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Read…Reassure…Repeat. By Shayla Miller. A Remedy of Reading: Breaking Through Bipolar Disorder. How does reading impact the intense mood swings felt by one bipolar student?. Why Her? Why This Topic?. Free therapy Both book worms My college experience Our first encounter.
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Read…Reassure…Repeat By Shayla Miller
A Remedy of Reading: Breaking Through Bipolar Disorder How does reading impact the intense mood swings felt by one bipolar student?
Why Her? Why This Topic? • Free therapy • Both book worms • My college experience • Our first encounter
How Did We Get Here? • Fernbank Elementary • Emory/ CDC • Inclusion Classroom • Homeschooled Until Now • Midyear Entry into Class
How Will We Get Answers? • Interview student • Reading Interest Survey • Interview parent • Journal entries • Observations
Who Is She? • 10 years old, White female • Early puberty, tall and thin • Homeschooled/ Brilliant • Quiet, reserved, and mature • Massive amounts of family tension
What Does Everyone Else Think? Students Teachers troubled scarred lonely angry mentally disturbed • weird • mean • scary • quiet • sad
What is She Like? In-School Out-of-School depends on the day depends on the observer happy angry swimming and piano won’t eat or sleep childlike adolescent tendencies emotional • depends on the day • depends on the observer • helpful • withdrawn • loves reading and writing • unmotivated • playful • moody
What She Says… • “I love reading. I disappear from here and go there and no one sees me but I’m there.” • “It calms me down. I get really mad and I don’t know why…and if people let me read then I’m fine.” • “I’ll read it but I really only like when things are stories. Everything should be a story.”
I Finally Figured Her Out Before After more class participation USUALLY smiling completes work homework still an issue pride in work better penmanship more detailed • unfinished work • no motivation for school or work • unhappy and temperamental • sloppy • least amount of effort possible
What Was Used? Materials Strategies choices, choices, choices adaptive scheduling comics, poems, and kids’ books collaborative learning directed reading literature searches • historical fiction • newspaper articles • blogs • journal entries • novel study packets • reading inventories • pretests
What Did I Learn About Her? • interviews and inventories showed: • manages mood swings with reading • escapes peer judgment with reading • journal and observations showed: • heightened stress over peer assumptions • reading allows her to forget being different
What Did I Learn About Teaching? • don’t judge a book by its cover • you can’t fix all problems, but you can help ease the stress • great need for teacher training in mental disorders
What’s Next For Her? • individualized education plan • opportunities to co-teach • long, hard journey with medicines, treatments, and therapy