were all colors that work with the other colors, um, on a color wheel. But it has like a no kidding around feel to it, which I think is great for high school. Um, with the other series we have, um, been very conservative and it's less conservative in a sense. So in a way I think that that works for high school too.

Speaker A: I had never thought so intentionally about a color before math. So I thank you for letting the Starry team and our listeners get a little peek into how your mind works. Let's talk about the unit covers. How did you come up with the ideas for these?

Speaker D: The covers for Starry Units are always an interesting challenge. Um, so basically I get a synopsis of the book from Margaret and she um, will often talk about the reasons why the book was selected. But it's important that you don't just do an on the nose match with just the novel or the primary book for the unit because there are many different components. So there are all these different topics and for fluency and there are these other, um, books that are also part of the unit. So you have to make sure that it is very relevant that it's not just a match, it's not an illustration of the book or some companion to just the main book. Um, with the night sky, that's a beautiful image that we found that we use the person looking up at a night sky with possibilities and something about, you know, the night will come to an end. But you can, you will be able to get past this and the very optimistic um, picture but still very much in the dark right now. And I think that that's a very, um, apt, uh, image for 9th grade, 10th grade.

Speaker C: So the first draft of the Strength and Struggle cover, um, is a young woman with her fist up in the air. And when I saw it, I said to Matt, well, this shows strength but not struggle. Um, so then he changed it to this image, which it currently is, of a young woman up on a mountaintop, um, with her arms up in the air. So that really shows the strength and the struggle. You know, she had to struggle to get there. And now she's, um, displaying the strength that it took um, to persevere through that struggle.

Speaker A: And the covers for units 4.2 and 4.3 are equally as thoughtful, each one capturing something essential about the themes and the era those themes explore. But again, we'll save the deep dive on those for when we talk about their book selections in a future episode. The design choices made collaboratively by Matt and our starry team really do complement what's inside.

Speaker C: M.