SLJTeen Live!

I hope that you had a chance to attend today’s School Library Journal’s Teen Live. The all-day virtual summit is one of my favorite annual events and this year’s workshop – with the theme of knocking down doors - was no exception. The opening keynote from Samira Ahmed, author of INTERNMENT, was fabulous. She spoke about librarians as curators of culture and lifters of democracy – encouraging her audience by saying, “don’t be a by-stander, be an upstander.” The closing keynote from author and poet Nikki Grimes was very moving – look for her memoir in verse, ORDINARY HAZARDS, coming in October. In between there were sessions on the family, the power of love, writing non-fiction, choosing graphic novels for teens, and on partnering and collaboration. 

I found myself bouncing back and forth between concurrent sessions on Mental Health and Woke Collections – both echoed the importance of knowing your community. I loved the idea of librarians using our voices for kindness and the practical examples of programs and sources for data were very helpful. I know that with our emphasis on diversity and empathy this year that we will definitely be exploring resources like Diversity Talks and Racial Equity Institute which were recommended by Cassy Lee, Chinese American International School and Angel Tucker, Johnson County Library in Kansas in their presentation on activating empathy.  There were plenty of other opportunities to visit vendor booths and chat with authors, too. More information on SLJTeen Live!, including a list of presenters and book titles, is available at the link above or click on the logo image.

Writing To Persuade by Trish Hall

WRITING TO PERSUADE by Trish Hall, former editor of the New York Times Op-Ed page, explores “How to Bring People Over to Your Side.” In doing so, she shares anecdotes from her career and specific recommendations, especially about building empathy. Noting her desire to pass on what she has learned about writing and editing, Hall says, “be assured that using these methods, which require artistry, technique, and an understanding of human psychology, will increase your odds of success [in persuading someone to see your point of view].” Hall dedicated this work to her teachers and I believe that our teachers and students will benefit from reading this book and the other writing texts she mentions: Strunk and White’s Elements of Style, Zinsser’s On Writing Well, McPhee’s Draft No. 4, and Lamott’s Bird by Bird.  

WRITING TO PERSUADE is meant to be consulted frequently: it includes bolded sub-points and a helpful index. Plus, Hall uses the graphic of a conversation bubble to highlight key points (like lists of publications that liberals or conservatives should read/watch to better understand the other viewpoint). Even a short excerpt like the Preface, which lists and briefly explains Fifteen Principles of Persuasive Writing, will be valuable. One point I wish more students appreciated? “To write well, read omnivorously.” WRITING TO PERSUADE received a starred review from Library Journal.

The War for Kindness by Jamil Zaki

THE WAR FOR KINDNESS is written by Jamil Zaki, a professor of psychology at Stanford University and the director of the Stanford Social Neuroscience Lab. He explores “building empathy in a fractured world,” as also described in his interview with The Washington Post. In THE WAR FOR KINDNESS Zaki begins by discussing his own parents’ divorce and says, “that two people’s experiences could differ so drastically, yet both be true and deep, is maybe the most important lesson I’ve ever learned.” He then describes the different ways we respond with empathy, given that the “diameter of our concern … [now] encompasses the planet.” I was struck by his comments about the recent shift to a majority of people living in cities and in shrinking households so that “we see more people than ever before, but know fewer of them.” Employing a conversational tone and using many examples (ranging from convicts participating in a program called Changing Lives Through Literature to hospital employees avoiding burnout), Zaki continues with some of his subsequent chapters discussing The Stories We Tell, Caring Too Much and The Future of Empathy. There is an extensive website which accompanies THE WAR FOR KINDNESS. Videos there address five challenges: reverse the golden rule; spend kindly; disagree better; employ kind tech; and be a culture builder. 

Just under a third of the text is devoted to appendices, notes and index.  It is worth mentioning that one appendix deals with “Evaluating the Evidence” and includes a summary of each of the over four dozen claims made in the book, plus a rating on the claim’s strength and (for those with weaker ratings) a brief description of that reasoning. I found this section  - also available online - to be an extremely helpful summary; our Psych teachers and students will no doubt find it fascinating and inspirational to their research. In fact, I would suggest considering this title as a One School/One Book selection at the high school or college level with the option of including lesson plans like the related one posted by The New York Times or from Teaching Tolerance.  THE WAR FOR KINDNESS is excerpted in NPR’s recent review which praises Zaki’s compilation of research, and concludes: “To build empathy, one must have courage, engage in self-reflection, and harness the will to venture beyond isolation to the great unknown that is others.”  Huge, but worthwhile tasks for adolescents and the rest of us.