Tag Archives: reading

Students Fostering a Love for Reading:

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Here are a few of the great things I’ve seen in my classroom so far; students sharing and talking with other students about the books they are reading, a genuine excitement to tell me about their books, and students who never liked to read before devouring books and loving it!

During the first 9 weeks, I decided to incorporate an individual reading book project that would create an opportunity for students to share with their peers what they have been reading, publish their work outside of the classroom, and showcase their own talents and skills when designing their presentations and products. Some students created annotated soundtracks for their novels, shared Spotify playlists with their friends, and designed album artwork using Canva to compliment the themes or events in their novels. Some students started blogs or participated in blogs already created over the discussion of their chosen novels. Many students created character portraits and they researched different mediums that would best illustrate the style and personalities of their chosen characters. A few students decided to write letters to the author’s and are excitedly waiting for a possible reply. Students also had the opportunity to design their own projects to fit the needs of their chosen text. Photo stories, pamphlets to advocate, videos, recited monologs, and so much more. Every student embraced this opportunity and really impressed me with the level of work and creativity they put into it.

 

Some students created annotated soundtracks for their novels, shared Spotify playlists with their friends, and designed album artwork to compliment the themes or events in their novels.

I am seeing their excitement for reading extend into their writing as well. The workshop method has created so many opportunities for my students to collect new vocabulary and experiment with styles used by the author’s we are reading. My students are also adding experiences and perspectives to their own writing arsenal that they might never have considered before.

The Joy of Letting Go: Introducing Student Choice and Leadership in the English II Pre-AP Classroom

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The final days of any school year are usually filled with a mixture of relief, excitement, and expectation. Students are pumped to finish their exams, turn in their books, and retreat through the school doors into a promising three month sojourn of staying up late, sleeping in, catching up on their YouTube subscriptions, and producing endless Snapchat stories that will immortalize their teen-angst in cyberspace for much longer than many of them realize. With all this budding freedom at their fingertips, the next book my students are going to read this summer is the farthest thing from any of their minds.

In the past, I would always end each school year with a smile and a strong sense of satisfaction because I knew that the books I had assigned throughout the year were rich with history, shared cultural experiences, and academic merit that would prepare them for the rigorous reading expectations of college.

How could this type of exposure and expected rigor ever harm my student’s academic progress? Well, I knew many of my students were reading and enjoying the books I had prescribed, but I also observed that their innate desire to read and seek knowledge outside of the assigned reading was low, and to my chagrin, many students would omit to only reading sections of the book that they knew they would be tested on. For an avid reader and a lover of literature, this realization was heartbreaking.

I think the unsettling reality that my students were not really becoming life-long readers when they left my classroom had suddenly burrowed in deep, and I knew I would have to make a change. Continue reading →