Alas, the last day of our spring break has arrived, and though I lament the loss of sleeping in and long mid-day walks, I'm ready to be back in the classroom, where I can rely on structure and the kids to get me through the day. And, thankfully, Mick's recovery from surgery went quickly and smoothly, so "structure" actually means "structure" this time, not "immediately plan and implement a unit on radio plays because you went through that short story too quickly." Which is what I did, if you want to know.
This first week back, we'll be starting our literature circles, which are basically like mini in-class book clubs. Mick and I will give book talks on six or seven novels, the kids rank them in order of which they'd like to read most, and after they are grouped, each set of kids goes through the novels at a logical pace. The groups have a number of different jobs to be completed every day or so, but it will largely be based on group discussion. Though these tasks will likely prompt the majority of their conversations, the intended outcome of this unit is that the students will be able to pick out (and pick apart) the important and interesting talking points of a novel with little or no help from an adult.
Before I go any further, I should let you know that I adore YA lit. My first semester at the University of Montana I took a class called Teaching Young Adult Literature that has helped me immensely during my student teaching. One of the most significant things I took away from that class was, of all things, what I did and didn't like about science fiction, and why; I had perhaps unfairly written off the entire genre and refused to believe I would enjoy any novel ever set in space or the distant future. After reading House of the Scorpion by Nancy Farmer, however, my whole mindset changed. As I wrote in my final synthesis paper:
I found that this book ended up being one of my favorites from the entire semester, and proved to me once and for all that I should not judge a book by its cover.
What this reinforced for me is two separate thoughts. First and foremost, it will always remain true that not every student we ever have will love every book we choose. Each has their preferences, and it is up to us to respect their needs and wants, in order to continue to foster their love for reading, instead of discourage them from the hobby altogether. Simultaneously, what I learned from this personal experience is that if presented carefully, we can turn a whole group of students around to enjoyment of an alternative type of genre. Historical fiction, fantasy, science fiction, memoirs, realistic fiction, and anything else in between has the definite potential for becoming a particular student’s new favorite class of book, and it is our responsibility to provide an environment to give these changes an opportunity to come about.
My goal as a teacher is therefore not to get an entire class to enjoy a book, but to get an entire class to enjoy reading. It is a decidedly uphill battle with several of my students, but one that will be eased, perhaps, with this project.
In preparation for the unit, I've been bouncing around the school's library, hoping to catch up on popular contemporary titles as well as revisit those from my own childhood. In the meantime, I also managed to bust through some classics I somehow avoided, not necessarily on purpose, until this year. It's always fun to see what kids are reading without the foggy lens of an 11-year-old's "summary," and always encouraging to read a whole book in one day; additionally, it would be unwise of me to recommend a book to my students never having read it myself.
These are some of the books I recently read for the first time and would suggest to readers of all shapes and sizes:
Galax-Arena by Gillian Rubinstein (1992)
science fiction, 199 pages
Return to Sender by Julia Alvarez (2009)
realistic fiction, approx. 300 pages
A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle (1962)
science fiction, 211 pages
Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson (1977)
realistic fiction with a little fantasy, 128 pages
Diary of a Wimpy Kid by Jeff Kinney (2007)
realistic fiction/graphic novel, 224 pages
The Clay Marble by Mingfong Ho (1991)
historical fiction, 176 pages
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