College and Career Readiness in Middle School:
From George Costanza to Oprah Winfrey
Jan Burkins ■ kim yaris ■ kathryn hoffmann-thompson
It takes courage to grow up and become who you really
are.
—e.e. cummings
I
n an episode of Seinfeld, George Costanza, after
quitting his job in real estate, is sitting on the floor
of Jerry Seindeld’s apartment contemplating what he is
going to do with the rest of his life. Clearly distressed
about the monumental decision before him, George
begins to discuss with Jerry the things he enjoys—sports
and movies. For both interests, George generates ideas
about related careers—such as sports commentator and
projectionist—and he and Jerry discuss the reasons these
jobs won’t work for George. The conversation continues
with the exchange below:
George: What about a talk show host?
Jerry: Talk show host . . . that’s good.
George: I think I’d be good at that. I talk to people all
the time. Someone even told me once they thought
I’d be a good talk show host.
Jerry: Really.
George: Yeah. A couple of people. I don’t get that
though. Where do you start?
Jerry: Well, that’s where it gets tricky. (David, 1991)
Deciding in adulthood to become a talk show host is
fraught with complications. In contrast, consider the
“career path” of Oprah Winfrey, as described in her
picture-book biography, Oprah: The Little Speaker
(Weatherford, 2015). As a child, Oprah memorized
poems and Bible verses and recited them for her
grandmother and her grandmother’s friends. Learning
to read at just three years old, books were windows for
her (Bishop, 1990). “On the farm, without so much as a
television, books showed her a wider world, a richer life”
(p. 12). Oprah discovered early that she loved to speak
to groups of people, and her grandmother nurtured this
interest. “When anyone asked Oprah what she would like
to be when she grew up, she’d say, ‘I want to be paid to
talk’” (p. 28). The rest, as they say, is history.
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We work in middle schools, most of which are
currently investing tremendous resources to support
students in preparation for college and careers, but we
can’t help but think of George Costanza and Oprah
Winfrey. While it seems that college- and careerreadiness ought to consider questions such as the one
Jerry asked George—What do you like to do?—and
intentionally mine and develop students’ interests to
unearth their passions, as Oprah’s grandmother did,
recent conversations about college- and career-readiness
focus more on quantifiables, such as a student’s ability to
read independently and proficiently at the upper range
of a grade-level Lexile band, as indicated by some online
assessment.
Naturally, this leaves many of us feeling exasperated
and worried about what will become of students
who attend schools with such narrow parameters
for college and career readiness. Already, we have
witnessed children feeling weary of the constant focus
on quantitative indicators, such as text complexity and
standardized measures of progress. In one middle school
Kim Yaris recently worked in, she gave students an article
titled “Scientists Look Back to See How They Found
Their Future,” in which successful scientists offered this
advice to middle school students, “ . . . grades are not the
only measure of knowledge” (Baker, 2016, p.3). When
asked to react to this sentence, a sixth-grade girl wrote
that she thought her sole purpose in being educated was
“to do great in school and learn without having fun.”
Another student asked, “If grades aren’t the only measure
of knowledge, what is?”
This experience and others like it make us wonder,
if there is little joy in learning, and preparedness for
life beyond school is evaluated only in terms of what
can be measured quantitatively in school today, how
do we know if children are genuinely “college- and
career- ready?” Are we measuring what we think we are
measuring? After all, George Costanza was a competent
reader.
Trends toward joyless, anxiety-ridden learning
environments are often attributed to the advent of the
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Common Core State Standards, which are commonly
interpreted in ways that place great emphasis on
presumably quantifiable aspects of instruction.
Education is rife, however, with examples of children
whose interests and talents—which later led to worldchanging careers—were not supported by traditional
classroom instruction.
Gillian Lynne attended school in England in the
1930s. At age eight, she could not sit still, lacked focus,
was underperforming in all aspects of school, and was
nicknamed “wriggle-bottom” (Lynne, 2011 p. 46). In
her autobiography she writes, “By the time I was eight,
it had become very clear that I suffered from some kind
of excess of energy (p. 46).” Exasperated, the school
notified her mother and suggested that her daughter may
need to attend a “school for children with special needs”
(Robinson & Aronica, p. 1).
Determined to better understand what was going
on, Gillian’s mother took her daughter to a doctor, who
observed the little girl’s behavior as he spoke with her
mother. Then, he explained to Gillian that he needed to
talk with her mother privately. Assuring the child that
all was well, the doctor turned on the radio and ushered
her mother out of the room. Meanwhile, the doctor
and the girl’s mother surreptitiously watched the little
girl through a small window in the door to the doctor’s
office. Almost immediately, the girl leaped off the couch
and began to dance to the rhythm of the music. Her
movements were graceful and seemed to come from a
place deep within her. The doctor turned to the mother
and very wisely said, “There is no trouble with this child,
Mrs. Pyrke. She is a natural dancer—you must take her
immediately to dance class” (Lynne, 2011, p. 46).
Gillian Lynne eventually grew up to become a world
class ballerina, eventually working with Andrew Lloyd
Weber and choreographing Cats and Phantom of the
Opera. How privileged Gillian was to have a mother
who had the resources and insight to look beyond
connections from
the recommendations of the school and seek another
opinion!
When we look at the sea of faces filling the classrooms
in which we work, we often wonder how many of the
children might be similar to Gillian, embodying some
latent talent or harboring the potential to change the
world while they complete aptitude Scantrons and
participate in online courses designed to set them on a
course for their future. We also wonder how many of
them, with narrow parameters for college and career
readiness and without someone like Gillian’s mother
or Oprah’s grandmother to advocate for them, might
not realize their potential, leaving them destined for
misguided college choices and unsatisfying careers,
much like George Costanza.
As schools across the country work to teach the
Common Core State Standards, we wish that there was
more space for the “common core of experience,” as
described by Louise Rosenblatt (1968), giving students
opportunities to look for the ways they see themselves
in texts, particularly those that show them pathways
into possibilities for their future. While education as
an institution perseverates on standardized test data, it
seems to us that thoughts of children graduating without
understanding what sets them ablaze from within
and how such passion might be of service to the world
should be of equal concern. We think the question that
educators really need to be asking is, “How can we help
children discover their passions and develop visions for
their great futures while also increasing their reading
proficiency?”
We find that middle school, when students’ quests
for identity are on overdrive, is an optimal time to help
students deeply explore the rich and diverse possibilities
for futures that connect to the things that bring them
joy. But, how might educators engage in this added layer
of college and career thinking when supporting reading
competency in middle school requires such tremendous
readwritethink
In this lesson from ReadWriteThink.org, students are introduced to familiar characters, from
literature and from popular culture, whom readers first encounter as adults, but whose
childhood stories are only told later. Students first discuss characters from texts they’ve read.
They then discuss the characteristics and stories of other familiar literary characters who are
first introduced as adults. Then, in groups, students plan their own versions of a childhood
for a selected character, and describe that childhood in the form of a short story, journal
entry, or time capsule letter.
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http://bit.ly/WVg9JD
Lisa Storm Fink
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resources? We can begin by introducing students to Jane
Goodall.
Reading as Jane Goodall Read
When Jane Goodall was ten years old, she announced
to her family that when she grew up, she wanted to go
to Africa to study and write about animals. This was
unusual on many counts. During 1940s England, people
didn’t often leave their home country for work in faraway,
exotic locales. Add to that that Jane was a girl, and the
idea seemed doubly preposterous. So where did a young
girl living in the English countryside come up with such
an idea?
Jane Goodall was an avid reader—including Dr.
Dolittle and Tarzan of the Apes—as well as countless
informational books about all varieties of animals
and things related to nature. Based on the research by
Cipielewski & Stanovich (1992) that suggests that reading
“volume is linked to attaining the higher order literacy
proficiencies” (Allington, 2006, p. 35), we can reasonably
assume that Jane’s reading life contributed to her growing
proficiency as a reader. Of even greater importance,
however, is the way in which Jane Goodall’s reading
Figure 1: The “Heart, Head, Hands, and Feet” (HHHF)
graphic organizer
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choices empowered her to imagine a unique future for
herself. Given the direct connection between the books
she read and her college and career path, it feels as if what
happened to Jane was magical. We believe, however, that
replicating that “magic” in classrooms is possible and
at least worth the effort. In fact, the real magic isn’t just
that students discover unique paths for themselves, paths
that help them meet both short-term goals (test scores)
and long-term goals (predispositions towards lifelong
learning) for college- and career-readiness, but that this
work also brings more joy into classrooms.
A Magical Path to Authentic Reading
When middle school aged children are asked what
they want to be when they grow up, many of them
will shrug their shoulders, while others will offer the
old standbys—doctor, lawyer, teacher, professional
basketball player. While all worthy professions, we tend
to believe that students default to these ideas because
they have limited knowledge about other possibilities.
In an effort to help students learn about other careers
and potentially formulate unique visions for their own
futures, we (Jan Burkins and Kim Yaris) worked with
Kathryn Hoffmann-Thompson, a fifth and sixth-grade
teacher in a school on a Native American reservation
in the rural Midwest. Like many middle schoolers,
these students have limited exposure to the variety of
ways their interests could become career options. In
collaboration with Kathryn, we developed a biography
unit of study around the “Heart, Head, Hands, and
Feet” lesson (HHHF), from Reading Wellness: Lessons in
Independence and Proficiency (Burkins and Yaris, 2014).
To launch the unit, Kathryn gathered her students on
the floor and read aloud Me . . . Jane (McDonnell, 2011).
Next, she introduced her students to the HHHF graphic
organizer, presented in Figure 1. Together, they went
back to the text to think about Jane’s experiences from
childhood through her arrival in Africa.
Beginning first with the heart, Kathryn asked her
students to think about what Jane loved to do. Moving
next to the thought bubble (head) on the graphic
organizer, she filled in Goodall’s vision for her future—
”Jane dreamed of a life in Africa, too. A life working
with, and helping all animals” (McDonnell, pp. 26–28).
Finally, on the hands and feet of the graphic organizer,
Kathryn and her students carefully noted the actions
Goodall took to attain her goal. The completed HHHF
graphic organizer for Jane Goodall follows in Figure 2.
For the remainder of the first week of the unit,
Kathryn read aloud HHHF picture-book biographies
and increasingly relied on the students to complete an
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Figure 2: Completed HHHF graphic organizer on Jane
Goodall
HHHF graphic organizer for each. It is important to note
that all of the picture-book biographies used in this unit
were carefully selected because they begin by describing
the character’s childhood. This helps students to learn
that their actions can influence their futures and that
when they connect their actions to the things they love
most, they can discover opportunities and possibilities
that help forge a path to their careers.
With each biography, students grew more and more
excited. One student reflected, “Everyday we get to learn
about a new person, place, time, and how excited people
were about their passions. They found ways to explore
what they loved no matter what.” Kathryn also noticed
that the students were making connections to the setting
of historical fiction through a deeper awareness of how
the context of time and place impacted the lives of real
people.
Next, students began to read other HHHF biographies
of influential people—Jacques Cousteau, Jimi Hendrix,
Oprah Winfrey, Peter Roget, Wilma Rudolph, and Pablo
Neruda—and completed graphic organizers individually
and with partners. As students learned about these
influential people, they began to notice similarities in
their stories, which led them to conclude that moving in
the direction of one’s dream often requires traits such as
curiosity, tenacity, perseverance, and determination. The
students returned to the picture-book biographies again
and again throughout the entire unit as touchstones that
made these big concepts concrete.
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Of course, reading aloud picture-book biographies
was only the beginning of the work. As students were
immersed in conversations about the famous or unique
individuals featured in the biographies, Kathryn next
asked students to consider their own interests. They were
given a blank copy of the HHHF graphic organizer (or
they drew their own), and over the course of several days,
they wrote the things they were interested in and truly
enjoyed in their hearts. In Figure 3, Thomas has written
his interests in his heart. He has also circled the interest
about which he is most enthusiastic.
Focusing on topics and experiences that are
interesting to students shifts the energy of the classroom,
a shift that continued as students searched the classroom
and library for informational books about some of the
topics listed in their heart. This book selection was aided
by Kathryn who helped her students see connections that
might have otherwise gone unnoticed. For example, a
student who indicated that he likes Legos was inclined to
select The Lego Ideas Book. Kathryn, however, was able to
also point out that a book on design or architecture could
also be of interest to the student.
To further aid in text selection around their interests,
and to teach students a process for mining the topics
that gave them energy, Kathryn created an exercise
Figure 3: Thomas’s heart from his HHHF graphic organizer
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Figure 4: Thomas’s “exploded” heart
she referred to as “exploding your heart.” She shared
Fifty Cents and a Dream: Young Booker T. Washington
(Asim, 2012) with students, which describes Booker T.
Washington’s 500-mile trek to learn to read. She asked
her students to look at what was written in the hearts of
their HHHF graphic organizers and identify the interest
for which they would be willing to walk 500 miles. She
asked, “What would you be willing to walk 500 miles
to learn more about or to do?” Then students took
that interest and “exploded” it, revealing details about
themselves as learners and as people. This expanded
understanding of what appeals to the students about
their topic provided insights for Kathryn into how she
might differentiate instruction and create more obvious
links between students’ interests and the learning they
do across the day in school. Thomas’s exploded heart,
developed around his interest in “being outside,” is
presented in Figure 4.
Over the next few weeks, Kathryn and her students
searched for books and other resources that supported
students’ investigations of their topics. After students
selected informational texts related to the topics
inscribed upon their hearts, Kathryn dedicated several
weeks to allowing students to explore their informational
texts. She supported them with authentic, in-themoment mini-lessons about how to read informational
texts. Because they were reading about things that were
important and interesting to them, students relished
the time they were given to do this and often explored
unexpected avenues of learning.
As they read, students completed an HHHF graphic
organizer on themselves, putting possibilities for their
futures into the thought bubble and writing action steps
in the hands and feet. Students oftentimes spontaneously
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shared with their
peers what they
were learning, and
engaged in fascinating
conversations
that invigorated
and inspired their
classmates and
Kathryn. The
explorations of
the picture-book
biographies helped
students imagine
new possibilities for
their own futures.
For example, one pair
of students, after reading a picture-book biography of
William Carlos Williams (Bryant, 2008) and marveling
at his ability to continue to make time to write even
during his busy work as a doctor, spontaneously located a
book of his poetry and began reading his poems together.
While it is not uncommon for middle school students
to resist reading, especially nonfiction, Kathryn’s
students embraced it, creating optimal conditions for
Kathryn to nudge them to read closely and carefully and
to think about the possibilities for their futures. Figure 5
presents Aurora’s HHHF graphic organizer.
One of Kathryn’s goals for the HHHF unit was
to help the students to envision ways that they could
Figure 5: Aurora’s HHHF graphic organizer
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pursue their passions throughout their school years
and beyond. So the culminating project was to picture
themselves fifty years into the future and write a picturebook biography about their possible paths in life. Over
the course of the unit, the students had internalized the
big ideas of the HHHF biographies and incorporated
the themes into their work. They drew on the HHHF
organizers they had made for themselves and revisited
the classroom wall covered with those they had created
from the dozens of picture-book biographies that had
been read. In the final stories they crafted and illustrated,
there were experienced and anticipated obstacles to
overcome, a relentless drive to pursue their passions, and
an overarching understanding of the power of learning.
Each child saw that they, too, could do this work. Figures
6 and 7 present pages from Aurora’s autobiography.
Closing Thoughts
We are concerned that many schools, in a shortsighted
effort to raise test scores, may be communicating to
students that reading and writing serve the school’s
purposes, not theirs. In an age when numbers seem to
matter most, and a national push for college- and careerreadiness revolves around quantitative definitions of
reading level and interactions with short, dry passages,
we invite you to consider broader definitions of what
it means to prepare for life after high school. Our
collaboration with Kathryn Hoffman-Thompson and our
work with other teachers implementing “Heart, Head,
Hands, and Feet” explorations, convince us that efforts
to help students find their paths into adulthood need not
only give them the fundamentals of reading and writing,
but can also give them agency around their inalienable
right to the pursuit of happiness.
For a complete list of the Heart, Head, Hands and Feet
biographies, go to Booksource.com and search “HHHF.”
References
Allington, R. (2006). What really matters for struggling readers:
Designing research- based programs. Boston, MA: Pearson.
Asim, J. (2012). Fifty cents and a dream: Young Booker T.
Washington. New York, NY: Little Brown and Company.
Baker, A. (2016, February 3). Scientists look back to see how they
found their future. Newsela. Retrieved from https://news
ela.com/articles/lessons-youngscientists/id/14698/
Figure 6: Interior page from Aurora’s biography
Bishop, R. S. (1990). Mirrors, windows, and sliding glass doors. In
Perspectives: Choosing and using books for the classroom, 6,
ix–xi.
Bryant, J. (2008). A river of words: The story of William Carlos
Williams. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans for Young Readers.
Burkins, J. M., & Yaris, K. (2014). Reading wellness: Lessons in
independence and proficiency. Portsmouth, ME: Stenhouse.
Cipielewski, J., & Stanovich, K. (1992). Predicting growth in
reading ability from children’s exposure to print. Journal of
Experimental Child Psychology, 54, 74–89.
David, L. (Writer), & Cherones, T. (Director). (1991, April 18). The
revenge [Television series episode]. In L. David (Producer),
Seinfeld. New York, NY: West-Shapiro Productions.
Lynne, G. (2011). Dancer in wartime: One girl’s journey from the
blitz to Sadler’s Wells. London: Chatto & Windus.
McDonnell, P. (2011). Me . . . Jane. New York, NY: Little, Brown.
Robinson, K., & Aronica, L. (2009). The element: How finding your
passion changes everything. New York, NY: Viking.
Figure 7: A second interior page from Aurora’s biography
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Rosenblatt, L. (1968) Literature as exploration. London: Heinemann.
Weatherford, C. B. (2010). Oprah: The little speaker. New York, NY:
Marshall Cavendish.
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