Standard 2: Literacy and Reading
2.2.1. Reading Promotion:Candidates use a variety of strategies to promote leisure reading and model personal enjoyment of reading in order to promote habits of creative expression and lifelong reading.
At a meeting I attended for English department chairs, the curriculum specialist gave us a copy of Readicide by Kelly Gallagher. I am not one to actively pick up professional reading; give me a good novel any day over a book about an educational strategy. However, Gallagher’s book is not too dry as he questions the state of reading in today’s schools. He notes that current educational practice is “killing” reading for pleasure. But, I want to know how involved the school librarians are in these schools he observes where recreational reading is dying. Because in my school and others I have visited where there are excellent school librarians, any “killing” that is happening in classrooms is revived in the library as students enjoy reading and express this enjoyment through a number of creative outlets.
In my internship, I contributed to a number of reading promotions, two in particular. My school librarian and I created morning announcements for banned books week, where we promoted five books in particular. Similarly, we are co-advisors for this year’s book club and have based our book choices around both the Maryland Black-Eyed Susan choices and Oakdale student-driven choices. Because of our interest and the school-wide exposure, the programs have succeeded in bringing about increased circulation of young adult literature.
During Banned Books Week (September 19-23), we ran five videos on the morning announcements, each one highlighting a 2010 challenged book. Each announcement provided a short summary of the book, an explanation of why it was challenged, and the public responses to the challenges. During each announcement, I discussed the book with a bear puppet. Oakdale’s mascot is the bear, and my mentor, Renate Owen, wanted to integrate a puppet into the announcements. Before she was a high school librarian, Renate worked in an elementary school where puppets were prominent items in her library. Her use of puppets is unorthodox for a high school setting, though, and I was a little uncomfortable about sitting and conversing with one in front of my teenage students. Students even remarked that the puppet was juvenile. And yet, droves of students visited the library each day, browsing the banned books display, reading why titles had been banned, and checking out banned books. The display, by the end of the week, was bare. This had been my first experience with a legitimate school library promotion plan as an actual librarian; I was thrilled.
Last year, when my involvement in her library was still undecided, Renate asked if I wanted to co-advise the book club with her. She had an eclectic selection of students in book club last year, and allowing them to select the books for the year had actually been a difficult process because many of the students associated themselves with only one genre of literature: Manga. And while she did attempt to work graphic novels into the reading list, the students in the book club who did not read Manga showed no interest in reading any. For this year, we decided to establish the readings. We listed some Black-Eyed Susan titles with the understanding that we would tap into the students’ interests for the reading selections in mid-late spring. I created a brochure for the book club, and we advertised using morning announcements and a table at the freshman orientation. We also targeted some regulars from the library last year who seemed to be open to a variety of genres. Currently, Renate and I are setting up a Twitter list for the book club and have sent home Twitter permission forms with the club members. Over the course of the year, the students will have used or will use Twitter, the book club blog, and roundtable discussions as a means to creatively share their own thoughts about the books. So often, as Kelly Gallagher believes, the reading that happens in school is driven by the teacher. The book club’s discussion arenas are in place for the students to enjoy the books and share their enjoyment in creative and unique ways.
In the Young Adult literature class, my favorite assignment was the book talk because my classmates and I had a reason to discuss a number of books as students might in a book club. We each chose a young adult author, read some of his or her books, and then book talked one of the titles with the class. I chose Gail Giles, and I book talked her thriller Shattering Glass. This project is another example of a book promotion plan, because everything I completed was geared toward making her and her novels as appealing as possible to a teenage audience. During my time with the banned books week announcements and the new book club initiatives, I felt the way I did when I presented my book talk to my Young Adult Literature classmates. Students actually listen to teachers and school librarians when it comes to reading. Students trust their judgment and are willing to take on new reading challenges. My husband, a teacher also, completely disagrees with Kelly Gallagher’s statement in Readicide. He feels like students are reading more than ever, because he feels like he has to “make” students put their books away in math class. Just his comment alone made me confident that I am about to enter a profession that most certainly is the rebirth of lifelong reading..
In my internship, I contributed to a number of reading promotions, two in particular. My school librarian and I created morning announcements for banned books week, where we promoted five books in particular. Similarly, we are co-advisors for this year’s book club and have based our book choices around both the Maryland Black-Eyed Susan choices and Oakdale student-driven choices. Because of our interest and the school-wide exposure, the programs have succeeded in bringing about increased circulation of young adult literature.
During Banned Books Week (September 19-23), we ran five videos on the morning announcements, each one highlighting a 2010 challenged book. Each announcement provided a short summary of the book, an explanation of why it was challenged, and the public responses to the challenges. During each announcement, I discussed the book with a bear puppet. Oakdale’s mascot is the bear, and my mentor, Renate Owen, wanted to integrate a puppet into the announcements. Before she was a high school librarian, Renate worked in an elementary school where puppets were prominent items in her library. Her use of puppets is unorthodox for a high school setting, though, and I was a little uncomfortable about sitting and conversing with one in front of my teenage students. Students even remarked that the puppet was juvenile. And yet, droves of students visited the library each day, browsing the banned books display, reading why titles had been banned, and checking out banned books. The display, by the end of the week, was bare. This had been my first experience with a legitimate school library promotion plan as an actual librarian; I was thrilled.
Last year, when my involvement in her library was still undecided, Renate asked if I wanted to co-advise the book club with her. She had an eclectic selection of students in book club last year, and allowing them to select the books for the year had actually been a difficult process because many of the students associated themselves with only one genre of literature: Manga. And while she did attempt to work graphic novels into the reading list, the students in the book club who did not read Manga showed no interest in reading any. For this year, we decided to establish the readings. We listed some Black-Eyed Susan titles with the understanding that we would tap into the students’ interests for the reading selections in mid-late spring. I created a brochure for the book club, and we advertised using morning announcements and a table at the freshman orientation. We also targeted some regulars from the library last year who seemed to be open to a variety of genres. Currently, Renate and I are setting up a Twitter list for the book club and have sent home Twitter permission forms with the club members. Over the course of the year, the students will have used or will use Twitter, the book club blog, and roundtable discussions as a means to creatively share their own thoughts about the books. So often, as Kelly Gallagher believes, the reading that happens in school is driven by the teacher. The book club’s discussion arenas are in place for the students to enjoy the books and share their enjoyment in creative and unique ways.
In the Young Adult literature class, my favorite assignment was the book talk because my classmates and I had a reason to discuss a number of books as students might in a book club. We each chose a young adult author, read some of his or her books, and then book talked one of the titles with the class. I chose Gail Giles, and I book talked her thriller Shattering Glass. This project is another example of a book promotion plan, because everything I completed was geared toward making her and her novels as appealing as possible to a teenage audience. During my time with the banned books week announcements and the new book club initiatives, I felt the way I did when I presented my book talk to my Young Adult Literature classmates. Students actually listen to teachers and school librarians when it comes to reading. Students trust their judgment and are willing to take on new reading challenges. My husband, a teacher also, completely disagrees with Kelly Gallagher’s statement in Readicide. He feels like students are reading more than ever, because he feels like he has to “make” students put their books away in math class. Just his comment alone made me confident that I am about to enter a profession that most certainly is the rebirth of lifelong reading..