Some people are born into their callings.
Consider Melanie Koss.
“I just grew up loving books. I don’t ever remember a time when I wasn’t a book lover. I learned to read very young, and even before I learned to read, I would carry around books and ‘read’ the pictures, according to my parents,” says Koss, a professor of Literacy Education in the NIU Department of Curriculum” and Instruction.
That meant never being happy with only a single book at hand: “I just wanted to be surrounded by them,” she says, “in case I needed another one.”
Why?
“Reflecting back on it as an adult – I can’t really speak for the child me – I just loved jumping into the worlds of others. I loved the squiggles on the page having meaning. I loved the pictures,” she says. “I loved just being able to be transported into another world, into the life of a character, into seeing silly escapades and animals. I loved the opportunities that books provided.”
Likewise, the destiny of teaching took root early.
“Being a teacher is just who I am,” Koss says. “I always knew I was going to be teacher. It’s just part of me, and I think that there are some people who that’s just who they are. It doesn’t matter the age group. When you love to teach, you teach – whether it’s a first-grader, a high schooler or a college student. I just am a teacher.”
Her job in the NIU College of Education, where in 2018 she became the first Senior Faculty Fellow, allows her to combine those two passions.
“My goal is for people, if they used to be readers, is to rekindle that love of reading. Or, if they’ve never considered themselves a reader, to find a couple of books that make them see themselves as readers and enjoy what books have to offer,” Koss says.
“In teaching – in sharing my excitement – my love of literature can then transfer onto others,” she adds. “I always tell my students that if they end up finding a book that they love, or if they love reading half as much as I do, then we’re in great shape.”
And it’s going well.
Koss, who joined NIU in 2008, has been named the 2022 Great Professor by the University Honors Program.
Established in 2001, the award recognizes a faculty or staff member who has, over time, contributed significantly to honors education at NIU through teaching as well as advising, research, artistry or service. Recipients manifest leadership, dedication and service to the University Honors Program and to NIU honors students.
“It means a lot to hear that my students and others consider me a great professor because I do it for them. The class is not my class; it’s our class,” says Koss, who appreciates their “investment” in their own learning.
“One of my mottos is, ‘Are you here to learn, or are you here to earn?’ If you’re here to earn points just to get a grade, then that’s not what I’m interested in. I’m here for you to learn, and I promise you that if you come in willing to learn, you will learn what you want to learn because you’re invested in the process of learning,” she says.
“I don’t care about your grade. I care about what you learn, and that’s a really hard thing for college students to understand, especially since I feel they’ve been trained in high school or even other college classes that their self-worth is wrapped up in their grade,” she adds.
“That makes me really sad, because I don’t think a person who gets straight A’s necessarily learns as much, or takes away as much, from a course as someone who gets a lot of B’s and C’s because they struggle with the trappings of academics. But they’re learning – and growing.”
FOR KOSS, THE GOAL IS to “create an atmosphere in my classroom of collaboration and respect and to give my students a lot of ownership.” Participation and disagreement are welcome and accepted.
“Part of being a teacher is being a good learner. I enjoy teaching because I really enjoy connecting with my students, and I like learning from them: My students have insights. They have lived experiences. They have knowledge that I don’t have,” Koss says.
“And so, in talking about a book, or a concept, or a movie, they’ll come in with their own personal experiences, and they read it differently than me,” she adds.
“If we read a book that has to do with immigration or what’s happening at the border, and the ICE and the ICE camps, and I have students who are from Mexico, or their families are from Mexico, or they’re in Mexico, and they’ve experienced things similar to what the characters in the book are going through, I’m going to learn so much from them because they have personal insight.”
Students in her honors seminar write her letters at the midterm as a check-in; she responds.
The letters tell Koss what the students are enjoying about the course and why. They tell her what they would like to learn during the rest of the semester. They express their goals for themselves.
Others use the letters as a comfortable way to describe their personalities.
“Many students are very afraid to talk in front of other people,” she says. “I used to be like that. I totally understand where they’re coming from, and at some point, you will realize that nobody cares. No one is judging you for what you’re saying. They’re just so happy that you’re talking so that they don’t have to. Then, at some point, you just have to say, ‘I can’t worry about what others think of me. I want to learn.’ ”
KOSS HAS DONE MORE than teach during her time at NIU, of course.
As Senior Faculty Fellow, she nurtured collaborationbetween the Children’s Literature Teaching Collection in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction and STEM Read. As a result, she has joined with her NIU STEAM colleagues to deliver their STEM Read Institute events.
As chair of the Michael L. Printz Award committee of the American Library Association in 2017, she helped to select “March: Book Three” by the now-late Congressman John Lewis, Andrew Aydin and Nate Powell for that year’s prize for excellence in young adult literature.
As a speaker at the College of Education’s Social Justice Summer Camp, and as a guest on the camp’s 2020 series of podcasts during COVID-19 quarantine, she cautioned educators to beware their nostalgia regarding books they assign or offer in their libraries.
As a researcher, she reviewed 455 children’s pictures books published in 2012 to measure their representation of diversity.
Her findings, reported in a 2015 edition of the Journal of Children’s Literature, found that the majority of that year’s picture books for children featured white as both the primary culture and the secondary culture, preventing children of color from seeing faces like theirs on the pages.
Through it all, Koss has remained true to her passions – and to preparing teachers who will instill a love of reading in their classrooms and students.
She wants her licensure candidates to believe that “there’s a right book for the right reader at the right time,” citing Drury’s Principles.
Melanie Koss (back) observes educators designing secret clues to covertly alert their unknown comrades during a STEM Read Summer Institute on “The Detective’s Assistant.”
“It’s kind of like dating: You just need to find that right match,” Koss says. “My philosophy is just exposure, letting people know what’s out there – that it’s not the same books from your childhood like ‘The Very Hungry Caterpillar’ or ‘The Cat in the Hat.’ There are hundreds and thousands and millions of books out there on every topic you can imagine, targeting all types of different readers.”
Future teachers in her classroom also understand that books are more than tools to teach.
“How about we just read a book for the enjoyment of reading and for the experience that it gives us?” she asks. “I think that takes away the pressure of, ‘You need to use this book to teach something’ or that all books need to have a lesson. No; they don’t. They just need to be enjoyed and consumed.”
Graduates of her courses also know to use books as “springboards for difficult conversations.”
“There are a lot of things going on in the world – there always were, and there always will be,” Koss says. “Using a book is a great entry point into having a discussion, for many different reasons, and so I think there’s a lot of value in children’s or young adult literature. I don’t want to discount books for older readers, but there’s just a really rich opportunity for teachers to bring in children’s literature for all ages.”
Children or young adults can explore the emotions and thoughts of the characters in the books. They can ponder why the characters are doing the things they’re doing. They can connect the stories on the page to the topics of discussion in the classroom.
Meanwhile, she tells her Huskies, children or teens might find themselves as “the right readers at the right time” with the right books who have launched their journeys of literacy.
Melanie Koss
“Most people don’t just pick up a book and start reading. You have to learn all of the secrets behind the letters, and how the words and pictures go together. You have to practice,” Koss says, “and so I think that finding books that you connect with – finding books that make you smile; finding books that you want to read – is going to encourage you to read and practice, and as you read more, you’re going to get better.”
Koss hopes that her alumni who currently are teaching are “surviving” the challenges of the pandemic as well as the expectations “that have nothing to do with teaching.”
She also hopes they are confident in the abilities of their students, that they give their students “credit for being able to handle a lot” and are using literature as a catalyst to tackle tough topics.
Her own lifelong romance with books is a dynamic one.
Some that she picks up fail to enthrall her, she confesses, and might fall victim to the “50-page rule.” That’s especially true of books she reads for pleasure but not those she’s reading for work, which she does finish.
“Every book is different, and your relationship with every book is different. Some stand up to multiple readings. Some you barely make it through one,” Koss says.
“Yet if I have a book that I am sucked into, and that I care about and I’m invested in, then the rest of the world goes away. I just want to read that book; to be in that world; to have those experiences,” she adds. “On the flip side, sometimes a book is so intense that I have to put it down and walk away and process my feelings. I need to think about it, and maybe I need to go back and re-read something or take a break and come back when I’m ready.”
January 2017: Melanie Koss honors the now-late Congressman John Lewis with the prestigious Michael L. Printz Award.
Consequently, she can neither pick a favorite book for herself nor recommend a book for everyone.
“I don’t think there’s a one-size-fits-all book. I could say that everyone should read ‘Land of the Cranes’ so that they could see what’s going on at the border or that everyone should read ‘The Hate U Give’ because you could really learn about race relations in America,” Koss says.
“But I don’t think I need to hand a book about what’s happening at the border to someone who’s lived it, who’s experienced it and who knows it intimately,” she adds. “I think I need to give it to someone who doesn’t know what’s going on – who just isn’t aware of things or doesn’t understand.”
